Conflux Prerelease

Well, yesterday was the Conflux Prerelease, which I was fortunate enough to go to. I got my packs and opened them, to discover:

SEALED POOL (84 cards)

WHITE (9)
1 Akrasan Squire
1 Angelic Benediction
1 Asha's Favor
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Gleam of Resistance
1 Lapse of Certainty
1 Scourglass
2 Soul's Grace

BLUE (15)
1 Cathartic Adept
1 Coma Veil
1 Constricting Tendrils
1 Courier's Capsule
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Faerie Mechanist
1 Frontline Sage
1 Grixis Illusionist
1 Jhessian Lookout
1 Outrider of Jhess
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Skill Borrower
1 Tortoise Formation
1 View from Above

BLACK (9)
1 Bone Splinters
1 Drag Down
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Pestilent Kathari
1 Salvage Slasher
1 Sedraxis Alchemist
1 Skeletal Kathari
2 Voices from the Void

RED (10)
1 Dark Temper
1 Fiery Fall
1 Goblin Razerunners
1 Magma Spray
1 Soul's Fire
1 Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1 Toxic Iguanar
1 Viashino Skeleton
1 Vithian Stinger
1 Volcanic Fallout

GREEN (16)
1 Behemoth's Herald
1 Court Archers (foil)
1 Feral Hydra
1 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Godtoucher
1 Matca Rioters
1 Mosstodon
1 Naya Battlemage
1 Jungle Weaver
2 Resounding Roar
1 Sacellum Archers
1 Scattershot Archer
1 Thornling (foil!)
2 Tukatongue Thallid

MULTICOLORED (18 by shard – 6 Bant, 3 Esper, 2 Grixis, 5 Jund, 1 Naya, 1 Conflux)
1 Bant Charm
2 Jhessian Balmgiver (1 foil)
1 Kiss of the Amesha
1 Steward of Valeron
1 Valeron Outlander

1 Sphinx Summoner
1 Vectis Agents
1 Vedalken Outlander

1 Elder Mastery
1 Fire-Field Ogre

1 Carrion Thrash
1 Charnelhoard Wurm
1 Goblin Outlander
1 Hellkite Hatchling
1 Jund Charm

1 Vagrant Plowbeasts

1 Exploding Borders

COLORLESS (7)
1 Armillary Sphere
2 Bone Saw
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Esper Panorama
1 Obelisk of Esper
1 Rupture Spire

It was immediately and abundantly clear that I would be playing Jund. I had a lot of blue, but it wasn't very good. I had FOUR bombs in Jund colors: Goblin Razerunners, Thornling, Feral Hydra, and Charnelhoard Wurm. My other rares were all Esper and none of them were great. At least, they certainly didn't compare to the Jund ones.

My deck was built rather quickly, since there wasn't much to think about. I just picked (what I thought to be) the best cards in my colors and threw them in. The result:

SEALED DECK (40 cards)

LAND (17)
1 Crumbling Necropolis
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Swamp

CREATURES (13)
1 Carrion Thrash
1 Charnelhoard Wurm
1 Feral Hydra
1 Goblin Razerunners
1 Hellkite Hatchling
1 Pestilent Kathari
1 Scattershot Archer
1 Skeletal Kathari
1 Thornling
1 Toxic Iguanar
2 Tukatongue Thallid
1 Vithian Stinger

OTHER SPELLS (10)

1 Bone Splinters
1 Dark Temper
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Fiery Fall
1 Jund Charm
1 Magma Spray
2 Resounding Roar
1 Soul's Fire
1 Volcanic Fallout

In retrospect, running both Resounding Roars was probably not the greatest idea. I also forgot to throw in a Plains to support them, so they were just overcosted Giant Growths. They did occasionally save a guy, but I'm not sure if I would keep them in if I had to make the deck over again.

Anyway, I kept my deck that way the entire tournament, never sideboarding once. My first opponent was the legendary Adam Chambers, who was playing 5 colors. The first game I got owned by Paragon of the Amesha, which I couldn't remove until it was too late. I got several of my fatties out, but he kept removing them at just the right time. The second game he must have drawn poorly because he couldn't deal with my fatties. When he finally got his Sharuum the Hegemon out, I Bone Splinters'd it sacrificing my Tukatongue Thallid and he scooped. The third game was similar to the first in that I died. Still, beating Chambers in even one game was a nice ego boost. And I knew the second round would be easier, since my deck was actually good, and the Swiss format would pair me with another 0-1 player.

The second round I played a dude who had no idea what he was doing. His deck was 60 cards. He asked if artifacts have summoning sickness. It wasn't even a contest. I 2-0'd him, bringing me up to 1-1.

The third round I played someone who was also playing Jund, except that I owned him 2-0. I don't remember the details since it went by very quickly. I was now 2-1, and in position to place if I won in the final round.

The final round was a ballstorm. My opponent had a very dangerous Naya deck, and he kept getting Meglonoth and enchanting it with Asha's Favor, which I couldn't do anything about unless I drew the right removal. Luckily, my Pestilent Kathari kept it at bay, but I still couldn't attack into it, or play good spells while still keeping 2R open for the Kathari. The first game took forever because I kept having to make complicated decisions about how to pump my Thornling, but I lost eventually when he Soul's Fired his Meglonoth to my face. The second game I won, but I don't remember what happened. The third game I was on the verge of winning, but time was called since I had taken so long in the first game, and I was ONE POINT of damage away from killing him (and would definitely have won on the next turn). We then both ended up 2-1-1, so neither of us placed. In retrospect, I should have offered him half my prizes if he scooped, or something, but situations like that have never happened to me before, so it wasn't even on my mind. I was just focusing on the game. (Also, I thought that I COULD deal that one last point of damage, but I had miscalculated. Someone told me I could have won if I had done things a little differently, but whatever.)

After the tournament I did something unprecedented: TRADING. Nothing drastic, mind you. I heard a guy mention that he wanted a Hellkite Hatchling, and I don't really like the card much (as awesome as it was in my deck), so I traded mine to him for a Blood Cultist. Then, since I really don't care for Scourglass, and I'm never going to use Volcanic Fallout in a deck, I traded those, plus Fire-Field Ogre and a few other commons, for another Cultist, Esperzoa, and three other uncommons. Later on, another dude gave me a third Blood Cultist for free, plus a Vithian Stinger. It was good times.

So what did I learn about Conflux? Not that much. I had played a bunch of Conflux Sealed with my friend on Magic Workstation in preparation for the event, and I had seen the complete spoiler, so it wasn't like I was exploring undiscovered worlds (like the denizens of Alara). However, I did learn that Conflux decks tend to be either three-color shard-based decks, or five-color domain decks. The former are much like those in Shards of Alara; they use the shard mechanics, work well within the three colors, etc. The latter tend to be much more varied, either trying to squeeze in five-color and domain cards, or just trying to play all your best spells (usually a bit of both).

As for my own deck, personally my favorite card was Goblin Razerunners. It has the potential to get very fat, and it can either swing for massive damage or just stay back to block, and use its ability to ping your enemy to death. I almost actually got to use all three of Jund Charm's modes, too. The two +1/+1 counters mode is awesome on the Razerunners, and I used it that way once or twice. The 2 damage to each creature mode is of course very useful and I used it at least once. The remove graveyard from the game mode is usually the weakest, but there was a point where I actually would have used it if I had been paying attention. In my third game against Adam Chambers, he had Sharuum the Hegemon in his graveyard, and he played Sanctum Gargoyle. At that point, I should have cast Jund Charm to remove his graveyard from the game, but I just didn't think to. (I was pretty much screwed anyway, so I don't think it would have mattered, but it would have been a neat trick.) So that was neat. I also love Tukatongue Thallid, especially with Devour and Bone Splinters. And as a chump blocker. Such a useful 1-mana creature.

Well, that's about it. I signed up to do a Shards/Conflux draft on Valentine's Day, which should be awesome. Until then, time to work these new cards into some Standard decks! See you in two weeks.

Shards of Alara Prerelease: DONE

I went to the Shards of Alara Prerelease on Sunday! It was awesome. To start off, I'll list my sealed pool. Some notes:
- At the end of the night, there were still 10 booster packs left, so the host gave them out randomly as a reward for those who stuck around till the bitter end. (A lot of players left early to preserve their rankings or some crap.) So I ended up with one of those, and when I got home, I mixed them all together. So I don't remember exactly which ones were in that booster and which were in my Sealed deck, but my list should be pretty accurate except for a few commons.
- There are 86 cards: 44 from Sealed (because one was a foil Plains) and 14 from each booster.
- I've organized the cards by shard, but I’m not 100% sure about which cards go in which shard. Most are easy to categorize, but some I just guessed.
Without further ado:

BANT
1x Angel's Herald
1x Angelic Benediction
1x Angelsong
1x Bant Charm
3x Bant Panorama
1x Clarion Ultimatum
1x Dawnray Archer (not sure about this one)
2x Excommunicate
2x Guardians of Akrasa
1x Knight of the White Orchid
1x Resounding Silence
2x Rhox Charger
1x Rhox War Monk
1x Seaside Citadel
1x Topan Ascetic
1x Waveskimmer Aven
2x Welkin Guide (one foil)

ESPER
1x Cloudheath Drake
1x Dispeller's Capsule
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Filigree Sages
1x Obelisk of Esper
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Onyx Goblet (not sure about this one)
1x Punish Ignorance
1x Spell Snip
1x Steelclad Serpent
1x Thoughtcutter Agent
1x Tidehollow Strix
1x Tower Gargoyle
1x Vectis Silencers
1x Windwright Mage

GRIXIS
2x Banewasp Affliction
1x Blightning
1x Dreg Reaver
1x Fatestitcher
1x Grixis Panorama
2x Incurable Ogre
1x Kathari Screecher
1x Kederekt Creeper
1x Lightning Talson
1x Shadowfeed
3x Skeletal Kathari
1x Skeletonize
1x Undead Leotau

JUND
1x Branching Bolt
1x Carrion Thrash
1x Deathgreeter
1x Dragon Fodder
1x Goblin Deathraiders
1x Goblin Mountaineer
1x Hissing Iguanar
1x Magma Spray
1x Sarkhan Vol!!!
1x Tar Fiend
1x Thorn-Thrash Viashino
1x Thunder-Thrash Elder

NAYA
1x Cylian Elf
1x Exuberant Firestoker
1x Godtoucher (not sure about this one)
2x Gustrider Exuberant
2x Jungle Weaver
1x Lush Growth
1x Naya Charm
1x Obelisk of Naya
1x Qasali Ambusher
1x Rakeclaw Gargantuan
1x Resounding Roar
1x Savage Hunger
1x Soul's Fire
1x Soul's Grace
1x Soul's Might
1x Where Ancients Tread
1x Wild Nacatl

So as you can see, my pool was fairly heavily invested in green and white. Luckily, I love green and white, so my deck ended up being green-white-red splashing blue (for the three excellent tricolor Bant cards). Plus, almost all of my mana fixing was Bant, so I had to do SOMETHING with it. Also, I had to run red because of Sarkhan. With this deck…I got completely destroyed 0-2 against a green-white-red-black deck. Also, my deck was 50 cards because I just didn't have the heart to cut anything. Beginner's folly.

So then I said SCREW IT and completely redid my deck for the second round. I started with blue, and ended up with all 5 colors and another large deck of 46 or 47 cards. I went 1-1-1 with it (against a green-white-blue-black deck with Empyrial Archangel, which was not especially easy to deal with), though I probably would have won the last game but just barely. It was not a good deck since I could rarely play any of my spells until I had all 5 colors of mana out.

So then I said SCREW IT and was going to completely redo my deck but it was already time for the next round, so I lost 1-2 with my crappy 5 color deck again (against a solid Naya deck). But after THAT swift defeat, there was plenty of time to redo my deck over and over until I liked it. So I bit the bullet, chose a shard (Bant), and cut any card that was not ideal in a Bant deck, like Wild Nacatl and, sadly, Sarkhan Vol. The one time I had gotten to play him previously, I made a tactical error and stole a dude, but left my opponent with a flyer on his turn to finish off Sarkhan. However, my focus on Exalted made Sarkhan's abilities not especially useful, so cutting him wasn't really that painful. I managed to get my deck to 40 cards by running just 16 lands, but with no spells costing more than 5 mana. It worked pretty well, as I went 2-0 in the fourth round with it and 1-2 in the final round (though the 2-0 was against a guy who clearly was new). If I had made that deck for the first round, I might even have done respectably well. Oh well, at least I had fun with the new set!

I signed up for a Shards of Alara draft for this Friday. Drafting should be much different from Sealed, and I'm excited. I'm going to get crushed, but it will still be neat. I'm really hoping to get Elspeth, Knight-Errant since she is just SO AWESOME. Even with Jund. Free dragon food each turn! I will relate my drafting adventures next week.

As far as conclusions about the set go, I'm not really cut out for that sort of thing. I saw few dedicated Esper decks, but I suspect that will be a different story in a booster draft. I saw plenty of red and green, as Naya and Jund seemed to be popular in Sealed. As far as my personal tastes go, I am a fan of Bant, since Exalted is quite a powerful mechanic in Limited. With lots of defensive Exalted creatures (like Guardians of Akrasa) and a few evasive creatures, you can build up damage quickly without sacrificing defense. I really like Welkin Guide; at 4W, it's expensive for a 2/2 flier, but its comes-into-play ability can give another powerful creature evasion, and then become your evasive Exalted champion itself on subsequent turns. Sweet.

I also really like the interactions of the mechanics in the set – except for Esper, which is a jerk. Exalted works well with Naya cards that care about having a creature with power 5 or greater during combat or at end of turn, which is a fair number of them. Devour works well with anything involving creatures with power 5 or greater, since Devour creatures are often huge. And Devour also works with Unearth: Unearth a dude, attack with him, and if he's still alive, Devour him, since he's going to leave play anyway. But then there's Esper, which only cares about artifacts, which has nothing to do with anything else. You know what, Esper? BITE ME.

Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll have more to say next week after the draft. Until then, BANT RULES GRIXIS DROOLS KBYE.