Post #12: M12 Prerelease Victory!

So I went to Phoenix Games yesterday to hang out with some friends and do some trades at the M12 prerelease. I was really looking for a copy of Chandra, the Firebrand for myself and a couple copies for my friend, so I was on the look out. I was playing an edh game with a friend and I looked around and noticed that everyone there was playing in the prerelease. Damn. I really didn't want to sit there and be bored the whole time, but I really didn't want to spend money. After a bit of convincing, I decided to sign up. Let the grind begin.

After opening my packs, I opened 4 reprints out of 6 packs. Great. Including 2 rare lands and 3 other bad rares. I did get a Skinshifter, which proved to be a very good card. I initially saw Volcanic Dragon as being the best creature in my sealed pool along side a pair of Chandra's Outrage. So I decided to play red even though I had 0 bloodthirst red creatures and the other red creatures were extremely sub par. =[ I initially was going to play blue with a single copy of Mind Control, Mana Leak, Chasm Drake, and Cancel. I was going to enter red/blue, but I felt the deck worked strangely because I ended up playing 5 copies of 1 drop goblin creatures. Goblins with counterspells? The idea felt really foreign. I noticed there were a lot of 2 power creatures in the set, so I felt my goblins would be overwhelmed fairly quickly. I looked at my green section and I had a pair of Stampeding Rhinos, Giant Spider, a pair of Titanic Growths, and a Lurking Crocodile (not to mention that Skinshifter). With past experience with core set drafts, W/U flyers seemed to be a crazy deck and if you're not packing the removal, they'll just fly over you. If you can't defend yourself in the air, then just beat them in the face on the ground. I figured with a spider and a pair of titanic growths, I could shoot any flyers down. Lurking Crocodile got better with the package of 5 1 drop goblins and is amazing against the blue control decks. It was a tough call, but I felt the green package was more consistent with the red I already opted to play.

Volcanic Dragon: This card is amazing. I would almost put this card on the same power level as a titan (did David just go off the deep end??) This card bashes in for 4, with evasion, the turn he comes out and does again on the second combat phase, 8 damage in total. A 6/6 would just hit for 6 damage by the end of two combat phase rotations (although the titans do other things that make them better.. and yeah, I'll end my comparison). BUT, this guy is a house and brings on the beats especially against the flyers deck that loses when you produce a larger flyer and they don't have Pacifism, Oblivion Ring or Ice Cage to keep on the offensive. The dragon is also very difficult to answer because your opponent needs an instant speed removal or they're going to eat 20% of their life total.

Crown of Empires: 

I first looked at this card and thought it was extremely unexciting. An overcosted Tumble Magnet? Eww. After thinking about it more and the fact that I was playing R/G aggro beats, I realized that this card could become very useful. When I considered playing it, I thought that I could use it to tap down an opponent's creature and give one of my creatures 'kind of unblockable' until end of turn. Since I was playing pretty beefy 4/4s (OMG 4/4s!!), forcing your opponent to lose a blocker could make them eat 4 damage every turn, which would make them dead very quickly. After playing with it in a few matches, the card is absolutely insane. I could keep one of my opponent's bombs tapped for the duration of the game or prevent my opponents from damaging me in the early game and preventing the onslaught of aggressively costed bloodthirst creatures.

Volcanic Dragon and Crown of Empires were my two MVP cards for the deck and won game after game against opponent's who managed to pack extremely good cards, especially in the top tables. In the 4 round swiss, I went 3-0-1 and split with the only other undefeated player for a guaranteed spot in the top 8. I ranked as #1 with that record going into the Top 8. In the top 8, I went 3-0 against my opponents after a very close final game with a loss in game 1 and two consecutive wins for a 2-1 victory. The ironic thing is, I asked the Top 8, the semifinals, and even during the final match if they wanted to split prize pool instead of playing it out and no one wanted to. Appreciate that.

With a 6-0-1 record, I got first place at the Phoenix Games M12 Prerelease in Ocoee, Fl. The prize pool was a whopping 20 packs. Sweet!

Thanks to all the people I met out at Phoenix and to the members of MTG Casual Net. I hope that our group of admins and I can continue to write content that interests you about Magic, the Gathering. Shout out to Jav and Orion for coming out and slinging some new cardboard at the prerelease. Also another shoutout to Patrick from Bojukablog, Debi, Bryan, and Baby Koth (Marley, hope I spelled that right) from Avant Card Show and Kevin, level 1 judge from Phoenix Games.

-David J.