My Judgment Prerelease "report"

[Spiderman]

I met my friend Ed at his house where he was going to take me to my car repair shop to get my car (where the AC was getting fixed). They forgot to do an oil change so I told Ed to go on ahead and make sure he got in and I would follow afterwards. I got to the hotel about 10 minutes after he did and there was NO parking; I ended parking at a McDonald's that was nearby. I got up to the registration area and though the main event was full for people doing walk-up registrations, I had pre-registered and was okay. I filled out my form, got my card, and went to find Ed.

Then for the next hour, until about 11, we waited and played some games. I beat his G/U threshold deck with my Manabarbs deck (go Winter Orb), he beat my R/G enchantment deck with another of his decks, and we had a good game going with my W stalling deck against the same when we got the announcement that we were going to register the cards. So we spent the next hour opening and registering (too much time if you ask me) and oooing and aaahing over the cards that other people were going to get. As I mentioned in another thread, I registered and Iridescent Angel, Barbarian Ring, and some others that other people thought were good. I also took the time to start reading the Judgment and Odyssey cards that I was unfamiliar with.

Then we spent probably a half hour waiting to get decks back so we could build. I'm thinking next time I should just try a 32 man side event, as this is taking way too long.

So here's the cards I didn't use:

Artifacts

Darkwater Egg
Limestone Golem

Black

Childhood Horror
Coffin Purge
Crypt Creeper
Decompose
Dirty Wererat
Earsplitting Rats
Filth
Filthy Cur
Morgue Theft
Patriarch's Desire
Rat's Feast
Toxic Stench
Treacherous Werewolf

Blue

Defy Gravity
Lost in Thought
Phantom Whelp
Spelljack
Thought Devourer
Thought Nibbler
Wormfang Drake
2 Wormfang Newt

Gold

Thaumatog

Green

Battlemage Scrounger
Druid Lyrist
Elephant Guide
Harvester Druid
Ironshell Beetle
Nullmage Advocate
Phantom Tiger
Serene Sunset
Simplify
Springing Tiger
Sudden Strength
Sylvan Might
Terravore
Werebear
Woodland Druid (foil)

Land

Bog Wreckage
Ravaged Highlands

Red

Arcane Teachings
Barbarian Lunatic
Battle Strain
Blazing Salvo
Bomb Squad
Book Burning
Burning Wish
Dwarven Bloodboiler
Earth Rift
Firebolt
Goretusk Firebeast
Kamahl's Desire
2 Liberated Dwarf
Planar Chaos
Rites of Initiation

White

Mystic Visionary
Phantom Nomad
Prismatic Strands
Ray of Revelation
Sacred Rites
Shieldmage Advocate
Sphere of Law
Spurnmage Advocate

And here's the deck (W/U):

Blue

Aven Fogbringer (foil)
Cephalid Looter
Hapless Researcher
Laquatus's Disdain
Peek
Psionic Gift
Scrivener
Treetop Sentinel
Wormfang Drake

White

Ancestor's Chosen
Angelic Wall
Aven Cloudchaser
Battlewise Aven
Beloved Chaplain
Chastise
Confessor
Funeral Pyre
Hallowed Healer
Lead Astray
Phantom Nomad
Ray of Revelation
Shelter
Spurnmage Advocate
Suntail Hawk

I don't have a lot of details for the matches because it's hard to write down what happened, but here's the gist.

Round 1: Tony (G/U/W) This guy was pretty quiet.

Game 1: He pretty much kicked my butt with Barkrippers, Bushhoppers, and reaching threshold. I also drew six land in a row starting at about turn 4 so that didn't help.

Game 2: He got out 3 Fogbringers, a Werebear or two, and a Centaur Garden and beat me again. He also had three Guided Strikes which helped win creature battles. A lot of multiples of cards.

Record: 0-1

Round 2: John (G/W) This guy said he was trying to get back in after leaving around Ice Age. He was pretty cool.

Game 1: My deck either was working or his wasn't, but I got out the right combination of land and spells. My Bird men overran him with the help of a Psionic Gifted Angelic Wall.

Game 2: Again, my flying stuff just beat him. He did get out a Giant Warthog which if he had gotten out sooner, probably would have beat me.

Record: 1-1

Round 3: "Cartman" (G/B/W?) This guy seemed very quick with his movements and I made a lot of mistakes against him.

Game 1: His black removal stuff took care of my guys and he beat me down with a thresholded Werebear and a Giant Warthog. Interestingly enough, he played a Mirri's Wake (basically an all creature Crusade and a Mana Flare built into one) and attacked with a 3/3 guy, to which I blocked with my Angelic Wall. After blocking and specifically saying "Before Damage Dealing", I Ray of Revelationed the Wake, to which he shrugged because he thought the +1/+1 was "locked in" and he's still kill the Wall. I had to point out that this wasn't so and his creature lost his bonus, to which he looked befuddled. Turning to his friend(?) next to him playing, he asked if that was true and his friend said no. To which then we had to call a judge who verified what I had said. After the judge had gone, he questioned if I really main-decked the Ray (which is true, that was the first time I had used it, I usually sideboarded it out for the Spelljack) but declined to do a deck-check on my deck.

I mention this also because later, in a game next to us, some guy said to his opponent "Okay, let me explain what's going on" and Cartman laughed and said to the opponent "How long have you been playing? This guy needs to explain this to you. You're his beee-atch" (or something to that effect). I decided not to bring up the earlier ruling to which he had gotten confused but thought it was quite ironic.

Game 2: I did a bit better this time and beat him down to four life with a flyer, but he got out a flyer of his own for defense and got out the Giant Warthog, the bane of my deck. He took control and got me.

Record: 1-2

At this point I decided to drop as I wasn't going to win anything (I don't think) and I didn't see the point in staying around. It was also hard to get in "casual" games of Magic in as my games usually lasted until 10 minutes left in the round; if I had ever gone to three games, I would have probably reached the limit.

So I think I should have main-decked Spelljack as I overestimated the time and land needed to be able to play it. Did I make the right color choices or should I have built the deck differently?

 

[Apollo]

At least you stuck around long enough to be properly eliminated from contention this time, Spidey.

Don't know the cards well enough yet to comment on your deck choice.

 

[Lotus Mox]

I haven't played limited with Judgment yet, so take my advice with a grain of salt .

comments:

Your colors: I think UW was a valid choice, (I prolly would've splashed red for Bomb Squad and Firebolt though).
About the other colors, green is pretty good especially in the creature pumping department (I could see me play GUr or GWU) black is playable, and red is only worth splashing, but Bomb Squad can really ruin some decks.

Some card choices where I disagree with yours:

Big creatures are good, flyers are good, a 4/4 flyer is a game winner esp. when it comes down 4th turn, so why did you leave Thought Devourer in your sideboard? The drawback is more than acceptable for this monster. I honestly can't understand why you left it out

other cards from your sideboard I might've played main:
Mystic Visionary
Phantom Nomad 2
Shieldmage Advocate
Spurnmage Advocate 2 - having 2 is maybe a bit much, but when you have 2 on the board you can remove two attackers at once while returning only 2 cards from the graveyard
Prismatic Strands - not a bad trick
Wormfang Drake 2 - having just 2 Wormfang Drakes in your opening hand would suck, but a 3/4 flyer for 3 mana is really really good, so it's worth the gamble IMO
Spelljack - it's a bit slow, but it can be a game breaker.

cards I wouldn't have played:
Scrivener - you don't have that many good instants
Laquatus's Disdain - too conditional, it's more a sideboard card
Confessor - doesn't do enough
Ray of Revelation - sideboard, you already have Aven Cloudchaser
Lead Astray
Suntail Hawk - too small

 

[Spiderman]

Apollo: I was gonna go all the way in the Torment Prerelease! Especially for a 32 man tourney... I was already 2-0 and on the way to 3-0!

Lotus Mox: Regarding Thought Devourer, I guess I just haven't played with this guy enough in Sealed to think he was good. I probably should have played him though, as he pretty much was my other "fattie" (and I guess he would have helped with threshold if I got him out early enough).

Mystic Visionary was iffy (I thought) since he was only 2/1 and had to reach threshold to get the flying. Suntail Hawk I thought was better since it was a one drop for a 1/1 built in flyer.

Nomads: probably could have put him in instead of Confessor, there it was more of a space and mana curve issue.

Advocates: I'm not sure I liked these guys since they returned the cards to his hand. It helps on keeping your opponent from reaching or maintaining threshold, but in the games I played, usually they were good spells; the one time I used it, I returned a Guided Strike and a land to my opponents hand who already had two G.S. (and was what won the creature battle for him, plus he could draw a card) and had the blue creature of "sac a land, draw a card". So I was merely re-fueling him (although he had plenty of land to sac already).

Prismatic Strands probably would have been better than Lead Astray.

Wormfang Drake I was unfamiliar with again, but I probably should have put him in as another beefy guy.

Already said I should have mained Spelljack.

Scriviner was a creature too and I thought my instants were worth getting back

L. Disdain was for those flashback cards which I thought people were going to play some of them.

Ray of Revelation of iffy also, I remembered last Prerelease when hardly any enchantments were played but then, I was glad in the last round when I got it against Mirri's Wake. And Cloudchaser oddly never came up enough...

My idea was that splashing was not too good unless you really have game breakers, like Mirri's Wake or something. I didn't think Bomb Squad or Firebolt was worth it, but maybe I should have.

I was looking at Green and Black and liked Green's pumping and Black's "removal", but didn't think I had enough of it to make it worthwhile (black was my smallest color I think). Hard choices.

Thanks for your response, I think I just need more practice.

 

[rkoelsch]

Never feel bad about splashing a color. I think the red splash would have been very good with your U/W build. Especially since you had a ravaged highlands. I like those lands as they provide the needed color then can be sacrificed to get closer to threshold.

 

[Purple_jester]

I learned a few things from my own prerelease.

A red splash for removal would have won you a few games. Arcane Teachings, Firebolt, and Blazing Salvo should have made it into the splash. And you left out some very powerful creatures (at least in limited). I would have LOVED opening 2 Wormfang Drakes. The Thought Devourer is very good in Limited, too. It's a killer.

I also had a Suntail Hawk in my cards, but didn't put it into my deck because I knew that a 1/1 flier was too vulnerable in an environment filled with larger fliers and multiple removal spells which deal 1-2 damage or inflict at least a -1/-1. Same idea goes against the 2/1 flying Fogbringer.

But hey! You got a Burning Wish! Nice! No Wishes for me. But I did get the Breaking Point chase card.