M
Major Crime
Guest
First off, I've got to say a big thanks to Wizards of the Coast / DCI, without them the pre-release in London would not have happened. The oganisers only found out mid week, confirmed on Friday, that the University buildings they normally use were unaviable. So much for booking three months ago to stop problems. Wizards put up the extra money needed to hire a conference city in central London, the judges said Wizards had put up £4000. So thanks guy!
I played in two Pre-releases & one side event booster draft.
Went 1-1-5 (W-D-L) in the first, out first round in the draft (2-1) & in the second Pre-release went 2-0-3 (W-D-L).
There were about 120 starters in the first event & 40 in the second. The second was used as a Pro tour entry event, top 8 to get byes at the next one so was played under level three rules. Have you every tried filling in a deck list form at 12 at night & then deck building.
A total of three pre releases were played over the weekend, one starting at 12 noon, 12 midnight, & 12 noon. I played in the first two. Finished playing at about 6 am.
The set over all.
At first glance the packs seemed to be short of artifacts, as the gold cards take up most of their slots, as used to be before golds went out of favour.
A lot of good 2 colour rares, some dure to ability, others dure to the overall cost of the card being lower, ie the 2/2's with pro from one colour for a combined cost of 2, & others like Noble Panther, 1GW, for a 3/3 1:gains first stike UEOT. The three colour cards were strong & seemed to be present in good numbers, yes I mean the dragon Legends. One of these ended up with a pet name, so Treva, the Renewer became just plain Trever.
I got to play two of the dragons, Darigaaz, the Igniter & Rith, the Awakener. Darigaaz has the weaker ability. When it deals combat damage to a player pay 2R, choose a colour, look at players hand, do X damage where X is number of cards of colour in hand. I did no damage this way dure to low hand sizes by the time it is in play.
Rith in the other hand was great. When it deals combat damage to a player pay 2G, choose a colour, put a 1/1 green Saproling token into play for each permanent in play of choosen colour. Now remember to count the tokens into this after the first attack, I did not do this so I was only working with the 5 white cards, I should have on the second attack used the 4 green + 4 green tokens making 8 tokens this turn. See this is what happens when you are playing at 3 in the morning.
Treva gets you 1 life per choosen colour permanent.
Dromar, the Banisher returns all creatures of a colour back to owner's hands. Someone miss read that as just the other players creatures, so put the dragon back into his own hand. That is that ones main problem, is three colours (W,U,B) so bounces it's self a lot.
As flyers were a bit short on the ground, you seemed to get someone with at least 5 in a single or two colours (normally White & Blue) or none. So the dragons at 6/6 flyers for 6 went in most decks. For my Rith I played white green, with a duel B/R land one mountian, 2 creatures which bring a basic land from libruary & choose colour mama elfs.
So over all the set worked well in a sealed deck emviro'. The 1/1's for 1 with two ability's were a pain in the azz, as two of them do a 1 life loss. I died dure to these more than once when we had equal creature numbers.
Also the black 9/9 flying trample creature was a sure game ender if they had at least two creatures to feed it. I really hate it.
The dual lands which do not count as the matched basic lands were good.
The set is a bit short of general middle sixed lower cost creatures, a lot of 2/2's for 4 & 5.
But I'm just really pleased about having the gold back.
I played in two Pre-releases & one side event booster draft.
Went 1-1-5 (W-D-L) in the first, out first round in the draft (2-1) & in the second Pre-release went 2-0-3 (W-D-L).
There were about 120 starters in the first event & 40 in the second. The second was used as a Pro tour entry event, top 8 to get byes at the next one so was played under level three rules. Have you every tried filling in a deck list form at 12 at night & then deck building.
A total of three pre releases were played over the weekend, one starting at 12 noon, 12 midnight, & 12 noon. I played in the first two. Finished playing at about 6 am.
The set over all.
At first glance the packs seemed to be short of artifacts, as the gold cards take up most of their slots, as used to be before golds went out of favour.
A lot of good 2 colour rares, some dure to ability, others dure to the overall cost of the card being lower, ie the 2/2's with pro from one colour for a combined cost of 2, & others like Noble Panther, 1GW, for a 3/3 1:gains first stike UEOT. The three colour cards were strong & seemed to be present in good numbers, yes I mean the dragon Legends. One of these ended up with a pet name, so Treva, the Renewer became just plain Trever.
I got to play two of the dragons, Darigaaz, the Igniter & Rith, the Awakener. Darigaaz has the weaker ability. When it deals combat damage to a player pay 2R, choose a colour, look at players hand, do X damage where X is number of cards of colour in hand. I did no damage this way dure to low hand sizes by the time it is in play.
Rith in the other hand was great. When it deals combat damage to a player pay 2G, choose a colour, put a 1/1 green Saproling token into play for each permanent in play of choosen colour. Now remember to count the tokens into this after the first attack, I did not do this so I was only working with the 5 white cards, I should have on the second attack used the 4 green + 4 green tokens making 8 tokens this turn. See this is what happens when you are playing at 3 in the morning.
Treva gets you 1 life per choosen colour permanent.
Dromar, the Banisher returns all creatures of a colour back to owner's hands. Someone miss read that as just the other players creatures, so put the dragon back into his own hand. That is that ones main problem, is three colours (W,U,B) so bounces it's self a lot.
As flyers were a bit short on the ground, you seemed to get someone with at least 5 in a single or two colours (normally White & Blue) or none. So the dragons at 6/6 flyers for 6 went in most decks. For my Rith I played white green, with a duel B/R land one mountian, 2 creatures which bring a basic land from libruary & choose colour mama elfs.
So over all the set worked well in a sealed deck emviro'. The 1/1's for 1 with two ability's were a pain in the azz, as two of them do a 1 life loss. I died dure to these more than once when we had equal creature numbers.
Also the black 9/9 flying trample creature was a sure game ender if they had at least two creatures to feed it. I really hate it.
The dual lands which do not count as the matched basic lands were good.
The set is a bit short of general middle sixed lower cost creatures, a lot of 2/2's for 4 & 5.
But I'm just really pleased about having the gold back.