BFZ Prerelease!
Had my BFZ Prerelease at Got Game Hobby Shop (where else?) last weekend. I attended the midnight prerelease where they always have food for everyone, and more importantly, it’s always the best attended prerelease for the past couple of sets already (as far as I know). I’m mostly an online player so I’m rarely at these live events but the regulars (and there are a lot of them, including my brother) seem to be a very tight knit group of players and that’s great. In total, I think a hundred players graced the PR and while the free food (home-made spaghetti, pizza and soft drinks) are a good incentive to go, my hunch is that players go here for the prizes. Usually it’s a pack per win but in this case, you get 4 packs if you don’t win anything and it only gets better as you win more. That’s just simply the most value in any PR that I know of, online, live, or even abroad. Speaking of win more, I finally performed decent in a Got Game PR!
My sealed pool is confusing, at least for me. None of my colors stand out. I always check out what my mythic and rares are and here’s what I got:
Cinder Glade, Lumbering Falls, Smoldering Marsh, Emeria Shepherd (PR card), Omnath Locus of Rage, Desolator Twin, and Exert Influence.
I wanted to play everything, at least all the non-lands (spoiler alert: I did play all of them including the lands). These cards also double as my bombs. The next thing that I checked out is my removal – and I had a lot. The problem is that they’re spread across four colors. I’m fuzzy in the exact numbers but here’s everything that I got as far as I can remember:
Clutch of Currents (2x), Gideon’s Reproach, Complete Disregard (2x), Sheer Drop, Touch of the Void, Smite the Monstrous, Exert Influence, Turn Against, and Grip of Desolation
(While Exert Influence and Turn Against are not really removal, they can really do two for ones with a bit of setup and both performed great in my deck.)
So with no primary color standing out, some decent bombs and my 4-color removal suite (and a healthy amount of greediness), I decided to go 5-color ramp. This was sealed so it will be a bit slower and less synergistic than draft – where possible speedy Ally strategies and synergies can be put to bear. I also thought that with this being a PR event, the general knowledge of the group about the set will be at its lowest point so there’ll be more durdling around than usual. I rounded out my deck with cheap defensive/efficient creatures (Snapping Gnarlid, Vile Aggregate), ramp (Eldrazi Skyspawner, Eyeless Watcher, Kozilek’s Channeler), fixing (Lifespring Druid, Blighted Woodland, Evolving Wilds) and card draw (Coastal Discovery). I was a bit worried for my creature count with most of my slots taken by removal already but the awaken cards helped in that regard. Finally, I decided to play 19 lands as I’ll be ramping into big stuff and I need to have space for all my color requirements – I had green at 8 sources while the other colors have 5-6 sources. The higher land count was also mitigated by the fact that some of those doubled as pseudo spells (Blighted Woodland, Skyline Cascade).
The games played out as expected, even the two color decks were clunky so my deck managed to survive early pressure and breakout in the end game. My only match loss came from a game where my opponent ingested my single island (had other blue sources but I can’t fetch them) and I lost with two Clutches and a Coastal Discovery on hand. While my double color/mana symbol spells gave me a bit of trouble, the slowness of the format provided some time for my fixing to get all my color requirements. Omnath was a beating as I managed to combo him with Evolving Wilds on the turn that I casted it resulting in an instant 15 points of power in the board. Casting Desolator Twin earned auto concessions and I even had a game where I blitzed my opponent using Clutches, Turn Against and Eldrazi Skyspawner. Fun times.
So there’s my Battle for Zendikar PR experience. Enjoyed the Sealed deck experience so much (winning and free food makes it more fun) that I’ll be attending the PPTQ (BFZ Sealed format) this coming Sunday, October 11 at Got Game. Hope to see you there as well.😀
xalmendarez 