Shadowmoor Prerelease Report
Saturday was the Shadowmoor prerelease, and I think it turned out well. ninjadebugger, laechim and I went out to Lincoln for basically the whole day. We decided to do the team event since there were three of us available. That event started at 4:30 PM, however, so we also decided to catch one of the main flights. We left my house at about 8 AM and didn't get back until 11:30 PM.
I take my "breakfast" with me (a medium sized container of dry Golden Grahams and a bottle of water), and we stopped by the bank before we hit the highway. The drive was uneventful. We discussed cards and strategies on the way. The tournament organizers begin signing people up right as we arrive. We only had to stand in line in the chilly morning air for a little while. Pretty soon, seating for the flights start appearing. Flight 1. Flight 2. Flight 4. Hey, wait a sec! What happened to our Flight 3? Flight 3. Maybe the sign-up sheet for #4 filled up faster than #3 for some reason. They did have two lines of people signing up.
In my sealed deck pool, I got the green/red avatar, Deus of Calamity, and quite a few green/red and red/black beaters. I put together a green/red deck with a splash of black and have a go. My first opponent also had some green/red deck. (I'm not 100% on how things turned out, but I'll give my best shot at recounting details.) He ran me over the first game. I think I had mana issues. The second game, I manged to pull off with some early beats and an evasive firebreather. I pump it up for three damage, and realize I can play a pump spell for four more damage. Now, I'm not the fastest decision maker, and I took my time to make sure that I was going to win the game with that shot. He may have asked me if he was taking 3 damage, but I thought he was asking if the guy was pumped to three. When I played the pump spell he got a tone and said, "Well, you ~could~ have announced it, but ~whatever~. I'll let it go." Excuse me?! I never said I was done with my attack. You had no responses. I never said I was moving on. There was no reason for that remark in that tone. So, of course I was frustrated when he outran me in the third game. I was almost expecting it though. When we were in line, some friends/acquaintances of his were jagging him for getting angry when he loses. I would have loved to beat him down.
Before the second round, I had some time to look at my card pool again. Initially, I thought I was light on creatures, but I was really focusing mostly on the red and black cards. It seemed like the most bombs were in those colors. I noticed though that I had a lot of solid blue/white. I switched most of my deck over to that while keeping a few artifacts. I was doing ok, and put up a better fight than with the last deck. He ended up having more removal than I could keep up with. In one of the games, I basically lost to my own Mirrorweave. I hit a Grim Poppet and forgot that there was no way I could keep the -1/-1 counters from his Poppet on his creatures. I took 12 damage from three Poppet clones and played that all wrong.
Laechim had suggested I do white/red with that sealed pool, but I didn't have much time at all to put it together and had been mostly thinking blue/white already. If I played another game, I would have tried that. I dropped from the flight however, and signed up for a draft game. I was already out of prize range anyway with two losses.
As soon as I signed up, I ran across the street to get some lunch. I had only eaten about half the thing of cereal I brought. When I got back, they were already looking for me at the draft table. I didn't get to eat until after the games.
The draft went pretty well though. It took me quite a few picks to decide where I was going to take my deck and may have passed up a few good cards in the process. I finally settled on a green/black deck focusing on -1/-1 counters. The first round, I won my games pretty handily. I think I won the first two, in fact. One of my best plays of the night was during this round. He had a 2/2 guy and a 2/1 guy. I had Flourishing Defenses, Blowfly Infestation, and 5 mana in play. On my turn, I played Torture on the 2/2 and added two -1/-1 counters. It died and let me kill the 2/1 as well. It turned out that I ended with 3 new 1/1 elves and a clear opponents board. The game ended quickly after that. Now that I think about it, I may not have played it right. I might have forgotten to add a -1/-1 after the 2/1 died. I should have had at least one more elf if I didn't manage to kill my own board as well. I'm sure I had at least a 2/2 on the board though.
The second round was rough, however. I lost twice to an opponent's Mirrorweave. I didn't kill myself with it this time! He played it the first time on a Ghastlord of Fugue, the blue/black avatar. This gave him 3 unblockable 4/4 beaters, and I couldn't recover from that. The second game, he played it on a Kinscaer Harpoonist. He attacked with five of them, knocked my couple out of the air, and hit me for just more than enough to win.
After scarfing down lunch, I relaxed for a bit and waited for the team event. The team event gave us a lot of good cards to work with. Ninjadebugger went for red/green aggro. I took green/white semi-aggro, and Laechim took blue/black control. He smacked me around with blue/white fliers and tricks. The second round I don't really remember. I feel like it was a close one, but that I won in the end. The third round was a mirror match and we ended up tying based on time. It was actually a mirror match for all three of us. ND had the worst luck for mirrors, however. The fourth round was another blue/white deck, but I was able to attack through it. I managed to pull off a bluff as well. He seemed well ahead so I attacked into his crowd of creatures with two 4/4s. He luckily did not block, likely because I would have died if I didn't have my Thoughtweft Gambit. On his attack step, I played it tapping all his guys, saving my butt. The next turn around, he was tapped out and I swung in again with my 4/4s. 16 damage in two turns, and it was exactly enough to kill him! I ended up winning that round. I did like the deck. It had a couple of good tricks, but it could have used a bit more removal. I realized later that some of the color cantrips would have helped out a lot.
This put us at a 3/1 team record. Laechim calculated that it was possible to get some prizes if everyone fought it out. The thing is that everyone else was possibly eligible for prizes as well, so they did fight! We ended up getting 8th place. I wish I knew the total number of teams, but it was definitely more than 8. ;) Luckily, this was the final spot to get prizes! Finally! I've (we've!) won in one of the bigger games! I hate trying the bigger games because I never get into prize range. The three of us won a box (36 booster packs) to split.
It was a long, long day, but a good one. I had a snack during the last round to stave off the hunger, and I finished up my cereal on the way home.