Our Wilds of Eldraine Pre-Release was a most unusual one. The boys and I normally go down together to play and often find at least two of us paired up for a game at least once per event. Scheduling conflicts meant that we could not go together this time around. I headed off alone Friday night for Face to Face while the boys met up with some friends and went Saturday morning.

My pool was better than I have seen in recent events. I drew four Mythics: Virtue of Knowledge (my promo), Virtue of Courage, Rowan, Swion of War and Land Tax. Just there, I was pretty happy, especially with that last card. But looking at the rest of my pool, I ended up with a Rakdos deck focused around rats that used none of them. I toyed with the idea of using Virtue of Knowledge but I just did not have enough cards with abilities to make it worthwhile to splash a card costing 4 and a .

I lost my first round in two games. A mental mistake on my part cost me the first. Archon of the Wild Rose gives all creatures flying, not just to itself. Small distinction that I failed to catch and left myself wide open to an aerial assault that sealed my fate. In the second game, no mental mistakes but simply overwhelmed by the power of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron.

In the second round, I easily won the first round with my rats overwhelming my opponent struggling to keep creatures on the board thanks to my removal spells. I was not so lucky in the second game as momentum shifted to the other side of the table, leaving me on the backfoot. Our third game went to time and we settled for the draw.

My rats finally showed what they could do in the third round (or maybe the stars aligned a bit better). I won the round, giving me a 1-1-1 record for the pre-release. That’s the same result as I had for the LOTR Pre-Release.

The game store promo card was a Reine des frelons (Hornet Queen). While not a powerful card, I do have it in my Kamahl and Jeska Commander deck. Maybe I’ll sub in this French version. It always infuriates the boys when I play French cards.

As for the boys, Christian went 1-2 while Noah went 1-1-1 on Saturday morning.

I’m definitely looking forward to Caverns of Ixalan in November. I loved the lore of the original Ixalan sets and hope that revisiting the plain (even if we’re going to the middle of it) will be as much fun this time around!