Events

Recent Pre-release curse somewhat broken

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Another set means another pre-release. For the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth pre-release, Noah decided to skip out as he was less than impressed with the cards. With Father’s Day and a weekend upgrade thrown into the mix, it meant that Christian and I headed down to Face to Face for the Friday evening event. We were joined by two of our regular side kicks, Carter and Cooper.

Recent pre-releases have not been kind to me. I headed into this one with an abysmal 0-9 record. I definitely was hoping for a turnaround. I cracked my packs with a bit of anxiety, I’ll admit it.

My card pool yielded no Mythics and nothing jumped out as a bomb to build around. Once I had sorted out my cards, I found that black was strong, particularly in removal. I also liked the Voracious Fell Beast with its built-in removal (and fabulous borderless art). Red was quite weak and was an easy exclude. White looked intriguing but I preferred what Blue and Green offered. In the end, I opted for Green for its bigger creatures and the food tokens that would hopefully keep me alive and serve as something to sacrifice. I went with my usual 16 lands, a somewhat greedy approach, that has been known to sometimes get me in trouble.

Round 1 did not start auspiciously. I drew a one-lander. Fortunately, my opponent had proposed a free mulligan before we drew so I took him up on it. And drew another 1 land hand. Mulligan and draw again. I drew 5 hands in a row with one land. My exasperated opponent kindly said, “Discard one and let’s play,” when I finally decided to keep. Not that it helped as I stalled at two lands and got stomped.

Game 2 went somewhat better but I still lost. 0-1 and the pre-release curse had reared its ugly head once more.

Round 2 was against a very slow player. He won Game 1 but just barely. He was down to 1 life and I at 2. But a great draw gave him just enough to get through my defenses and deal the lethal damage the turn before I would have been able to. A fun game.

We drew on the second game, having run out of time, as he again played very slowly (but I will give him he was very thorough and methodical).

Time for Round 3. My opponent started things off very strongly, using the ring temptation mechanic to do some early damage. But with one creature to work with, I was able to build up my board and start responding, also using the ring temptation mechanic. It was a close affair but I emerged victorious.

Game 2 followed the same pattern but my removal finally came to the fore and I was able to prevent him from dealing much damage as this time, I chipped away at his health as there were no creatures that survived a long time on his side and no potent removal. His luck did not change and I finally, after 14 rounds, posted one in the Win column.

The curse has been broken for now. Now to get back to a winning record for these events.

As for the packs won at the event, they netted a The Watcher in the Water as well as a Shadow of the Enemy. Nothing earth-shattering but I did pull a promo Delighted Halfling in my prerelease pack so not too bad either.

Finally, records for the evening: Me at 1-1-1 and Christian went 2-1.

Phyrexia: All Will Be One Prerelease

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

I was looking forward to the first prerelease of 2023, especially after previews suggested that Phyrexia: All Will be One would be a pretty powerful set. As usual, Christian and Noah were up for the prerelease. This time, we were joined by three of their friends.

After cracking my six packs and opening my promo, I looked over my pool. I had pulled an Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but I have a hard enough time building around three colours that I knew that building for four was a challenge for another time. My promo was a foil Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler. Definitely a better option to build around so I kept it handy. Another interesting pull was Jor Kadeen, First Goldwarden. Looking over the rest of my pool, I ruled out White and Red as neither offered sufficient depth. That left Jor Kadeen behind as well. Blue and Green stood out as the two strongest colours with Black as potential alternate to Blue or as a splashing colour.

I set out to build a BG deck focused around flyers, Oil counters, and Proliferate. It would have been nice to have more cards with Toxic to throw in to take more advantage of Proliferate. I looked to add a splash of Black but worried that a three-colour (Sultai) approach would prove as luckless as my previous attempts. In retrospect, it might have been the right strategy but I’m getting ahead of myself now.

First round and first hand, I immediately mulligan after pulling a one-land hand. I kept my second hand but stalled at two lands and watched my opponent grow out his board. While the third land finally did show, it was too late. The second hand went better and I started strongly before running into a few too many lands. And I learned that Toxic and Proliferate do indeed play well together.

With time in hand, we played a game for fun. And lo and behold, my deck suddenly came alive and worked as I had wanted it to. While it was too little too late, it did give me hope for the next rounds.

0-1.

In the second round, an explosive start in the first game by my opponent had me turning my creatures into blockers to simply stay alive when I could. One card that made a difference for him was Skrelv, Defector Mite. Making another card unblockable by creatures of a colour of his choice proved to be a real threat. And then he told me he had three! The second game was much closer but when he landed Atraxa, I knew the writing was on the wall. Kudos to him for playing that card!

0-2.

Round three and at the bottom of the rankings! Once again, I was quickly defeated, this time by none other than Morgan, one of Noah’s friends. While it looked for a time that I might finally at least win a game, it was not meant to be.

0-3.

Despite this less than stellar record, I had fun at the event. I love that the boys and I continue to be able to do this regularly. I think that we can count on the fingers of one hand the number of prereleases one of us has missed since we started going to them back when Oath of Gatewatch came out!

The boys also struggled with this prelease. Whereas at least one ends with a winning record, both of them ended with a 1-2 record. Sadly, even their friends ended with losing records. Just not our day!

As for this story, it does not end quite here. Every round at our LGS comes with two packs that players can either simply split or play to win for. I’ve always split them with whoever in the spirit of a prerelease. So despite my 0-3 record, I still walked away with three additional packs to crack open. Three card into the first of these, I found this:

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines

Nothing quite as exciting in the rest of the packs but I did pull an alternate art Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and a Red Sun’s Twilight.

The boys and I also still have our traditional box to open so there is still a lot of Magic to be played this weekend.

Dominaria United Prerelease

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Is it just me or does it feel like a long time has passed since the Streets of New Capenna Prerelease? While the Labour Day weekend marked the (somewhat official) end of summer, it was also time for a new Magic set to come out and kick off a hopefully exciting new season.

No Mythics in my pool but I found potential for a fun deck with Aron, Benalia’s Ruin, and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, and Sengir Connoisseur. I added a Captain’s Call to provide some of the necessary fodder to power my trio. I added blue to fill out the deck with Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator and a few defensive cards to protect my strategy.

I also pulled a Defiler but not the green Defiler of Vigor and rather the red Defiler of Instinct. No room for it in my deck unfortunately.

For their part, Christian pulled a Jaya, Fiery Negotiator while Noah did not pull any mythics but ended up with a foiled alternate Adarkar Wastes.

First round was against a younger but quite adept (aren’t they all now though – Young, I mean?) player. The first game went nearly 45 minutes. While my opponent was able to get some large threats on the board early, a mana flood allowed me to catch up and finally get enough damage through to take the win. The second game went much faster as my opponent ran into a painful mana flood. Definitely a frustrating situation for them.

The second round was definitely a fun affair with equally matched decks. I mulliganed down to 5 cards in the first game but it was not the blowout I thought it might be. I put on a solid fight, even thinking that I might have a shot at winning before being overwhelmed. Once again, that first game took a long time. Our second game then went to time. Unfortunately for me, my opponent took both wins.

I also got to see Weatherlight Compleated in action in both games. During previews, I had a hard time wrapping up my mind around how it would play but seeing it in action cleared it up. Definitely an interesting card but I’m not sure it will become a staple.

Lastly, the third match started with a win for each of us. Down to the third game, the mana drought gods decided to pay me a visit. On the other side, a few ramp cards meant that I was looking at 6 mana to my two at the end of turn 3. Anyone want to guess as to how it went from there?

Christian and I both ended with 1-2 records while Noah seemed pleased with his 1-1-1 earned with a control deck.

We made the trek back to North of Exile Games for this pre-release. It has become a tradition to visit Jason and the team at least once a year and hadn’t had a chance to do so yet this year. The store has moved from Penetanguishene to Midland since our last visit and the store had just received its new booth seating a few days before.

The drive up was difficult with a number of accidents hampering our progress. But we made it in time to play. Before heading home, we even stopped in at Xanca for some Mexican.

All in all, another fun prerelease!

Birthdays are a time for Magic cards

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Another birthday is now in the books. I was fortunate to get some cool Magic cards from the boys to celebrate.

From Christian, I got an Utvara Hellkite for my Kaalia deck as well as two draft packs of Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. The Hellkite will replace a Leyline Tyrant, a move that will give the deck a bigger finishing threat.

As for the two packs, I pulled a Jugan Defends the Temple in one and a Greasefang, Okiba Boss in the second. The Jugan could end up in an enchantments deck should I finally start to build one as I’ve said in the past that I would.

From Noah, I got a Plummet, a card that is becoming a running joke tradition between us. In recent months, we keep finding opportunities to gift each other at least one Plummet (More on this in a future post perhaps). I also got a number of goblin cards as Noah and I are thinking of entering the next Modern tournament (in late September).

I thought (naively) that a Goblins deck would be cheap but early signs suggest that a somewhat competitive deck will require a bit of an investment especially as I lack many of the goblin and land staples. I probably should have done a bit more research before declaring my intention!

He also gave me a Balor for my Kaalia deck. Given that I emphasized angels and dragons, I think I will keep it as backup should the Utvara Hellkite prove not to be the punch that I’m hoping for.

Finally, Noah also gave me the Unlicensed Hearse he came home with. I told him to keep it given that he’d won it (albeit in a random draw) but he told me that I needed it more than he did given how many graveyard shenanigans the boys use in their decks. I told him that snark like that was enough for me to gladly accept the present and find a deck for it to go into.

Families chosen for the Streets of New Capenna Prerelease

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Previews are in full swing and it will not be long before we have a chance to crack some packs for the latest Magic set, Streets of New Capenna.

Everything kicks off with instore prerelease events that begin on April 22nd. In a surprising but welcome development, Wizards of the Coast has opted to hold off the MTG Arena and MTG Online releases to April 28th rather than having them take place first as they have done with recent sets. The global tabletop release will then follow on April 29th with the usual raft of sealed options including Set, Draft, Collector Boosters and Theme Boosters. There will also be five Commander decks, one for each of the Streets of New Capenna factions.

The art of the set promises to be quite something. The full art Art Deco inspired lands are beautiful (I still think the Kamigawa ones were better but I would not be unhappy to slide a few of these into my decks.

The boys and I are looking forward to the new Commander decks. It has become the format of choice in our games and the possibility of new commanders is always welcome – These days, almost anything will be welcome if it means that Noah stops threatening to play Koma, Cosmic Serpent!

The boys and I are already signed up for our Prelease events. Noah opted to go with the Maestros (Blue-Black-Red), Christian ended up with the Brokers (Green-White-Blue), rather than Obscura as Noah and I had expected, while I went with the Cabaretti (Red-Green-White).

We picked our families shortly after they were revealed. We chose solely on colours and basic descriptions even before the majority of previews had started. We are now watching previews to see if we made the right choices.

Which family have you chosen to go with?

Comicon and a Kamigawa draft – A return to normal?

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

It’s March Break for the boys and with restrictions lifting fast in Ontario (masks will not even be required indoors in most places within days), it does feel like some kind of normal is returning to our lives. So, I took Friday and a few days off next week to spend time with the family. First up were some gaming related activities.

On Friday, the boys and I headed down to Comicon at the Metro Convention Centre. It was our first time attending as past (pre-pandemic) March break activities always conflicted with this event. Fan Expo, which runs in the summer, is a regular event for us so I was curious to see how Comicon would stack up against it.

Given that both events are run by the same organization, I was not expecting much difference. The biggest one was definitely the scale of the event. Fewer events, fewer vendors, fewer artists, you get the idea. Rather than occupying both the north and south buildings, Comicon only took up the south one. I’m not sure if this was always the case or if this due to the pandemic and the current restrictions.

The boys found that there was greater emphasis on cosplay, anime and comic books. While games were represented, they weren’t to the scale of what we had seen at Fan Expo. Video games were almost absent except for vendors selling older console games and Mortal Kombat tournaments in one corner. Also missing were the big Sony, Microsoft and EBGames (now GameStop) booths.

Board and card games in general also felt under-represented with the huge gaming room normally seen at Fan Expo completely absent (or we just missed it) and no Dungeons & Dragons events that we could see. Christian had hoped to find some Warhammer stuff but we found none, leaving him a bit disappointed. Magic was also a bit of an afterthought with only a few vendors offering singles and sealed products.

Noah picked up two posters, one from Totoro and the other from Princess Mononoke. He is definitely a big fan of Studio Ghibli movies.

The one event we attended was a sketch duel between Johnny Desjardins and Hugh Rookwood. While I don’t know either artist (out of comics for too long, I guess), I thought Noah especially would get a kick out of something like this as he enjoys drawing. While the event was interesting, it was not quite what I expected. I thought we would have a chance to watch the artists in action. Unfortunately, we did not get to see them work on the sketch itself (except for one glimpse about halfway through). Instead, both answered questions from the crowd and the MC as they drew.

All in all, I’m glad we went down but I think we’ll focus on Fan Expo going forward unless there is some very specific event or guest that we would be interested in.

On Saturday afternoon, Noah and I headed off to Face to Face for our first draft in a very long time. Christian is not a fan of the format and opted not to join us.

A total of 18 players showed up. In a sign that restrictions are nearly a thing of the past, we were split into a pod of 10 and a pod of 8. Noah and I ended up in the former. Not much social distancing but everyone wore a mask.

My ‘Pack 1 Pick 1’ was Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. Definitely a fun card to build around. At first, I thought I might focus on Samurais as my second pick was Asari Captain but I quickly found myself leaning towards Gruul instead. I ended with a mid-range deck in Gruul colours that played up the Reconfigure mechanic.

Other fun cards in the deck were my lone ninja, the Spring-Leaf Avenger and the Reinforced Ronin (which reminds me a lot of the Shatterskull Charger that I have in my Giants deck.

First round started with me losing the first game despite my opponent flooding out (even showing me his hand at one point of 5 lands and a combat trick) because I made the fatal and stupid mistake of not blocking an attack when I should have remembered that his hand was likely mostly lands. I won the second handily as he struggled to find the right mana mix. The third game went down to extra turns and the combination of a number of smaller creatures as well as a 4/5 green Spirit creature courtesy of Harmonious Emergence and Walking Skyscraper was enough for me to deal lethal with only a turn to spare.

In my second round, I found myself facing Noah. His Enchantments deck proved to be too fast for my deck and I quickly found myself collecting two losses. Another mistake probably cost me a game when I used my Fable of the Mirror Breaker to copy a 1/1 Deathtouch rather than the larger creature I had on the board.

In the third round, I played against a deck full of vehicles. Prodigy’s Prototype pumped out pilots that crewed a few other vehicles such as the High-Speed Hoverbike and the Mobilizer Mech. Between not having enough removal and little to answer flying threats, I went down in two. The first was a quick affair but the second was a much more entertaining game.

By the time the dust settled, Noah finished 6th out of 18 while I finished in 11th place. We finished things up by picking up some some delicious Spanakopita (spinach pie) and Loukoumades (honey puffs) on the way back home.

All in all, a good couple of days!

Ups and downs at the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Pre-release

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

With Ontario re-opening after the Omicron wave, I asked the boys a few weeks back if they wanted to participate in an in-store pre-release for Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. I should have known that this is pretty much a rhetorical question. Next was a question about where to play. The decision was to once again turn this into a bit of a trip and head up to North of Exile in Penetanguishene.

Yesterday morning, we headed up. When we left Toronto, it was -1° Celsius. By the time we arrived in Penetanguishene less than 2 hours later, it was -13° (The temperature drop happened across southern Ontario – Just pointing out how quickly it happened).

A quick stop for some lunch in Midland, Mexican this time around, before heading up to NoE. We even got to pass a protest convoy (don’t get me started!) on the way up. We were settled in and ready to crack the new set before 1pm. Turnout was modest and we made up 50% of the players!

As for my pre-release pool, my promo was Otawara, Soaring City. I sadly did not pull any Mythics from my packs but I did end up with a The Reality Chip, two Kotose, the Silder Spider, a Mechtitan Core, Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei, and a Tribute to Horobi for the rares. I’m most happy about Otawara, Goro-Goro and the Chip.

Black lacked depth and was an easy elimination. My first thought was to go Boros with Samurai but I was worried about the fact that much of their advantage is derived from attacking alone. So, I added some vehicles and some Reconfigure cars as well. I still did not feel confident that this deck was the right one so started on a Simic deck. I felt even less confident about that one and ended up shelving it in favour of the Samurai.

Round 1 fell apart simply because I did not pay attention to the cards in play. In the first game, I missed the Ward 2 on Patchwork Automaton not once but twice. There was no sympathy from my opponent (none other than Christian). My deck was light on removal and losing both proved to be costly. The second game went better but only because Christian got a slow start. In the third game, Christian got a good start and it was all he needed.

I played against Noah in the second round. That was a quick game with him steam rolling me 2-0 in no time. In what would prove to be a theme for the rest of my afternoon, I was done in by my mana in the second game. It’s hard to play red cards when all your mana is white.

Round 3 – I lost the first game. Once again, my mana failed me, leaving me with only red mana available and white card in hand. My opponent suffered the same fate in the second round but I inherited the curse once more in the third game, this time with white cards ready to go but red mana on the board.

While I collected the ugly 0-3, Christian went 2-1 (losing only to his brother), while Noah took the crown with a 3-0 record. Even more impressive was that he did it in a clean sweep with 6 wins and no losses.

While I wish I had done better and pulled at least a few cards that I was hoping for, it was another great pre-release if only for the time spent with the boys at a great LGS.

Crimson Vow Pre-release recap

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

Only two months after the (much fun) Midnight Fun pre-release, it was Crimson Vow’s turn. As usual, both boys and I were onboard to make our way down to the LGS to play with the new cards. Unfortunately, due to some scheduling conflicts, there was no trip to North to Exile this time around.

Fortunately, Face to Face is not far away. With some restrictions still in place, as soon as registration was open, our names were on the list.

We made our way down Saturday morning and were cracking new packs before long. My pool was underwhelming. Aside from the disappointing absence of mythics (I had hoped for a Faithbound Judge or Avabruck Caretaker in particular), I found that there was nothing inspiring.

White was strong with spirit creatures but lacked in the spells area. Blue and black did not inspire me. Red and green had a decent but not overwhelming synergy. I decided to splash in some white to add Voice of the Blessed.

My first game proved that the deck was ill-tuned. It felt all over the place and did not address the threats coming at me. I went down quickly. My opponent was kind enough to offer to take a look through my deck and made a few recommendations. Voice of the Blessed made a quick exit as a WW in a splash colour simply would never work (I should have known better).

My tuned up deck allowed me to wrap up with 1-2 record. Christian went 2-1 while Noah joined me with a 1-2 record as well. No mythics for him as well.

Midnight Hunt pre-releases

/ Jerome / Leave a comment

The last pre-release that the boys and I participated in a LGS took place a year ago. A resurgence in COVID-19 meant that many LGS were once again closed but we were fortunate enough that some events were still taking place in less affected areas for Zendikar Rising.

Fast forward to August this year and in-store events finally returned to Canada. We unfortunately did not have a chance to make a return to our local store to play as summer winded down but there was no chance we would miss the Midnight Hunt pre-release.

Early Saturday morning, we jumped into the car and went north to North of Exile. On the way up, Noah who rode shotgun began to read out the cards of the set and we discussed their usefulness as well as pros and cons of each. By the time we reached Penetanguishene, we were working our way through three-mana cards.

Midnight Hunt Pre-release

A quick lunch and it was time to crack some packs and start building. When the dust settled, Christian stood at the top of the leaderboard with a perfect 3-0 record. Noah and I held second and third spots with our 2-1 records. My one loss was to Noah!

We decided to stay for the next pre-release event, this one a two-headed giant. How often do we have the chance to squeeze in two events in a day? While Christian and Noah teamed up, I was fortunate to pair up with North’s very own Janis. Noah had never played in such an event and Christian and I had only played in one when we teamed up in our very first in-store event about six years ago for Oath of the Gatewatch.

By the time it was all over, it was clear that Lady Luck had decided to turn her attention to others after our first event. Both the boys and I ended up with 1-2 records, the only wins courtesy of byes.

As for fun pulls, I definitely enjoyed my Gruul werewolves deck in the first event. Kessig Naturalist was a solid performer and my werewolves packed a fearsome punch when combined with Unnatural Growth. Especially as day turned to night! And while Consuming Ooze is no Biogenic Ooze, it definitely helped put some more heft on the board when it resolved.

My Dimir deck for the two-headed giant event was designed to provide the defense to Janis’ Selesnya offensive. In both games, mana floods deprived us of much of our offensive and defensive plays, leaving us with few answers to power houses like Unnatural Growth and Meathook Massacre or a host of smaller but no less potent attackers.

It was a bit after 2100 by the time we ordered some soft-serve ice cream for the road, finally bid our farewells to everyone and began the journey home. Noah decided that it was fitting that we continued our card review and so the return trip was filled with more Magic discussion and good laughs.