Pre-release

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?

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.