Reported: Article 1

Jul 13, 2010

Welcome to Reported: Article 1. This segment is designated for tournament reports from our team. In our first episode I’ll be reporting about our local M11 Pre-release event. My buddy Koby, aka Kobra Snake played in a 24 hour extravaganza of Magic cards starting with Friday Night Magic followed by a midnight release event, followed by an 8 man draft, then finally a second pre-release at a different location.

As far as the FNM goes, nothing special. I ran Jund, Kobra ran Dredgevine. I went 4-1 for 4th place (lost to white weenie), and Kobra went 3-2. Dredgevine is extremely hit or miss, sorry BDM, it’s a bad deck.

After that is when the fun began. Going into M11 I knew all the cards pretty well and I had a good idea of what was strong since it looked a lot like M10. The only difference was there was a lot of Titans, and you really had to plan for them. I only wrote down my first pre-release pool unfortunately, and I regret it because my second pool was completely spread out and terrible. But I made the best of it and ended up in the top 4 after 35 hours of being awake. But I’ll get to that. Let’s begin with my sealed pool for pre-release #1!

As you can see I got my bomb. Primeval Titan usually won the game for me if he hit play, however for whatever reason I think I saw him in three games total! I will hold you in suspense as to my record for now though. Before talking about any individual cards or scenarios let me show you what I ended up sleeving as my 40 cards.

My pool was pretty obvious as to what colors I’d be playing. Black had some things that I want, and without Dragonskull Summit I would not have splashed black. But the inclusion of 2 Sylvan Ranger and a Dragonskull Summit it was too easy to splash for such powerful cards. However without the Doom Blade I would not have splashed any color. When I say the colors were obvious that may be untrue, I always seem bias to Green Red in limited if it’s possible to play. I just feel most comfortable in aggressive colors.

Only one game did I get flooded, and it was my only match loss of the night. In fact I lost to a Primeval Titan and Obstinate Baloth, pretty coincidental. Even then I almost pulled it out but I just never drew gas. My games ran so smooth, my curve seemed perfect each turn. A turn two Runeclaw Bear usually got in for some decent damage, and created a decent board presence early in the games. Other cards that really pulled out some wins were Lightning Bolt (obviously!), Doom Blade, Act of Treason, Crystal Ball, Brittle Effigy, Fling, Garruk’s Packleader. Let me discuss each card in some detail.

Act of Treason: If I had board presence early, such as turn two Runeclaw Bear and turn three Sacred Wolf, I could usually finish the game by turn 6 or 7 finishing my opponent with an Act of Treason after they dropped their late game bomb. Act of Treason is a top 2-3 pick in my opinion.

Crystal Ball: I could go on forever here. Each person who won any draft or pre-release event during the whole weekend had a Crystal ball in their deck. It’s completely a first pick every time unless you have a bomb rare. Crystal Ball may as well say draw two cards, because drawing a useful spell every single turn just gets insane. As a first pick this also does not commit you to a color, therefore pick two you are possibly seeing what your opponent is picking right off the bat. Crystal Ball is hands down the best non-rare card in the set for limited.

Brittle Effigy: Although a rare it’s such an awesome card that just makes your opponents think twice about what bomb they are about to drop. Your opponent starts playing around you. Awesome card for limited, and no graveyard recursion matters in M11.

Fling: At first I wasn’t sure, until it won me a game. I had my Yavimaya Wurm in play, swinging in for 6. My opponent turned it into a 1/1 snake, and in response I hit him for 6 damage and finished the game the next turn. This card is a finisher, amazing removal, and with Green it’s just completely awesome. A top 3 pick if you’re in red.

Garruk’s Packleader: A 4/4 for five mana in limited is strong as a standalone card, especially without Eldrazi running around. But when you stack your deck with more than three guys that have more than three power, he starts to get insane. Cantripping all your bomb creatures usually wins games, and it did multiple times. If you are in green, a top 3 pick.

Some other mentions that I won’t go too far into are Gargoyle Sentinel,  Ember Hauler, and Sylvan Ranger. And obviously Primeval Titan is just unfair. I had one game where I emptied my entire deck of lands. The game didn’t last long after that. Pretty incredible. I honestly can’t remember my games, I need to get used to taking notes after matches. I finished the tournament in 8th place out of 58. And that was due to an intentional draw in the final round to ensure top 8. I placed 4 spots lower than expected due to tie breakers. I finished 4-1-1.

This was a local shop I generally don’t go to. It’s a really nice shop, but the player base isn’t the best. However we had probably five of Southern Oregon’s best their, and one of us won the tournament. Here in Southern Oregon we have some top 10 Oregon players. It was a lot of fun and I’m already enjoying M11 draft.

My second prerelease I finished 4th place with a green white deck full of 8 Wurms! I had so many bombs all I was doing was holding ground until turn 5-6 and then dropping a 6/4 every turn. After being up 35 hours I made a play mistake and punted a match to take 4th. And in my draft I drafted UG and went aggro control to take 1rst/2nd to tie with my buddy Kobra who I pool cards with. So we made out like bandits. UG is an awesome strategy if you have the green bombs for the aggression and some solid blue cards. I had a Jace, Mana Leak, Water Servant, and some blue scry. One of the best cards in green in M10 and 11 is Awakener Druid. If he’s in the right agressive deck he puts on insane amounts of pressure.

We finished up a 36 packs or so not counting what we opened. For some reason I’m far better drafting and building core set decks than I am block decks.

I hope this report helped you in your next draft or sealed pool! Remember, pack 1 pick 1 = Crystal Ball, you can thank me later.

What would you have done differently for the deck?

Consider yourself reported!