I am sorry to those of you out there that didn't pull any mythics, apparently WOTC wanted me to have them all instead.
But before we get into that, it was pretty interesting just getting to the pre-release. More after the jump.
The typical shop that I go to for FNM had misplaced the pre-order email, and as such, there was no pre-release to be had there. Fortunately theres another card shop very close to home, so after calling them and finding out when they were starting, I thought I was all set.
My brother-in-law and I get our things packed and head out 2 hours before the pre-release begins. We pull up to the shop, and the parking lot is surprisingly full for a Saturday morning. We walk inside, and the place is packed. A lot of the people there are just there for "Free Comic Book Day" but there were just enough there to play Magic, the store only has 1 slot left for the pre-release, and with there being 2 of us, we ship out.
2 stores down, what's next? Well the regional pre-release is right down the road, not even 10 minutes away. Off we go!
Construction. Construction everywhere.
We're sitting in traffic for a solid 45 minutes, so I start to get worried. I pull out my trusty Android smartphone and start browsing Wizard's site for the next closest store. Still sitting in traffic, nobody moving. I call the next closest store, 30 minutes away, and ask what time they are starting. Not for another 2 hours. Perfect, even if the regional is a bust, we can make it over there with time to spare (It's creeping steadily closer to lunch time as we sit in traffic).
Finally we arrive at the regional pre-release. 2 flights of stairs later and we've found the registration room. The last pre-release sealed round started 30 minutes ago...
Super.
Back to the car!
Finally we make it to store #3 of the day. 45 minutes until the games begin, but only 3 people have signed up so far. It's not looking good. We put our names down and go grab lunch. After a filling grilled chicken sandwich, we return to the store. Now things are hopping. Several families have shown up, and we're up to 20ish people signed up. Still 10 minutes to go before the festivities begin, so we casually mill about, talking with people, seeing what kind of secret tech they might know about.
Finally we are ready to begin. A grand total of 26 people signed up, thus 52 packs worth of prize support. We would be playing 5 rounds of swiss, and prize division would be decided once the dust settled.
The sealed packs were ready to be divided up, and I went up to the counter to grab a stack for myself and my brother-in-law (henceforth known as BIL, as I'm tired of typing that out). I'm holding the two stacks and I come back to him. Moral dilemma. I would feel super bad handing him a stack that was terrible, but at the same time I couldn't make him make the choice either. I tell him to roll a die, high roll gets the right hand stack, low roll gets the left hand. He rolls low, and I hand him his stack, the fates have decided.
Everyone has taken their seats and we're ready to start cracking packs. I want to see my New Phyrexia cards first, so I start there. First pack, Batterskull. Wow, nice. Second pack, Karn Liberated. Uhm, am I on hidden camera? If my next pack is a Sword of War and Peace I'm going to walk away right now. Third pack is....
Glistening Oil.
Oh well.
Let's see what Scars will give me. First pack. Kuldotha Phoenix. Sweet, Phoenix is an amazing card in sealed. With as few removal spells as there are, the fact that he can pop back out any turn that you start with metalcraft, he is a true bomb. Alright, I'm liking this, let's go to pack 2. Kemba, Kha Regent. Boom! Kemba will completely lock up a ground battle for you as long as you have a couple equipments in your deck. She's also a a very nice 3 drop at 2/4. Pack numero three; Cerebral Eruption. This card I am not a fan of. Some people swear by it, but every time I have cast it in sealed it has hit a land, and I've timewalked myself. So no matter how many people tell me it's a great sweeper, I won't be running it again.
There's my bombs. I would also like to thank my supporting cast of Ogre Menial who won a game all by himself, despite being only 1 of the 2 infect cards in my deck. Also, Shrine of Burning Rage managed to soak up the most anti-artifact hate ever, letting me drop Batterskull in relative peace.
Now, onto the games.
The first match was very disappointing. Not because I lost, but because of who I played against. Match 1 was against BIL. BIL had been sitting next to me opening packs and watching me pull out bomb after bomb. I had watched him pull disappointing card after disappointing card. Game 1 was bad for him. He had no creatures out, and he died pretty quick. After that game, I asked to look through his deck. He had only put a total of 10 creatures into his deck. Very bad move in a format decided on creatures.
I flipped through his deck pretty quick and took out a bunch of spells that were pretty good, but not quite good enough. We then added in a third color, red, for some solid removal and a couple more infect creatures.
Game 2 was very much in his favor. I don't recall anything remarkable about it, but I did lose. Game 3 saw a Kemba along with 2 pieces of equipment. A battlefield flooded with cats gave me the win.
Match 2 was rough. The first game I finally saw Karn. And so did my opponent. I forced the only card in his hand out of the game. And spent the next 3 turns vindicating his board, which put us on game 2. Game 2 also saw Karn. What it didn't see was land draws. Turn 6 with me still sitting on 3 lands and me sitting with a hand full of 4 costs and a Karn, and we were off to game 3. Game 3 saw me drawing nothing useful, and I lost the match.
Match 3 was pretty uneventful. I auto-piloted through most of it.
Match 4 game 1 resulted in my infecting Ogre running away with the win strapped to a Batterskull. Game 2 however was the worst game of magic I have ever played in my life. My opponent was intentionally stalling the clock. I finished the first game in 5 minutes, we played the second game for 40 minutes until it finally went to turns. Turn 4 he managed to kill me, and I got a match tie for it.
Match 5 was another auto-pilot win. The only memorable moment came in game 2 when he played a Triumph of the Hordes with 5 creatures on the field, yet for some reason he decided to hold back with 2 creatures, and I killed him on the next turn.
I ended with a 3-1-1 record, which put me in 2nd place. BIL ended at 3-2 and 5th. Prizes were decided to go to everyone with a 3-2 or better record, so I ended up with an extra 5 packs, and Bill picked up an extra 4.
I hope everyone had fun at the pre-release, and I enjoy hearing how others did, leave a comment and let me know!
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