Well.... I had fun at my Rivals of Ixalan Prerelease and I hope you all did too!
For any new to Magic the gathering folk, a Prerelease event is an event at a local gamestore for a new set launch. It typically takes place a week before the official launch of the set, letting eager players get some cool new cards early. Each player gets a dated foil rare card from the set, a cardboard deckbox containing six packs of cards and a spindown life counter. With those six packs players construct decks of 40 cards, they cannot trade with others, or ad any card that they did not open in those six packs. After making the decks the players play against each other in a best of three. Winning or losing a match will determine who the player plays next, so stronger players will eventually play each other. A prerelease event is a format of Magic the Gathering called Sealed, due to the nature of deck building.
Sealed is one of my favorite formats to play, and I always try to join the prerelease to grab some cool new cards. I must admit that I had barely followed the spoiler season for Rivals of Ixalan, and went into the event pretty blind. However, as is the case with most sealed events, BREAD remains faithful to me. For any newer players;
B - Bombs: The game winners. You are looking for cards that say I win if unanswered
R - Removal: The game savers. These are the ones that answer other peoples threats
E - Evasion: Most sealed games will come down to a simple beatdown, so get your damage in
A - Aggro: Gotta go fast. Force opponents to answer your early threats
D - Duds: The rest of the cards you fill your curve out with
With this basic knowledge, a person can usually do alright at any prerealease. Now let's get to the moment of truth, the box is in my hands, I'm struggling to get the plastic off with my keys, other people have their first packs open, I'm behind, what am I going to build!?!? I haven't even seen my first card..... and then I see....!
Wait... what is this? What does it do again? Interesting it's a tutor?? For anything??? My inner Johnny starts screaming, this is a must play!!! The Spike asks where does it fit in B.R.E.A.D. puzzle?? It doesn't really fit, but this is sealed, and my Johnny side wins. I'm playing black with a double black casting cost to boot.
Since this is a smaller set a prerelease pack will always have two of the previous set to help fill out decks better, and I always open these first. So first packs up are Ixalan, and the rares were:
These two cards are alright, but I'm not in love for sealed. Mostly I just wanted spell swindle for EDH. My Johnny excitement started to die down a bit when I first looked at the pulls. These just are not Bombs or Removal at the rare slot. The Galleon isn't too hard to flip and start netting some cards, but it's no longer a big body after flipping. Countermagic is sorta okay in sealed, but I felt this was not going to help win this late in a sealed game. Moving on to the packs of Rivals:
Hmmmmm....... I have some pretty hard mixed feelings about these pulls too. Once again, I find I am most excited to have pulled Journey to Eternity and Silent Gravestone for some EDH shenanigans, but I'm just not sure if I really like any of these right away for my sealed deck. Once again, no bombs or removal here.
Now I have to start getting creative, my rare cards just won't win me the game on their own, and they might not even be playable. Right away I decide World Shaper is out. The only thing going for it is merfolk race, and I don't have enough merfolk synergies to bother. Journey to Eternity looks pretty interesting to the Johnny side of me, recursion is always nice, so I put it in a maybe pile with Mastermind's Acquisition. At least they both share black. Silent Gravestone goes to the sideboard pile right away, just no reason to play it mainboard that I can see. Finally, I look at Radiant Destiny. I do like the tribal buff option for dumping cards out of my hand. World Shaper got me thinking about merfolk, so I dug through my pulls and set out finding my strong tribes. Dinos and merfolk really didn't show up in any representation, but pirates and vampires did, and they both play black.
This is the path I took to construct my list. Journey to Eternity had to be cut here because green. Pirates and Vampires just don't seem to like their greens much. That leaves me with trying to decide if Radiant Destiny is going to be worth playing white here, I start to wonder if I've just wasted my time looking at the tribes...
We are more than just a few minutes into deck building stage at this time and I need to make a decision on where to go here. Looking at a stack of white vampires and Radiant Destiny made the choice easier. Pirates are out, Vampires are in. There was more than enough. I got really lucky that I had four removal spells in black white to bolster my vamps chances:
More double black is kinda awkward, but these all go into the deck list right away. If I don't have the biggest bombs, I better be ready to remove them. Equipped with some removal, locked into playing black and white vampires, I set about finding the best curve I could make with the best Evasion and Aggro bloodsuckers I had. I really must say that I found some pleasant surprises in my games at just how good some of these Vampires were.
Wow! This is an auto-include card in almost all vampire decks running white. A two mana 2/2 lord is insane value on the curve. Every game this guy came out he changed the tides in my favor. Don't overlook this uncommon!
Was a spicy mini combo I pulled off multiple times. Making Famished Paladin a 4/4 Vigilance Lifelink for Five mana was great. If I had Legion Lieutenant it's a pretty easy 5/5 Vigilance Lifelink. I knew Famished was playable right away, a 3/3 for two is playable even on defense, but Squire's Devotion was definitely a card I added from what I thought were duds. In the end not only was the lifelink super relevant on target but so was the lifelink vampire token, and the Enchantment is a permanent on the field for Radiant Destiny. After getting this combo in game one I was always happy to see Squire's Devotion in hand.
Mmmhmmore cards more power!! Love this little Rager or Elvish Visionary. Card advantage is king. Vampires are in, Elves are out! But for real this card was great, jumps into the field, grabs another card for 1 life, and was sometimes a 2/2 or blocker.
Adanto Vanguard, this is was a powerhouse that I missed. Maybe better players saw this right away, but this guy turned out to be a bomb for me. Dropping the Squire's Devotion on him felt pretty good too. He swings pretty hard at 3/1 and the 4 life for indestructible helped keep him on board. It is not to hard to make up the life with some of the other Vampires. Which gets us to Martyr of Dusk. Swing away or block without fear. I found opponents would not trade with it on swings since they never wanted to lose a creature and give me another lifelink option. Same can be applied to blocking, as dropping one or two of these guys really slowed the game down. Bishop's Soldier as a 2/2 lifelink vampire turned out to be alright. I needed the lifelink and Vampire tribal.
Moving up the curve a little. Menace is pseudo evasion, it works, but it definitely isn't flying or unblockable. That being said, Voracious Vampire giving a vampire menace for the turn and having menace really was good in the end. Helped me surprise a player and kill his Hautli, Warrior Poet who had just dropped a 3/3 dino token. Skymarch Bloodletter was just a decent 2/2 flyer, the ping damage is a small bonus.
Finally, topping off the curve for my vampires was Sanguine Glorifier and Paladin of the Bloodstained. I was worried that I might not have a vampire left on the field for Sanguine Glorifier if I played against heavy removal, but thankfully that never happened and the +1/+1 counter felt pretty good. Paladin of the Bloodstained does great by bringing in essentially 4/3 in board state with 2 permanents again for Radiant Destiny and some more lifelink for Famished Paladin. Nothing surprising with Vampire Revenant, but having 3/1 flying evasion damage in the tribal theme is another feel good.
I chose to top the curve off with just a big swinging bomb and I'm glad I did. Canal monitor was my biggest creature in either white or black so I ran it. Was able to stabilize a game I was clearly losing by dropping the Canal Monitor and putting Squire's Devotion again to give lifelink. Swing for 6/4 lifelink and have a blocker up for the counter attack. I won a game like this that I had no business winning.
See the full list below:
My games went pretty well. Swept the first four and then was swept the last. Just didn't have enough removal for the last game. Played against the City's Blessing all three games, which turned out to be a better mechanic than I had first thought. With my four wins, and some good tie breakers due to how well the people I beat did, I placed fourth out of sixteen. I certainly did not think I was going to be fourth when I started looking at my pulls.
A fun thing to note. The three rares I played helped but did not win games, or show up as often as I would have liked. I was able to Mastermind's Acquisition for a Moment of Craving, to kill a creature and gain two life, which I needed badly against a force of unblockables and flying, and untapping my Famished Paladin to be a blocker. This stabilized me at three life and I managed to turn that ship around for a win. In another match getting Radiant Destiny out absolutely destroyed, but I only drew the card once in all six games I played. I never drew the Galleon.
These were all threats I found hard to deal with. I made the mistake of Impaling the Phoenix on my turn, since I wanted to get some damage in, but forgot how quick that bird comes back. I was lucky to top deck a Luminous Bonds to hold it in place and win that game. The Dryad thankfully dies to Moment of Craving, but then there is that keyword each. A 3/3 Saproling on my upkeep was no laughing matter. Finally, the whale dino, I lost my final game to this creature, so don't mind the salt. On the cast of removal spells, Nezahal draws the opponent a card. Game five I was able to kill his Nezahal with an Impale, but he drew more gas and closed the game out on me. Game six, Nezahal drops, and I have to cast Mastermind's Acquisition for Impale, cast Impale, now he has drawn two cards, and CANCEL!?!?! They reprinted Cancel? Of course they did. Well good game opponent, the vampires fought hard but could not survive the dinosaurs wrath.
At the end of the day, I won some packs and participation packs were handed out. Very excited to pull Zacama for EDH. Incoming dinosaur combo battle cruiser?!? Temple Altisaur fits right at home with all my other dinos. Not to mention I already have a solid Edgar Markov EDH deck that might now have some new possible new auto includes, looking at you Legion Lieutenant.
I would like to thank everyone who has made it to the end of the post. I hope that my thoughts and decisions will help some other players in their future prereleases. Especially to anyone who is a new player, or wanting to play. A prerelease event is a great place to get either back into magic or learn the game. The sealed environment creates a less competitive format than standard or even draft. You also do not have to get the best rares to win! I am neither a phenomenal Magic the Gathering player nor do I have the most experience. Don't be shy or nervous about your skill level. Go find a local game store, join the community and sign up for the next prerelease to have some fun!!
Let me know in the comments below what your prerelease decks looked like. Look forward to hearing from you all!