MtG - Dissension Prerelease, Des Moines, April 22nd

I haven't been able to make it to a prerelease for some time, due to scheduling conflicts. I had a free day on Saturday so, even though I have a lot of other, more important things I could be doing, I decided to make the drive out to the capitol to play some cards. I've always liked prereleases, with the high casualness quotient and the new cards to see. I'm a little disappointed not to have been able to play more in this block, as it looks like a fun set. I wish I could say that this was the start of me spending more time playing MtG, but I don't see the time opening up any time soon...

I missed my exit - I think the sign might have been down due to construction, or, maybe, I just spaced it. After the two hour solo drive, I wasn't at my most focussed. After meandering around the general area for fifteen minutes, I finally found the sight. I walked in around noon, leaving behind a bright, sunny spring day for a stuffy convention center room full of gamers. Aah, life! Dr. Dan and Dave Williamson were there running operations. Barratt was still in St. Louis. Kyle Mechler was judging. Other than them, I saw very few people I knew, and spent most of the time leading up to the tournament chatting with Scott Lewis and Brian Lord from Iowa City.

We sat down to register decks, and, again, I didn't know anyone sitting around me. The deck I registered was really light on removal, and had it's good cards spread across all five colors. It didn't look very good to me. Of course, after the deck passing was over, I ended up getting it back.

My good rares were in red/black/white, but the creatures were blue/green. I ended up with a mostly blue/green deck splashing white (1 plains, 2 signets) for a single card, a u/w/1 enchantment that won't let a creature untap, that can forecast to tap a creature during your upkeep. I misread it, thinking I could play it at instant speed, but it was still a good card, and it never came out. Overall, the deck was probably three cards short of being actually good (1 more good creature and a couple removal spells).

I didn't take any notes, so we'll see what I can remember...

First round - I played a guy from Grinnell, a big, twenty-something fella with long blond hair. I think, maybe, his name was John. He was playing the same colors as me, but with a little more white.

I won the roll, and chose to play. I mulled a six land hand, into a one land hand, and, in a moment of post-two hour drive madness, I kept it. We both had slow starts, I had to discard once, I think, but he wasn't able to put any pressure on me, not playing anything until turn five, when he put down an enchant land card that lets him spend two mana and tap to make a 2/2 flyer. We both started to get creatures on the table, and things were looking pretty even. I got a 3/3 flyer, and started to attack. Instead of letting it through and building up his flying army, he chump blocked it repeatedly. I was squeaking damage through, though, and whittled away at his life total. He got out a card drawing combo (an aura and an untappable creature), and started to get card advantage. With the way he was playing, I thought I would have him in two turns, and had a backup option to try to deck him with my eidolon. I actually considered conceding earlier, to get to game two, but I figured I had two outs, and didn't want to risk another bad draw. However, the next turn he drew into a hard lock, with a guy that puts a creature on the top of your deck when he comes into play, and an enchantment that returns the creature and itself at beginning of upkeep. I thought I had an out to topdeck into, so I alpha'd, killing all my guys, leaving him at 5. I didn't make the topdeck, and he finished me next turn. When I asked how much time was left, the judge said, "oh, time was called a couple minutes ago, didn't you know?" Well, if I would have been paying attention, it would have been a draw, but... This put me in mind to pay a little more attention to what I was doing.

Round 2: This guys name was Kurt. He seemed a little serious, and didn't really talk during the match. He also had the same colors as me. These weren't much, as games go. Kurt didn't draw enough mana, discarded in both games, and I ran him over. First game was no contest. Second game, he got out a 4/5 guy that lets you draw a card every time you play a creature. He probably drew 7 extra cards, but he couldn't find an answer for my flyers.

Round 3: I can't remember the name of this opponent. I'm not sure where he was from, but he was friends with ponytail Eric who plays at Critical Hit in Coralville. Eric annoyed me a little when he opened the match with the following comment to my opponent: "He's an Iowa City player, don't trust him." For me, this fell into the realm of things people say that are supposed to be funny, but are only actually humorous in some alternate, bizarro reality. It was the second such comment he had made to me that day, out of two conversational attempts. Again, he was playing the same colors as me, and had many of the same cards.

I didn't get much out of these games. The first game was just creatures versus creatures, and mine were better. Oh, I tutored for Moldervine Cloak, which was a bonus. The second game, I got a lot of early beats in, putting him down to three, then he dropped Glare of Subdual. We had an even number of creatures, and he had two weenie flyers that could attack without tapping. He had the board stabilized, but I had drawn into a 3/3 that I could untap for a blue. On my turn, he tapped down my whole team, tapping his squad in the process. That left me only having to tap a blue to end the game, summoning a groan of personal dissatisfaction from the opponent, and chastisement from Eric. What are friends for?

Round 4: At 2-1, I was hoping for another mediocre pairing, but I ended up getting placed against Scott Lewis this round. Scott had red/black/white, and his deck, I think, was a lot more exciting than mine (lots of removal, big pumpable flying dragon guy, etc..). I figured this round would send me home.

Game one, Scott made a mistake early, I got some fat on the board, he neutralized some of it, I got some more, I won. Game two, he popped down a fat flying pumpable guy, killed all my stuff and tore me in half. Game three, he dropped a protection from monocolored guy, a fat legend, and the flying pumpable dragon guy, and things didn't look so hot.. I had gotten some damage through, though, and the forecast tap gold spell came in handy here. I drew into a gold creature, moldervine cloak, and a flyer or two and finished him off.

Round 5: I was paired with a younger guy named Jason. Don't know where he was from. We didn't chat much. He didn't ask for a prize split, so I figured his deck was pretty good. He was red black. Red black really seemed it could be scary with the format, as there is a removal seal in each color, and we opened three packs... I was worried, but, it turned out, needlessly, as I rolled him in two, despite his removal and return dudes from the graveyard spells.

So, I finished 4-1, and won 18 packs. Hopefully I'll be able to do some drafting with them. There were no more drafts being done that night, so I chatted with Brian Woerth and Azrael a little, and then got an "early" start home, around 8:30. It was kind of nice to do so, as I knew I wanted to be sharp for Chris & Edie's game day on Sunday.

My overall impressions of the set were positive. It rounds out the color combination guilds for the block, and should make limited play more fun. From what I saw, u/g had great creatures, and b/r had great removal and some interesting creatures. I didn't see much of u/w. Forecast is an interesting mechanic, like limited buyback, but also making the spells multi-functional. Hellbent only came into play once all day, but might have an interesting impact on constructed. Other than that, I was excited to get one of the cards my friend Fred Hooper illustrated. It's his first set doing Magic, and it's nice to see his name on the cards.

GG, GL