Saturday, July 9, 2011

Magic 2012 prerelease

Partial liveblogging from the magic 2012 prere at the Game Haven in Dayton/Riverside, OH.  I opened absolute nuts:
Red: 3 shock, one fireball, fling.  Black: doomblade, 3 gravedigger, grave titan, royal assassin.  Decided to go RWB, despite some solid blue and green.  (Two rampant growths, but too much hotness in RB to justify 5 color.)

Round one I played against Alyssa running UW control.  She got Jace's erasure all 3 games, combined with Mind Unbound to deck me game 2.  Otherwise I was happy to have targets for gravedigger.  Turn 5 Serra angel in games 1 and 2 helped and grave titan won game 3.  In that last game, she tried to mind control the grave titan.  I responded with fling; she came back with negate.  Luckily sacing is part of the cost; I brought the titan back later with gravedigger to win.  We finished all three games with me at 20.  Matches: 1-0; games 2-1.

Round two I was paired against K.P., running RW.  Apparently we were both control somehow; we went nearly to time in 2 games.  Arbalest elite was ridiculous in game 1, 3-for-oneing or something ridiculous.  K.P. had to divine favor his roc egg at one point and I was forced to play around Circle of Flame.  I did win, with lots of life thanks to alabaster mage.  Game two was a bit more one-sided.  Gideon's lawkeeper + royal assassin netted me a bunch of creatures and I won without being touched.  Again I had to play around circle of flame, but grave titan doesn't mind.  Matches: 2-0; games 4-1.

Round three I faced red-blue Zack who had to deal with some tough hands.  Game 1 he drew 13 lands.  My Stormfront pegasus swang for 16 before serra angel saw the board.  I lost game 2, again at 20, when Jace milled me twice for 10 each.  The third game he scooped when I got the titan out; his deck had only given him islands.  Matches 3-0; games 6-2.

This is where the mediocre part starts.  Next up was Scott, running a green-white deck with lots of confidence.  Scott played with a friendly, but professional demeanor, and outplayed me game one to win.  Also, skinshifter is good... and fast.  Game two was a long, drawn out affair, where triple gravediggers helped hold off a solid field.  I played serra; he pacified.  He played serra; I took damage.  I played well, extending the game ~20 minutes longer than he may have expected, but lost in the end.  Oh well.  Matches 3-1; games 6-4.

I was determined to take this card pool to 4-1.  No way would I lose again.  I sat down against a red-black deck piloted by Bryan for the fifth and final round.  His deck was fast.  Game one I couldn't keep up with a bunch of little vampires and zombies.  Royal assassin kept him from attacking for many turns, but I didn't draw a plains and my hand filled up white.  Game two was much more exciting.  He took an early lead, but I hit 5 mana and got serra angel out supported by 2 gravediggers in hand.  He used consume spirit a few times to hand my guys and kept poking with a goblinish tim (only targetting players... what is this card called?) while swinging aggressively until I hit 3 life.  I then had to shock that dang goblin.  Then the titan hit the board and I cleaved him down to 6 and decimated his board.  "I've got three cards I can draw to win," he said, untapping.  He topped incinerate.  Game.  Matches 3-2; games 6-6.

Very fun!  It's also always good to see Aaron and play with him :)  Too bad we were never matched up!

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