Born of the Gods prerelease

[Duckay]

I figure we'll all have things to say about it, so what's everyone's prerelease experience? I know I'm a bit ahead because I've only just started mine and I'm a bit ahead of a lot of people, but I figure we'll get there.

So far I went white and got some sweet heroic stuff. I don't know how much it will stand up in practice, but it's one of the most synergistic sealed pools I've seen in a while.

[korvys]

Picked Black, which was nice, got some removal, 2 Garys, and Agent of the Fates. Blue gave me Siren of the Silent Song, which is really good.

Seemed ok, but a little slow. 3-1 overall, but 2 of those were against people playing almost their first game.

Then I went home and got 4 hours sleep. Just woke up. Probably going to skip today to recover, and play again tomorrow.

[Duckay]

I ended up going 5-0. Pretty happy!

[Sky_rider19]

Does anyone know what pack colors people were getting with gods? Were there Red players getting both Morgis and Xenagos? or were they all getting the same god to where they are set to one color instead of two?

[Duckay]

I don't honestly know. I went white and the only god I got was Xenagos (in one of my Born of the Gods boosters). I don't know of anyone who had two gods that shared a colour.

[Sky_rider19]

Not one person getting two, more like two people in the same color getting different gods in their seed pack

[Dix]

If its anything like the Theros seeded packs, you just have a higher likelyhood of a God in your color. Its not going to guarantee you get a god or even have one color with the higher likely hood of pulling ANY god based solely on what color Destined pack you pick.

[Sky_rider19]

If that's the case, I suppose It's red for me. I don't mind getting either Xenegos or Morgis. Although I really want the Minotaur god...

[Duckay]

Oh, right. I didn't get a God in my seeded pack, I got the Eidolon of Countless Battles (?).

ETA: Yes, it was. I couldn't remember which Eidolon was which for a time, there.

[Dubious_wolf]

Went 3-1
Got 6 packs. Woot
Didn't open any real $$ cards though.
I picked blue
And opened a sick sick sick green white heroic deck.
Like, serious.
3x nessian coursers
3x mortal's resolve
3x Akroan skyguard

And then good common fillers, and a vulpine Goliath.
It was so sick out if it curved out.
I smashed for 13 damage in numerous turns.
The deck had a handfull of uncommons, and no rares or mythic rares.
I was wrecking simply because of consistency.

So yeah open a blue box and play green/white. B/c why not?

[Kapol]

So here's how my prerelease deck building went:

Open the seeded pack. Find Karametra inside. Bleh. Worst of the five gods by far, but still a god.
Open the first BotG pack. Find another Karametra waiting for me. So I guess I go white/green, right?

I open the rest, and get some decent rares. The 3/3 black flier for 3. The kracken that was the blue Theros prerelease promo. Akroan Horse (only slightly worse than Karametra). And Titan of Eternal Fire. Every color represented... not what you want to see in your pool.

I end up going G/W despite my white being bad bad. My green was bonkers good mind you. And I had Reap What You Sow and the 2 drop 1/1 heroic flier. But that was it besides Karametras. But I felt she was worth it.

I get slaughtered first game (by someone who ended up going 2-2-2).

After convincing, I switched from white to G/U. Mostly because my Blue pool was NUTS too.

I just start stomping face. After 6 rounds, I end up 4-2, only losing due to being mana screwed two games in a row. I have little doubt I would have top 8'ed if I had started as U/G like I knew I should have. That's right, even two Karametras don't make going the color good enough.

But I get 4 packs anyways, so that's not too bad. Open the first, Forgestoker dragon. Bleh. Second, Phenax. Well that's solid. Would have preferred having it during the release to use, but I'm fine with it. Second pack, the 3/1 for 2 that effects drawing. Solid card. Likely will sell it honestly, but good. Open the last pack...

Another Karametra.

So yea, out of my 7 born of the gods packs, 3 of them were Karametra. ...Yay?

[Lord Hosk]

6-0 won 40 packs.

Match one and two I just out agroed them
Match three
Game one T1 Favored hoplite, Turn two Fleecemain lion turn three Dauntless assault. (other stuff) turn 5 win.
game two T2 Fleecemain, turn three wingsteed, Turn four fleecemain, turn five attack dauntless assault Mortals Ardor. Opponent didnt say a word didnt say "I take it" not "no blocks" nothing, just grabbed the slip, marked two wins for me, 0 for him, marked himself a drop put his cards in his bag and left.

Match 5 I had a voltroned Favored Hoplite with reach, vigilance, and lifelink., opponet had Bow of Nielia down, he dropped the Pinging dragon. Next turn, he attacks he pings my hoplite, I cast Gods willing He says "HA! Ping again before that resolves." I cast Mortal arbor, he says "doesnt matter has death touch" I say "Heroic prevents all damage" opponent says "I hate that guy, I really really really hate that guy"

[Duckay]

I had a similar situation pop up with favoured hoplite and death touch. My opponent's response after I pointed that out was "oh, I don't block then", which I admit bugs me. I know it's just a prerelease but this is the same guy who all those months ago did the same "well, if you're doing something unexpected then I take back my thing" thing at FNM and has been playing longer than I have. He knows better. Or even if he'd said "oops, I messed up, do you mind if I take that back?", I'd be happier with it. It rankles me a little the way he did it.

[Juliamon]

Picked red, got Xenagos in my seeded pack, Karametra in one of my BNG packs, and Brimaz in the other. Briefly considered trying to go Naya (got both Burnished Hart and Opaline Unicorn in my THS packs) but basically didn't have any good white outside Brimaz so I stuck with RG. My blue was probably better than green, but I was determined to play at least ONE of the gods since I didn't do so when I opened Erebos in my THS prerelease green box. I ended up only running three cards over 3 CMC, I think mono 2-drop might actually be a viable draft option in this format and I hope LRR gives it a shot for a wacky draft.

Went 3-1, good enough for 5 packs. Did better than my friend who's been playing for a looong-ass time, though he had been at the store for nearly a full day at that point and was having trouble with basic math and words. (Even so, he did better than his midnight prerelease which had so few playables he was forced to go three color with no fixing... poor guy)

My prize packs had a Spirit of the Labyrinth, Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, the white and red Fated cards, and a Satyr Firedancer. So I opened some decent money, but... I'm still annoyed that the only foil out of everything was the promo dragon. My luck is so weird.

[Kapol]

I had a similar situation pop up with favoured hoplite and death touch. My opponent's response after I pointed that out was "oh, I don't block then", which I admit bugs me. I know it's just a prerelease but this is the same guy who all those months ago did the same "well, if you're doing something unexpected then I take back my thing" thing at FNM and has been playing longer than I have. He knows better. Or even if he'd said "oops, I messed up, do you mind if I take that back?", I'd be happier with it. It rankles me a little the way he did it.

If you haven't already, talk to your judge about it. That's not alright for him to keep doing. Like, it's one thing to ask if you can take something back (though asking to take something back after blockers are declared due to a pump spell is stupid). It's another to just say 'well I don't do that.' And it's yet another for you to say 'oh, you do a combat trick, so I take back my block.' And if you know the guy knows better, he's flat out trying to cheat, and it's doubtful that it's just against you.

That said... I ended up winning the first game of my last match due to my opponent letting me take back a move. He let me retap my mana, which was relevant as I had the 'shuffle enchantment into it's owner's library' instant that I needed to use. Though I did ask first, and I did give him a missed trigger with the 'draw=damage' guy before that. He swung in for 5 with the creature I bounced back. Near the end of the game, he had me down to 3 (so I would have been dead) and was at 20. But due to finally hitting more than one green mana I won. So I can't complain too much.

[headband]

Went 2-1. Chose red and ended up with a Naya deck (mostly red/white with a splash of green).

One of the other players had some crazy luck opening packs (got a Mogis, an Elspeth, an Erabos and a pain seer) but then ended up losing all his matches.

[Prospero101]

Alright, a not too shabby prerelease.

So I took black as my color and my goodness, were my packs seeded for black devotion. I had two Garys and two Disciples of Phenax, as well as Erebos himself. I experimented with a couple support colors before settling on blue for extra card draw and air support. Ended up going 3-3, winning three packs. I also managed to trade for most of what I need for my new standard deck, which is - I bet you'll guess - black devotion!

[Dix]

Good lord Juliamon... You did better than I did in the luck department with the rare/mythics.



Here's my UB splash G (only 2 forests) I got from my blue box. I called it "How You Like Me Now? feat. Kiora"

1-3 drops:


4-6 drops:


Went 3-0-1 which was good for t-3rd out of 36 people for 3 packs and one of those rares was Spirit of the Labyrinth.

I probably could have turned the tie into a win in Round 1 of the game had I played out my Baleful Eidolon one turn then bestowed Spiteful Returned on it THEN played my Kiora but I got overzealous and rushed Kiora down and next turn it got hit with Hero's Downfall.

My Garys liked to roll in packs. Every time I drew one, within the next 2-3 draws the other would show up so my opponent got double Gary'd every time one hit the field.

Divination is quite good and Nyxborn Triton is quite an awesome +2/+3 vanilla bestow.

Lemme tell you though,Kiora's +1 ability can do some straight up WORK in locking down an opponent's beater or evasive guy that could swing in at it. And yes, I unleashed the Krakens twice: once for 5 krakens (two got locked down by a Shipbreaker Kraken) and another time for 2. I didn't once use her -1 Explore ability. And funnily enough, in the 10 rounds I played, I drew her 5 times and each time I HAD the Forest ready to go. I lucked out a bunch thanks to scry and Traveler's Amulet to smooth out my draws/fixing.

[MetricalSky]

Went 4-0 in my prerelease!

1-3 drops:


4-6 drops:


Matches 1 & 2 were against W/U and were won on the backs of inspired Butchers, the Spiritbinder, and the Thunder Brute (and his Spritbinder-created doppelgänger).
Match 3 was against a W/G deck with Nylea and Fleecemane Lion and other evil, evil cards. Luckily for me, my opponent was mana flooded game 1 & 3.
Match 4 was a close-fought R/G mirror match, but in the end I pulled out the win.

And in my prize pool, I pulled KITTY! So, a pretty good night all around.

[Duckay]

So the event I went to today I went 1-4 with a green / blue deck, which was not exciting. Then some people got together to draft triple Born of the Gods for hilarity with prizes, and I went undefeated with blue / green. So there's that.

[JayBlanc]

Built Blue/Red Aggro, which actually seems playable in Theros sealed format. Not as good as Blue/Green Aggro, but I didn't have enough Green...

Went 2-2-1. Games were 1-2, 1-1-Time, 2-0, 2-0, 1-2.

Kicking myself over the first round, I'd gone into the pre-release reminding myself 'do not bounce things with tribute', then used Sea Gods revenge as a board wipe in the second game, and then realising that I'd just turned a quick win into a quick loss as they put the tribute creature back into hand.

The 1-1-Time round was against someone who had never bought any cards or played physical games before that day, and had build a very defensive deck. I really should have asked them to keep an eye on time, but I didn't want to be that guy.

I did drag back up to the higher numbers, and then lost to someone who had built the B/G aggro deck I'd wanted to build.

Came away with prizes, and having learned Retraction Helix is BNG's power common.

[Lord Hosk]

F* fall of the hammer. F* it in the A.

[Kapol]

F* fall of the hammer. F* it in the A.

That card is really powerful. One-sided fight at instant speed for 2 mana? Seems fair.

For me, I figured out that the Oathsworn (1GG 1/1 with Heroic for 2 +1/+1 counters) is much better than his older brother, the staunch-hearted warrior. The fact he comes down a turn earlier makes ALL the difference. The fact he adds extra devotion is a nice bonus. But he just got nutty with me. I know at one point I had put Stratus Walk on him, Nyxborn Wolf (a card I was pleasantly surprised by), and I think a ordeal on him by turn five. My opponent couldn't do anything at that point. The fact he basically allows you to use an ordeal for it's full effect turn 4 is nuts.

Also, I love Raised By Wolves. It was likely my favorite card to play. I had, at one point, put You Came To The Wrong Neighborhood on a Nyxborn Wolf, and my opponent nodded and said 'yea, that makes sense.'

[Duckay]

Yeah, Fall of the Hammer was always a card I was really afraid to see an opponent throw at me. I got some use out of the Oathsworn but I still didn't like it much - I think my favourite Heroic card in the set is Akroan Skyguard. I had two of them in my first prerelease pool and it was pretty sweet.

Also, Pheres-Band Tromper did some work.

[Lord Hosk]

the store I was at released this.

3 top 8 from the weekend

1 WG heroic (ME)
2 WU mid
3 WG fatties
4 Wug agro
5 RG agro
6 WG mid
7 WG heroic
8 GU agro

1 mono G mixed
2 WG heroic
3 WG heroic
4 UG gods
5 Bu Agro removal
6 WU Flying
7 UB control
8 WG mid

1 WG fattie
2 UG Agro
3 WG heroic
4 WG agro
5 BR minitaurs
6 Wgr weenies
7 WG heroic
8 RU stuff