Born of the Gods prerelease

[Kapol]

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.

I liked Akroan Skyguard, but I didn't have enough white as mentioned to justify going white. And I just had too much bonkers G/U stuff.

But yea, Oathsworn did a lot of work for me. He won me a few games because my opponent just couldn't deal with him.

I didn't get as much use out of Tromper as I'd have liked (especially due to a massive mis-play one game where I thought he was the 5-drop 3/7 instead of a 4 drop he is). I also wanted to be bestowing and enchanting instead, so he always fell by the wayside.

I'm sad I didn't go to any other prereleases. But I couldn't spare the money for them, sadly.

[Duckay]

I only played it one out of three events I did, but I still think I like the Skyguard better than I like Oathsworn. It's definitely one that I'm looking to prioritize pretty high in Born/Theros/Theros drafts.

Also I noticed after the fact that of the four events the store ran (including the prize-pack draft), three were won by women. That seems really cool to me because it seems like more evidence that more women are getting involved in our local gaming community. (It used to be that there would be only maybe two or three women, myself included, at events like this. This time I noticed six at the bigger event, and four at the smaller. So it's going up!)

[Kapol]

That is pretty cool. And yea, I'd take Skyguard over Oathsworn easily because of the built-in evasion and cheaper cost (if I'm in the colors that is). But I easily like Oathsworn more than Staunch-Hearted Warrior, and maybe even Centaur Battlemaster, because it lets you be so much faster and not just tempting you to just hold enchantments in your hand.

[Lord Hosk]

What colors did people see do well? Im curious if the Green white dominance at our store was fluke?

[Firbozz]

Had a bit of a rough time at my prerelease. Was hoping for green seeded, but they were out and I ended up with red. My pool was pretty weak (sadly Master of Waves doesn't really put in much work in sealed) and I ended up with an Izzet deck that kinda pulled two ways. Went 2-4 or 3-3, can't remember. Got a prize pack with a Spirit of the Labyrinth in it, though, so there's that.

Round one I played a game where my opponent resolved Xenagos, the Reveller, and then Reselvoed Xenagos, God of Revels a few turn laters.

[Duckay]

What colors did people see do well? Im curious if the Green white dominance at our store was fluke?

I saw good showings from W/U, W/R and R/B. I don't recall seeing any strong showings from W/G but there may have been. I did notice that aggro strategies seemed really powerful.

[Lord Hosk]

Had a bit of a rough time at my prerelease. Was hoping for green seeded, but they were out and I ended up with red. My pool was pretty weak (sadly Master of Waves doesn't really put in much work in sealed) and I ended up with an Izzet deck that kinda pulled two ways. Went 2-4 or 3-3, can't remember. Got a prize pack with a Spirit of the Labyrinth in it, though, so there's that.

Round one I played a game where my opponent resolved Xenagos, the Reveller, and then Reselvoed Xenagos, God of Revels a few turn laters.

I sold my packs to a guy, the first pack he opened was a foil Spirit of the Labyrinth and Kiora the second pack was Brimaz, and he was like HA HA! You shouldn't have sold them! the next 10 were crap and I had to go.

[Dix]

I got t-3 with my previously posted UB splash G deck. If not for my various control cards, I'd have gotten blown out by Wx in a few matches. I went up against a RWB, WB, and a WG. (I stomped a directionless BG deck)

Akroan Skyguard is quite a nuts little heroic weenie and will definitely see a ton of play in limited Wx heroic decks I think. I burned a Weight of the Underworld (-3/-2 aura) on one turn 4 in round 3 of my 4th game just to get it the hell out of the way. Of course my opponent had another in hand he played next turn but at least I didn't have to face two of them.

Also, Kiora's damage bubble +1 is quite awesome. Definitely worth the splash if you pull one and happen to be in Ux or Gx and have a way to get some fixing out.

[Del]

I scrubbed out like I have never scrubbed out before!

First 2hg pre-rel I had was an amazing pool and did well, but it was all downhill from there.
First sealed I had the worst pool I have ever seen, let alone opened (as verified by pretty much everyone at the entire pre-release). Still squeaked out 2-3 when most were expecting a 0-X.
Second sealed I had a good pool but all I had was bad luck. I mulled to 5 in 3 games, and went to 6 in another 2. Everything I played immediately had an answer from my opponents, but I still managed to get them dead on board while they always had the single get out of jail free card they needed on the swing.
Second 2hg wasn't a bad pool, but again just horrible luck. Colour screw and perfect draws from opponents again hosed the night.

To top it all off the entire weekend the best Born rare I snagged was a temple, and I managed to get 2 nykthos.

I think it will definitely be an interesting draft format, but overall I don't think we will see huge changes in constructed play.

[Phosphatide]

Red seemed to be the big problem for me and my partner when we went into 2HG, as there are a hefty number of burn spells to kill everything thanks to BNG.

We ended up going 2-2 with a W/U heroic deck piloted by myself while my partner used a B/G control build that was filled to the brim with removal. Unfortunately, the curve basically started at 4 mana, so our final game had him stuck on three lands an unable to do anything while I flooded out and played maybe three creatures total (none with heroic, just the supporting players). On a different game we lost, I couldn't find a Plains so I never could play Wingsteed Rider in time to stop a Bloodtoll Harpy from eating away our life total (also they Gary'd for 8 so there's that). Otherwise it wasn't too bad.

Rare pulls were alright, the winners being a Hero's Downfall, Gild, and Spirit of the Labyrinth. I still want Brimaz, but that'll be another day.

Oh, and one of out opponents actually had both a Noble Quarry and a Vortex Elemental in his deck. Apparently they never got the combo to happen, but ohhhh man.

[Sky_rider19]

I went red yesterday and went 3-2-1 going down at the first round of top 8. Had no mythics what-so-ever from all the packs I opened, but at least a majority of them were on color. I was able to get a fairly solid GR aggro deck with Burn spells like a foil anger of the gods and Fated congliation and 2 asp's for main top curve. I have to say that the red dragon was probably one of my favorite cards that I used. When he stuck for a turn and was able to stop blockers I was able to get a lot of damage in. I just wished I could have had a moment when I could attach a gorgon's head I got onto the dragon =P

[tamaness]

I went green, and didn't run my promo. My pool wanted to be a Golgari self-mill (even though I was short by a Gary or two), and I came in 9th (out of 29) with a 4-2 record. Damn tiebreakers.

Also, I punted pretty hard in R3, G2; I had Necrobite in hand, flunged with the team, and meant to deathtouch a particular flying blocker into oblivion so it wouldn't be so hard to remove the rest of the board. Instead, I let combat resolve, and passed the turn.

My other loss was to a super-aggro deck, and I really wanted a Drown in Sorrow against it. Bad matchup, oh well.

[ElFuzzy]

I went on Super Bowl day, 6 prizes 6 people so me going 0-3 didn't matter. Picked blue but ran R/B aggro. Wasn't consistent enough, oh well. Got a few kraken for my sea monsters deck. Then today I traded a forgestoker and the promo blue sphinx for an Akroma's Memorial for mah Myr Deck.

[jkefka]

4-0 on a GR deck, built around instant-speed combat tricks and light removal. Two lightning strikes, two hammer's fall, the buff that gives +2/+0 and first strike, etc. MVP: Hero of Leina Tower.

Best play of the day was when my opponent had one open blocker with three toughness and I had the Hero of Leina Tower and five mana. Hit the Hero with an Ordeal of Purphuros, used the other three mana to put three counters on the hero, attack, get another counter, fire the ordeal, clear the blocker, beat in for five. I was unsure the Hero was going to work out at first but as long as you use it with cheap tricks rather than big bestow spells you can get a lot of value off of her.

[AzureAngel17]

I 2-1-1'd* the first one I played, 1-2-1'd* the second, but my favorite deck of the day was played by the guy that was next to me in our pod. All 3 of his Theros packs had scrylands and his two Born of the Gods packs both had Gild (he even pulled the Gold token in one of the packs). He had the most removal I have ever seen in a sealed deck and just annihilated everybody and went 4-0. It was glorious. He was complaining so much about his pool and then took down the whole event and was just giddy by the end. He reminded me of Graham's "Why Can't I Hold All These Answers?" GIF from Friday Nights.

*(Explanation for the record: in finals both times I was paired with someone with a better record than myself. In the first, my final opponent was 3-0 going into our match, with payouts being 10 packs for 4-0, 4 packs for 3-1, and 1 pack for 2-2, so we played one game, I flattened him, and I conceeded the match. In the second set, my opponent was 2-1 going into our last match, and I was 1-2, so if I won, we each got 1 pack, but if he won, he got four. We played it out, including an epic win from me in game 2 where he had ultimate-d Kiora and swung in with 2 Krakens, then I top-decked a lethal Gary. I was a single attack away from winning game 3 and I conceeded. Lesson here? I am a terrible "dreamcrusher" opponent. I'll give up before destroying the prize payout by winning.)