Fate Reforged Prerelease

[RadioshackRaider]

It's not an Alt art one, but even if it was, I'd never sell it. I want one of those so much. I'm still pretty happy with my normal one since it's the second Planeswakler I've ever pulled in over 4 years of magic. The last place player, who happened to be my last opponent and was the one that traded me the goblin stuff, pulled a Ugin, like the last place player on Friday, and immediately sold it for £15. I feel like that wasn't nearly enough.

[Lord Hosk]

Oh that was a general statement I hadnt read that you pulled a ugin before I wrote that, Congrats though.

[Jenelmo]

I pulled an alt art one traded it for
3 windswept heath ( 2 normal, 1 Foil)
1 Poluted Delta
3 Dig through Time
1 Seige Rhino
1 Thoughtseize

[RadioshackRaider]

Oh, sorry. Still, I feel like anybody who got one would probably want to keep it. It seems stupid that a Tron deck can go turn 3 Karn turn 4 Ugin. I want to play him in something, but since I'm not going to have a Narset commander deck much longe3r since I got a Shu Yun promo and Narset is just unfair. Also, my locals didn't have enough khans to draft, to the point that they owe all of the 6 people who went to FNM, myself included, a khans pack or 2, so we drafted 2 Fate and a khans. It was kinda disgustingly funny. If it was triple Fate, I feel drafting 5 colour dragons could be a thing. There's so much fixing. I'm looking forward to a regular draft with Fate. manifest plus morph will be funny.

[Jenelmo]

You are actually not allowed to draft Fate Reforged at prerelease the store can get in a lot of trouble

[RadioshackRaider]

Not even with your prizes? Huh, didn't know that. Oh well.

[Jenelmo]

Wizard changes the rules a few years back, but in some ways it is a very grey area concerning if the store is responsible, but if wizards believe that the store was organizing drafts of a set before it was released they could get a penalty of a period where they wouldn't get magic products or could sanction events.
The grey area is about when is a store responsible, is it enough that it is on their premises or does it take more involvement from the store. I have not found a clear line, and because of the risk more store is better safe than sorry

[RadioshackRaider]

They didn't organize it. There were six players for FNM, and it turned out that we'd all be doing all 3 pre-releases. We decided that we'd all keep our prize packs so on Sunday we could draft. The owner did allow us to open the remaining pre-release packs for prizes, so that's how we got the khans for the draft. That's as far as store involvement goes because nobody who works at the store actually plays Magic. Huh. Odd really. I get the no selling packs part, but the no drafts is slightly odd. Fair enough though.

[korvys]

Are the Ugin's fate boosters going to be available after the pre-release? If not, then there will never be a way to get another alt-Ugin. Sure, there's a bunch out there now, maybe more than there are of the normal one, but soon people will be opening boxes of FRF boosters, and new regular Ugins will be available, but not alt-Ugins.

[Lord Hosk]

The Ugins fate boosters will not be available later, Im just taking what I heard "1 in 300 packs has a ugin" to "1 in 40 packs has a ugin" and the price drop on Ebay for Buy it nows from 130 on saturday to bidding being in the 70s today. There is even a set of 4 up for auction right now with a high bid of 112 with a couple hours left.

[korvys]

Oh yeah, they were way over priced. But by this point, everyone has figured that out. With no more supply, they should only go up. Unless Ugin doesn't get played, in which case the demand will continue to drop until it's only Commander players.

[Duckay]

You totally can draft with your prizes, there's no way that Wizards can stop you from doing that. The thing is that the store is not allowed to sanction a draft, sell you product for it, or use product that was designated for a sealed event or prizes to run one. Once you have your prizes in hand, you can crack them, throw them away, give them to a friend, or draft with them if you want to.

[Lord Hosk]

Quick set up to my post.

a few years ago there was a strong rivalry between stores in Grand Rapids, there were two factions each trying to put the other group of stores out of business. They have sense come to terms and each store hits a nitch of MTG and has their own stuff, Comics, Disk Golf, Table top...

But when they were still mad at each other and fighting DCI investigated and warned a few stores about selling of prize packs on their premises. IE: Hey I just won 15 packs anyone give me $50 for them?

DCI explained that by giving packs to people they knew were going to sell them they were "sanctioning the sale of product before release" No store got in trouble per say just a warning.

so now all sales of packs have to be done outside the store. and they dont want you to talk too loudly about it.

[Atifexe]

So I had a fun prerelease, although my record was not fantastic - merely 2-3.

I picked Temur, opened some fantastic cards (rares were Dromoka, Kolagath, Duneblast, Dragonscale General, Yasova, Palace Siege). I wound up building a Temur-colour morph and manifest deck with a strong dragon subtheme, splashing white for the Dragonscale General and Dromoka.

First round, I played against Cam. He was a fantastic sport, and his deck just didn't give him what he needed to deal with my onslaught. Game two was particularly unfair for him when I turn three dropped Cloudform and turn four flipped it on attack to reveal an Alpine Grizzly. 4/2 flying hexproof, later buffed to 6/4 which he finally got rid of by sacrificing his blue/white legendary dragon. Unfortunately, he lost almost immediately thereafter due to playing a spell on my upkeep that he should have played at the end of his turn, allowing me to flip my Snowhorn Rider in response to the two damage when he had no blockers on the board. Aftewards, I was informed that if I hadn't topdecked one of the Gain 1 duals, I would have been dead to Arrow Storm. I felt kind of bad, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel elated that I had played against and then defeated someone I respect as much as I do him.

The next four rounds are kind of a blur. I wound up matched against Temur multiple times, but kind of fizzled more often than not with what felt like an unreasonable rate of flood outs and complete droughts. I do remember that my first game in round two came down to my opponent using Temur Sabertooth to bounce and replay their Bear's Companion. I used Reality Shift on the Sabertooth only to have them manifest Flamerush Rider, all while I was stuck on three lands. I also managed to win one game (in round five, I think?) with the aid of a commandeered Dragonscale General, stolen with Yasova's ability. Yasova wound up with three counters before the Dragonscale General went home., allowing me to play some removal and steal my opponent's only remaining blocker on my next turn. My own copy of the General didn't see play in any meaningful way (I think it got played on the very last turn of one game). Similarly, Dromoka never hit the table, and the only dragons of mine that did any work were my pair of Lightning Shriekers, who sent one opponent on a momentary tilt when he thought I'd topdecked one after shuffling it back. Nope, just two in hand.

Over all, it was a lot of fun! I do hope that I can improve and do better in the future; I want to be able to repeat my incredible 4-1 performance from the M15 prerelease. I suppose, though, you can literally only play with the cards you draw, so if luck's not on your side, no amount of skillful play can save you.

Some final notes: Lightning Shrieker is a lava axe that sometimes accidentally hits creatures, but has the bonus of restocking itself. Dragonscale General looks good in a deck that attacks a lot, but is probably far far more at home in an Outlast deck. Cloudform is not fair. Do not underestimate the Runemarks.

[Zyme]

Went with an abzan best clan option and won. I only lost two games the whole night. My packs were really nice to me, nothing crazy good but solid all around.
6 removal, 2 tricks, 15 creature, 17 land
-Sandsteppe Citadel
-Blossoming Sands
-Scowered Barrens
-5W/4Bl/5G
-2 Cheif of scale
-2 Hunt the Weak
-Gurmag Angler
-Abzan Falconer
-Destructor Dragon
-Feat of resistance
-2 Sandsteppe Outcast
-Kill Shot
-Ruthless Instincts
-Dead Drop
-Foil promo Warden of the first tree
-Become Immense
-Parapet
-Ab Guide
-Nox Dragon
-Ainok Guide
-Disowned Ancestor
-Ab Charm
-Mer-Ek Nightblade
-Battlefront Krushok

[Clypheous]

I took the Abzan clan box, but had to run Jeskai as the only colors that actually had playables were Blue and White. I suppose I could have run the 5 decent cards from the seeded pack, my good White cards and then just filled the rest up with garbage, but that would have been something like 6-8 pretty bad cards to make up for 5 pretty good cards. Maybe that was worth the trade, I don't know. I will probably look at my pool again later and figure out that I could have done way better if I had done something else, but at the time, it seemed like my only good option.

[Linketh]

I played Abzan. My promo card was Dromoka, The Eternal. Unfortunately, Dromoka was one of the two rares that I could play. However, the other one was end hostilities. Despite this lack of rares, the deck was pretty solid (in my opinion) and I went 3-2. Dromoka was a huge bomb, and won me 3 of the 4 games that I played her. I was lucky enough to pull the alt art Ugin, so that was great. The event was very fun.

[Antitonic]

So this is way overdue...

Anyway, finally got Windows behaving properly, and it's trip report time. The decklists are what I used, and the sideboard is everything else I pulled from the pack. The rewards are listed as "Deck = What was in the prize boosters, Sideboard = Ugin's Fate Booster". Collapsing for convenience.

Round 1 - Sultai - Click to Expand

*Deck and Sideboard List: http://deckbox.org/sets/879861
*Rewards: http://deckbox.org/sets/879862

*Promo Card: Silumgar, The Drifting Death

It may have been because I wasn't fully intending to even play Sultai, or it may have been because this was the Friday midnight event after I'd just done a full day a work, but this was essentially a total washout going 0-3 in all.
*Round 1 I was up agaist a Mardu deck that didn't really have enough speed to work how I was expecting it to, but it still killed me in the end. I didn't really pull any gas until the third game which was just for fun. 0-2.
*Round 2 brought a Jeskai deck that just crushed me. 6 turns and it was done in both. "Luckily" my opponent had to leave after the two matches so I got to spend the other 30 plus minutes watching others play. 0-2.
*Round 3 was against another Mardu deck that had some real trouble in drawing. Nearly timed out for game 3, but it managed to get there. 1-2.

*Observations: Torrent Elemental is a machine when it gets going, and Hooded Assassins do a lot of work.
*Foils: Sage-Eye Avengers, Smoke Teller

Round 2 - Temur - Click to Expand

*Deck and Sideboard List: http://deckbox.org/sets/879866
*Rewards: http://deckbox.org/sets/879867

*Promo Card: Shamanic Revelation

First, a public service announcement. Going with potentially 3 hours maximum sleep between card games is probably not an efficient way to study the effects of said cards. Note I said "maximum". If I got 45 minutes, I'd be lucky. So under some serious sleep deprivation I dragged myself out for the first double-header.
*Round 1 I faced a Jeskai deck that from my point of view never really got to do the things it wanted to, but still had no problem beating my face in when I missed a couple critical drops. 0-2.
*Round 2 was a Sultai deck that was quite efficient at shutting my bigger stuff down most of the time, but had some trouble keeping a steady board state. 1-2.
*Round 3 was a Mardu deck with a kid about 10 or so, so he was quite inexperienced. I essentially played both sides of this game. What's important is what happened afterwards. During the round, our prizes were dropped off, and the kid cracked Ugin from the boosters. He was a little too loud about it, because there was one guy who was really leaning on him to trade it. The kid's father got quite upset. 2-0.
*Round 4 I really had no business winning, but I was against the kid's father from the previous round. He had an Abzan deck that struggled in the midgame, but he was fairly distracted with chsing the trader down to reverse the trade. On the bright side, that was all resolved, but it cost him the games due to concentration loss. He made some critical errors that I'm sure he only made because he was distracted. I mean, I was dead on board for like 5 turns in game 1. 2-0.

*Observations: Goblin Heelcutter is rather on the unfair side of things. Outpost Siege is interesting, but I think I made a misstep in running two of them.
*Foils: Collateral Damage

Round 3 - Abzan - Click to Expand

*Deck and Sideboard List: http://deckbox.org/sets/879868
*Rewards: http://deckbox.org/sets/879869

*Promo Card: Rally The Ancestors

This is what I considered the "first main event", mostly because I was always undecided between Abzan and Mardu what I was going to play. Then it turned out I could play everything, so that made it easier.
*Round 1 I was up against an opponent who barely interacted with me all round, preferring to talk to his friends instead; mainly about how he was going to leave after this round because they wouldn't let him leave after just getting the cards. What makes it worse is that both games ended in about 4 minutes into the round. All I could work out about his deck is that he played everything but green, and it was designed to stomp maximum face. 0-2.
*Round 2 was an Abzan deck that made some clever usage of the bolster mechanic, but did little else. It's all well and good to have a superstrong 1-drop, but not as good when it keeps getting disabled. 2-0.
*Round 3 I was up against a really quick Jeskai deck, but it had no strength to it. First game, sure it managed to get there when I was starving for land, but game 2 drew out so long, because I couldn't get past his big butts but neither could he. Game 3 lasted for 5ish seconds before timeout. 1-1-1.
*Round 4 brought a Temur deck that really seemed to live up to the clan image. Big dudes, and relatively quick at that. The lack of sleep was hitting me hard at this point, but that's not much of an excuse. I made quite a few misplays, that in hindsight were easy pickups. 0-2

*Observations: I'm really looking forward to see how much bolster-fun I can get out of drafting. Hopefully it's a lot.
*Foils: Yasova Dragonclaw, Alesha's Vanguard

Round 4 - Jeskai - Click to Expand

*Deck and Sideboard List: http://deckbox.org/sets/879871
*Rewards: http://deckbox.org/sets/879873

*Promo Card: Mastery of the Unseen

Amazing what a good, solid rest will do for a body. Sleep; it's better than not-sleep. A bit of foresight on the Friday event meant I could actually collect this set, otherwise they were VERY out of stock. I think the store ran out of Jeskai packs on Saturday morning, and Mardu packs on Sunday morning, so that was lucky.
*Round 1 brought a Sultai deck that was great at eating clock, but not for getting in for much. Game 1 drew out way longer than it needed to while the opponent decided to think about every step. Like, if his end step was over yet. I should've called for a judge, but it's more just for fun, and I'm not that way inclined. Game 2 I won due to self-milling. Game 3 I had him dead a few times but some lucky draws and more slow play kept it going until round over. 1-1-1.
*Round 2 was a Temur deck that struggled to get a lot of power out on the board, or even much of a board state at that. Plenty of 2-for-1's from the opponent though. Didn't really help. 2-0.
*Round 3 was a better version of the Round 2 deck, insofar as there was actually a fight most times. I can see why Jeskai ran out if everyone wanted to run with such reckless abandon over opponents' heads. 2-1.
*Round 4 seemed to bring up my limit as far as my current skill goes. It was essentially the mirror match, but quicker. Lots of clever tricks that I hadn't thought of, even though I had basically the same cards. It just never occured to me to use them in the same combinations. Ah well, live and learn, eh? 0-2.

*Observations: I have a hard time seeing anyone who'd pick Khans for Palace Siege, although I'm sure there's someone.
*Foils: Hooded Assassin, Humble Defector

Round 5 - Mardu - Click to Expand

*Deck and Sideboard List: http://deckbox.org/sets/879874
*Rewards: http://deckbox.org/sets/879875

*Promo Card: Arcbond

This is what I considered my "main event", my 5 snowflake contender if you will. Either the pool wasn't kind to me, or I just wasn't seeing the plays in the cards I had. This was also a bit of a nail-biter as the owner had to step out during the handout of the product for some reason, and my Mardu pack got given out to someone else. I feel confident in saying "my" pack, as I had pre-registered for it, but I had the misfortune of being placed at the back of the store. So somewhere there's a photo of everyone holding up their packs, and me with a handwritten sign "NO PACK HERE". Which I'm sure is great for the store's Facebook page.
*Round 1 I faced the mirror match straight off, except for the rares. Whereas I had pulled Tasigur, he had gotten Alesha, so you can imagine how things went. 0-2.
*Round 2 was another Mardu deck. The difference this time was that the opponent essentially didn't play. He got flooded in game 1, and screwed in game 2. I hate winning like that, it just doesn't feel good. We played a 3rd game "for fun", but even with decent land draws, there was no strength. I looked at the opponents' pool after the fact and helped him assemble a decent Abzan deck that I'm told got him from 0-4 overall to 4-5, which I'm sure was all my expert advice, and not at all being matched with equal scoring opponents. 2-0.
*Round 3 brought an Abzan deck that was also splashing blue, which I though was odd. Then we played, and the horrible plan unfurled. There were enough blue tricks that kept my board state 2-3 turns behind, and there was very little opportunity for any comebacks. 1-2.
*Round 4 was another Abzan deck. Coincidentally, my opponent was the only other person who had done all 5 events, but I had never played. The deck itself had some trouble getting uphill, but that's the thing about gravity on a hill. I dominated the early game, but if it went long enough, I couldn't jam on the gas for the B-Side. Sprints vs. marathons, etc., etc. 1-2

*Observations: When a card says "hexproof", that's the sign to launch combat tricks at it, yeah? Thought so, I managed it like 3 times in round 4.
*Foils: Frontier Mastodon, Mindscour Dragon

OVERALL SCORE: 18-25-2 - 6-11-2

FINAL THOUGHTS: Lack of sleep doesn't agree with me. The "blue style" of playing has gone up in my eyes, but it'll be hard to shift white off my preferred column, and green has a spot just below that. So blue is at least solidly in 4th spot, at least.

Fun fact: The store I was at offered an "Ugin's Fate" booster raffle, where you could swap an unopened booster with another player if you wanted. I figured I wasn't going to get anything anyway, so I did for the Jeskai pack booster. Guess which one opened the alt-Ugin?

Also, after the Temur pack rounds, a guy opened the 4 boosters he got from playing. 3 Ugins and a Monastery Mentor. He took everyone else's Ugins, especially mine!

[korvys]

An update for those interested: The Alt-Ugin dropped to under $100 after the pre-release, but is now back up to $180. Looks like there are enough decks to keep the value up, and no more supply of the Alt one to drop the value back down.

I don't play a lot of paper Magic at the moment, so I'll probably just take mine in an trade it at the Dragons pre-release.