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It's that time of year again. Gather 'round one and all, and share up your pre-re war stories.

So on the back of a... let's just say "sub-optimal" SoI pre-release experience, I decided to play it a little safe and just sign up for the single event this time around. Also, these days I generally have some more... interesting ways to spend my weekends >_>

From the outset, having seen the set spoilers (though sadly having missed LRR's pre-pre event [memo to self, watch that at some point]), I was really looking forward to playing the black "fabricate shenanigans" deck. My pool didn't exactly /fully/ support that plan, so there was some degree of forcing it, but I think I ended up with a solid deck regardless. At the very least, I never felt like I was actively shooting myself in the foot by neglecting the other colours. My RG list did make a very compelling case to sidle into the energy and big stuff deck (exactly the type of deck I really love to play), but I just had to go with my heart.

RESULTS:
0-1-2 (dropped out after r3)

About as good as I could typically hope for, really - but the thing is, I was having a fantastic time playing this set regardless of result. The loss was a fair match all the way through, just an unfortunate case of not having answers when needed vs. an opponent who had a very powerful deck and was able to get the most out of it. The draws were both to timeout - one somewhat new player who needed the slow play to weigh up their options each turn (nothing wrong with that, we were all noobs once ^_^ ) and the other against a more confident opponent who was in a slow, durdle-y WU control type deck.

THE DECK:
As I mentioned, I built into the black fabricate deck, with a few other white dudes / spells to compliment it, as well as a vehicle or two (ultimately for lack of a "true" top end, oops : p). I didn't get a heck of a lot of rares to support that build (they were really pushing that green), but I did manage to pull both an Animation Module and Inventors' Fair, which were quiet achievers for the games they made an appearance in. Other notable faces include Aetherborn Marauder, Aerial Responder, and Ballista Charger, each putting in various amounts of work.

THE PULLS:


So all in all, a pretty great day out. So how'd your event(s) go?

In a continuation of my being-entirely-average-at-Magic, I went 2-1-2. Played G/W, much as it pained me to not be playing Blue, it just wasn't there. My deck was a lot of fun though: Angel of Invention, Oviya Pashiri, Whirlermaker and a lot of fabricate for going ridiculously wide (unfortunately Fumigate is a thing...). And Electrostatic Pummeler + Larger than Life for going ridiculously big.

Final match I got wrecked by a Sword of Fire & Ice, which doesn't happen every day.

I went 2-3 after a sleepless night and all my opponents playing green and having bombs (2 greenhulks, 2 fumigates and Chandra come to mind), which I think is an alright achievement. I could have gone 3-2 instead, but drew 4 lands in a row instead of any of the 9 removal spells my deck had. I was playing BW splashing red for my new friend Chandra (which was in the first booster I opened. Other notable pulls are the black Gearhulk (which I drew twice in the entire day, but one of those times it won me the game) and the BG land. Here is my deck:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kld-prerelease-250916/

Also, a bad beats story: on round 1 game 1 I cast Chandra on turn 4 and proceed to clug the board with creatures and servos, slowly ticking her up with the +1 (which mostly exiled lands). I was at 26 and my opponent was at 2. My opponent then cast Fumigate, gained 12 life and cast a haste creature to kill Chandra. He later won the game after I drew mostly land.

Couldn't make it to a normal prerelease, but was able to attend a 2HG event. It was a fun experience, but the single game matches left a sour taste in my mouth. Ended up 2-3 with losses due to a nasty combination of mana problems on my end and bonkers pools and draws from opponents, which was rather disappointing.

Side note: being an aggro deck and casting a 2-drop on turn two ONCE is pretty garbo

I went to two Pre-release events on Saturday. Finally a legitimate excuse to wear my Chandra goggles from Pax East Picked up a Botanical Sanctum and Key to the City for my promos.

Went 3-1 in the first event. Pulled an Animation Module, foil Eliminate the Competition and Kambal and built an aggressive BW deck with lots of Fabricate and artifact synergy. It was a lot of fun to play Lost to the event winner with his multiple unlicensed disintegrations, incendiary sabotages, and Metallurgic summoning to get them all back. Highly recommend Eliminate the Competition. With all the servo generation, it's absolutely disgusting. Subtle Strike which I mainly included for synergy with Animation module proved to have a second use of killing servo tokens that people tried to sell me with Shrewd Negotiation, fizzling the exchange.

Went 1-2 drop in the second event. Really mediocre pool with a few powerful cards but none in shared colors. Wound up building a sort of slow BUG deck with Rashmi. Got beat down in match 1 by Voltaic Brawler into Skyship stalker two games in a row, won round 2 against UW fliers, and lost round 3 to turn 1 Thriving turtle into Smuggler's copter in games 1 and 3.

Rounds were really slow as always, but this time I remembered my DS and got a bunch of Bravely Second in between rounds

Overall really liking the set, though run into the same issue I always do with sealed, where I love it when I get a good pool and think it's the worst when I don't Somewhat disappointed I didn't get any of the rares I'm looking for for my standard deck, but hopefully my booster box will reward me there.

I did ok, but I'm not very happy overall with how I did. Over 5 prereleases I was 10-8-2. The first event I built a sweet green white energy agro deck. IT was super aggressive, made very efficient use of energy, and was a lot of fun to play. Didn't have any huge bombs in the pool but I did have a Multiform Wonder, and Oviyla who put in good work. Ended up 3-0-1, drew with my final opponent so we could go get lunch.

Next 2 events of Saturday I ended up 2-2, and 1-2-1, my pools were not great, but I opened the blue and green gearhulks, and the sky sovereign in my first pool, and the blue and white gear hulks in my second pool, so the value made up for my middling performance.

Sunday though is were I felt really let down. I went 2-2 in both events, but I feel both decks were better then that. The first was a red-white dwarf/vehicle deck with Depala, a few Arial Responders, 3 impecible timings and 2 welding sparks, and reasonable vehicles. When my mana worked, that deck wrecked peoples face. I beat a guy who had 2 Combustible Gearhulks. Of the 4 games I lost though, 1 was because I flooded out, and 2 were because of mana screw. I don't mind losing the odd game to it hear and there, but getting stuck on 2 or 3 land, or drawing 7 land in a row, feels so so bad (as you all know). The time I got stuck on three land wouldn't have even been 2 bad, but it was 2 mountains and a plains, had it been the other way around, I could have played my Arial responders and stabalized until the mana started to come.

My second deck was a similar story. Green black, great synergies, had the demon, the hydra, and Cultivator of blades. Little light on removal, but other then that I was really happy with it. Ended up with a round 1 bye, round 2 I crushed my opponent game 1, then flooded out, then flooded out again. Flooded out game 2 against my second opponent, after getting basically locked out of game 1 by Turn 1 Authority of the Consuls. I then ended my weekend with a good match that I ended up winning.

I'm not generally one to get upset when I lose at magic, and I enjoyed many of the games I had this weekend, I'm not sure if my bad feelings are because of how many mana problems I had, or because my early success set my expectations too high.

Went to the morning prerelease event at YJ, hoping to run into some LRR folks, but apparently they went to the afternoon one. =P I had a bizarre pool from the start, by which I mean there wasn't a promo card in my pack when I opened it. I called a judge and they took the pack up to the front, then returned shortly with the same pack plus a promo taken from another pack. I was a wee bit disappointed to see it was an AEthersquall Ancient, but I wouldn't have been if I had known how effective it would be in creating a memorable play.

I wound up playing green/blue, with my cards split pretty evenly between the two colours. I only opened two vehicles, but wound up running both of them, along with a Torrential Gearhulk, my promo AEthersquall Ancient, and a Bristling Hydra. My games tended to go one of two ways - the grindiest of grindfests, ending only when someone stopped drawing gas, or one-sided, blink and you missed it blowouts. Unexpected overperformers were Ovalchase Dragster (which was crewed by a snake, a hydra, a rhino, or an elephant more often than anything with hands) and Fairgrounds Trumpeter.

I also ran Shrewd Negotiation, a card that I would not have even considered if not for seeing it at the PrePrerelease. In one game it allowed me to trade my malfunctioning Narnam Cobra for a Master Trinketeer - only to have my opponent play a Verduous Gearhulk the next turn. In another, I negotiated the exchange of my Filigree Familiar for their AEthertorch Renegade after I had had my AEthersquall Ancient in play for a turn. I'm not sure my opponent realized what was happening until after I hit them for 6 in the air and finished them off by activating the Renegade. In retrospect, both my opponent and I misread the activation cost of Renegade, with both of us paying only 6 energy instead of 8 that game. Either way, the results would have been the same.

I finished 2-1-2, which netted me three packs. Nothing fancy there, but I did get both a Fabrication Module and a Decoction Module, putting me one component away from the machine I really want to build. I was also able to purchase one of the Planeswalker decks for a side event, though there weren't enough people into that to get any games in and I was super glad that the packs that came with it weren't part of my prerelease pool.

Final impressions: Kaladesh sealed feels like my preferred brand of Magic, where come from behind victories are entirely possible and the games trend towards slow build ups and splashy plays.

Three events, records were 2-0-ID, 2-1, 2-0-ID. Prizes were based on record, so I ended up IDing whenever possible. It makes the last match much more fun for me to play, as I find it significantly less stressful. And there's no real guilt thanks to standings not affecting anything. Though both IDs ended up being unplayed. Once for food and the other to go home, given it was well past midnight.

Promos were Deadlock Trap (Booo), Wildest Dreams (At least it's pretty), and Skysovereign (!). Only notable rare was the G/B fastland really. For prizes I got 12 packs total. I used the credit from the packs, as well as trading in the fastland and another card, to pick up the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide for D&D. So overall a pretty good weekend. Just would have preferred two normal sealed and one 2HG myself, but that wasn't really possible.

Went 2-1 with GW Fabricate stuff. Best open from pool and packs was Angel of Invention (which I am not impressed with in the slightest), and managed to get both a promo and non-promo Metalwork Colossus, neither of which I managed to cast all night. Didn't open any of the things I'd hoped to (Aetherworks Marvel, UR fastland, any Masterpiece to make up for the fact that I never opened an Expedition), but got to draft my Cube for the first time before the prerelease, so all in all a decent night.

I don't know how much I like this set. I went 1-0-2, with GW playable stuff. No synergy at all. Promo was Aetherstorm Roc, but since I didn't have many energy cards, I couldn't use its ability much. I also had a Multiform Wonder. It held the board for me, but I just found myself wishing I had Riparian Tiger instead.

The biggest thing was that the games were so slow. There are so many micro decisions, with spending energy or crewing vehicles, and it took so much more time to get through a game. I'm gonna head to some drafts to see if my opinion changes, but I can easily see myself just skipping FNM until the next set.

MTGO pre-releases are out which means it's my turn to post here:

I went with a red green (splashing Whirler Virtuoso) heavy energy build that pumped out 10 thopters an 2 6/6 beast tokens in 1 turn (and did it in a couple games)...anyway after getting utterly crushed in round 1 by U/W fliers leaving me w/ a vary meh feeling about the deck I bounced back to go 4-1....overall had some fun when the deck went off and even more when 1 of my opponents managed to create "infinities" Thopters using the engine he stole from me and coping it a few times (and no I didn't win that game).