Born of the Gods Pre-release

Today, as of this writing, I went to a prerelease.

I by no means did incredibly, but I was incredibly excited to see my first prerelease event through until the end. My friends and I were semi-expecting a deserted LGS, as we rolled in to the Sunday Afternoon event. It sort of was. Fifteen people had shown up, unsurprisingly most of them sporting the Destined to Conquer pack that had been hyped the day before. Unfazed, I went to the counter, requested a box of Destined to Dominate, the Black seeded pack, and went to sort out my deck.

Unsurprisingly, my deck was black based. Notable pulls in black include Drown in Sorrow, Pain Seer being the rare in my seeded pack, but ultimately the card that made me crumble in my choice of colours was the pull from the final BNG booster, Phenax, God of Deception. After seeing one of my favorite cards from the spoiled set, I set my mind towards the Dimir end of the spectrum.

This would be an awful move usually as I didn't take much else into account, but in all fairness my pool luckily supported a Dimir deck. Several high toughness creatures in the colours, notably Coastline Chimera and Marshmist Titan were present. Low costing, high toughness creatures like Returned Phalanx were uncommon but strong, and my suite of removal consisted of many counterspells, a few kill spells, and a Griptide, which appeared frequently and dismantled many would-be game finishers into a blank space and many disjointed bestow creatures.

So, sit down. First opponent is playing Golgari. I'm somewhat alarmed by the knowledge he's running Destined to Dominate from his dice, but we shuffle, cut, and deal. These games go off without much resistance unfortunately, as Phenax made his appearance promptly and closed the game out in two or three turns each time. 2-0.

Now, here's where things get awkward. I sit down to my next opponent, playing Mono-green devotion. Cocky and self-assured by my first victories, I mess up with blockers a lot in the first game, which costs me the game. Shout out to Siren of Silent Song for the pure value brought around by green's lack of removal. Second game his stars align, and I get hit for lethal in a turn caused by double Battlemaster with Mischief and Mayhem two turns in a row, the former decimating my poor blockers. 2-2.

My next opponent is a jolly guy running Boros. This game I was feeling anxious about, as everytime I'd seen this guy in action his Forgestoker Dragon was clearing up for the game. These were the more enjoyable games, if only because the guy was laughing and joking all the way through it. Sitting next to my mono-green opponent who was of a similar disposition made it an incredibly enjoyable experience. These games were very close, the games coming to within 1 and 2 life respectively. He kept the pressure up amiably however, and I couldn't best him. 2-4.

My final opponent (due to exceedingly long rounds on some peoples tables, we only had 4 rounds) was running Gruul. The first of the prerelease, despite a few lying around. As popular as they were, I expected more if I'm honest. The guy was rigid conversation to start but loosened up after a bit of small talk, and soon we were laughing. First game went to me, on the back of a voltronned Marshmist Titan which he just couldn't stop from swinging for his face. The second I misplayed very badly, but I still put up a good fight. As we were starting the third game, the time on the round was called. Convinced we couldn't finish the game in five turns, we agreed to draw it there. 3-5 was my ending W/L.

By no means a stellar performance, but for my first draft event I enjoyed it. My friends came up 1 win each, one coming behind me but one of the others, having played fewer games, beat me by percentage win-loss. Notable pulls include Phenax, the Scourge of Skola Vale, and a Temple or two; a Dimir one and a Selesnya one. Needless to say, it left us pumped, and we're planning on heading to the launch weekend. Promokratis here I come!