Return to Ravnica Prere experiences.

[Zanko-kun]

Saturday was horrible for me. I got some pretty decent cards as well as a Worldspine Wurm for my mono-green ramp-up/stomp-down deck. 3nodding

Sunday was a better day. Played Golgari. Green/Black with a splash of Red. Lost my first game to Rakdos but only because he topped drew the right card. As well as my last game, I lost as I got mana screwed. All and all I came out 2-2 3nodding

[Cute Things In Jars]

Nova Vess

I didn't do so well playing Izzet but I did pull two Nivs :3

ya, I noticed while making my deck that Izzet was leaning towards either too stompy or too squishy. I Decided to mix the Spell slinging aspect of Izzet with the Rakdos burns and stompy creatures...while I had little to no defense, I was dishing out amazing damage.

[Bearorist]

56 people, went 4-2, edged into the top eight, came in second (losing my third game to mana flood vs. Rakdos aggro.)

I played an aggressive Azorious deck, splashing red with a great mana base (2 Azorious guild gates, two izzet guildgates, and a steam vents, and a trnasguild promenade, and an Azorious keyrune)' enough so that 7 times in the night I got to overload a mizzium mortars.

Some notes:

That punisher 6/6 demon for four blows hard, but everyone else seemed to think it was good. I detained it pretty much every turn I saw it.

Vraska did nothing against me. They ticked it up, and I killed them while their tokens sat uselessly. Next game she was a 5 mana creature d, with two life riding on it. Her real problem is that her +1 does nothing, and she only gets her -3 off once. That, and her ultimate doesn't provide much pressure by the time you get it.

Rakdos, lord of riots was similarly overrated, and never really did anything to me.

Lobbed crew was surprisingly effective against me, and others (the first place guy ran 3.)

Azorious arresters awesome (I ran three)

Red in general is almost all good stuff. Definitely my vote for best limited color in the set, followed closely by black.

Detain is removal in limited. Many games at my prere saw 10+ detainings.

Izzet is underwhelming. Or top 8 had two of each guild, except izzet, with the highest ranking izzet player getting 11th.

The set, however, is very balanced for the guilds. Azorious and selesnya seem a little powerful, but really only because of the way they win (tempo control and inevitability). Ot only was our top eight varied, but our top four was every guild but izzet as well.

[m00tz]

Designer Genes

Detain is removal in limited. Many games at my prere saw 10+ detainings.

It is not removal.

[VVhy Naut]

Went 4-1 with Izzet and took 15th out of 100+ people. It was a lot of fun. I had a Nivmagus Elemental and a Niv-Mizzet, plus some hardcore Rakdos beaters, like Rakdos Cackler, Shred-Freak, and Splatter Thug. It was fun. My matches had unimpressive starts and then exploded to do 5-10 damage for the win with Explosive Impact or Teleportal. Awesome. Love Izzet, but I think it's probably the weakest guild in sealed.

[Willexia Rennar]

m00tz

Designer Genes

Detain is removal in limited. Many games at my prere saw 10+ detainings.

It is not removal.

True, it's more of a "temporarily get out of the way."

[Albern Puppy]

From the other thread that discussed this:

While they did two sealed drafts at my cardshop, I was only able to compete in the second one. Talking to the players that competed in the first, it sounded like Azorius or Selesnya were the two best choices to make. Detain was that good, especially since it was sealed instead of a draft.

During the second event, I went with Rakdos. And, well, I have to say that B/R wasn't good in a sealed enviroment. Out of all six packs, I only wound up with two kill spells in the 3cc- range, Annihalating Fire and Ultimate Price(echnically I also had Mizzium Mortas, but I played it more for its overcharge cost). I generally had to rely on 2 copies of Launch Party and pray my opponent had no good answers to it.

Assements of individual cards I play with/against:

Desecration Demon: Every person who pulled this card made sure to splice it in to their deck. It is a bomb in its finest form and an immediately first pick no matter what color choice you have.

Mind Rot: I was actually surprised as how strong this card was in this format. Even in a heavy aggro-themed deck, my 2x copies of this made sure I wasn't dealing with as many combat tricks as I should have,

Thrill-Kill Assassin: This was my personal MVP. I only had one copy, but it did a lot for me. I always played it unleased as the three defense was more inportant than the deathtouch.

Lobber Crew: Another 2x in my deck, I never got as much as of these as I could as I had very few multi-colored creatures in my deck. Don't bother with this card unless you can get it to untap itself.

Civic Saber: Another card that every deck, that had it, played.

Viashimo Racketeer: I honestly wish I had more of this card. Anyone playing red should pick this card up as early as possible.

Axebane Guardian: Every player in green seemed to put this card in their deck, yet I only ever saw one tap for mana once in all my games.

Keyrunes: The only time I ever saw a keyrune get activated was the Azorius Keyrune. Out of the five, it was the best.

[VeeRuh]

Played Golgari.
Won 2, Lost 2.
Strangely, I lost my first fight, won my second fight, lost my 3rd and won my 4th.
The guy I beat would have won packs if he beat me, so I felt like an a**, but I had fun >>

Then I played another, Green/White box, Sencia or whatever, and it changed into a Blue/White/Green instead. Which I 3/1'd with pretty easily.. but I found it insanely boring.
So at the end of the day, I'll be playing Golgari in Standard, because it was fun, and that's
all I care about, is having fun lol.

My zombies will probably get stomped by populate decks, but I haven't had fun playing a deck in years, and Golgari is that deck o:

[Willexia Rennar]

After my experiences at the pre-release, I find myself liking the detain mechanic, particularly Archon of the Triumvirate's triggering of it on attack rather than ETB.

Its 7 CMC, however, leaves me a bit concerned...is something that pricey viable even with some mana ramp?

[Emrakul]

Willexia Rennar

After my experiences at the pre-release, I find myself liking the detain mechanic, particularly Archon of the Triumvirate's triggering of it on attack rather than ETB.

Its 7 CMC, however, leaves me a bit concerned...is something that pricey viable even with some mana ramp?

In sealed it won most matches for me, but I had a ton of ways to slow the game down so results may vary.

[Willexia Rennar]

True, so did I; crapton of detain effects, Paralyzing Grasp, Sphere of Safety (which became a bit of a focal point for my deck given how many Enchantments I wound up with)...probably the main reason I was able to hold on long enough to get it out.

I'm more curious about how viable it'll be outside of sealed. Only things in WU Standard I can think of for mana ramping are Azorius Keyrune and Deranged Assistant.

[Emrakul]

Willexia Rennar

True, so did I; crapton of detain effects, Paralyzing Grasp, Sphere of Safety (which became a bit of a focal point for my deck given how many Enchantments I wound up with)...probably the main reason I was able to hold on long enough to get it out.

I'm more curious about how viable it'll be outside of sealed. Only things in WU Standard I can think of for mana ramping are Azorius Keyrune and Deranged Assistant.

It maybe more of a bant shell and your 7 of choice would be the 5/6 angel to exile opposing dudes or buy back thragtusks ect.

[Bearorist]

m00tz

Designer Genes

Detain is removal in limited. Many games at my prere saw 10+ detainings.

It is not removal.

It isn't in constructed, but it really plays like it in a set so skimpy on common removal. And it has enough low rarity cards to really put a creature out of commission.

@Desecration Demon: Why is it that every punisher card is vastly overrated? At best Desecration is an under costed flier that can be better than chump blocked by any creature. Even tapped ones. He is like Vexing Devil, except he synergies even more poorly in his color.

[Emrakul]

Yea demons real poor. It does play nicely with mutilate but there are few too many tokens/creatures with undying/value creatures for the demon to ever connect with any creatures on board.

[Dark Hunter Akala]

42 players, got in the top 8. Played Izzet, the promo dragon was amazing, and Overload saved me a couple of times. Overall I was happy, I'm excited to draft this weekend.