Worldwake Prerelease Report
As planned, I hit Worldwake prerelease events this past Saturday and Sunday here in Lincoln. Saturday was at HobbyTown and Sunday was at Comic World. How'd I do? Read on...
Saturday - HobbyTown
I went 4-3, which isn't so bad. I played a white-blue + splash red deck with a bunch of allies. I had 2 Hada Freeblade, 1 Talus Paladin, 1 Makindi Shieldmate, 1 Umara Raptor, 1 Halimar Excavator, 1 Highland Berserker and 1 Akoum Battlesinger for a total of 8 allies. That's pretty crazy for a sealed pool. Obviously, I didn't destroy all my opponents but those ally triggers can get really nutty. I also had 2 Sejiri Merfolk, which were just awesome in blue-white. Between them and Talus Paladin, lifegain was very relevent for me. I even managed to mill a dude to death one game, thanks to Halimar Excavator. Never milled anyone before!
The three matches that I lost, I don't think I stood much of a chance. Two losses were against black-red, which are just great colors to play in this format. One loss was against black-blue, and I could have played better that time. He had a Kalitas that was very hard for me to get around. Ah well, losing keeps me humble. We have a strong playerbase around here and I'm nowhere near even the top half.
My last match of the day, my opponent had a crazy pool, I just have to mention it: Day of Judgment, Novablast Wurm, Basilisk Collar, Oracle of Mul Daya, Vampire Nighthawk and I don't even know what else. I managed to win, but, just wow. My last play of the day was bouncing that Novablast Wurm back to her hand and then attacking for lethal. Felt pretty good!
Sunday - Comic World
I went 3-1 and made top 4. Unfortunately, due to time and everybody sort of shifting into "I really need to get home" mode, we just skipped doing a final 4 and divvied up the prizes. This was disappointing, because it's very exciting to play in the championship rounds but I understand that people needed to get back home at that point. Indeed, I myself needed to get home; my wife was incredibly gracious to let me play Magic literally all weekend long. Overall it was a blast and I was happy with the turnout. I hope Comic World continues to attract more players as I like having some additional options for playing in town.
My deck for Comic World was white-black, a bit heavier on white. I had to play black because I had good removal: Hideous End, Disfigure, 2 Tomb Hex and Brink of Disaster (though Brink wasn't too relevent, now that I think about it). In white I had a bunch of dudes, a couple fliers, yadda yadda, but my bombs were Conqueror's Pledge and Eldrazi Monument. The combo there is obvious, but I only got it off a couple times. In my final match, in game 1, I was on the ropes at 2 life and then went Pledge, Monument and won. He was red, so any little burn spell would have wrecked me. Then in game 2 I got the Pledge and Monument again. It feels funny (I almost feel guilty!) to just smash a dude with a bomb like that, but hey, I was on the wrong side of that Kalitas on Saturday. That's limited for you!
So, on the whole, I think the new set is pretty fun. It adds a lot to Zendikar. For example, I'm gonna get together a mono-white ally deck as soon as I can, and I'm going to tweak my black vampire deck with some new goodies.