Secrets of Strixhaven - Prerelease Report(s)

My favorite Magic event is the prerelease. Doesn’t matter if you’ve been playing for 30 years or 30 minutes, the idea of the prerelease is just as exciting. A new set! With new cards! These days, spoilers are always done well before the events launch but even if players have had the chance to study the new cards it’s impossible to know exactly how they play together until they’re shuffled up. What’s good? What did I think was good but turns out is bad? What doesn’t work? That card does what!?!?! It’s all on the table.

As I’ve stated previously, the Universes Beyond sets simply aren’t for me. It’s cool that they’re there for the people that like them, but they’re just not for my sensibilities. That means that this year, of the seven(!!!) sets that WotC puts out this year, only 3 of them are Regular Magic sets. That’s just like a normal year!

Because there are only a few sets I care about, I can go a little ham on the Prereleases. For Lorwyn, I ended up doing 3 events and that was very fun even if I felt a little maxed out at the end of the weekend. I didn’t feel the same level of nostalgia towards Strixhaven; in fact I thought the first trip to the plane was kind of a dud. So I booked two events and thought that if I had a ton of fun in them I’d do a third.

Friday was the big day, I had a pair of events at Noon and then at 6:30. Turns out several of my buddies would also be making the trip for the Noon event, so it would be packed with some friendly & familiar faces. Hell yeah.

Event 1 - Friday Noon

Earlier in the morning, my buddy Pope (JP aka John Paul aka Pope) asked me what time I planned on arriving. I told him no earlier than 11:30 because the store tends to open much closer to the start of the events when the events are scheduled at the same time as the store opening. So we got there at around the same time and made the short walk over.

We checked in and found ourselves a table in the front kinda jammed into a corner. We were thinking about saving seats for our other friends, but unfortunately for them I’m a popular Man About Town and Liam and Vinny - two other guys I’ve become friendly with at the store - plopped down to shoot the shit with us and I didn’t have it in me to hit them with the You Can’t Sit With Us!

Nate the shopkeep told us that there would be seeded Prerelease kits given out randomly and that we could trade them with other players before building. We all sat for a few minutes discussing which ones we wanted. I ended up with Prismari, the Blue / Red faction. I was more interested in trying out the White ones because I thought they had more cards I’d want for casual decks. Pope got Lorehold, the Red / White faction and absolutely did not want it. But he was interested in Prismari, so we just swapped.

There was a lot to like about my pool! I had a ton of kill spells, including a pair of interesting Rare options. My ‘Prerelease Foil’ was a pretty bomb-y card for exactly my archetype, and I had a decent curve. My worry with aggressive plans at a Prerelease is that I don’t know the set well and if it turns out that it’s easy to maintain a defensive posture, I’m pretty screwed because I have to waste my removal on bad cards and then I don’t have any gas in the tank for their big threats. However, I had no other choice!

Here’s what I took into battle:

Round 1 - Seth

Great. Of all the people in the event, gotta fight a teammate off the jump. And Seth is an excellent player, maybe not at the height of his powers now but Pro Tour caliber at his best. Game 1 was an extremely narrow affair that had me just barely edging him out thanks to a plethora of removal and a very timely Erode. Before the final damage was dealt, the life totals stood at 3-3. Game 2 was not close. It might have been had I made a different choice on Turn 3; I was torn between playing a Rubble Rouser to set up a Turn 4 Pigment Wrangler or playing Antiquities on the Loose. He was representing Essence Scatter so I had to weigh the options of getting off to a great start or playing it a little safer for less inspiring followup turns. I went for the Rouser, he had the Essence Scatter, and things only got worse from there. I got walloped by an unruly gang of Fractals. Game 3 he kept a weak hand and I had an excellent curve and was able to beat him up quickly before his poor start evened out.

1-0, 2-1 Games

Talk about dodging a bullet! I’d say that Seth, Mark, Pope and I are probably the most dangerous opponents in the field and I was pretty fortunate to take one off a certified killer.

Round 2 - Ember

There’s 1 table towards the front of the play area with the good chairs, and that’s where Tables 1 & 2 play. I was seated at the mighty Table 1, all the way at the Penthouse, so I got to hang out in the nice seating. A fella could get used to this decadent lifestyle. Ember was coming off a Bye and was skeptical about their chances, but their Black / Green deck wasn’t bad. Unfortunately for them, my deck was firing on all cylinders. I even lucked into the Rare combo of Suspend Aggression exiling Antiquities on the Loose, so when I played the Antiquities the next turn the extra condition was satisfied and all my spirits got bonus counters. This one was over in two pretty quick and uneventful games.

2-0, 4-1 Games

Round 3 - Sam

The Final Round! I was playing for the undefeated record and I got to stay right there at Table 1. Not having to pack up all my shit and move with the crowd is its own unique reward at a Magic tournament, and with the good chairs involved no less! Sam was playing Blue / Green, as was Mark and his opponent at Table 2! A sea of Blue / Green with only me and my fateful Red / White deck offering resistance. I had to win, not just for me but for everyone out there who dreams of being different.

Game 1 sucked because I was on the draw, didn’t understand how Blue / Green’s Increment ability worked exactly, and made a strategic decision that backfired spectacularly. I got blown out on every interaction. Not Great Bob!

Game 2 was the opposite. Sam got flooded and my draw was just fine, beating him down and not allowing him the time to draw out of his slump.

Game 3 was a fairly exciting back-and-forth where a turn 3 Rubble Rouser allowed me to get the upper hand, setting up my draw and its ability to pillage the graveyard allowed incidental chip damage, Spirit Mascot growth, Wilt in the Heat cost reduction, and Living History combat buffs that made combat very difficult for Sam to confront profitably. Sam’s best draw would probably beat mine, but it turns out my overall plan was a little more consistent and I had a lot of removal.

3-0, 6-2 Games

Hooray! Mark also 3-0’d but the normally implacable Seth stumbled into a 1-2. Pope had to leave to go to work, so I have no idea how he did since he left in the middle of my Round 3 and I wasn’t able to chat with him about it.

Shopkeep Nate managed to pull some strings to make the pitiful look on my face go away to get Seth and Mark into the ‘Sold Out’ 6:30pm event. Hell yeah Nate!

We opened our prize packs and I mostly whiffed as per usual. Then we went across the street to the Mediterranean place for a fine Chicken Kebab early dinner where we mostly talked shit about players from the old days that annoyed us.

Event 2 - Friday 6:30pm

I knew that I was interested in basically any faction except for Red / White again. So of course the one I randomly got was Red / White. Nobody was interested in trading for it, but once again Shopkeep Nate stepped up and traded me out for ‘one that wasn’t Red / White’ from some other stockpile…Black / White it is!

The rares I opened were very well suited to a Black / Green deck, but I had enough playable creatures, removal spells, and Uncommons specific to the Black / White faction that it made sense to go that way. As it turned out, the Uncommons were excellent and the Commons were almost completely interchangeable.

As we were building, Peter came by to ask for Deckbuilding advice. Peter is one of my favorite usuals at the store and he’s got…a brew. He’s got a nominally Red / White brew with not too many early drops splashing for a double-Black Ral Zarek and Black / Green Dellian Fel. I tell him I hate it. We have to retool it. I try to piece together a purely Red / White deck and it looked a little weak, but at least he could play his spells. I ask him if he wants to consider that or doing something else with the Planeswalkers…he kinda nods along to placate me and not be a jerk but I could tell that he would take 0% of my advice. Such is the life of the Magic player.

Here’s what I’d be playing for Event 2:

Round 1 - Peter

Well Peter, should you have taken my advice!?! We were stuck in the very back of the playspace at the big tables where the Warhammer guys play such that I had to stand the entire round to see the board. I would describe the games as…not close. I had fine draws and Peter’s deck was akin to what you’d find at the bottom of a trash can or maybe a toilet bowl, so there wasn’t too much to report here.

1-0, 2-0 Games

After the slaughter, Peter was a little more receptive to my feedback and it turned out that there was a build in his pool for Black / Green with a very light Blue splash that would let us play both of our Planeswalkers with support that would maximize them and play some other powerful cards. I wish I was able to follow up with him at the end of the night but my Round 3 was really something else so I didn’t get to check in later.

I also did a nice little trade with Mark to beef up the trade binder, getting a Force of Negation and a Bolas’s Citadel in exchange for some extraneous lands.

Round 2 - Gabe

Back to the main room at least! Gabe was a relatively newer player with a Black / Green deck, and I think if he played a little bit better I’d have been in much more trouble. But, I was able to profitably navigate around his naiveté and win in 2 longer but uneventful games.

2-0, 4-0 Games

Round 3 - Reese

Back to the good chairs! Reese had a Black / White deck like mine, but it was a little different. He had a much higher ceiling of quality but maybe a few more worse / filler options. In game 1 I made every decision wrong and was immediately punished after each one. All his good cards showed up, none of mine did, and I got thoroughly smushed.

Game 2 was the opposite. I was ready this time, and he was hurting for White mana, so his development was hindered. I delivered the beats quickly and efficiently and he couldn’t put up enough resistance.

Game 3 was strange. I was down a card off a mulligan, but his draw was kinda weird and I was able to answer his creatures quickly. We traded off guys a bit, and the board eventually got to an extremely tight spot:

We’re both at 5 life (or so I thought). I’ve been blowing up his board, and he’s got an Abigale and an unprepared Honorbound Page. I’ve got Inkling Mascot and a tapped Scolding Administrator with 3 counters on it. He’s got a Dig Site Inventory in his graveyard that he has clearly forgotten about and I haven’t. He moves to combat and is deep in the tank. I’m thoroughly confused. He’s got nothing in hand and two creatures. If he attacks me I can chump the 3/3, go to 2, and then he can’t block my lethal 5/5 Menace guy. He mentions something about being a gambling man, and only attacks me with the Abigale. He has no cards in hand, so I decline to block and go to 3. I use my surveil land to bin a land and draw another land, no help. But whatever! I attack with my 5/5 Menace. He says no blocks. I say ok, he says ok…

Then he says that he’ll go to 1; he had his life total at 6. I have him at 5 and going to Dead. This is very awkward; if he gets another turn I’m humped. He’s got the Dig Site Inventory he can flashback on his Abigale and I’m at 3 life with no blocker for it! Or he can draw another creature and Prepare Abigale, which will put another counter on it and accomplish the same thing. Or a removal spell for my guy and alpha strike me. Or whatever! He has so many outs. But he’s dead! I’ve been keeping track of the life! So I call the ‘judge’ over. Judge Jason tries to get us to walk through the life total changes, which I can mostly do but I can’t remember the turn I had that sent him from 16 life to 10, from which he paid 5 life to get us to the total we’re at now. Jason rules that the burden of proof was on me to provide and that Reese is at 6, now 1. I hate this ruling for 2 reasons. 1) it goes against me, obviously. But much more importantly 2) I’ve been writing everything down on paper, while Reese has been keeping (only his!) life on a 20-sider! What the fuck is the point of writing down life totals if we’re not going to give credence to that record in the event of a dispute!?!?!? I’m very frustrated because I don’t know how this ruling can reasonably be rendered but I know I’ll look like a colossal asshole if I raise much more of a stink about it since we are playing for exactly 1 pack of Magic cards and that’s it. But I know I’m right, and this grave injustice hurts my feelings.

So Reese takes his next turn and bricks, just a land. And then completely forgets about the Dig Site Inventory in his yard, attacks me to 1 with the Abigale, and then scoops. So the game goes to me in the weirdest possible fashion. (To be fair, I hold no ill will towards Reese here; I’d have done the same thing in his position except I’d have remembered the Dig Site Inventory. I’m irritated with Jason for not letting a written record exist as the record over something much more nebulous)

3-0, 6-1 Games

I am utterly exhausted when I go home, but I’m too wired from that 3rd round and explaining it to Jay over text that it takes my brain a while to turn off so I can go to sleep.

On Saturday, I woke up early, messed around for a little bit and ate a very small breakfast, then went back to sleep for another hour or two. I knew that I’d need to give myself a ton of extra time to get to the store because there was a giant Street Fair / Spring Festival all throughout the neighborhood in Old Ellicott City, and the parking is already heinous. With one of the big lots completely out of commission and a ton of extra traffic, searching for parking would be difficult. My plan was to get there by about 2:30, walk around the Fair and get something to eat, and then go to the Prerelease.

Turns out that despite my initial projection, I was still off. I didn’t find a parking spot until about 3pm, going all over the goddamn place, and since I was now a touch worried about time, I audibled to the Japanese place right next to Gamer Corps and just got a quick order of Gyoza and Sushi. It was good as it always is and then it was onto the store for Round 3. There were only a couple familiar faces in the crowd. Shopkeep Nate asked me what I wanted and I told him ‘Any Green Deck’ since I didn’t want one of the ones I already got. Black / Green it was!

Event 3 - Saturday 4pm

It was a weird build almost completely because I misread Root Manipulation. I love an Overrun, but part of what makes Overrun great is that it gives Trample! If you just buff the squad a bunch they can still block helpfully plenty of times. Well, I missed that Root Manipulation grants Menace to all your guys. Had I read that correctly, I’d have played both of the ones I had and maxed out on smaller creatures and Pests. As it stood, I begrudgingly played 1 and only played it correctly once, and that was by accident. Oops. I lamented the excellent Rares I opened the previous day in the Black / White pool that would have taken my deck from a B to an A+++++, but unfortunately in Magic you can almost never have it all.

Here’s the goods from Event 3:

Round 1 - Meredith

Meredith was a newer player who was extremely nice but very slow. Our games took what felt like years, and I won a marathon Game 1. We did not have the time to finish Game 2. That’s the unfortunate side effect of Prereleases: when you’ve got a bunch of very casual and newer players and add in a large pile of unfamiliar cards, things can go very slowly and I’m just not in the position where I’m interested in pestering people to go faster. There’s simply not enough prize at stake to be confrontational about it.

1-0, Games 1-0

Round 2 - Sol

Another extremely casual player who plays pretty much exclusively EDH at home with his buddies and doesn’t venture out to stores often. He plays slower than molasses, and Game 1 is going very well for me and I’m getting the best on every interaction until he resolves the White Paradigm Mythic. Talk about bad news, especially since he’s got multiple Zealous Lorecaster in the yard, which lets him loop a large blocker and either an Unsubtle Mockery or Pursue the Past ad infinitum. I should have scooped immediately but I stubbornly played several more turns to see if I could power through it. I could not. I win a quick Game 2 but there’s 5 seconds on the clock. He asks me what happens here, and I tell him that in normal circumstances it would be a draw but because of the way the store pays out prize with a pack per win, draws get nobody anything so someone should concede, and I decide that someone should be me. It’s good sometimes for the newer folks to get a reason to come back and it’s not reasonable to expect someone to concede to me; he doesn’t owe me a win.

1-1, 2-1 Games

Round 3 - Joe

Joe is a very nice slightly older guy who rejoined the game a few years ago, mostly playing EDH. He’s with Blue / Green. In Game 1, he manages to draw everything in his deck but a creature and spends numerous turns bouncing my Moseo, which is bad for him since the extra Pest it gives me stuck around each time and overwhelmed him quickly.

Game 2 he absolutely went off against my sluggish start, making 3-4 big Fractals and had Emil to give them trample. I got absolutely stomped into the dirt.

Game 3 involved my using a punch spell with my Deathtouch frog to knock off his biggest guy, and then using my uninfused Withering Curse to clear most of his board and leave me with Jadzi and a pair of Tenured Concoctors to rule the roost. He rebuilt his board a bit the next turn, and I drew the Root Manipulation. It was my last card. He had about 5 cards in hand with two creatures in play. I figured that this would let me get a good attack in to clear most of his board, but if he had a good follow up he could rebuild and I had nothing but my existing troops and he had a lot of lands, a big hand, and lots of live draws. So I cast it and just said fuck it…except that it gave my guys menace, so it was lethal. Oops. I think Joe thought for a second that I was slow-rolling him but I explained to him that I was simply an illiterate buffoon instead and that made him feel better.

2-1, 4-2 Games

Joe and I had a good time shooting the breeze afterwards and exchanged numbers after I told him about Rerolled and the Tuesday EDH nights they run.

I was absolutely exhausted when I got home, and my sinuses were staging a protest from the recent allergies kicking up thanks to the recent great weather so I crashed hard.

I don’t know how Strixhaven Sealed will be for the larger events without the benefit of seeded packs; I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out similarly to Tarkir last year where midrange multicolor soup rules the roost, but I had an absolute blast at these events with the seeded kits. Long Live the Prerelease!

PROPS:

Gamer Corps - My playgroup sometimes disparages the store because the prizes aren’t good and they’re a little quirky. Not unfair or slanderous criticisms. But I really love the type of players the store attracts, and there’s great vibes there on Prerelease days. I may not love playing other events there, but for my money they do Prereleases exactly right.

Shopkeep Nate - Made sure my Prerelease experience was as good as it could be and found room and product for my friends to play additional events despite being nominally sold out. My current favorite Game Store employee.

Pope / Seth / Mark / Ben - Always happy to hang out with folks from the squad.

My Opponents - A nice group of folks to play with and I’d be happy to play with all of them again, even if some of them were slow.

Rubble Rouser - MVP from Event 1.

Scolding Administrator - MVP from Event 2.

Moseo, Vein’s New Dean - MVP from Event 3.

SLOPS:

Judge Jason - C’mon man! How do you give the benefit to the guy who keeps track of life on dice instead of the guy writing stuff down!?! This is how cheaters in the 90s prospered! Baffling, and an unfortunate way to end an extremely close interesting round.

My Inability To Read - The Root Manipulation Special could have really been something. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll read better next time.

Allergies - An extremely bad matchup especially without any antihistamines in the sideboard.

Prize Packs - They were, and likely will continue to be, absolute dog water. Le sigh.