M10 Prerelease Tournament Report

July 16, 2009 | Posted by Dee

A couple days ago, I played in an M10 Prerelease Tournament. Here is the card pool I opened.

M10 Prerelease Sealed Card Pool

Green (17)

White (15)

Blue (15)

Black (18)

Red (16)

Artifacts (2)

1 Wurms Tooth
1 Ornithopter

Lands (1)

1 Gargoyle Castle

How would you have built my sealed deck?

I felt like my pool was pretty easy to build compared to my friend, who had to go four colors. He liked his deck and probably would’ve done well but he ran into bad luck and punted badly.

I think of sealed as a bomb driven format, so I knew that I wanted to play with my three strongest cards: Planar Cleansing, Serra Angel, and Earthquake.

With the mana requirements of my white bombs, I had to play white. This was fine because white had good cheap creatures, a tapper, removal with Divine Verdict, and powerful tricks (2 Safe Passage). However, I didn’t want to play the 2 Veteran Armorsmith because I didn’t want too many early drops with double white casting cost.

I only like playing with those types of early drops if I have nine mana sources for that color. I felt like having nine white mana sources would not be possible since I wanted to only play 17 land including Gargoyle Castle and there was a good chance I would end up splashing Earthquake with one or two Mountains. Plus, the 2 Veteran Armorsmith were my only soldiers.

By not playing the 2 Veteran Armorsmith, I couldn’t play blue or black because they didn’t have enough playables.

Also, regarding blue, I felt that Unsummon was not that great since combat damage on the stack was gone due to the new rules. Regarding black, I think discard is not that good in limited. I could be wrong since Blightning was solid in the previous format. Still, the 3 damage from Blightning was often relevant. Maybe someone who played Duress and Mind Rot can leave a comment and give their experience playing those cards for M10 sealed.

When I took a look at green and red, I looked like green was better.

Green had fatties, which are typically strong in sealed, while red had more fragile creatures. Plus, green had Rampant Growth, which helps a lot with splashing for Earthquake and reaching three Plains for Planar Cleansing. And it could also ramp up my mana to play my fatties earlier.

Here’s what I played.

GW Beatdown With 2 Wraths

Creatures (13)

Spells (10)

Lands (17)

We had 23 players. The tournament was four rounds with a cut to the top eight for the single elimination rounds.

Match 1

Game 1

He came out quickly with a turn one Birds of Paradise and then four small creatures afterwards. I took some damage before I stalled the board with Stampeding Rhino and White Knight. He had Blinding Mage, which kept me from attacking.

I played Giant Growth on my 2/2 and then killed all his creatures expect Birds of Paradise with an Earthquake for 3. The one sided Wrath was too much for him to overcome.

Game 2

While he was sideboarding, I saw Overrun among his cards. I thought about siding in Fog but I felt like 2 Safe Passage were enough.

I had Earthquake again this game. However, I had to use it to destroy the whole board including my own creatures since he tapped out for Cudgel Troll. My hand at the time did not have any way to deal with that creature.

He was able to recover more quickly. He summoned three creatures before I drew one. I finally drew a creature and played it to come back, but he killed me with Overrun on his turn.

I think I misplayed because I had Safe Passage in hand. I didn’t have the mana to play it because I used the mana for my creature. I should’ve not played the creature in case he had Overrun, but I forgot to make the necessary damage calculations for Overrun. Still, if he doesn’t have Overrun, I might get too far behind in life and on the board if I don’t play the creature.

Game 3

He had the advantage most of the game, since I was mana screwed. Plus, he had Cudgel Troll, which would’ve killed me if he had left mana up to regenerate it since I didn’t draw my second Entangling Vines. The first one had to go on his Blinding Mage.

He had Solemn Offering but he didn’t realize he could destroy Entangling Vines until it was too late. He tapped out to play Overrun but I played Safe Passage to prevent all his damage. I double blocked his Craw Wurm to kill it, but I should blocked Cudgel Troll instead since he was tapped out.

Luckily, I drew my sixth land and blew up the board with Planar Cleansing.

I recovered more quickly and won the game with Enormous Baloth.

Matches 1-0, Games 2-1-0

Match 2

Game 1

He started off very well like a good draft deck:

Turn 3 Wind Drake
Turn 4 Snapping Drake
Turn 5 Air Elemental

However, I was able to stabilize with Blinding Mage and Serra Angel. He tried Consume Spirit on my Blinding Mage but I had Giant Growth. Then I played Stampeding Rhino.

He played Indestructibility on his 4/4, which was probably a misplay, since that was the creature I kept tapping down. Also, he tried using Alluring Siren on my Blinding Mage during my upkeep but I just responded by tapping down his indestructable 4/4. I killed him with my 4/4s and Safe Passage.

Game 2

He mulliganed and got mana screwed. I ramped up to a turn four Acidic Slime to make him even more mana screwed. I won easily with some fatties since he never reached four lands on the board.

Matches 2-0, Games 4-1-0

Match 3

Game 1

He flooded and I got a fast start to kill him quickly. He had Gorgon Flail to make things interesting but I destroyed it with Acidic Slime for the blowout.

Game 2

I had the early advantage and brought him down to nine life. But he stabilized with Gorgon Flail and Wall of Faith. I made some huge misplays because I thought the ability of Wall of Faith was “W: +1/+0 until EOT.” This caused me to avoid attacking with my small ground creatures.

After some time, he drew Ant Queen, made a bunch of tokens, and then killed me with Overrun.

Game 3

This was a draw since we only had a couple minutes left in the round. He had a slight advantage when the five turns were up.

Matches 2-0-1, Games 5-2-1

Match 4

This match showed the power of my Wraths.

Game 1

He had the early advantage with cheap blue creatures including Sage Owl, Merfolk Looter, and Phantom Warrior. Also, he played Sleep to bring my life down to 3. I didn’t draw removal so I thought I would lose. However, I drew Planar Cleansing and reset the board.

I then won because I recovered more quickly. I drew a bunch of fatties while he drew one small creature and lands.

Game 2

This game was more of the same. He brought down my life to six with cheap creatures and Sleep, but I had Earthquake. I waited for him to overextend before blowing up his board with an Earthquake for 1.

His creatures died while I still had fatties on the board. He didn’t draw anything to save himself.

Matches 3-0-1, Games 7-2-1

With this win, I made the top eight with the 2nd seed.

Quarterfinals

I played my round three opponent, the guy who had the Ant Queen.

Game 1

I had a fast start with multiple early aggressive creatures while he kept a slow hand and flooded.

I made a misplay. I wasted a Safe Passage on his Glorious Charge by attacking with the wrong creatures. I should’ve saved it for Harms Way.

Luckily, it didn’t matter as I had enough attackers to swarm and kill him even though he two-for-oned me with Harms Way.

Game 2

I had another fast start but he stabilized with Honor of the Pure and Serra Angel. I didn’t have anything in my hand for his 5/5 flyer other than Planar Cleansing.

I let him hit me down to 15 life but he overextended my playing another creature even though Serra Angel was enough to stop my creatures.

Planar Cleansing reset the board and I recovered more quickly than him by drawing better. Plus, I had more cards in hand since he overextended his board while I saved my cards.

Matches 4-0-1, Games 9-2-1

Semifinals

Game 1

I had a fast start while he was color screwed. I brought him down to 12 life before he got all his colors online. He then stalled out the board by playing a bunch of ground creatures.

After a while, I finally found a flyer to breakthrough the ground stall.

I could’ve killed him earlier with Earthquake but I didn’t want him to know that I had it.

He was pretty unlucky because he saw 13 lands. That’s a pretty massive flood.

Game 2

This was a crazy game. At first, I thought I had the game won because I played Planar Cleansing early in the game when he had four creatures on the board including Protean Hydra while I only had one creature.

I brought him down to 12 but then he started recurring Protean Hydra. I had to kill it three more times (!) since he played Gravedigger, Natures Spiral, and Disentomb. Not only that, but he had Naturalize when I played Entangling Vines on it.

After I dealt with Protean Hydra for the last time, I had the creature advantage and was able to bring down his life total. However, he topdecked Shivan Dragon and he had five Mountains in play. It looked like I would lose because he had enough chump blockers on the ground and I didn’t have any flyers.

Luckily, I drew Serra Angel. With a Safe Passage in hand, I was able to fog his lethal attack and attack back to bring his life to exactly zero.

Matches 5-0-1, Games 11-2-1

Finals

Before playing, I offered a split for the prizes (12 packs for each of us), which he accepted.

Game 1

He had a fast start and I was soon at 12 life. It looked like I would stabilize when I tapped out for Enormous Baloth. Even though the 7/7 was my only creature, his board was just Berserkers of Blood Ridge and Borderland Ranger. Plus, he only had two cards.

However, he showed me Act of Treason and we were off to the second game.

Game 2

Sadly, my tournament ended with a pretty big misplay.

I elected to draw and kept a slow hand with Divine Verdict as my earliest play.

He had three 1/1s by my fourth turn while I didn’t draw any early plays. He attacked with all his creatures and I elected not to play Divine Verdict.

I wanted to save it for a bigger creature and I had Serra Angel to block next turn. I should’ve played it to maximize my mana and save life points. Saving life points was definitely a big factor since I saw two Lightning Bolt and Act of Treason in game one.

He ended his turn with Canyon Minotaur. I played Serra Angel. He stole Serra Angel for a turn with Act of Treason. His big attack with my angel took me from 14 to 4.

Then, he bolted me down to 1. I fogged with Safe Passage when he attacked with everyone to stay alive. Serra Angel also killed his 3/3.

On my next turn, I played a creature. With my two creatures and Divine Verdict, I could stop his alpha strike from killing me. However, he showed me Chandra Nalaar for the win.

Matches 5-1-1, Games 11-4-1

Filed Under M10 Sealed

2 Responses to “M10 Prerelease Tournament Report”

Mark Ian on July 16th, 2009 1:59 am

Good thing your prerelease there played it until the finals. Ours just ended after four rounds. I finished with a 3-1 record and got 4th place.
Dee on July 16th, 2009 2:52 pm

Yeah, the stores in my area like to have the single elim top eight rounds. I like it because you get to play more magic

But it seems like most other stores just do four rounds.