Shards of Alara Prerelease Report (Flight #2)
October 14, 2008 | Posted by Dee
Two posts ago, I talked about my first flight in the Shards of Alara prerelease. Here is how my second flight went.
I opened this card pool from one tournament deck and three boosters.
| Shards of Alara Prerelease Sealed Pool (Flight #2) | |||||||||||
Green (10)
White (13)
Blue (14) | Black (17)
Red (11)
Green/White/Blue (2) Green/White (2) White/Blue (1) Blue/Black (1) Blue/Black/Red (2) Black/Red (3) Black/Red/Green (2) Red/Green (2) Red/Green/White (2) Colorless Artifacts (2) Lands (3) |
| |||||||||
If you had my card pool, what sealed deck would you build?
I thought I was going to play five color like my first deck in flight #1. However, I wanted to try something different. I had aggressive two drops in Naya (red, green, and white). I had big Naya creatures. I had the insane bombs in the Naya colors: Realm Razer and Flameblast Dragon. I could easily splash for my best card, Empyrial Archangel. And I felt many people were going to try to play slow five color decks. Therefore, I decided to go with an aggressive beatdown deck.
| Naya Beatdown | |||||||||||
Creatures (17) | Spells (6) Lands (17) |
| |||||||||
I didn’t like leaving so many good cards on the bench like Grixis Battlemage, Salvage Titan, Grixis Charm, Kederekt Leviathan, Fatestitcher, Agony Warp, Jund Charm, and Carrion Thrash. However, if you open a card pool with many good cards, you have to make choices on which ones to cut, or else you’ll be playing more than 40 cards.
If I played all my good cards, my mana base would be less stable. The players in a prerelease are not as skilled as a PTQ or Grand Prix, so it’s better to have a more consistent deck even if you have to sacrifice a little bit of power.
I should’ve played one more Plains and cut a Forest. I had close to same amount of white and green cards. But my white cards included a card that cost double white (Empyrial Archangel).
Here’s how my matches went.
Match 1
Game 1
I played Flameblast Dragon and took about one of his only creature before he removed it from the game with Resounding Silence. I dropped Cavern Thoctar and he couldn’t deal with it.
Game 2
He was able to play both Marble Chalice and Onyx Goblet. However, I had creatures that kept hitting him. I played Realm Razer to make sure I won the race.
Matches 1-0, Games 2-0
Match 2
My opponent didn’t show up.
Matches 2-0, Games 4-0
Match 3
Game 1
I played someone who went 3-1 in the first flight with a two color deck. That seemed amazing to me because I felt you had to go at least 3 colors to have a good sealed deck. In this flight, he was 2-0 with yet another two color deck!
I mulliganed a no land hand. Next, I mulliganed an all land hand. My five new cards were four high casting cost spells and one land. Ugh. I mulliganed again and get two lands and two spells, one of which cost three mana.
I got lucky because he was color screwed for over five turns. He kept a hand of three Plains and four blue cards. This was not a bad idea because he had 12 Island in his deck. However, by the time, he drew an Island, it was too late. I had drawn enough lands to play a bunch of creatures and overwhelm him.
Game 2
He got off to a quick start with Deft Duelist and Guardians of Akrasa. I played Rhox Charger to keep him from attacking. Also, I played Sanctum Gargoyle and started attacking in the air. Since Rhox Charger has exalted, he was taking 3 damage every turn. He drew Coma Veil to deal with my flyer. But I had Naturalize for the win.
Matches 3-0, Games 6-0
Match 4
Game 1
It felt good to be 3-0 again. However, I knew that I was going to have a tough matchup. The person I played was the only woman ever to win a PTQ in Texas. It was a sealed PTQ, too. Later I found out she routinely does very well in prereleases.
In this game, she was mana screwed so I was able to get to get her down to two life fairly quickly. She finally drew lands and cleared my board with multiple removal spells: 2 Executioners Capsule and Bone Splinters. I tried playing Realm Razer but she had Cancel ready. Then, she played Salvage Titan. I had Bloodpyre Elemental in hand but she had enough artifacts to bring back her 6/4 artifact creature.
However, I drew my 7th land. With an Obelisk in play, I dropped Empyrial Archangel. She played a flyer to chump block but I killed the flyer with Bloodpyre Elemental for the win.
Game 2
I came out pretty quickly but she stopped the early beats with her black removal. Then, she played two Sharding Sphinx. I couldn’t deal with them, so it was off to the third game.
Game 3
I realized that her deck was filled with a lot of artifacts, so I boarded in Naturalize and Dispellers Capsule and took out Resounding Roar and Vithian Stinger.
I had an excellent draw. She had removal but I just kept playing creatures. My favorite play was Naturalize at the end of her turn on Executioners Capsule. She only had one black mana source when she played it so she couldn’t activate it right away.
This move allowed me to get extra attacks in. She played Vectis Silencers as her only creature while I had two creatures Mosstodon and Knight of the Skyward Eye. I checked her open mana. She couldn’t produce double blue mana so I knew she couldn’t play Cancel. I ripped my sixth land and dropped Realm Razer for the win.
Matches 4-0, Games 8-1
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