#5 – January 24, 2020
perplexed – adjective : completely baffled; very puzzled
I predicted that my Theros: Beyond Death prerelease foil promo card would be this bobo rare:
I was wrong.
Allure of the Unknown was, however, a foil rare in my first pack I opened from my prerelease kit.
My prerelease foil promo card was this bobo rare:
I do love the art of both cards, and they both look like they’d be gorgeous in foil. Sadly, they aren’t.
I was only guaranteed one foil rare in my prerelease kit, so there’s something to be said about getting a second one from a pack. And the thing to be said is this: of course I would get the worst card in the set as a “bonus.”
Lest I appear too grouchy, I did also find these in my kit:
Two mythics! Thassa is among the best cards in the set, while Kiora Bests the Sea God is a potential bomb in sealed deck (though also, I feel I must mention, the least valuable mythic in the set, as of the day I’m writing this.)
The temptation of two such powerful cards was too great to resist – my sealed deck would include blue.
Red and white were immediately ruled out – both colors were shallow, with no real synergies and no great cards. My other rares were a Temple of Abandon (a fine card, but not one that was going to guide my deckbuilding) and these:
Treacherous Blessing, as the name implies, was a potentially strong but dangerous card to include. I’d read up on the set prior to the prerelease, and I heeded the advice of better limited players than I, who all recommended not playing it without multiple ways of removing it.
Due to both my green and blue pools lacking removal, I decided black was the only viable option to pair with blue.
I made the wrong choice. Not by choosing black, but by letting mythic rare bombs lure me into playing blue. I knew the rest of my blue cards were weak, but I was sure that if I could survive until I got one of my bombs, I could win.
I never survived long enough to draw a bomb.
My first round opponent sat at the wrong table, and the player who was supposed to be at that table had simply taken his prerelease kit and gone home. Since my would-be opponent had already started playing someone else by the time his error was discovered, I was “given” a bye for the round. It counted as a win (yeah!) and I got to sit for 45 minutes and fiddle with my deck (boo!) I was convinced that the extra time helped me tune my 40 cards. Based on how poorly the thing ended up functioning, I think it’s safe to say that was 45 minutes truly and utterly wasted.
In the five games I played with my “improved” deck, I never once saw Kiora Bests the Sea God. In the fifth game I had Thassa in my opening hand, played it on turn 4, and my opponent laughed and exiled it immediately after I passed the turn to him.
I was savagely slaughtered in the 4 games I lost. I put up no credible defense in any of them. The lone win was a pretty enjoyable back and forth battle that I won via attrition.
At 1-2 and heading into my last round, I admitted to myself the fatal error in my judgment: playing a terrible set of blue cards because of my fantastic mythics was dumb.
Blue came out. Green went in. It wasn’t a huge upgrade, but it gave me a solid creature base, which is vital to winning in sealed deck.
My last opponent was miserable. He was operating on 4 hours of sleep (or so he claimed.) He’d played in both the Friday night and Saturday afternoon prereleases before also signing up for the Saturday night event (the one I attended.) In 3 prerelease kits he’d gotten, plus the prize packs from the previous events, he’d not opened a single mythic rare. He admitted to being more of a collector than a player, so I understood his disappointment. Mythics are hard to come by, and the good ones fetch hefty prices. Not getting any in 20+ packs is unlikely and sad, and greatly increases the financial burden of completing a set. I know this first-hand – I have a similar run of still-ongoing bad luck with Hour of Devastation. I’ve opened 23 packs from HOU, and the law of averages suggests I should have 3-4 mythics from the set. I have none.
This last match was definitely the best of the night, mostly because I won. My opponent did me several favors. After winning the first game, his deck or his cognitive ability collapsed. He made several blunders, including keeping a 1-land hand in game 3 instead of mulliganing. Truth be told, I felt bad beating a guy who was barely functioning and, though pleasant throughout, clearly not in a good place emotionally or mentally.
If that had been the whole of my prerelease experience, I’d have chalked it up as satisfactory. Some decent cards, a 2-2 record, and three prize packs that netted me a second Kiora Bests the Sea God, another rare scryland, a foil Aphemia, the Cacophony, and Atris, Oracle of Half-Truths.
After my son and I totally blew the Throne of Eldraine 2-Headed Giant event at the last prerelease, mostly due to atrocious deckbuilding on my part, I was determined not to make the same mistakes. We prepped quite a bit by watching some great YouTube videos and talking overall strategy. Sunday afternoon we made our way to the LGS for what I was sure would be a much better 2HG showing.
We’d barely gotten through the front door when the employee at the counter, looking exceptionally frazzled, asked us if we were there for the 2:00 2HG event. I told him we were and he responded…
“We’re full.”
He added “it’s been a crazy weekend” but that didn’t lessen the sting. We’d been to the two previous 2HG events on Sunday afternoon, and they’d never been that busy. He scribbled his initials on a couple business cards and gave them to us, telling us if we came back the following weekend, we’d get “a couple of boosters or something.”
They’d run out of prerelease kits, so I understand there was nothing else to be done. If this is a sign that Magic’s popularity is growing…great, I guess. I’m happy for the game and for the store. But I’ll be returning to the store this weekend to ask what we could have done to ensure we were registered in time to play the event. They only take registrations in person, so perhaps I’d just needed to ask on Saturday if I could sign us up for the Sunday event.
My son handled it really well, but I was devastated. I felt like a horrible father for not considering that the event might fill up, or for thinking to ask about registering the day before when I was in the store.
We returned home and built Guilds of Ravnica sealed decks, so Magic was still played. But I don’t think either of us had our hearts in it.
Casual Magicking 