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Post by JediCheese on Jan 27, 2013 6:41:48 GMT -5
I like NWG, but unless I'm on the PTQ circuit, it's not really the place I want to be from an atmosphere. I would say that I've never been treated as a second class citizen there.
I loved Misty. I would often drive from the west side there to play FNM and loved the Denny's Drafts we would do after. Some of the competitive crowd would play there, but the average player was good that knew what they were doing without going overboard.
Pegasus Games I could do without. It's not anything against the staff, it's just that it was newb town. There are only so many times I can watch my opponent make horrible misplays before I want to start yelling at them to start playing better.
Plus, the local shops that I play at need to make a profit to keep the lights on. Usually, I buy singles online or do trading for what I need, so I'm not a high profit player. I have zero problem with spending a few extra bucks every few months to support where I play.
Forgot to say, I hope everyone had fun at the pre-releases.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Jan 27, 2013 13:25:27 GMT -5
My prerelease day was a tale of two halves. - In the first half, I went Simic. My thought was that the Fathom Mage looked like the strongest promo card of the five, and I liked the UG color combination. Boy, was I wrong. I opened an awful card pool with zero removal, and the only usable rares were the blue Primordial (used once in round 4) and a Mystic Genesis (never cast it, sat in my hand when I drew it). I got a free win from the bye in round 1, lost round 2 to John's Boros deck in about five minutes total, lost round three to a Boros deck with three Syndic of Tithes that I could never kill, and barely won my last round against a bad Dimir player who really didn't know what he was doing. Luckily, my other rares from the pool and my pitty pack included a pair of shocklands. - In the second half, I went Orzhov, because I had seen the power of Extort in Limited and I almost went Orzhov in the first round. Let's just say that I have a new favorite mechanic. Despite not getting any Syndics, or the Crypt Ghast I needed for my Chainer deck, I opened 9 total Extort guys, a Merciless Eviction and a foil Lord of the Void, and a ton of removal spells. In round 1, I beat a RUG deck with Stolen Identity, Sylvan Primordial, and Gruul Ragebeast all by simply extorting him to death. He used the Bloodrush ability from two Zhur-Taa Swines for 7 or 8 damage each, but I just recovered it all the next few turns. In round 2, I barely lost game 3 to a Gruul deck because the guy played a Gruul Charm to make all my non-flyers unable to block and swung at me for 21 damage (exactly lethal). In round 3, I destroyed some little kid who had no clue what he was doing. In round 4, I was up against a very good Boros Extort deck, and every time he attacked, I had enough removal to kill his guys, plus I extorted back all the life I had lost from the attack. My three Basilica Guards slowed the game down to the point where his attacks were mostly nill, and eventually I got a Treasury Thrull to recur a Death's Approach to repeatedly kill his guys over and over, each time extorting him multiple times. I think the final Death's Approach I used had five extort triggers.
In summary, Orzhov extort is an awesome mechanic and I wish I had gone to it earlier. You can grind out so many games by simply waiting out your opponent and getting maximum value out of your extort triggers. You barely have to worry about combat damage because you'll recover most of it, and there's just this awesome inevitable feeling that every spell is going to drain your opponent out. I can't wait to try extorting people in EDH.
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Post by JediCheese on Jan 27, 2013 13:49:41 GMT -5
I played in two events.
The first I was Boros. Let's say I opened the nuts Boros: Spark Trooper, Guardian of the Gates, Foundry Champion x2, Aurelia's Fuery, Angelic Skirmisher, and Fortress Cyclops all FTW (plus random staples). I went 2-0 and then work called me in for OT so I dropped. Opened 6 packs, got 4 bomb rares + the promo. All I was missing was Boros Charm and Assemble the Legion (which BTW is now called Boros PackRat).
The second tourny I went Dimir. I was thinking about going Orzhov, but way too many people were jumping on the extort because they heard it was good. Went 3-1 with an unconventional Dimir deck. Instead of mill (which I did have btw), I went unblockable and the really good cipher cards (ok, I went with the draw cipher which I got two of). Let's say you draw and use removal on a 2/2 unblockable or I draw tons of cards is a really bad choice for the opponent. Cloudfin Raptor is now dubbed puffer (I had an opponent that called it that for our games).
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Post by abeckett on Jan 27, 2013 17:36:13 GMT -5
I went 3-1 with Boros, losing a match (including a mull to 4 in game 1) to the mirror and then going 2-0 against 2x Simic, 1x Orzhov. Despite missing many C/UC staples of the legion, a Firemane Avenger and 2x Skyknights helped push through the damage in the air. A Gruul splash off a guildgate and stomping grounds was easy, allowing me to throw in a couple bloodrush guys and a Gruul Ragebeast. It was not the fastest Naya deck, but it worked.
I would have gone 2-0 against the Orzhov deck regardless...but he managed to get himself a loss after Ben discovered he had traded for the Ghost Council the guy across from him opened and then put it in his deck. Probably should have been a DQ and I'm pretty sure the guy did it knowing it was wrong.
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Post by JediCheese on Jan 27, 2013 17:56:22 GMT -5
I would have gone 2-0 against the Orzhov deck regardless...but he managed to get himself a loss after Ben discovered he had traded for the Ghost Council the guy across from him opened and then put it in his deck. Probably should have been a DQ and I'm pretty sure the guy did it knowing it was wrong. Someone actually said they didn't open a bomb mythic yet played it in the tournament!? And what about the other party that traded it away? I'm sorta curious how this came about and what all happened. I should say that the local game shop had tons of events going on for the pre-release. Both Saturday and Sunday they had Midnight, 10 AM, 2 PM, and 6 PM sealed events. I know people that played in the Saturday Midnight, 10 AM, 6 PM, and the Sunday Midnight sealed events (and they could also hit hte 10AM and 6 PM Sunday events). If you had the weekend off and didn't want to sleep, you could play all 5 guilds over the weekend!
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Post by crazedferret on Jan 27, 2013 18:46:56 GMT -5
I played twice as well first time with dimir second time with simic.
Went 3-1 with an awesome dimir deck. Included 2 aetherize, 1 hands of binding, 2 stolen identity (YEAH that's right), 1 devour flesh, 2 grisly spectacle, 1 consuming abberation (in my opinion the strongest promo), 1 dimir charm, 1 dinrova horror, 1 merciless eviction, 1 dimir key rune, 1 debtor's pulpit a whole host of fliers and unblockable creatures, 2 dimir guildgates and 1 orzhov guildgate.
Stolen identity was an allstar as was hands of binding. Putting those on a flier or an unblockable creature meant that it always connected. The last game I played with the deck I cast a stolen identity on consuming abberation exiling it onto a deathcult rogue. Resulting in two copies of the abberation and one mill trigger off of the original abberation. Swing in with the deathcult rogue casts another stolen identity which triggers 2 mil triggers and creates a third abberation. He scooped before I could figure out which way I was going to finish him off. He was either going to be milled out or die from 3 20/20's.
My loss was too a Gruul deck that was just nuts with equally as nutty draws. I got blood rush double striked out on game one. Game two I just got overwhelmed with dudes and couldn't find removal.
Second time through, I didn't feel like my simic deck was the strongest, but it did 4-0. 1 aetherize, 1 agoraphobia, 2 cloudfin raptor, 1 frilled oculus, 2 hands of binding, 1 leyline phantom (played because it bounces and triggers just about every evolve), 1 metropolis sprite, 1 simic fluxmage, 1 totally lost, 2 killing glare, 2 ogre slumlords (black splash-totally worth it for the killing glares alone), 1 experiment one, 2 ivy lane denizen (probably the MVP), 2 scab clan charger, 1 drakewing crasis, 1 elusive crasis (allowed me to race gruul easily when combined with ivy lane denizens and simicfluxmage), 1 fathom mage, 1 shambleshark
Once again hands of binding were great. One time had two of them on the same drakewing crasis which pretty much won me that game. Simic fluxmage was great with any unblockable as were the ivy lane denizens.
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Post by John Galli on Jan 27, 2013 22:21:21 GMT -5
I didn't mean to come down so hard on Misty. I'm probably just tired of driving so far, not having the old gang and old feel to it there, and the usual crowd these days isn't always what I'm looking for. The rips I was giving were more directed at NWG and PEG, both of which I've had a lot of personal incidents and issues with in the last year which have reduced the patronage I've given.
As for the prerelease, I played Boros twice, first at Baraboo with the guys where I went 3-0 and ID'd the last round. Nick, Myself, Scott, and a baraboo regular who beat Pat were the four 3-0's. Got Six packs there and was generally satisfied with the deck although Boros is very conditional on you finishing the game before your opponent can "get online". It's not terribly fast, but you have a lot of late game direct damage to finish off the last few points. The mirror, Simic, and Orzhov were all examples of decks where you could let it slip away if you don't keep applying pressure. My notables were firemane angel, both guildmage style creatures, etc.
At Pegasus today I went 4-0, winning 8 packs. I had a similar deck but also had aurelia's fury and the 6/5 that can only be blocked by two or more creatures. I beat orzhov in round 1, Boros mirror in round 2, Boros mirror in round 3, and a very tough simic match in round 4 from an opponent who couldn't ID. The boros matches were basically coin flips, both of those opponents made play mistakes that cost them the match. My 1st Boris opponent had double foundry guy like Chris, Boros Reckoner, and a LOT of two drops so there were some crazy pools out there. I read Paulo's article on CFB on Friday and he mentioned how the rares you automatically get in your guild pack are like a 7/10 chance of getting a bomb not to mention the crazy foundry guy and burn suite. Also, Madcap Skills was ridiculous both days, all day.
As for the format on a whole, I thought each of the guilds were interesting and powerful. I saw good decks in each , with good 3-color variants too. Gruul looked to be the worst aside from the deck that beat Pat. Bloodrush is a great ability in limited but its card disadvantage and those colors don't have a lot of other stuff going on other than big dudes. Boros has burn, some insane bombs, etc, Dimir has some silly cipher cards like what Pat had, Simic has the best late game of any guild and a fantastic charm, and Orzhov has the inevitability factor that Travis mentioned.
Chris ditto on what you said about Assembly. That card IS the new Pack Rat.
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Evan
Full Member
Posts: 140
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Post by Evan on Jan 29, 2013 16:48:23 GMT -5
I would have gone 2-0 against the Orzhov deck regardless...but he managed to get himself a loss after Ben discovered he had traded for the Ghost Council the guy across from him opened and then put it in his deck. Probably should have been a DQ and I'm pretty sure the guy did it knowing it was wrong. Sigh, it's a hard situation. At this level of tournament, if he knew it was wrong it's a DQ. If he doesn't on the other hand...he said he didn't know that he couldn't do it. I've seen him at quite a few PTQs, and he seems to know the game rules pretty well. That being said, haven't really seen him at any competitive events. We know to keep an eye on him in the future. Cheers
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