Good Times at Good Games - My Worldwake Pre-Release Experience
09 Feb 2010 | David Li Wang
Good Times at Good Games – My Worldwake Pre-Release Experience
Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed your pre-release or launch party, as I certainly enjoyed mine, despite it being the shortest event I had ever played at. The long story short why it didn’t last long was because I had a lot of homework and assignments to do, and so I went to the pre-release with the intention of dropping at 12:00pm.
I arrived at Good Games Sydney at 9:50, 10 minutes early and joked around with a few people, but as some people were running late, we didn’t start until 10:10.
My pool was pretty bad (less than 4 playables in green and black and had terrible rares) and I also couldn’t play red with 5 playables, which is the colour I always play. However, I had a few decent blue and white cards and so I was forced to play Blue-White.
This was my deck:
Lands
9 Island
8 Plains
1 Dread Statuary
Creatures
1 Steppe Lynx
2 Kor Skyfisher
1 Kor Hookmaster
1 Apex Hawks
1 Battle Hurda
1 Shepherd of the Lost
2 Calcite Snapper
2 Horizon Drake
1 Stonework Puma
1 Pilgrim’s Eye
Non-Creature Spells
1 Brave the Elements
1 Rest the Weary
1 Windborne Charge
1 Iona’s Judgement
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Spreading Seas
1 Vapor Snare
In my first round I was paired against Robert Baker-Turley, who was a very friendly guy. I won my first game, despite keeping a hand that would usually be sent back. It had 3 Plains and the 4 other cards were Steppe Lynx, Calcite Snapper, Horizon Drake and Spreading Seas. I managed to top deck 2 Islands in a row, giving me the opportunity to curve easily and win turn 9, after attacking with the unexpected Calcite Snapper when the board had been cleared by my Whiplash Traps. I was pretty proud to have kept a bad hand a win comfortably with it for the first time in a sealed game in a long time. Usually I have miserable luck.
I lost the following two games, after choosing to mulligan both games. The second game was a pure damage race, with Robert dealing 18 points of damage with Surrakar Marauder and finishing me off, while he was on 3. In the third game, my first hand had all Islands and white spells only and the right choice was clearly to mulligan, the next hand had no lands and I had to go down to 5, with a 1 land hand. Nevertheless, I kept as going to 4 would have been too risky and I managed to top deck a land the next turn. Being stuck on 2 lands with a Kor Skyfisher for a few turns got a bit boring but Robert didn’t have much action going on either. Finally I top decked an Island, dropping down a Pilgrim’s Eye, finding another land and allowing me to play Calcite Snapper the next turn. Robert’s creatures were unable to do much as my Pilgrim’s Eye and other creatures ate away his life slowly and it looked like I would win. Things changed when he dropped Ob Nixilis, gaining back some life and began taking my life down. When it was clear I could only take him down to 1 life and he would lose a whole lot of creatures in the process, I decided to help Robert get the bingo of 40 power worth of creatures in the third game (Ob Nixilis got massive), and he was so generous to give me the Worldwake shirt, but the win granted him 2 boosters for the round so he wasn’t set back too much.
In the next round, my opponent was someone from my school but he had to leave, so I had a bye and played a friend, Chrisyanto Wijiya who had finished his game early, for fun.
The first game against him was hilarious. Let’s just say that he had destroyed 2 of my 3 lands, wiped my board clear with Day of Judgement and was on much higher life than I was. The terrible luck of not drawing lands continued until my luck finally changed as I approached death, resulting in a series of really good draws, after having to discard down 3 turns in a row and I clawed my way back up with Rest the Weary and managed to win with an eventual top deck of Windborne Charge.
In the next game, it seemed like I was in a dominant position until the tide changed instantly with the Day of Judgement and I had an empty board, and it appeared that Chrisyanto would definitely win. However, Dread Statuary pulled me out of trouble and Windborne Charge eventually sealed the deal again.
The last game against Chrisyanto was pretty fun again but ended slightly quicker than the previous two. Calcite Snapper in the red zone, with Dread Statuary, Steppe Lynx and Kor Skyfisher wrapped up the game with Windborne Charge in my hand again for an overkill.
My MVP cards of the day were tied between Kor Skyfisher, Calcite Snapper, Windborne Charge and Horizon Drake. Dread Statuary was also very good and deserves a special mention.
If I had gone on and played out the rest of my games, I probably would have at least gone 3-1 or 2-2. Too bad I couldn’t.
The Rares I got from my sealed pool were:
Foil Chain Reaction
Harabaz Druid – Another random ally to throw into my junk folder.
Butcher of Malakir – 7 mana is too slow for me for its effect.
Eye of Ugin – I was so angry when I saw this. I’m not going to throw it away because I hope it has some constructive use after RotE is released.
Armament Master – Unplayable as I had no equipment
Magosi, the Waterveil – I have pulled enough of these already…
Predatory Urge – Don’t want to see this card again…
From my 2 prize packs I got after dropping, the rares I got were:
Quest for Ula’s Temple
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
It was quite fitting for me to crack a foil Chain Reaction as I was the one who spoiled it on MTG Salvation. Although the other rares didn’t make me too happy since they were quite useless to me, I was still reasonably pleased.
Overall I enjoyed my shortest pre-release ever. How was yours?
That’s all for this week! Good Games! Good Times! GG!
By David Li Wang aka RedBluePlayer on Good Games Forums and MTG Salvation
For discussion.