Another prerelease

I went to Redmond at Games and Gizmos to play in another prerelease. I got there at 11, with the event scheduled to start at 2, and I was like 25th out of the 32 maximum for the store. As an aside, I think Wizards should go back to sponsoring big prereleases, they're way more fun and you don't have to sorry people who show up at the scheduled time because too many people come to the stores, and they really screw the premier tournament organizers that run their PTQ's for them.

I built a straight GWU Bant deck with Empyrial Archangel as my bomb. The way I think to build a sealed deck is to maximize the bombs while still having some amount of removal and good support creatures, because just a solid deck will probably X-2 a PTQ, losing to people with more bombs or better bombs.

Round 1 and 2 are pretty uneventful. Round 3 I play Jason, who's helped me get into the Seattle Magic community since I've gotten here and is very good. He plays really fast, and I again got into the trap of keeping up. Game 1 I kept a pretty crummy hand and play a lot of land and ramp and no spells. Game 2 I blow him out, and Game 3 he mulligans to 5 and I play more spells than he does. I made one mistake in the beginning of the game where I had a Steward of Valereon and a Kathari Screecher against his Naya Battlemage and a Forest and Plains, which means Qasali Ambusher. I had a Sigil Blessing in hand but I didn't really want to attack with both guys and have it only take out whoever would block the 2/2 Vigilance guy, so I attack with just the flier. He blocks with the Ambusher...

"Excuse me?"
"Block with the Ambusher."

I read it, and it has Reach. At that point I go ahead and drop my pump guy 'cause I can't lose that tempo, but I should have just attacked with both guys, and he'd potentially double block and I 2 for 1 him, or he blocks as he did and I get another 3 damage in. I honestly didn't know he had reach, but hey it's the prerelease, but hey I had the same card in my deck, I should know what my cards do. I'm pretty sure I make some questionable attacks/acts of cowardice (the new Magic term is apparently being a coward, or not attacking with guys when you should) in trying to play fast, and I need to get myself to slow down and not care that I'm not keeping up pace! Ugh!

Round 4 I lose on a mulligan to 4, keeping a no land hand on the draw but that had Elvish Visionary to get me there should I draw a Forest and another land off the top. Game 2 is close, but with the score 12-8 in my favor, with a Sanctum Gargoyle and a Waveshimmer Aven on the board and him with a lot of White, Green, and Blue mana open and his own army (but me holding an Angelsong), I fly over the top... and get Resounding Silenced. REALLY dumb of me not to consider the card at all, and I get blown out from there. That's just me not playing tight at a very low-level.

Round 5 I play against a kid who had the 4/4 Dragon that makes another 4/4 flying buddy, the 4/4 devouring haste dragon, and Hellkite Overlord in one sealed pool. Game 1 I pretty much get blown out. Game 2 he plays out all three of his bombs, and I get him down to 2 but still get blown out. I made a bad block when he attacked with a 4/4 token and I double block with a 2/2 and 2/3 flier, but completely walk into the Exalted trigger and lose both my guys. In Game 2 I also threw a flier in front of a Hellkite Overlord with my Angel on my side thinking I could keep the Angel another turn but forgot about the Firebreathing ability. Irrelevant in the end because he had 3 dragons on the board... but there were definitely reasons to not call it an injustice.

Wednesday, since a lot of people have at least a draft set, First Pick will probably be doing a bring your own Shards draft, then Friday is likely the first Shards of Alara FNM, and Saturday is all-day drafting. One thing I need to start doing that I see Jason, Gurney, and a lot of other good players do is play games for fun, because A) Magic is fun, and B) Magic is more fun when you learn the bad plays that you're making against your friends when nothing is on the line.

As for the time in between, I have 3 Sealed Deck pools in my possession, so I'll be tearing those apart and figuring out different ways to build them and seeing what's good and what's terrible. Less than three weeks now...