New Phyrexia Prerelease

I went to the prerelease in Seattle this last Saturday, and it was a really good experience.
I had a hard time getting to the actual location, because there were medians, one way streets, and freeways in the way of my intended destination, so I ended up just parking within sight of the general convention center area, and walking the last 3 blocks, which ended up working out just fine.

The actual place the event was being held was also relatively difficult to find once I was on site.  I eventually gave up, and looked up the details on my phone, and got my bearings with one of the many maps of the seattle convention center area.  (With the Space Needle, the EMP, and many other cool buildings/fountains/etc).  Not 15 seconds after I checked my phone, I saw a New Phyrexia poster taped to the side of a building with an arrow pointing in the direction I was travelling.  Doh!

I got to the site around 8:55, when the flights started at :45 after throughout the day, but I got a chance to wander around, and found a guy I knew from a MTG group at work playing, as well as a colleague I knew from work, which was a surprise.  I chatted a bit with the people, got to take a gander at what people were playing, and work out the "I don't remember my DCI number" problem in plenty of time before the flight started.

I also struck up a conversation with the guy seated across from me while we were waiting for our packs.  He seemed like a great guy, and actually worked in a related field, and was from the Redmond area (like me), which was quite amusing.  I am terrible with names, so I apologize for that right off, but all day, 90% of the people at the prerelease were very nice!

I proceeded to open one of the least encouraging sealed decks that I've seen.  I had a rare infect creature (that got better the more infected they were) with only 1-2 other playable infect cards.  I got two Furnace Celebrations (and two of the land-searchers), with only 2 ways to sacrifice anything.  I buckled down though, and tried to find what I could make work with what I had.  I had 20 of the cards I wanted to play with ~5 minutes to spare, and had ~0 time to play through some test hands once I'd finalized my 40.

Here is what I opened, see what you would do with it, I'll give my list afterwards:

White:
Auriok Sunchaser
2x Lost Leonin (2/1 Infect for 1W)
Loxodon Wayfarer
Fugilent Distraction
Vigil for the Lost
2x Remember the Fallen
Kemba, Kha Regent
Shriek Raptor
Sensor Splicer
Due Respoect
Kemba's Skyguard
Arrest
Dispense Justice
Origin Spellbomb

Blue:
2x Spined Thopter
2x Defensive Stance
Trespassing Souleater
Plated Seastrider
Turn Aside
Disperse
Scrapdiver Serpent
Neurok Replica
Chained Throatseaker
Blighted Agent
Inexorable Tide

Black:
2x Grim Affliction
Memoricide
Praetor's Grasp
Parasitic Implant
Entomber Exarch
Painsmith
Psychic Miasma
Mortis Dogs
Plague Stinger
Caress of Phyrexia
Vault Skirge

Red:

Kuldotha Rebirth
Flameborn Hellion
Victorious Destruction
2x Furnace Celebration
Rage Extractor
Melt Terrain
2x Volt charge
Trigon of Rage
Panic Spellbomb
Urabrask, the Hidden
Blade-Tribe Berserkers

Green:
Phyrexian Swarmlord
3x Death-Hood Cobra
Tel-Jilad Defiance
Beast Within
Molder Beast
Copperhorn Scout
Glistener Elf
Tel-Jilad Fallen

Artifact:
2x Iron Myr
2x Copper Myr
2x Mycosynth Wellspring
2x Phyrexian Hulk
Blinding Souleater
Livewire Lash
Kiln Walker
Strider Harness
Necropouncer
Mindcrank
Clone Shell
Memnite
Darksteel Myr
Golem Foundry
Necrogen Censer

Land:
Pyrexia's Core

How would you build this?

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I would rate this selection as having no "bomb" rares.  Several of the rares and uncommons had no synergy with anything else in the card pool, so they had to be set aside.

Kemba is pretty good (+ 3 total equipment, so I was pretty lucky that they were at least marginal), and Urabask seemed like he could be good in an aggressive strategy.



Livewire Lash, Strider Harness, and Necropouncer are not exactly amazing equipment, but they were reasonably aggressive, so they made the cut.  (Never cast Necropouncer)  The Blinding Souleater seemed like an auto-include, even if it wasn't the most aggressive card.

I played all the removal in RW (2x Volt Charge, Arrest, Dispense Justice)  I liked the Volt Charges (most common target: the 3/1 first strike guy (Porcelain Legionnaire).  Dispense wasn't awesome, to be sure, but it was okay. 

I started pretty much any flyer I could (2x off-color Spined Thopters, Shriek Raptor (infect), Kemba's Skyguard.).  I did not start the Sunchasers, because my artifact count was pretty low.  The Raptor was a great "wall", and the Spined Thopters applied some early damage, or traded off with opposing flyers I couldn't otherwise block/deal with.

I played both on-color spellbombs (the only spellbombs I had), because they seemed to go okay with the decks "strategy", and both real abilities worked quite well.  Panic Spellbomb + Urabask made things quite difficult for my opponents.

I played the Sensor Splicer (acceptable, one of my "aggressive beaters"?), and Kiln Walker, which was always excellent.  Kiln Walker was probably 1/3 of the damage I did with this deck.

I played the Trigon of Rage, but it only accounted for perhaps 6 damage all day.  It was a threat for more damage, but I just didn't have the time to activate it very often (mana was tight).  The times when it did damage it was pretty crucial damage though, so that's fine.

2xRemember the Fallen was pretty excellent.  It often did Morbid Plunder duty, getting an artifact (creature), and another creature.  Sometimes I had nothing to bring back, because all I had in my graveyard was removal, so I would advocate stocking up on the (artifact) creatures before you play 2x of these, but it was pretty great.

Iron Myr x1 made the list, basically as filler.  I may have attacked with it for 1 once, used it to enable metalcraft once, and tapped it for a red once.  I am glad I did not play 2x.

Blade Tribe Berserkers was another filler.  I did Metalcraft it once, and juse used it as a Hill Giant another time.

Due Respect was pretty awesome.  I'd often cycle it on their T3 upkeep after they had no turn 2 play.  Their land comes into play tapped, and they can't put anything out there to block my 2/1 flyer, or 0/3 Kiln Walker, or some other member of my Motley Crue of "attackers".  As a tempo play, or pseudo-Abeyance, it was quite nice.  I imagine if I had been in more close race situations, casting it in response to one of their post-combat creatures would have been game-winning, but I never got to those situations (with Due Respect in my hand)  I would definitely not underestimate this card, and play any that I drafted.

9 plains and 7 mountains rounded out the list.  I felt I had to get lucky to get the creatures rolling early, and I had no (good) 6+ drops.  I didn't play any Islands for the Spined Thopters, because I wanted to have no problems casting Kemba + Skyguard (1WW) and Urabask (3RR) on time.  There was only a few times across the many games where I even could have paid 3 mana to cast the thopter, so it worked out okay.

I thought about the Black for a long while.  I really wanted to play the draw 3, and -1/-1 proliferate, praetor's grasp for their Koth/Karn/etc, but I resisted the urge (mostly due to BB-casting cost problems), and stuck to "two" colors.

the 2/2 unblockable for Phyrexian U also danced in and out of my deck depending on mood.  It's pretty good with power-pumping equipment/Trigon, but I ended up benching it because I just wanted the other cards more.  I could definitely see someone playing the Trespassing Souleater, but it didn't end up happening this time.

Round 1, I battled a fine gentleman, whose deck seemed to be solely composed of 1 and 2 power flyers.  (Black/White)

He beat my down quite handily in game one, and I sided out some clunky stuff for the Vault Skirge I had in my sideboard.  I drew my 2/3 infect flyer, and some Kiln Walker + Blade Splicer "beatdown" to take game two.   He had an artifact that exiled graveyard artifacts to make golems, which seemed quite strong.  I had to have Urabask to win this one, and between him, Panic Spellbomb, Kiln Walker, and Blade Splicer, all timely draws, I managed to squeak out a win.  (Key play, his golem-generator artifact tried to make a golem in response to my lethal attack, but Urabask (in play from the previous turn) caused it to not block so well).  After the match, he showed me his "Destroy all creatures, Cap you for 3 cards" black sorcery, that he did not play in this game.  I don't know that I had 3 cards in my deck worth taking out, but it definately would have won the game off the wrath effect.

Game three, I stabilized in the air, and he drew many many lands.  He did have some removal spells, but I never saw a big threat from him like in game 2.

Mark Rosewater came by partway through this match, and asked if he could put a picture he took of us up on his Facebook (or some other social networking site).  It was an amusing image with thought bubbles for what we were "really" thinking while we were playing.  I chickened out from asking him for a job (ug), and it was a fun encounter with a MTG spokesman.

Round 2, I was paired down against a fine guy, whose name started with a H. (apologies).  He was playing Green/Black, splash White for some removal/Golem creators.  Game one, his deck decided to not give him anything early (that I couldn't burn away) and the Kiln Walker + Kemba + removal took him down. 

Game two, he drew some removal, into the 3/6 which shut me down fairly well, and he just kept dropping 6-7's until I lost.  (Including Wurmcoil, which I pretty much can't beat unless I Arrest it)  I boarded in the 5-mana sorcery that destroys lands and artifacts in a vain hope that if he was mana screwed (in his multiple-HorizonSpellbomb deck), I could slow him down a turn, or cut him off a color with enough time to win.

Game three looked like game 1, until my heart stopped when he tapped 6 mana to drop... 2 equipment, into his creatureless board.  My slow beaters were enough to finish the game off from there.

So, I'm feeling pretty lucky here.  I head over to the artist area, to get a card signed (I brought a M11 Voltaic Key - awesome art).  The artist had his wares out, and was churning through the signatures like a machine.  He was a friendly guy, and I told him his art blew the original out of the water (which it did).

Round 3, I sit down and face my opponent, a very friendly gal named Anne.  She, like several of the other people I talked to, came from the Eastside (across a lake and stuff) to get to the event.  Made me wonder why the held it in Seattle and not Redmond!  Anne was rocking a Red/Black deck, with some phyrexian mana cards that seemed quite good (the clone to kill my Kemba made me sad).

The first game, I was completely overrun by dangerous red creatures, and Urabask (After the match, she told me she had two(!) of this mythic rare)

The second game, I had some removal for her early stuff, and Kemba + Strider Harness is not bad at all.  (Harness the new cats for haste, reequip postcombat to make a new cat).

In the decider, I felt terrible, because I had been chatting conversationally throughout the match, and I got a Kemba + (topdecked, like a champ) Strider Harness out, and she had a Shrine of Burning Rage.  It was pretty funny, because she would say "Untap, Upkeep, Rage", and I would say "Untap, Upkeep, Cat".  Eventually, the shrine got up to 4 counters, and she sacrificed it, targetting my Kemba.  I said "Are you sure you want to do that" (or something along those lines), but because I had been joking/friendly the whole time, she may have thought that I was attempting to convince her to not kill my Kemba, when in fact I was trying to call attention to the fact that that action might not be the best.  She took it like a champ though, and didn't complain or anything.  The next turn, she legend rules my Kemba with her clone (Phyrexian Metamorph?), but I think Trigon of Rage + Strider harness put a hasty attacker in to seal the deal.  I felt/feel pretty terrible about this win.

While waiting for round 4 to start, I played against one of my Microsoft friends, and he beat my soundly 2-0, so I got a reality check that my deck might not be "all that", since it basically scoops to any 6-drop in the format.  The Microsoftie also gave me a Granola bar out of the blue, so props to him!

In round 4, my opponent and I did a prize split, but we played out the last round, for the glory of a single pack.  Again, he was a very friendly guy, and very professional.

In the first game, I got out to a slow start, trading creatures on defense just to prevent him from getting too far ahead (I'd found at this point that my "Aggressive" deck wasn't very aggressive, or I wasn't playing it very aggressively, or something), then the artifact tap-guy came down, with me having a significant board advantage, and he scooped into game two.  He showed me some mountains, plains, and islands during the game, so I presumed he had some even better stuff than I saw.

In game two, I played out some dorks, and some removal, and on the turn he died, he showed me a hand of 6 blue cards, with 0 Islands (+5-6 land) in play.  Yuck!

After the game was over, he showed me Karn, Venser, and Horde Smelter, so I am just glad that my deck was kinder to me with my rares than his was to him.  Planeswalkers are pretty non-beatable in limited.  Pretty much anyone in the room had more value in their 6 opened packs than I did, so that was pretty nifty to think about.

I proudly grabbed my 7 packs for the day, said goodbye to my friends, and drove home, pretty happy about how I'd taken what seems like a sub-par sealed deck to a 4-0 record.

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After I got home, I watched some GGSLive, where Rashad beat some guys, then lost to a elf deck, whose pilot didn't know what JTMS did, walked into sweepers, and gave him an extra turn in exchange for killing his Venser.  (He got his Garruk to 9(!) counters as well...)  I have alot of respect for Rashad from watching those games, as a player, and a person.  He was very solid on the rules (he is a judge I believe...), explained things well/pateiently, didn't miss triggers, and had a great win rate against the random challengers.  He even had a guy try to give him a hard time after he (Rashad) killed him, because the guy had the life totals wrong, but Rashad was very patient, and the only downside was having to listen to the guy complain about what he "would have done".  Block your Phyrexian Crusader with my Mortarpod FTW!  I think there were only 50 or so people watching this, but I felt lucky to observe strong play, and fine person.

Way to go Rashad!