Before starting this article I would like to continue my current article trend of criticizing Portuguese things. This time, I’m talking about Magic cards translated into Portuguese, for four reasons.
1) Because they’re always full of bugs that makes cards much more powerful.
2) Because they always have ridiculous, sometimes perverted names, which don’t exactly match with the originals.
3) Sometimes two cards with the same name are present in the same format. For example, Repeal from Guildpact and Overrule from Dissension both have the same name in Portuguese.
4) Finally, the point that annoyed me the most… because prereleases use Portuguese language product, I lost plenty of time translating the card names to English. When I get to the middle of the season, I can just look at the pictures and type the English name. I can’t do this right now, since I still don’t know the cards by the art alone.
The past Saturday I went to the Linda-a-Velha High School in order to continue my Extended playtesting, and in between test games I got to play the Lorwyn prerelease. Since my testing group is down to two people, including myself, and we have no clue on the Extended format – which is a worry – I’m going to concentrate on my first prerelease card pool instead.
From what was rumored before the prereleases, I wasn’t very excited about Lorwyn. It’s simple: I think Tribal is a really bad mechanic. It’s not so bad when it’s a really small sub-theme, like in Time Spiral with Rebels or Thallids, but when it’s the main theme of a full block, that usually means the Block Constructed decks are pretty much obvious, and the Limited format is usually defective. First, you can just grab one Tribe and draft accordingly. Second, there are always some insane commons that will win the game if they’re not killed – or commons that prevent the opponent from winning if they’re on the table, like the Onslaught Block’s Sparksmith, Timberwatch Elf, and Wellwisher, and the new Silvergill Douser. It seems a fixed version of sins past, but from the little I saw, with a reasonable balanced distribution of lands and spells, one can’t win against a Silvergill Douser on the table. My final reason for low expectations regarding Lorwyn was I don’t particularly like creatures, so a Tribal block will probably mean I will be forced to play a few more creatures in my draft decks that I’m used to.
I opened this card pool
White
1 Shields of Velis Vel
1 Favor of the Mighty
1 Purity
1 Avian Changeling
1 Summon the School
1 Plover Knights
1 Wellgabber Apothecary
1 Soaring Hope
1 Kithkin Greatheart
1 Hillcomber Giant
1 Arbiter of Knollridge
1 Pollen Lullaby
1 Lairwatch Giant
White has a bomb (Purity), plus another playable rare. It also has lots of evasion, with two good fliers and one Mountainwalk creature, all with decent bodies and costs. Summon the School is really powerful if there are many merfolk in the pool. Rounding out, we have a couple of tricks and some more playable/filler cards. Not many cards, but quality stuff.
Blue
1 Scattering Stroke
1 Faerie Trickery
1 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Ringskipper
1 Deeptread Merrow
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Ethereal Whiskergill
1 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Paperfin Rascal
1 Aethersnipe
1 Inkfathom Divers
1 Streambed Aquitects
1 Wings of Velis Vel
All of the Blue cards are at least playable in Sealed Deck, so that leaves us a strong option for one of the main colors for our deck. There is also a small merfolk theme, with the highlight being the Silvergill Douser. Other than that, there’s no other power card… just a couple of counterspells, bounce spells, Islandwalkers, and instant tricks.
Black
1 Spiderwig Boggart
1 Hunter of Eyeblights
1 Boggart Harbinger
1 Eyeblight’s Ending
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Oona’s Prowler
1 Dreamspoiler Witches
1 Hornet Harasser
1 Exiled Boggart
1 Mournwhelk
1 Black Poplar-Shaman
2 Thorntooth Witch
Black happened to be the first color I looked at, and without looking at the others, just based on the initial impression, I immediately got the feeling I wouldn’t be playing with it. We have two very good removal spells, but that’s it. The tribal cards aren’t very focused: we have three Ents that will make the deck for sure if our main tribe is Ents, and we have four average Goblins and two Faeries. Other than the removal spells, and the two Thorntooth Witches if we happen to be playing Ents, Black is not appealing as a main color… maybe a support role?
Red
1 Hurly Burly
1 Caterwauling Boggart
1 Adder-Staff Boggart
1 Changeling Berserker
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Boggart Forager
1 Stinkdrinker Daredevil
1 Hearthcage Giant
1 Thundercloud Shaman
1 Mudbutton Torchrunner
2 Needle Drop
1 Tarfire
1 Lash Out
We can find many playable cards in Red. We have a decent number of removal (or situational removal) spells. Thundercloud Shaman is awesome, but the rest of the creatures rank as average or below.
Green
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
1 Battlewand Oak
1 Elvish Branchbender
1 Wren’s Run Vanquisher
1 Bog-Strider Ash
1 Seedguide Ash
1 Briarhorn
1 Fertile Ground
1 Elvish Eulogist
1 Sylvan Echoes
1 Spring Cleaning
1 Hunt Down
1 Warren-Scourge Elf
As usual, Green’s main strength comes from its creatures, which is the reason why it’s always a popular color for Sealed Deck. The other colors provide the neat tricks, while Green has the bodies. All the non-creature spells don’t seem worth it at first glance, and the Elves are very few in number and not very strong by themselves. Briarhorn is clearly a good trick and a decent body, while the Ents are quite decent (although few in number).
Artifact
1 Herbal Poultice
1 Moonglove Extract
1 Runed Stalactite
1 Springleaf Drum
Gold
Land
The rest of the pool gives us some more options. Wort, Boggart Auntie will make it for sure in a R/B deck, though that seems unlikely to occur. The artifacts may help cutting down our decklist to 21 cards instead of 23, since some of them seem to be making our final deck.
For me, our possibilities are:
* Blue/White with a Merfolk theme, making the most of our few power cards. This way we are playing Purity, and Summon the School is powered up. It’s probably the deck with the most synergy.
* Green/Black with a small Ent sub-theme, since it’s the among the few good things these colors have to offer in this pool.
* Blue/Red splashing Black. Those two main colors are the ones with more playable cards, and this way we’re maximizing our removal.
The Green/Black Ent deck would look like this:
8 Swamp
7 Forest
1 Vivid Crag
1 Mountain
1 Moonglove Extract
1 Springleaf Drum
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
1 Battlewand Oak
1 Elvish Branchbender
1 Wren’s Run Vanquisher
1 Bog-Strider Ash
1 Seedguide Ash
1 Briar Horn
1 Fertile Ground
1 Hunter of Eyeblights
1 Boggart Harbinger
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Oona’s Prowler
1 Dreamspoiler Witches
1 Hornet Harasser
1 Mournwhelk
1 Black Poplar-Shaman
2 Thorntooth Witch
Strengths:
* We’re using all the removal in the card pool, including the Thorntooth Witches.
* The small Ent sub-theme, with most being good by themselves.
* Wort, Boggart Auntie can not only recur Goblins, but also two of our removal cards – Tarfire and Nameless Inversion – and we have one card that can search for the Auntie.
Weaknesses:
* The mana curve is high.
* The deck plays with some filler cards.
* There are many small sub-themes. The Ents, the Goblins, and the Auntie may mean it loses some focus.
* The Elves are completely laughable.
The Blue/Red splash Black would look like this:
1 Eyeblight’s Ending
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Faerie Trickery
1 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Deeptread Merrow
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Ethereal Whiskergill
1 Aethersnipe
1 Inkfathom Divers
1 Streambed Aquitects
1 Wings of Velis Vel
1 Adder-Staff Boggart
1 Hearthcage Giant
1 Thundercloud Shaman
1 Mudbutton Torchrunner
1 Needle Drop
1 Tarfire
1 Lash Out
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
2 Swamp
8 Island
6 Mountain
Strengths:
* Wort, Boggart Auntie. It has more targets in this deck, but there’s no way to search for it.
* There are good spells.
Weaknesses:
* It’s not very synergistic. For example, Thundercloud Shaman is weakened.
* It’s more “a bunch of good cards” than a deck… and some of them are not even that good.
The Blue/White Merfolk deck would look like this:
7 Plains
7 Island
2 Swamp
1 Vivid Creek
1 Moonglove Extract
1 Springleaf Drum
1 Eyeblight’s Ending
1 Nameless Inversion
1 Kithkin Greatheart
1 Hillcomber Giant
1 Arbiter of Knollridge
1 Purity
1 Avian Changeling
1 Summon the School
1 Plover Knights
1 Wellgabber Apothecary
1 Faerie Trickery
1 Sentinels of Glen Elendra
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Deeptread Merrow
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Ethereal Whiskergill
1 Aethersnipe
1 Inkfathom Divers
1 Streambed Aquitects
1 Wings of Velis Vel
Strengths:
* There’s a good Merfolk theme (compared to the other possible themes this pool offers us)
* It has a good mana curve.
* The average power level of the cards is a little higher, as we’re running fewer filler cards
* There are many possible evasive creatures (Five fliers, four landwalkers).
Weaknesses:
* It has bad colored mana requirements
At the prerelease I went for the Blue/White Merfolk build, which is probably the best option. However, I did make two mistakes in deckbuilding.
First, I played with Spellstutter Sprite because I thought it was a Mana Tithe if you had no more Faeries… as if the opponent had to pay X more for each Faerie you control, instead of countering a spell costing X. I did not have enough Faeries to support this card. [I think a lot of people made the same mistake… – Craig.]
Misbuild number 2: I was not playing with Springleaf Drum, even though this deck had a bad colored manabase. It splashed for Black, and had both double Blue and double White cards, and even a triple White bomb. In each round, I fixed those misbuilds by sideboarding in the Drum for the Spellstutter Sprite.
When I sat down to play the first of the seven swiss rounds I wasn’t very sure of the power of my deck, since this was the first card pool I’d tried… I had no frame of reference with which to contrast and compare. The MVP cards were clearly Summon the School and Silvergill Douser. Purity won me two games, but I also lost two because I couldn’t get to three White sources of mana, so I guess it’s even. I managed to start 4-0 before losing two straight games in round 5 to Chandra Nalaar, to which I had very few answers. In round 6, despite my opponent being a good player and having a better deck, saw my decent draws eclipse poor offerings from the other side of the table. I won two games straight, but we played some more for fun and he won most of them. That put me at 5-1 and paired up against the sole 6-0 player, our newly crowned national team member Bruno Marques.
Before Nationals, very few people had heard of him, but in the weekend after Nats he made Top 4 of the JSS Finals, and the week after he went undefeated at the prerelease, so he’s clearly on a hot streak that we hope will continue at Worlds.
Since the prerelease started with a three-hour delay, I was late for a birthday party, so I offered Bruno an intentional draw that he gladly took. That way, he won the prerelease at 6-0-1, and with my 5-1-1 score I probably finished fourth, according to my math.
I wasn’t exactly excited about the new Lorwyn cards, and the prerelease didn’t alter my expectations. It was, however, refreshing to change formats and to play with new cards. This 2007 season was too focused on Constructed. After a very long Block schedule, running from PT: Yokohama throughout the entire summer, I had to then shift back into Standard for Nationals, then to Extended for PT: Valencia, and after that Standard and Legacy for Worlds. I also have to worry about Vintage and Make Your Own Standard for the Invitational… but I’ll gladly take those problems. Despite not being too fond of new set, I was missing Limited seasons, and for a while it will be nice to have Limited tournaments for which to practice. I’ll be attending some Sealed Grand Prix tournaments, and I hope to do well.
For now, I swear I’m gonna cry if I have to crack another Extended fetchland…
Thank you for reading, and enjoy Lorwyn!
Tiago