I want to start with “it’s that time again,” but I won’t be saying that again for quite some time.
Before you overreact and think that I’m quitting writing or something ludicrous like that, panic not: I’m talking more about this here wee thrice-yearly Prerelease Survival Guide series. I’ll keep writing, but I’m not sure I can do this every four months. I mean, I can’t even do it this time. I usually hand these things in early Friday morning (my time). It’s meant to be Thursday night before I go to bed, but as Teddy Cardgame could no doubt tell you – if he hadn’t scampered off to slightly greener pastures – that “Thursday night” often ended up being “4am Friday morning.”
It’s now 8:30pm on Thursday night, and MTGSalvation.com is still twenty-one cards off the full spoiler.
Usually they’re two or three cards off at most, and when I’m trying to whip up a list of commons and uncommons that may surprise you or ruin your weekend, two or three cards off the full list is fine. Twenty-one cards, not so much. Those folkses at the Wizards of the Coast Happy-Fun-Times Shop must be getting better at preventing leaks, and that spells the end for Prerelease Survival Guides.
So what now? I’ve obviously whipped something up for you to read before you plunge headfirst in to your Prerelease weekend, but what?
Give a man a fish and he’s fed for the day. Teach him to fish and he’s fed for the rest of his life. Or, to paraphrase Terry Pratchett (because I’m too darn lazy to look up the correct quote), “give a man fire and he’s warm for the rest of the day, but set a man on fire and he’s warm for the rest of his life.” Actually, I think I’ve been looking for an excuse to use (and abuse) that quote, but now that I think of it, I may have already used it in another article.
Man, this old age stuff is a pain in the… uhh, what was I saying again?
(LOL hilarious old man joke!)
This time, I want to harden you against the dangers of going into a Prerelease unprepared. In the past, I have listed cards and tricks to keep an eye on. For instance, going into the Planeshift Prerelease, someone may have wrecked your day with a timely Terminate. I mean, who’d expect that from two mana? But I digress.
The first thing we need to address is building your deck.
While we don’t know all of the cards in Guildpact, we do know the color pairs that will be showing up. This means that your options for a three color Sealed Deck are now more open than simply Selesnya/Boros (Green/White/Red), Selesnya/Golgari (Black/Green/White), and Golgari/Dimir (Green/Black/Blue).
Aside on my trip to Japan (yeah, you knew one of these was going to show up somewhere in here): Before I went to Japan, I was completely against naming color combinations after their Guilds. I couldn’t get my head around people saying that they had “drafted Selesnya” or whatever. Just because Conclave Equenaut has Convoke and a wee Selesnya watermark on its text box, it doesn’t mean I can’t play it in my aggressive White/Red Draft deck. The same goes for Stinkweed Imp in a Blue/Black deck, or Master Warcraft in a Green/White deck.
Of course, that was before Messrs Rosewater, Sottosanti, Buehler and Forsythe took me out back, tied me down to Japanese dinner table (one that’s only, like, twelve inches off the ground) and tortured me with feather dusters and the threat of adding one colorless mana to the cost of every card in Dissension. From then on it was all Golgari this, Boros that, and “yes mister Selesnya sir, that was particularly Dimir of me.” End Aside.
Guildpact brings Izzet (Blue/Red), Gruul (Red/Green), and Orzhov (Black/White), opening up the potential color combinations considerably. The Selesnya/Golgari combination welcomes Orzhov into the fold, just as much as Boros/Selesnya has a big, manly bear hug for the Gruul. This appears to strengthen these color combinations, but in reality it only diversifies their game plans. You can’t build a Dredge, Convoke, or even a Mill deck quite as effectively when you’re only pulling from the Tournament pack for those strategies. This isn’t so bad: I once administered some fairly nasty beatings with a tasty Dredge Sealed Deck, so people playing less focused decks where Convoke and Dredge are merely funky tricks has got to be a Good Thing™.
While Orzhov and Gruul can play Happy Families with those guilds above, the Izzet aren’t so lucky, only coupling with Dimir or Boros (or if you want to forget multicolored cards from Ravnica altogether, with Gruul). Still, I’m sure said couplings will eventuate in Happy Families for all come Dissension in Spring.
(Fun fact: it will be fall in my neck of the woods, which we actually call “Autumn”.)
Look at me, sidetracked by the talk of the Guilds getting cozy, and one of the four seasons.
If you want to build an Izzet/Boros deck, you’re taking from a slightly narrower pool of cards than if you were building with three guilds, but watch closely as I get to my point.
(Pause for you to brace yourself, I don’t get to the point often…)
If you sit down to build your deck this weekend with the preconceived notion that you need to be playing Selesnya/Golgari/Orzhov or Boros/Selesnya/Gruul, then you could end up playing a sub-optimal Sealed Deck. Take the cards as you see them. What has deep mana? What can support the bomb you opened? Most importantly, what can give you the most consistent build that will help you win? If that happens to be a lowly two-Guild combination, then go smash with just those two Guilds!
It’s probably possible to play four colors, and I don’t just mean five-color-Green. I’m talking “common Guild Lands and Signets” style. You won’t open many more than usual… it’s just that they’ll span a larger variety of colors. Sadly, I’m too conservative to put that out there as a viable option at this point.
Enough about mana! Let’s move on to surviving in a tournament where you have no idea what your opponent could throw out at you. This first tip comes from a man who calls himself Agentis. You may laugh at him for calling himself Agentis, but then if you did that you’d have to laugh at me for calling myself blisterguy, and if you did that I might just cry. You don’t want me to cry, do you? Anyway, Agentis’ advice is “bring deodorant. For others, as much as yourself.”
Great advice there Agentis, thanks. Let’s hope everyone reading out there also remembers to have a wee spin in the shower before they apply said deodorant.
*obligatory cough*
Now, I can’t claim to be some big poker-tell-spotting-pro here. In fact, I am seriously lacking in the skills needed to look for that kind of thing. I mean, I try to do it every now and again, when I actually remember, but I’m used to playing on Magic Online. However, we’re not talking about the super-poker-face botox-is-for-n00bs Pro Tour here… this is a Prerelease. Here are a few sample behaviors to look out for:
Mister Talkative
I’ve been told that I can be quite a chatty player, joking and laughing while I play, and so on. If I start losing, I shut the hell up and focus more and more on the game. If your opponent is anything like me, being able to spot when they stop joking and start choking could be the difference between missing an opportunity and pushing the advantage to a win. Just be sure you’re not playing against…
The Actor
I’ve seen some terrible Actors in my time, but then that’s the point, isn’t it? The bad ones are the easy ones to spot. A classic example was at the Darksteel Prerelease. The Actor played out his sixth land and sighed audibly with a shake of his head (and maybe even a thump of the fist on the table). Even a bunch of bananas well past their used-by date will tell you than anyone who sits on six mana with cards in hand is either holding back a mana flood, or is clutching something special. An Actor with a mana flood is likely to put on a show of confidence, so the above actions should signal a trap.
Upon seeing this, I leaned over and whispered to a fellow spectator, “he’s clearly sitting on a Tangle Spider.” The reply was, “obv.”
Sure enough, the opponent attacked in and suddenly The Actor’s Spider sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffet away. What made this example memorable was that The Actor managed to put on a repeat performance for his next turn, up to and including his opponent attacking into a second Tangle Spider.
The Angsty Trash Talker
This guy will try to belittle you, call you names (other than the one your parents gave you) and generally make your game unpleasant. The purpose of this tactic is to put you off your guard and lure you into making mistakes. You tackle this problem much the same way you should tackle any smack-talkery type opponent in any competitive environment. Be it Magic, Poker, the courtroom, or that one time the old lady was yelling at you at the bus stop to quit lollygagging’ and get to school. I mean hell, it’s been years since I was young enough to go to school, where did that old biddy get off? I go anywhere near a school now and the teachers laugh at me for being old. Anyway, you deal with it by ignoring the ignoramus and concentrating on the game at hand. Just try to block it out and move on. Hope that they’ll in turn get flustered at the fact their attacks are bouncing off your omg-super-cool-dude armor and make some mistakes of their own.
Oh, and it pays to remember that they’re usually angsty and trash-talkery to make up for the fact that they’re lacking an inch or two in their private life, know what I’m saying?
Try to have fun this weekend. A prerelease is meant to be a fun tournament, which makes for a nice casual atmosphere.
(Great for trying to learn to read your opponents! But you could also you know, just have some fun.)
Remember to tip your judge staff with chocolate. We – I mean, they – sure do have a soft spot for chocolate…
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