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Three Team CMU members headed down to the prerelease this weekend to kick some butt and take some names… And the three of them all submitted fine reports and reviews to make a very special day at StarCityGames.com. Paul uses his prerelease experience to tell you what cards are better than he thought, why you don’t need to worry about the loss of life from Zombie Cutthroat, and a little-known step in combat that just might be more relevant now thanks to Wing Shards.

This is an account of Day 1 of the two-day extravaganza that was the Pittsburgh Scourge Prerelease – and for those of you who didn’t get to one, a look at a few of the new cards in real play. For those of you who did get to a Prerelease, this may offer some insights about cards you didn’t see (there were plenty I didn’t) or just another perspective. Plus, you get to see the other half of Jeremy’s deck!

Even in multiplayer, Stifle will save your butt. The most promising use I can think of is to counter one of your own activated or triggered abilities. Notably, consider that this ability counters upkeeps and cumulative upkeeps, as well as 187 abilities, morph abilities (obviously), cycling abilities (either the card draw or any triggered abilities, but not both). It will save you from Pernicious Deed, Powder Keg, Strip Mine, creature-based abilities such as Willbender and many others. Most notably, casting this in response to putting Phage the Untouchable into play other than from your hand would, as it currently reads, counters the”you lose the game” clause. Moreover, this can counter the”return to play” trigger on cards like Astral Slide. Can you seriously ask for more?

My favorite part of Magic is still the creativity that it takes to build new decks. But something has happened recently: Winning is becoming more important to me. I don’t know what exactly happened to make me feel this way, but whatever it is, I want to win now. And playing your own decks isn’t the way to do this.

Please Note: The following prerelease report contains a bit of drama. It will contain a controversial decision that I made which reduced my chances of finishing with a box, plus a description of what may or may not have been a play error that caused a match loss. I ask your advice and help in the forums.

The title of this article does not make any sense until you get to the portion of the article that’s not even really part of the article. So please bear with me. This week, we’ll be exploring Onslaught red and green cards whose values fluctuate depending on your deck: How many Goblins do you need before you can play Airdrop Condor or Reckless One? How many elves do you need before you can play Wirewood Pride, Voice of the Woods, or Heedless One?

I’m talking about Dan Bock. He was the guy who played an all-land deck at a previous Pro Tour in Japan. Now, normally I don’t beg decklists from people who play all-land decks in major tournaments… But this was a special case. Dan qualified playing Full English Breakfast at the last Extended PTQ where Survival of the Fittest was legal. Since that time, he has recreated FEB several times – in Extended without Survival, in 5-Color, and in T1. Now he has built it in Highlander format, and it’s now kicking serious butt with Phage.

A prerelease survival guide? Sure, why not? There’s only one problem – I have a ticket to see a midnight session of Matrix Reloaded in one hour and fifty-one minutes, and I’m only just typing this now. Well… I guess that I’ll present a list of cards you should be wary of when building your Sealed deck, and tricks to look out for while you’re playing, and what you shouldn’t do given the new mechanics. And I’ll type it all the bullet-time so I can get this done in the next hour!

Yes, it is a combo deck. The pieces are cheap; the deck is a blast to play. The niftiest thing is nailing someone with a Head Games. Not bad for a $1 rare, if it resolves! It can completely screw with someone’s hand and game plan – and even with the minute amount of mana acceleration, comes out on turn 2 with disturbing frequency. Turn 2 Blood Oath happens, too… And that’s a lot of fun. It’s playable in both multiplayer and dueling, but what’s really nifty about this deck is how it takes very different roles in multi and duels….

The two key components of the archetype are mana and explosive effects. This is very important to keep in mind during the draft, because some of the picks are not immediately identifiable. The basic premise behind the deck is to ramp mana quickly and cast large splashable or in-color threats. The deck has an extremely powerful late game, considering that you take Invokers higher and splash a lot of giant creatures – so if you get all of the tools, it is simply too powerful for regular two-color decks.

There are a lot of cards out there that are just plain underused. Sometimes they are a great card that was unable to be used in decks of the time due to a funky metagame. Maybe they are latent powerhouses in Five Color – or maybe in Type Two, Extended, or Type One. And finally, a large chunk of cards are pure multiplayer goodness. All of these cards, whatever set and whatever age of Magic, have a common thread: They’re good. We’re not talking about jank like Debt of Loyalty and Jabari’s Influence (and who says white doesn’t steal things?). Instead, these are good cards that are just getting ignored, and I think it’s time someone used them.