{"id":357,"date":"2010-07-11T23:50:54","date_gmt":"2010-07-12T04:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2010\/07\/11\/m11-prerelease-report\/"},"modified":"2010-07-12T00:00:07","modified_gmt":"2010-07-12T05:00:07","slug":"m11-prerelease-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/2010\/07\/m11-prerelease-report\/","title":{"rendered":"M11 Prerelease Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston had a large regional prerelease, but it was on Saturday and I have family obligations on Saturday. Instead, I played the Sunday prerelease at my local store, Montag\u2019s Games<\/a>. I got there good and early, which was important because they had to turn people away at the Rise prerelease and I didn\u2019t want to risk that.<\/p>\n

This was actually my first time playing Limited with a core set. Back in the good old days when I first played, all Limited events were based on expansion sets and I don\u2019t actually remember any kind of pre-release or drafts for 6th Edition, which was the only core set to be released during that time. <\/p>\n

So, when we got our six packs this was my pool:<\/p>\n

White<\/strong>
\n1 Pacifism<\/a>
\n1 Infantry Veteran<\/a>
\n1 Serra Ascendant<\/a>
\n1 Holy Strength<\/a>
\n1 Blinding Mage<\/a>
\n1 Wild Griffin<\/a>
\n1 Solemn Offering<\/a>
\n1 Knight Exemplar<\/a>
\n1 Cloud Crusader<\/a>
\n2 Inspired Charge<\/a> (1 foil, whee)
\n1 Siege Mastodon<\/a><\/p>\n

Blue<\/strong>
\n1 Diminish<\/a>
\n1 Merfolk Spy<\/a>
\n1 Tome Scour<\/a>
\n1 Mana Leak<\/a>
\n1 Ice Cage<\/a>
\n2 Negate<\/a>
\n2 Flashfreeze<\/a>
\n1 Cloud Elemental<\/a>
\n1 Cancel<\/a>
\n1 Sleep<\/a>
\n1 Mass Polymorph<\/a>
\n1 Harbor Serpent<\/a><\/p>\n

Black<\/strong>
\n1 Unholy Strength<\/a>
\n1 Stabbing Pain<\/a>
\n1 Disentomb<\/a>
\n1 Viscera Seer<\/a>
\n1 Deathmark<\/a>
\n1 Reassembling Skeleton<\/a>
\n1 Bloodthrone Vampire<\/a>
\n1 Child of Night<\/a>
\n1 Black Knight<\/a>
\n1 Sign in Blood<\/a>
\n1 Mind Rot<\/a>
\n1 Quag Sickness<\/a>
\n2 Liliana\u2019s Specter<\/a>
\n1 Phylactery Lich<\/a>
\n1 Gravedigger<\/a>
\n1 Howling Banshee<\/a>
\n2 Nightwing Shade<\/a><\/p>\n

Red<\/strong>
\n2 Bloodcrazed Goblin<\/a>
\n1 Goblin Tunneler<\/a>
\n1 Ember Hauler<\/a>
\n1 Maniac Vandal<\/a>
\n2 Act of Treason<\/a>
\n1 Demolish<\/a>
\n1 Chandra\u2019s Outrage<\/a>
\n2 Lava Axe<\/a>
\n1 Earth Servant<\/a><\/p>\n

Green<\/strong>
\n1 Llanowar Elves<\/a>
\n1 Hornet Sting<\/a>
\n1 Autumn\u2019s Veil<\/a>
\n2 Primal Cocoon<\/a>
\n2 Fog<\/a>
\n1 Dryad\u2019s Favor<\/a>
\n1 Back to Nature<\/a>
\n1 Brindle Boar<\/a>
\n1 Awakener Druid<\/a>
\n1 Cultivate<\/a>
\n1 Giant Spider<\/a>
\n1 Prized Unicorn<\/a>
\n2 Spined Wurm<\/a>
\n1 Greater Basilisk<\/a>
\n1 Overwhelming Stampede<\/a>, a.k.a. \u201cSuperrun\u201d
\n2 Yavimaya Wurm<\/a> (1 foil)<\/p>\n

Artifacts and Land<\/strong>
\n1 Terramorphic Expanse<\/a>
\n1 Wurm\u2019s Tooth<\/a>
\n1 Dragon\u2019s Claw<\/a>
\n1 Steel Overseer<\/a>
\n1 Whispersilk Cloak<\/a>
\n2 Juggernaut<\/a><\/p>\n

The only real \u201cbomb\u201d in this pool, in my opinion, is the Overwhelming Stampede<\/a>. I could never remember the name of the card all day and just started calling it \u201cSuperrun\u201d because I always cast it for a ton, usually +5\/+5 or better. Frankly, overall, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a particularly strong sealed pool. It\u2019s not awful, but it\u2019s not especially impressive, either, like, say, this one<\/a>. No mythics, no big fliers, just some guys and very little removal.<\/p>\n

I ruled white out as a main color immediately. A couple fliers and Pacifism<\/a>, but not deep. The red is similarly shallow. Ember Hauler<\/a> is fine, of course, but even 2 Lava Axe<\/a> doesn\u2019t seem good enough. I liked all the counters in blue, but there\u2019s no win condition there; Sleep<\/a> is really good, but there\u2019s nothing to swing with once everyone is asleep. Maybe I could have run it as a support color, but otherwise no. I figured I had to run green because my only real bomb is there, and some good beaters, plus a Cultivate<\/a>, which I think is awesome. That left black, which had some decent stuff but nothing game-breaking. I was happy with the artifacts and land, though. Juggernaut<\/a> is pretty strong in Sealed, the Overseer and the Cloak are no slouches, either. The pool is pretty light on removal, though, but the Terramorphic plus the Cultivate allowed me to splash two Plains for the lone Pacifism<\/a>. Here\u2019s what was in sleeves at the beginning of my last match:<\/p>\n

1 Pacifism<\/a>
\n1 Stabbing Pain<\/a>
\n1 Child of Night<\/a>
\n1 Black Knight<\/a>
\n1 Sign in Blood<\/a>
\n1 Mind Rot<\/a>
\n1 Quag Sickness<\/a>
\n2 Liliana\u2019s Specter<\/a>
\n1 Phylactery Lich<\/a>
\n1 Gravedigger<\/a>
\n1 Howling Banshee<\/a>
\n1 Awakener Druid<\/a>
\n1 Cultivate<\/a>
\n1 Giant Spider<\/a>
\n1 Greater Basilisk<\/a>
\n1 Overwhelming Stampede<\/a>
\n2 Yavimaya Wurm<\/a>
\n1 Steel Overseer<\/a>
\n1 Whispersilk Cloak<\/a>
\n2 Juggernaut<\/a><\/p>\n

1 Terramorphic Expanse<\/a>
\n2 Plains
\n6 Forest
\n8 Swamp<\/p>\n

Everybody who looked at it was pretty underwhelmed. Not that it\u2019s bad\u2014the artifacts have nice synergy (foreshadowing Scars of Mirrodin?)\u2014but not exactly a fear-inducing final product. Not especially heavy on evasion, not a lot of removal, not many sneaky combat tricks. \u201cSeems really vanilla\u201d said one of my friends. Yep, pretty much, but hey, those are the cards I got. Anyway, I didn\u2019t go with the Spined Wurms because I think the Yavimaya Wurms are just better for only 1 colorless more; trample is really good, especially when so light on fliers. I didn\u2019t run the Reassembling Skeleton<\/a> main because it\u2019s not aggressive enough, but I did side it in against people with any big non-trampling beaters. The Nightwing Shades are OK but a little expensive; they did come in once or twice against slower decks that were heavy on fliers, or one in place of the Howling Banshee<\/a> if my opponent had a Giant Spider<\/a>. I did side in the Hornet Sting<\/a> a couple times against opponents that had a lot of x\/1s, especially fliers. <\/p>\n

One comment on the Lich: I was really on the fence about running it at all. It\u2019s pretty black-heavy, of course, and removal on an artifact is bad, but I wasn\u2019t sure how many people would main deck artifact hate. Also, I wouldn\u2019t be trying to cast it on turn 3, but more like mid-game. 5\/5 indestructible is really pretty good, so I thought it was worth a shot. However, I sided it out for game 2 in favor of a Deathmark<\/a> every single round. Basically, everybody played either green or white (or both) and I didn\u2019t want any 2-for-1s off a Naturalize or a Serene Offering, so I just went with Deathmark<\/a>. I should have run Deathmark<\/a> main and skipped the Lich. I only drew it once anyway, and had neither three Swamps or an artifact in play, so it didn\u2019t matter a lot in the end.<\/p>\n

Anyway, because it was not the greatest deck, I was determined to play tight and minimize mistakes. For a change, I think I was actually pretty successful in doing that. My strategy was to try to think, \u201cwhat would Aaron Forsythe and\/or Erik Lauer do?\u201d since this set is their baby and they were my teachers. That seemed to work pretty well, in fact. (Aaron\/Erik, if you read this, I would love<\/em> to know what you would actually have built from this card pool!)<\/p>\n

Round 1: Bruce, playing WGu<\/strong>
\nGame 1 Bruce Cultivated on turn 3 and dropped a Serra Angel<\/a> on turn 4. Yowza. I never even got close to blocking it or killing it, but I still won. How? My 2-drop was the Overseer, my 3-drop was also a Cultivate<\/a>, my 4-drop was a Juggernaut<\/a>, pumped by the Overseer, then I cast a Yavimaya Wurm<\/a> and blew out a huge Superrun for the win. Game 2 I got a turn 3 Cloak and a turn 4 Juggernaut<\/a> and that steamrolled me into a win 4 turns later.
\n1-0 matches, 2-0 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 2: Joe, playing GUr<\/strong>
\nJoe is a Montag\u2019s regular, and one of the best players there; I rarely beat him, and he\u2019s routinely in the top 8 no matter the format. Game 1 I didn\u2019t draw much that could handle Joe\u2019s blue flyers, and game 2 I just drew lots of land, and he beat the tar out of me with the 8\/8 islandwalker that I couldn\u2019t answer. Whee, thanks for playing.
\n1-1 matches, 2-2 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 3: Travis, playing WR<\/strong>
\nTravis pounded me into the earth with Turboland at FNM on Friday so I owed him one. I won game 1 on the back of a 20-point Superrun. Game 2 he bashed my head in with a Sun Titan<\/a>. Actually, that\u2019s not quite right, as I could actually block the Sun Titan<\/a> with my Black Knight<\/a>, but the kept recurring other guys and I just couldn\u2019t keep up. Game 3 I ran out to an early lead with something cloaked… and then started drawing land. Lots of land. I ultimately drew 15 of the 17 land in my deck\u2014but I still won. I had three removal spells in my hand and only a Cloak on the board, and he was at 6. He dropped a little dude, which I didn\u2019t bother with, then I finally drew a guy, and he hit it with Day. He drew a Roc Egg<\/a>, I drew land. He drew something else small, I drew land for several turns while he hit me. I finally drew a guy and Cloaked him up, and he blew up a Destructive Force<\/a>, which activated his Roc Egg<\/a>. I drew land. He beat me down with the 3\/3 Bird and something else, I drew land. Finally, I managed to draw a Shade and cloak it, then pump it next turn for the 6 I needed for the win.
\n2-1 matches, 4-3 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 4: Carlos, playing GBw<\/strong>
\nThis was the toughest match of the day, frankly. These games went long and were close. Game 1 I outraced his Primeval Titan<\/a> with my own green fatness backed up by a Cloak. Game 2 I had him on the ropes a little and he was short of land. I cast a Liliana\u2019s Specter<\/a> when he had only five land, and he discarded the Primeval Titan<\/a> and then got it by casting Rise from the Grave<\/a>. Good play. I could not handle the trample this time around, and died a horrible death. Game 3 was also long and drawn out. I got an early lead with a Juggernaut<\/a> on turn 4, which he Doom Bladed after it hit him once. I then got a Child of Night<\/a> equipped with the Cloak. He Naturalized the Cloak, but I came back with a second Juggernaut<\/a>. We traded blows a bit\u2014he managed to miss the flip on a Sorcerer\u2019s Strongbox<\/a> like five times along the way, which was nice. We both had 4\/5 Treefolk and then both with Wurms, but me also with a Specter. I ran my Wurm into his Wurm for 2 trample damage plus 2 in the air, then got back my Wurm with a Gravedigger<\/a>. He put a Warlord\u2019s Axe<\/a> on his Treefolk, but I tapped the Treefolk on my turn with Stabbing Pain<\/a> and that gave me a path to swing for lethal. Great match.
\n3-1 matches, 6-4 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 5: LaTisha playing WGb<\/strong>
\nGame 1 I got a Child of Night<\/a> on turn 2 which got me up to 26 life and her down to 14, but she dealt with it and then got a Squadron Hawk<\/a> into a second one. She followed that with a Wild Griffin<\/a> and I then literally drew 7 land in a row. I finally started to come back but it was too late, I got her down to 1 but she still had one of each flier on the board with me at 3 life so she had me. Game 2 I got the early Child and then a Juggernaut<\/a>, but was again being beaten up by various small white fliers. However, I got a couple guys out and then Superrun for +20 when she was at like 10. Game 3 I got a great draw: Overseer, Cloak, Juggernaut<\/a>, a removal spell, and 3 land. She did manage to Doom Blade<\/a> the Overseer but by then the Jugger was 7\/5 and Cloaked, and she never had an answer to that. I actually drew the Superrun, but I never used it. She did get a Sun Titan<\/a> out, though, but I had the Pacifism<\/a> for it.
\n4-1 matches, 8-5 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Round 6: Zach<\/strong>
\nIt was freakin\u2019 hot because the AC was just not keeping up with the packed store and I was getting hungry. Zach and I did the math and because we both had good tiebreaks, we decided to ID as we both had spots in the top 8. I decided to go get some food, a loaded baked potato at the local barbecue place\u2014good times.<\/p>\n

Quarterfinals: Marvin, playing RW<\/strong>
\nMarvin\u2019s deck was freaking sick. He had 3 Bolts and a Chandra. I got an early Child of Night<\/a>, he got something else small and Bolted the Child so he could get through with his dude, which was pumped with Honor of the Pure<\/a>. I dropped a Juggernaut<\/a> that he couldn\u2019t handle (he should have saved the Bolt), and then I hit him with Mind Rot<\/a> and got the Chandra. He didn\u2019t draw an answer to the Juggernaut<\/a> in his next two turns, so that was it. Game 2 he drew all three Bolts and the Chandra, and I still won… without casting Superrun. He Bolted a Juggernaut<\/a>, used Chandra to kill a Specter, used Chandra and a Bolt to kill a Yamivaya Wurm<\/a>. I killed Chandra with my Giant Spider<\/a>, then cast Gravedigger<\/a> to get back the Wurm, then re-cast it and plowed through his little dudes.
\n5-1-1 matches, 10-5 games<\/em><\/p>\n

Top 4 decided to split because it was damn uncomfortable in the store, so I got 12 packs of M11 and $50 in store credit. The store credit I spent mostly on the M11 planeswalkers because other than Jace and Chandra, I\u2019m light on them, and they\u2019ll be with us for a while yet so I thought I should have some. <\/p>\n

I think the best part of the day is that I played what I think was pretty close to mistake-free. Rounds 3, 4, and 5 were all grinding 2-1 matches with lots of opportunities for misplays on both sides and I managed to not punt any of them, so that was good. <\/p>\n

My impression of M11 as a set is that it\u2019s pretty well-balanced. Slower than Zendikar\/Worldwake, faster than Rise, no color seems to completely dominate. Artifacts seem very good, which as I mentioned is probably set up for Scars. I sat across from a lot of Crystal Balls today, though I won all of those matches, it seems like a good card for the set and I love the flavor. <\/p>\n

Anyway, if anyone has any comments or questions about card choices\u2014or if any of my opponents remembers things differently, which is likely since I didn\u2019t take very good notes\u2014please give me a holler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston had a large regional prerelease, but it was on Saturday and I have family obligations on Saturday. Instead, I played the Sunday prerelease at my local store, Montag\u2019s Games. I got there good and early, which was important because they had to turn people away at the Rise prerelease and I didn\u2019t want to … Continue reading M11 Prerelease Report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[15],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":362,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/byrneweb.com\/sunburn\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}