M13 Prerelease Report

I opened Sublime Archangel and no other good rares. But that's okay, because Sublime Archangel proved to be:

1. An amazing bomb and
2. The most expensive card on the store's buylist.

I also got three Pacifisms, so my white was very good, and I ended up going 3-1 to earn four boosters (which I sold back to the store for $10). Then I swapped in my Archangel for another $10 cash. Works for me.

The first round I actually got creamed pretty soundly. I won one game, but my opponent had like five removal spells and an Archaeomancer in one game and quadruple Mind Sculpt in another--pretty nutty draws. I sideboarded into blue to see if I could get a shot at the achievement for milling them, but that plan was probably wrong; I'm fairly certain the white-green build was better, even against a deck with lots of answers.

Then I swept the next round against a guy who was pretty new to the game and played pretty sloppily because he didn't really know what he was doing. After the round, I tried to help him with his deck. It wasn't as much of a mess as I expected; most of his card evaluations were fine aside from an off-color Ring of Kalonia, he just had trouble cutting down to 40.

Round 3 was very tight. On the critical turn, he was facing down lethal from my side of the board thanks to a nice heavy-hitting Sublime Archangel, but I was at 9 against his two Bladetusk Boars and a Goblin Arsonist. He topdecked a Battleflight Eagle and slammed it to give the Goblin Arsonist +2/+2 and flying to swing for the win--but this was a savage misplay, as he had flat forgotten about my Deadly Recluse, which blocked the lethal flyer and let me swing back for the win on my next turn. He was supposed to target one of the boars just for the power boost, which would have killed me. However, there were multiple decision points earlier in the game; I'm pretty sure if I'd played tighter, there's a good chance he might have been dead a turn sooner anyway. Oh well.

Round 4 was not close at all. I crushed. I had good draws and my opponent had bad draws, and my deck steamrolled right over his deck.

My impression of the set was very positive. This is an awesome core set. There are some brilliant inclusions here. I love how Mogg Flunkies is juxtaposed with Exalted to make the drawback stick out even more. I love how they replaced Demystify with Erase so that it could answer Rancor. I love the Rings cycle, which is sweet. I am a fan of Nicol Bolas horning in on things. I...well, I could do without opening Battle of Wits and Door to Nothingness in my sealed pool, but meh.