On Shadowmoor

One of my favorite types of tournaments to attend are prerelease events. You get to play with cards before they actually "come out" and everyone is basically on an equal level. Being that I love Draft, I also love Sealed. You are given a pool of cards and told to do one of the things I feel I do best, build a deck. And it's enjoyable. It's probably the closest you can get to casual play in a competitive environment in my opinion. Not that Friday Night Magic isn't semi-casual, I just think that prereleases are a tad more fun.
And you meet people. Typically, you play people who are there for fun as well. Unfortunately I had one match that wasn't all that fun, just as a result of attitude. That was one of my least favorite aspects of the Grand Prix, was the cocky ass attitude some people had. But what are you going to do I suppose.
Mitch and I ended up being two-headed giant partners this time around. We ended up building him a Green/white deck that pretty much exploded in peoples faces, and I went with a red/black deck running removal and burn. My deck didn't do nearly as much as him.
In match 1, I managed to swing for 7 by turn 3. Mitchel showed me up by swinging for 20 something to end the game. It was hella tight.
Match 2 didn't go in our favor. Our opponent's decks exploded, ending the game in the first 10 minutes of the match. It was ridiculous. They were a fun enough pair though, and agreed to a casual rematch while we waited for everyone else to finish. It was another game of me playing semi-support for Mitch while he smashed their face in over and over again.
My most memorable play though occurred in Match 3, and it would have to be playing Giant baiting with the conspire, swinging in with 2 giants (which unfortunately got stopped) but then using Rite of Consumption to do 4 damage and grab 4 life, and copy the giant with Cemetery Puca. It was a good time (except for our opponents, Ben and Amber), but once again Mitch did most of the work in terms of damage. Not that having both of us swinging with Spirit Avatars was really helping Ben and Ams. Before the match we decided to split the packs regardless of the outcome anyways, so everyone walked away happy, and me and Mitchel walked away with 6th place.
I also walked away with 7th place (3-1) in the main flight I participated, drafting a black/red deck in that as well. Emberstrike Duo was my star player I think. Having 4 copies of him in my deck lead to me consistently drawing him in matchs. 1st turn Manaforge Cinder followed by a Duo, followed by another Duo followed by an Inkfathom Infiltrator happened in probably 5 of the games I played in. Then giving him Fists of the Demigod, well, that's just silly. First strike and Wither is incredibly OP. Having gotten a Demigod of Revenge that I could play in my deck helped even more. All in all, it was a pretty solid deck. The match I lost was a match to a g/w deck, that exploded in my face 2/2 games we played. I think I was dead by turn 5 each of those games, blast you Shield of the Oversoul!
But it was an awesome weekend.

A Satisfied Travy