Yet Another Bad Prerelease
Limited forum
Posted on Sept. 20, 2014, 8:53 p.m. by DarkHero
To start with I don't mean to blame my getting my ass kicked at prerelease on my pulls, I'm not really one to get butthurt about losing. The set is great, but I guess I just have bad luck with prereleases. Best card I got was my foil promo, which was Temur Ascendency, which I chose Temur so great. Second best was foil Deflecting Palm . Both of which are under $5 cards at the moment, and I didn't even use the Deflecting Palm . I didn't get any fetchlands, when it seemed like everyone got at least one. Some small child for 4 of them. Even then I only got 4 of the come in tapped gain 1 life lands, and only 2 of them were useful for my colors. All my one drops were white, so I got no one drop creatures in my deck. And I severely lacked bomb to finish games. Snowhorn Rider was my weapon of choice, I had 2 of him, but he hardly did anything for me. So long story short I went 0-6 first 3 rounds and dropped out. Was still fun, saw a lot of really cool stuff. But just seemed really lopsided against me when one person is playing with Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker and an assortment of fetches and I can't even get started.
Aw man that just sucks.
At some point, everybody seems to be due for one of those types of limited events. Don't worry about it though. Things'll sure turn around in another sealed event.
At the very least, you'll do great during Fate Reforged.
September 20, 2014 9:33 p.m.
I feel you for most of the part. I had 3 non-basic lands in my deck, and the only bombs I had were vanilla creatures. 0/3, didn't come close to winning any games. I did however pull a Flooded Strand though.
September 20, 2014 10 p.m.
-Logician don't get me wrong I understand thats just how prereleases work. Just disheartening cause this was my second prerelease ever, and I had a very similar problem with the first one. I'm not saying anything needs to change just sharing my experience today with whoever care to listen. Unfortunatly I didn' know anyone at the prerelease so I was sort of on my own the whole time, which is probably why I didn't enjoy it more. For the most part I'm still glad I could be part of it though. Didn't really get my moneys worth, but I rarely get a chance to really play so I'll at least notch it down as a draw.
September 20, 2014 10:16 p.m.
Dalektable says... #6
I had Temur as my seeded, and ended up going mardu seeing as I pulled Butcher of the Horde ...it sucked, lol. Dropped after going 1-2, but thats alright.
September 20, 2014 10:18 p.m.
DarkHero well I think the next prerelease will hopefully be better for you because you'll know more people there, and can hang out / play casual games with your friends between rounds. :)
September 20, 2014 10:26 p.m.
Rasta_Viking29 says... #8
My pre-release pack probably amounted to $3 worth of cards but I was able to build a good deck it. I never seem to open anything of substantial value. Had a good time though.
September 20, 2014 11:12 p.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #9
In my experience there are two types of Sealed pools: those that build themselves (rare, but they happen) and those that require TONS of thought, experience, and nuance to perfect (most of them).
On average, the power level of every pool in the room is theoretically the same. It takes a lot of time and experience to be able to pull a worthy deck out of a pool of cards that most would dismiss as junk. Of course, some people pull 3 mythics and a rare all in their colors (those bastards), but most people look at their pools and go "meh".
Basically, bomb pools don't make good decks. Good deck building makes good decks, and it takes a long time to practice good deck building.
Just keep your head up and keep practicing and someday you'll be one of the elites stomping noobs with a sea of commons and uncommons.
September 20, 2014 11:13 p.m.
Seraphicate says... #10
I chose Temur for my prerelease pack, but I ended up splashing white for a Flying Crane Technique I pulled, since my packs happened to contain a lot of tap lands in Temur + white colours. Paid $40 for my prerelease, and went home with a foil Surrak Dragonclaw and Trail of Mystery , a Hooded Hydra and a Flooded Strand . Was pretty happy, since my deck went 5-1-0. I'd say prerelease is more of a casual event, that you go to with mates, more than anything.
September 20, 2014 11:14 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #11
I ended up pulling a Windswept Heath , so I told myself whatever happened the rest of the night I'm still walking away with something I really wanted.
That being said, my Sultai deck was mainly control through discard, psuedo removal, Sultai charm and bounce, and all of my creatures were bombs. I thought that would be a good choice, and my first game I stomped my opponent 2-0. However the next two rounds I had really bad mana and I wasn't curving out right. If it wasn't for morph, I probably wouldn't have had any board presence until it was too late.
Needless to say, I ended up going 1-2-drop but I left the store happy because I thought the limited environment the set created was really, really great and I had a really fun time. I won at least 1 game every round, and my friend ended up going 4-0 by going aggro when no one would expect it (games in this set are pretty slow I found, so he planned well)
September 20, 2014 11:33 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #12
Moral is: as long as you had a fun time, the night was a success.
September 20, 2014 11:35 p.m.
Mine was pretty bad, basically all my rates were pretty bad, my best card was Savage Knuckleblade . It took a while for everyone to make their decks and then I found out there was 7 rounds so it would go until about 3 am (it started at 6 and I have a cold so I don't want to stay up that late). I only played 3 rounds (not even) because I went 0-0-3. I just dropped and just because I wanted to open some Khans packs I bought an intro deck (like I'm actually gonna use it) and luckily pulled a foil Dig Through Time and Windswept Heath . and because the store had some Japanese JOU packs I got one and pulled a foil Deicide and Master of the Feast , if only I could have had pulls like that in my sealed pool.
September 21, 2014 12:38 a.m.
I only opened 1 on-color rare but still went on to get first and win a box (which contained 7 fetches). Getting strong c/u and playing well are big factors too.
That said, sorry ya had a shitty night. Happens to the best of us.
September 21, 2014 12:38 a.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #15
I feel you man. I went with Temur and pulled rares worth $1.00 or less. My card pool was decent, went 2-2-1, and came in 14th winning a pack. That yielded yet another $0.50 rare lol. My friend went with Azban and pulled a Polluted Delta and a Bloodstained Mire . Pfft.
In retrospect, I could've built my deck and played a bit better. I'm pleased with my performance overall due to this being my 3rd limited event ever. I had fun and learned much. I'm sorry you had crappy times, bro.
September 21, 2014 9:02 a.m.
LordOfDispair says... #16
I have this really funky luck thing where whenever I have good colors in a prerelease I get bad cards and whenever I have bad colors I have great cards. Like the M15 where I had to go blue and pulled 3x chord, soul of ravnica, and soul of new phyrexia. Just gotta hope :P
-Logician says... #2
Prerelease has its own special way of being competitive, while also being a big steaming pile of bullshit at the same time. Games are often decided because one of the two players got mana screwed/mana flooded/only saw one color... there's a countless number of ways that your draws can be terrible, no matter what your pulls were.
I managed to go 4-2-0 even though my best pull was Siege Rhino (worth $4). While my entire sealed pool didn't have any money cards in it at all... no mythics or anything, I did have a decent curve, removal package, and good synergy I suppose. After getting 10th place, which awarded me 5 additional prize packs, I continued to get nothing, while some lucky guy waltz in and buys 3 Intro Packs (the ones that come with 2 boosters and a seeded deck), a total of only 6 booster packs, and pulls a foil Clever Impersonator worth $50.00, and 5 fetchlands. Yeah. 6 packs got him FIVE fetchlands and a $50.00 foil mythic rare. shakes my head
In the end, it's all luck of the draw. Was your experience worth $25.00 to you? Maybe so, maybe not. For my experience, I'd say it was worth it. Even though after winning 5 additional packs, the total value of all the cards I pulled is only somewhere around $20.00, and that is certainly some bad luck... I still had a fun night playing magic with my friends. Some were unrealistically lucky, and some were unrealistically unlucky. It even seems ultimately unfair. That's the chance you know you're taking when you buy into a pre-release. If it wasn't you who was handed that sealed pool, it would have been someone else. The unavoidable fact is that someone is going to be handed an insane sealed pool, while another unfortunate player is going to be handed an absolutely terrible sealed pool. How do you think that could be avoided without completely changing how sealed works? One possibility is that you could have your packs preopened by the LGS for you, such that all packs containing a mythic rare are set aside and are awarded as prizes at the end instead of allowing just a lucky few players to be completely and unfairly dominant. Of course, while this does make the event more fair, it also takes away from the excitement of opening a pack that has the potential to be worth a lot of money. That means that people aren't going to want to pay $25.00 for it.
September 20, 2014 9:32 p.m.