Dark Ascension: The Massacre

How did everybody do this weekend? I was massacred. 0-3-1 at Hobby Station Osu. I actually went to Amenity Dream first, but they had reserved all 18 positions the day before so there were no spots to play, and at Big Magic the games started at 12pm while the drafting had started at 11:30. Hobby Station was my only choice, and 44 people ended up showing for the event. It was packed. My finishing rank was 43/44, both pathetic and very disheartening. My friend that dropped out in the 2nd round finished higher than me after his win in the 2nd round.

It was really frustrating. I don’t want to repeat that record next week.

I had some decent cards, but couldn’t find any working synergy between the Innistrad and Dark Ascension packs I opened. I ended up running Black/Red with my key cards being Curse of Bloodletting/Inquisitor’s Flail, and Flayer of the Hatebound. I also pulled a Vault of the Archangel and threw it in there along with 1 white mana. I had a Fling and Traitorous Blood, a few Werewolves that cost 3-4 mana, and a bunch of small creatures to keep the mana curve down. I also had a Faithless Looting and Shattered perception, but I just couldn’t get this deck moving fast enough. Green gave me hardly any good cards (one werewolf that creates mana, plus the Elk that has built in Rampant Growth). I possibly could have ran White/Blue spirits, but I only had Alabaster Angel, Drogskol Captain, and 3 other spirits. The remaining white and blue cards were some cards that I could have made a weak tap out deck with, but nothing that could have really finished the game quickly. Lots of people were running White/Red decks, as well as Red/Green. Red seems to be pretty powerful so far, with black pretty close behind.

Having this experience though will help me next week when I draft for the Launch Party in Hamamatsu at Master’s Guild. Speed is definitely important, as well as being able to control the other player in one way or another. Hopefully I’ll pull some better cards next time and have some better combos in mind going into the tournament as well.

If you’re in Nagoya and going to play next week, I recommend checking Wizard’s of the Coast’s website for participating stores then calling them for the time since each seems to be different. Feel free to share your combo ideas, great pulls you got, and anything else relating to the pre-release of Dark Ascension.