Avacyn Pre-release results: Day 1
For most of you in North America, Saturday has just started and your Avacyn Restored pre-release is going to start in a few hours (unless you went to the midnight launch). For me, my day is already done after 5 rounds and 6 hours of play at Card Brunch in Nagoya, Aichi prefecture, Japan.
The Helvault awaits . . .
I learned my lessons from Dark Ascension and went from being the person who reacted to other’s attacks to the aggressor. Truth be told, I got absolutely CRAP cards from my 6 boosters. 2 unusable mythic rares, no miracles, and no creature bigger than 5/5 (and for 7 mana at that). So what did I do? I picked out the lowest cost creatures with the best abilities from white and red, like I had been saying in my previous posts, and I ended up with a vicious WR Human deck. It had a few 1 drops, a few 2 drops, and lots of 3 drops. The deck topped out at 4 mana, and this kept me from getting mana screwed later on in the game. I went 2-1 in the first 3 rounds, but after losing in the 4th round to my friend to go 2-2, I took his advice and switched over to a RGW Human mix. Things got a little hairy in the last game, but I ended up going 3-2.
My Revised Deck
The cards I found had great synergy were Angel’s Tomb/Archwing Dragon (my best card), Kruin Striker/Thatcher Revolt, Goldnight Commander/Thatcher Revolt, and Hanweir Lancer/Nightshade Peddler. The Angel’s Tomb was incredible and won me a few games due to player’s lack of flyers. Call to Serve, Pillar of Flame, and Bladed Bracers were also integral in my 3 wins. Dangerous Wager is also a great card to have in a red deck as it allows you to draw 2 cards for 2 mana. My two losses came at the hand of a White/Blue Angel Control deck that had Riders of Gavony (protection against Humans destroyed me!), and a WGR deck with cards like Zealous Conscripts and, Trusted Forcemage, and Druid’s Familar. It was basically a beatdown deck like mine, but simply had bigger cards and could deal more damage.
There was actually a lot of diversity at the pre-release, at least more than I expected. There were all sorts of decks and it was a joy to play against such a variety of decks for a change. I ended up getting two packs along with the Moonsilver Spear promo for my 3 wins, but sadly they didn’t net me any great cards.
The Spoils
My friends seemed to do a little better though in their booster packs though. One pulled a Tibalt, The Fiend-blooded, while another one got a foil Temporal Mastery! TOOOOO lucky . . . Well, better luck tomorrow I guess. Thanks for reading and good luck!
The Temporal Master, Sato-san