DG's RtR Pre-release Recap, The Magic God's Hatred and a Burger Well Earned!

Hello everyone. I would love to tell you how well my prerelease went for Return to Ravnica. I would love to say how I slammed down a Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius or Isperia, Supreme Judge and just usurped control. I would love to say I made an 8/8 token and populated it and started turning sideways like a boss. Hell, I would even love to tell you I was able to turn a Loleth Troll sideways and pump it 3 times to kill a creature. Sad to say this is not the case. If you want an informative article like the rest of my works, you may want to pass this up. If you want a good story with a powerful lesson to be gained, then keep reading as the importance of what I am about to stress is unrivaled when it comes to the sheer skills needed to play this game well. My RtR story begins as so. . .

I rushed through the doors of the LGS, excited to play with the new Return to Ravnica cards. Ravnica was my favorite set, so I knew today was going to be a great day. The line was out the door for signups, but I had already paid in advance. In any case, I waited in line to get my guild box full of great and awesome treasures. I knew in advance what I wanted. Golgari was the only guild for me. The fact that it was my favorite guild had nothing to do with my decision. I wanted to play Golgari because I realized a certain synergy that most overlooked. The promo, Corpsejack Menace, doubled ALL +1/+1 counters on your creatures. That includes unleash. I knew going in that my strategy would be almost unrivaled. I thought to myself while I stood in line about how many people would fear the power of this synergy. Finally my turn came up and I grabbed my guild box and ran to the back of the store where the tables were. Excited I tore it open with great anticipation. Throwing the letter and achievement list aside, I picked up my new dice and felt the awesomeness it contained. I knew today would be a good day. I then proceeded to open my first pack, I could hardly contain my excitement. I ripped the foil open and quickly jumped to the rare. It was an Azor’s Elocutors. Annoyed at the totally useless card, I put the pack down and rip into the next one. Again with full excitement I quickly flip to the rare. I see none other than Slaughter Games. Again with disappointment I put my pack down and sigh.

“HELL YEAH!!!” I heard somebody scream from across the room. “Dude, what happened Brian?” I asked. He proceeds to show me 2 Hallowed Fountain, 1 Isperia, Supreme Judge, and 1 Jace, Architect of Thought. I shake my head with apathy and tell him to not rub it in. I continued opening my packs with the next rare being Corpsejack Menace. Great I thought, another rare that I already got as my promo. I set it aside as it was at least playable. I opened my last pack and flipped to the rare. A Loxodon Smiter rounded out my normal packs. This is not too bad I thought. My only issue is I cant play it because of a lack of having cards in those colors (splashing white was just not optimal). “ALRIGHT!” I hear another scream. I see a “Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius” in front of him. I thought to myself about how much this day was beginning to suck. I had no mythics, no shocklands, no cool cards, and only one guild pack left. I proceed to open my guild pack and flip to the rare, to no surprise ended up being a Grave Betrayal. I begin to sort my cards by color and think about what I was going to play. After sorting, I look down in horror at my cards. After taking the time to look at the commons and uncommons I realized one important thing. I had nothing playable.

My entire strategy was ruined. I only obtained 1 card with unleash in the entire sealed pool and my scavenge was weak. I had none of the charms, guild mages, or keyrunes. I had no bombs. I did not even get a Slitherhead My face turned pale, today might just be one of the few days I actually drop from the tournament. I was filled with disappointment. I had nothing, no card advantage, no utility, no win condition, and only 3 guild gates of which 2 were not in my colors and were useless because I did not have enough cards in those colors to play around. My only removal was 1 Stab Wound. I thought to myself, do I really want to waste 5 hours? Or do I just want to go home and relax after this huge disappointment? I heard my best friend say “Dang, this sucks.” I looked over to Daniel and asked him what is the problem? He said he did not get what he needed and was unimpressed by his pool. I asked to see his limited pool and he told me sure. I was looking and my jaws dropped. He pulled 3 mythics in only 5 packs (he had not opened his guild pack. Isperia, Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Epic Expiriment. He even had a Detention Sphere, Syncopate, and 2 Judge’s Familiar. I told him to grow up and quit whining because his sealed pool was fine. At this point I was even more annoyed.

I walked over back to my cards and started to assemble my crappy deck. I had decided that I already came down to the store, why should I bother going home? I came to the conclusion that I had the most experience of anyone there in competitive magic. One single idea entered my mind after I had finished sleeving. My deck may be crappy, but my experience may actually be my salvation. I thought to myself, if I play flawlessly, with no play mistakes, I may actually have a shot of placing high. Looking through my deck one more time just to make sure its what I wanted, I looked at my only bomb. My bomb was 1 Golgari Longlegs (I only got one). That’s right, a 5/4 that does nothing. At that point I knew the Magic Gods hated me. The tournament began and I was off.

Round 1 was over quickly for me. It was against Rakdos. First game I mull to 5 and keep my crappy hand with disgust. I was killed shortly after by a Carnival Hellstead. Game 2 I was able to maintain a semi okay early game presence (my deck was midrange and did not have anything to really do for the first few turns). I was able to stabilize and win. Game 3 same thing. The Sluiceway Scorpion really helped in this match to make trades. All of my creatures were weaker with the exception of the Longlegs or the Corpsjack Menace. I had played a perfect game and knew when to attack and when to hold back. That was my opponents downfall.

Round 2 was over really quickly as well. My opponent made many play mistakes while I continued my flawless play. He could not land tokens to turn on half of his populate cards do to blocking mistakes on his part. I easily took this one.

Round 3 was tough. It was another Rakdos player. My worst matchup since my deck is midrange and is weak early. I keep my hand of 7 as does my opponent. He smiled and then began his assault. He slammed down his Rakdos Cackler with unleash. I thought nothing of it and played my land and passed. He swung with his 2/2 taking me to 18. He then proceeded to play Gore-House Chainwalker with unleash. I started to get worried. I played another land and passed. He swings for 5 and then plays Hellhole Flailer with unleash. I scooped. Game 2 he gets flooded and I easily take the win. Game 3 was close with both players developing boards. I had a Forest, Golgari Guildgate, and a Sluiceway Scorpion in my hand I was saving for Mind Rot fodder since finding out he had it in game 2. He Traitorous Instincts my longlegs and hits me with it. Main phase 2 he Mind Rots me and I smile, he just made an opening for me, and a huge mistake. 1 he alpha strikes too early instead of waiting until he had just enough to kill or overkill me. 2 He Mind Rots me without considering scavange. I untapped, scavenge my freshly discarded Sluiceway Scorpion and kill him with the strike back due to him being tapped out of both mana and creatures. I had played another flawless game holding back the Scorpion because of the Mind Rot I knew was coming.

Round 4, the finals. I was in awe, I had went undefeated in terms of matches. My deck was terrible, but my play was on fire. My final opponent and I sit down. He is playing a Bant build. Game 1 I start laying the creatures on turn 4 with Corpsejack Menace (the board was clear except for lands). I follow with a Sluiceway Scorpion and a Daggerdrome Imp after my attack, holding back both my Longlegs and second Corpsejack speculating a Supreme Verdict. I had called it, he proceed to play the powerful wrath with a smile on his face. I put my cards in the graveyard and his smile turned into a curios look. “No Scoop?” he said. “Why?” I said. “If I was a good player than I would know better than to over extend”. Don’t count me out I thought, I had had years of experience with this game and could not be easily beat by such rookie misplays and mistakes. He passes and I drop the second Copresjack. His confusion turned into a silent frown. Drawing a card he passes after playing a Brushstrider. I untapped and swung, he blocked. Main phase 2 I dropped my Longlegs and horror struck across his face. He untaps, plays a land and thinks. He decides to scoop knowing that there is no hope for him since he used his only wrath too early. I knew his mistake as well. His ultimate mistake was thinking that I would make a mistake. Game 2 was over in a flash, I knew his strategy. He kept up with the bird tokens while I retaliated with actual creatures. The game was over after he could not find his wrath to save him from my longlegs and corpsejack duo. I was finally done with all of my games and had played perfectly once again with no mistakes.

I had claimed first prize, half a box of Return to Ravnica. People were in shock after seeing the winning deck (I had passed it around). They could not believe such a weak deck had made it all the way. I went to McDonalds with my friend to celebrate my 1st and his 9th place wins. I opened my 19 packs (I got 1 for just showing up and playing in the tourney) while I eat a well-deserved burger. Annoyed again as all 25 Return to Ravnica packs I opened that night had no shocklands, no money cards, no planeswalkers, and only 2 Mythics Worldspine Wurm and Isperia, Supreme Judge. That’s right 25 packs and not a single shockland. Oh well, at least the burger was good I thought to myself.

The moral of this story is simple. While I love to teach you what cards were good in these events, which cards to look out for, or how to better your play in my articles there are some times I am unable to do so. Not because I don’t want to teach my readers, I would not have written these 2300 words if that were the case. I retold my long story to teach my readers one of the most important things of all. Sometimes, experience is just the most powerful advantage of all. You don’t always need powerful bombs, card advantage, or even playable pools at best. I was able to make a tie for the worst pool at the prerelease (another guy was also hosed in his pulls) a 1st place winning deck. Not because I was lucky. Not because I rode a bomb to victory. But because I knew what to play and when to play it. I knew when to attack and when to block. I knew how far out to extend and when to pull back and ease up a little. I knew how to anticipate my opponents moves and knew how they would respond to any pressure in given situations. These things are skills that come from many hours of play. So today’s lesson is simple. The one thing I want all my readers to take away is to keep playing and strive to play flawlessly. Learn how to anticipate your opponent and when to extend your position or to hold back a little. Learn how your opponents respond to given situations. Learn how to make the one thing nobody can see, your most powerful and discreet tool. Your experience. This can win you more games than any money card or cool synergy ever will. I hope you were all able to learn something from my experience. I am sorry it was not a more informative piece with discussion (I only got to play with mediocre cards at best all night and was too busy giving 100% [I had to if I wanted to win] in my games to take note of anybody else). I hope you enjoyed the read. Like always, keep it real and have fun,



Justin

Great read!

I like to think I outplayed my opponents this past prerelease. I had 9 creatures in my deck (azorious promo being fatty). I went 4-1-1 and finished 5th out of 64!

I got 3 shocks outta 9 packs though 😊

Cheers!

As a guy who felt screwed by his pool despite pulling two mythics and then lost to misplays, I appreciate your story, DG. I just gotta keep going every week and playing through, I guess.

Also, they were Vraska, The Unseen and Rakdos's Return from my Izzet pack. Please don't hit me.

As a guy who felt screwed by his pool despite pulling two mythics and then lost to misplays, I appreciate your story, DG. I just gotta keep going every week and playing through, I guess.

Congratulations! By your response you obtained something from the story. I really could not comment about cards since I only got to play with crappy jank. But at least I was able to share the importance of experience with others. Keep on playing every week and look to better yourself and you will improve. Misplays are a part of the game. Work on preventing/avoiding misplays and learn from them when you do. I know you will improve, we all do at some point. As much experience as I have with the game (which is more than most), I still make misplays. Not often, but they still do occur. I just strove to play flawlessly this evening not letting the tiniest error or miscalculation slip my mind. When you get to the level where you achieve this, it no longer comes down to good and bad. It comes down to mastery through many failed attempts. I am not claiming to be a master at the game. We have John Finkel for that. But what I am stating is even if you are not a pro, you can still display true mastery. Just keep up your hard work and you will be an even stronger player than you are now. Thanks for reading and all of the continued support,


Justin

Loved this article. The main thing I've been trying to pay attintion to when I've been playing lately is my play mistakes. I've not been able to play to competively in awhile, but I have really wanted to start going to fnm like I use to.

I realy like your articles.😃

We saw from the Players Championship. Finkel was .500, played perfectly and finished 4th. Shouta was basically undefeated and lost to Wanatabe. You can win with bad cards and no clear synergy, but you have to work harder.

It's humbling too, my prerelease setup was nice, but I relied too much on a strategy that I lost sight of the game. Won only 1 matchup.

Great article

I just returned to playing after 14 years. I've been playing FNM sealed and draft since August an mostly been placing middle of the pack. I went all in for the prerelease and went to 3 of 4 events at my local store. I had a great draw in the first event, but only went 2-2. My second event I had a really lousy draw in Rakdos. The only rare I was playing was my promo hellsteed. However, I played my best technical games yet, only lost one game, and got my first 4-0 ever with a first place finish.

This is the one area of the game I have the most control over and work the hardest to improve. I can't wait to start drafting RTR.

Good article. I really understood where you were you coming from. I lost a couple games due to miss play, and spent to long wishing I had a better Selysnea pool.

Good job at the P-R man!!!

I did in fact win one of my prerelease matches by using the discard a creature card with Lotleth troll to add that last 1 dmg for a kill and it was a tight match so I needed that 1 dmg bad.

I really enjoyed the article. I am glad that still after those years are players who thinks during the game...

I have returned to world of MTG with RTR after more than 10 years of not playing and I was worried that the game will be spoiled right by expensive cards based decks and players spending hundreds of dolars on their decks which they even did not construct, only copied from the internet... But on your article I can see that not everyone is like that...

I hope there are much more players like you...

I really enjoyed the article. I am glad that still after those years are players who thinks during the game...

I have returned to world of MTG with RTR after more than 10 years of not playing and I was worried that the game will be spoiled right by expensive cards based decks and players spending hundreds of dolars on their decks which they even did not construct, only copied from the internet... But on your article I can see that not everyone is like that...

I hope there are much more players like you...

Based on our "heated" debate 😜 you know I'm one of those few as well. Lmao.

Btw DG, I loved your article. I got rather lucky with my card draw with the pre-release but my friend on the other hand did not. He picked selesnya and ended up playing grixis by the end of the tournament. Lmao. So you have to play to you strengths and he had to switch his strategy to his.

Hehe, honestly I have read this article before, but our debate convinced me to post this thread...

Your best article so far, thanks!