So i've never gone to a pre-release and im thinking i really want to go to the RtR one.
How does it all go down? What happens there? I read about the booster thing from the comicon sticky and im even more interested in participating than before!
So back to the question! What is a pre-release, contentwise.
Larger shops may have a lower price but its usually $25. That pays for 6 booster packs from the new set and one pack that gets added to prizes. You should be given your promo for playing that day when ou get signed up. Then everyone sits down (usually in alphabetical order) and youre all handed your packs from the new set. When everyone has them the TO will say begin deck construction and you have an hour to open the packs and make the best deck you can from the cards you pull.
The deck must be atleast forty cards, but no other restrictions apply. If you pull 5x of one card you can play them all in the deck. Your remaining cards are your sideboard and you may change your deck at any time as long as you dont exceed the time limit between rounds for siding and shuffling.
You may not trade, add to, or remove to your card pool which is the 6 packs you openned until te tourney is finished. Once you have your deck made (land is usually provided) its just like fnm and you play to win more packs.
I enjoy these events because you learn the cards best when you play them, and can knowledge pool ideas with other players as they discover new things while playing. Also as one of the collection masters at my local shop, its an important time to get the cards i will need for me and my team to stay competitive with the new set's release.
So how is things played? Normal tourney?
Typically these are in a modified Swiss style tournament. What that means is that you will be paired against someone at random for a best-2-out-of-3 match. Wether you win or lose, you will get paired again with a new opponent, there is no elimination. You'll play the whole time. And you will continue to get paired with opponents with similar win/loss ratios to your own.
In the end, you get ranked based on how many matches you win. Depending on the place, tiebreakers are settled different ways, but I believe most often ties are settled based on how well all of your opponents did - the better they did against their other matches, the better it is for your tie breaker.
Whats the odds in Stockholm Sweden? Any big names? ;D