Death Gaara's Prerelease and Single Card Discussion

[Death Gaara]

Hey all. I realize this article was not out as fast as the others, but I really wanted to get a feel for the AVR cards. I was able to hit up a prerelease. I ended up going 4-1-1 which put me into the top 8. From there I played against the guy who went 6-0. I crushed him pretty easily (I got an amazing sealed pool in which I will go into detail a little later on.) From there, it came down to the semifinals. At this point my deck decided to just fudge out on me and do everything in its power to keep me from winning.  Turn 9 I had 3 lands in play (kinda sad because the opening hand had 3 lands, 2 creatures, 1 spell that I could play off of 3 lands. Meaning only 1 card was too high in the CMC department which is fine if you draw into more lands lol). Game 2 the deck pitched me a hand full of lands, I threw it back just to get a hand with no lands. As I mull down to 5, I think it's pretty clear that I am going to be crushed. That pretty much happened. So, I took 4th place out of 56 people, leaving with 6 packs, 1 dice and 1 oversized card for prize pool. Not a bad haul. Anyways, on to what you guys actually care about, my sealed pool.

Everyone was saying RW was the way to go. These people were pretty much right. RW was a house. One guy got {Cathars' Crusade} with {Angels of Glory's Rise}. He then combined that combination with reds {Dangerous Wager} and {Lightning Mauler} and some tiny humans from both colors for a really dangerous deck. I barely beat that combination. Anyways, I opened up my packs and sorted the cards into colors without really looking at what they were. My red and white looked really bad. My blue was just terrible.  At this point the rares were all pretty much garbage.  I noticed I had mostly black and green cards anyways, so I had a though that was what I was going to play. I started thumbing through the black stuff.  Black is a terrible color for this set in constructed, but I hit the holy grail of limited, 2 {Bone Splinters}, 1 {Barter in Blood}, 1 {Grave Exchange} and 1 {Death Wind} for just a removal package. As for the creatures 1 {Treacherous Pit-Dweller}, 1 {Demonic Taksmaster}, 1 {Searchlight Geist}, 1 {Soulcage fiend}, 1 {Evernight Shade} and 1 {Griselbrand} all joined the party (There were others too of course, but these are the cards that matter). On to green for spells we saw a massive piece of card advantage from 1 {Triumph of Ferocity} and additional creatures from 1 {Vorstclaw} 2 {Nightshade Peddler} 1 {Timberland Guide}, 1 {Druid's Familiar} and 1 {Trusted Forcemage}. Non green creatues consisted of 1 {Druids' Repository} and 2 {Sheltering Word} (I know lifegain is bad, but protection for Griselbrand and the ability to gain life in a Suicide Black deck was important). So, the deck I ended up playing was Suicide Black with a splash of green. For those of you who don't know what Suicide Black is, it's an aggro deck that plays huge creatures for low costs that are just cheap efficient beaters (Like the pit dweller or the Taskmaster). But as is blacks nature there is a cost (Taskmaster made me sacrifice creatures, the opponent got the demon after undying, etc.) It's a deck that's hyper aggressive, but races itself. My cards put out HUGE damage last night, but there were times when they were hurting more than helping. Overall, I liked it and had a good time. I seriously think Suicide Black is a nice contender for draft if you don't want to go the RW humans route. On to some single card analysis's.

First up is {Wolfir Silverheart}

This card is nuts. This card took people for a wild ride last night. It comes down to paying 5 mana for 8 damage on the board. This card is incredibly dangerous and should not be taken lightly. It makes just about anything big. Somebody had a great idea to throw it onto a {Latch Seeker} last night. A 7/5 unblockable is just backbreaking. Keep in mind this is limited though. As for constructed applications, I still think it's good, but I am not sure in which ways. I think this card should be tested if you are playing any aggressive green deck. I plan on further discussing this card in the future. But for now that's all I have to say about it. Pick them up if you encounter them in a draft or a sealed deck. They will give you easy wins.

Next is {Cathars' Crusade}

This card was also a house. Something tells me tokens just got a lot better. This card is pretty good. A +1/+1 counter every time a creature enters the battlefield on to all of your creatures is just nice. {Lingering Souls} just got a lot more dangerous. I could easily see this card being played in standard over the next year. In block constructed, tokens are still really beast. They banned {Lingering Souls} and {Intangible Virtue}, but between this card and {Favorable Winds}, Esper tokens could easily be a contender with Sorin, {Midnight Haunting} and {Snapcaster Mage}. Definitely something to think about if you play block or plan on playing tokens in standard.

The last card I am going to talk about today is {Griselbrand}

I am still very unsure of this card. Out of all of Avacyn Restored, this was the card I wanted most (Lucky for me I got it). Its standard applications aren't amazing. You are probably just going to play this in Frites {If its still a deck at the time) after the Titans and Mrs. Norn all rotate. But in Legacy, I think this card has some major potential. It might be good in Dredge (considering it could mill practically your whole library in one turn lol). But where I see this card truly shining is in reanimator. Here is why, imagine this scenario. Turn 1 {Entomb}. Turn 2 {Exhume}. Pretty standard reanimator turns 1 and 2 stuff. But here is where it gets interesting. If you are playing against a budget player {Doom Blade} does nothing to you. Againts a person who can afford it, {Swords to Plowshares} is just terrible against him. Say your opponent just plays a land then passes (or even a 1 drop to be fair). Your turn, you untap and swing Griselbrand. Your opponent has a few options, take the damage and let you gain a huge boost in life. Or remove it with his Swords to Plowshares. Opting not to take the damage, he Swords to Plowshares Griselbrand. At this point you, the reanimator player, pay 14 life and draw 14 cards. Swords resolves and Griselbrand is exiled, now you gain 7 life. You paid 7 life to draw 14 cards which at the end of the turn, will allow you to discard your big creatures to you can reanimate them later. You also got a massive pile of card advantage and probably an answer to just about any threat the opponent has. How is one supposed to come back from that? Definitely try him in reanimator. Keep in mind, all of these scenarios are in theory and have not been tested, but still sound like a solid plan.

That's all for this article, I hope you all enjoyed it. Keep an eye out for these cards because they have proven to be powerful. Soulbond is way better than it looks on paper. This ability I felt, was highly underrated just because of the hype with Miracle. Alright, until next time keep slinging spells and have fun.

[Sagemaster]

Soulbound is amazingly dangerous!

[Death Gaara]

Soulbound is amazingly dangerous!

Yes it is, to all who read the article, sorry if it is not as good as my other articles. I had to drive 80 miles to a store for the prerelease. I then proceeded to play competitive magic for 12 hours with no breaks. Afterwards, leaving the store at around 12:30 in the morning going down to In-n-Out Burger before they close to grab a bite. Then I had to drive 80 mile back to my town and eventually got in the bed at 4:00 AM after taking care of a few mandatory household thing I put off a few days ago. I then had to get up at 7AM to take care of errands and to write this article. So long story short, this article was written with almost no sleep whatsoever. So it may be not as clean and as well thought out as my other articles. I just really wanted to roll this out there for the community because it had been 6 days since my last one. I hope it is enjoyable nonetheless.

[Sagemaster]

It was enjoyable I liked hearing about the other people's and your own strategy!

[Guypocolypse]

How many packs did you open?

[Death Gaara]

How many packs did you open?

1 for the intro deck wars, 6 for the sealed and 6 for prizes all Avacyn Restored.

[Willthomjr]

I really like green in this set. I been bragging about hanweir lancer and deathshade peddler (2 of each in sealed)

Good write up.