Friday Night Magic, a Pre-pre-release thoughts.
Aha! It’s been days since my last post, so I should do it now.
Tonight was a fine day. I played in the Friday Night Magic at my local game story (Limited Edition). We drafted M11, and I got some nice cards in red, white, and blue, and though it pained me to play three colors, I decided to go for it anyway. Let me list out some of the good cards in each color.
- Red: Fireball, Chandra’s Outrage, Ember Hauler, Fling
- White: Pacifism, Day of Judgment, 2x Cloud Crusader, 2x Stormfront Pegasus
- Blue: 2x Scroll Thief, Foresee, Mana Leak, Ice Cage
- Colorless: Crystal Ball
Signals were all messed up during the draft, which is why I ended up with so many playables in three colors. Pack 1 Pick 1 was an interesting dilemma: Stormfront Pegasus vs Sign in Blood? I picked the Pegasus because of its power and flexibility, but if I were to do it all over again, I’d pick the Sign in Blood and try to force black. I probably wouldn’t be very successful, but I love mono-black in this format. *blush*
My matches went as follows:
- Match 1 vs GU: First game, I dealt 15 damage in one turn (Fireball + Ember Hauler + swing with Chandra’s Spitfire), putting my opponent at 0. The second game ended quickly when I had 3 creatures out and my opponent had none (yet). 2-0
- Match 2 vs RW aggro: The first game I won somehow (I don’t remember). Second game, my opponent had me down to 8 before I could stabilize. To stabilize, I Fireballed 3 of his creatures, and Ice Caged the other. Vulshok Berserker went in for damage, and the Spitfire helped to deliver the win quickly. After the match, my opponent revealed the Lava Axe in his hand — that was the reason I had earlier chump blocked a vanilla 3/3 with my scroll thief.
- Match 3 vs UB control: Both games, my opponent led with a Leyline of Anticipation (in his hand). Both games, my opponent handily won. So unfair, augh. My own damn fault for not drafting any enchantment removal.
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Tomorow it’s the Scars of Mirroding prerelease! I’m excited!
There are a few cards that I would die to crack: Mimic Vat, Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Nim Deathmantle, Infiltration Lens, Skinrender, Sky-eel school… so many nice cards. I’m sure I’ll open one or two of these.
Red has a lot of removal in Mirrodin (due to it being just about the best artifact remover out there, and also having the direct damage that can be used to kill creatures).
Here’s some math on Grindclock (in a limited context):
- charge 1, mill 16 times (17 + 8 + 16 == 41)
- charge 2, mill 10 times (12 + 8 + 20 == 40)
- charge 3, mill 8 times (11 + 8 + 24 == 43) — acceptable
- charge 4, mill 6 times (10 + 8 + 24 == 42) — seems optimal, even if played on turn 4, instead of turn 2
- charge 5, mill 5 times (10 + 8 + 25 == 43) — acceptable
- charge 6, mill 4 times (10 + 8 + 24 == 42)… yeah, this stops now
I’ll probably play Grindclock if I open it, even without Screeching Silcaw to help out. Grindclock is scary. If the opponent Shatters it, no biggie. It means that they didn’t shatter some other scary artifact.
Anyway… I should go to sleep so I’m ready to go tomorrow. Ta ta, folks!
