Welcome back to Magical Monday, hope you had a good pre-release weekend. I spent mine working, ill and winning. I was able to go 4-0-1 at the Arena, I ran our Midnight event so Johny could play. I probably should have bailed as i was starting to feel ill and i am sure staying up all night was the nail in my coffin. As it was i got home a little before 5am and managed to get 4 to 5 ish hours of sleep before i woke up with not able to stay in bed any longer. That tends to happen to me when i am sick, i don’t have the energy to do anything but i can’t just lay in bed.

Around noon, the clan heads to the shop and i open a fairly solid pool, guess i should add i played a controlish Mardu deck. I will try and put up a pic of my final list build but i don’t have the cards handy at the moment. We had enough people to go 5 rounds and i knew that with the way my head was i would be hard pressed to do well.

First round was against my son, who had a solid pool also but i was able to play the control deck. Clearly i won, mostly do to a lot of his guys being Exploit guys and he had a hard time keeping guys around to Exploit with all my removal.

Round 2, was verse the kid(Lucas) that bet the wife round 1. She told me she lost to a Dash deck so i had an idea of what i was against. But lost game 1 due to him just being fast on the beat down and stumbling on mana. I had a lot of 5 mana guys in hand. i brought in what turned out to be my anti Dash package that included 2 Mind Rot and a few low costing cost dorks as speed bumps. I faced a lot of Dash decks on Saturday and anytime i drew a Rot or two the games felt very easy to win.

Round 3, was against another Dash deck (Robert), but i was able to stabilize in game 1 and win a close one. Game 2 was a heart breaker. I kept a 3 white spell with Swamps and Mountains hand vs his mull to 6 with 1 land. I was too far ahead by the time he was able to really develop and i had removal spells in hand waiting for a target. I dislike games like that but my mana issues were to come later.

Round 4, was vs John. John and i are old friends, it was he and another friend that took my game up a notch and together the three of us traveled to play magic. But Chad passed away, John took it hard and focused on school, without them to push me i fell to “rotation sucks” and took a break from the game. But John is back post College grad looking for a “real” job and is back in town until he lands on his feet. Catching up he thought i had left town, when really i fell into DDo…. So round 4, game one was a long one. He was on a green/white list with real fatties. I was able to make a go of it until i punted on a bad attack. Going for a 2 for 1 by attacking with a face down Sandstorm Charger in to his 2 man team i had a  Elite Scaleguard in play had i unmorphed first i would have blown him out forcing a chump block as it was thought i was stable until he ripped a fatty and i missed on removal or a bolster effect to win the game.  Game 2 i brought in my bomb vs grindy match ups, Hedonist’s Trove. Haymaker after haymaker was thrown until was were both had a stable board and 1 card each, But mine was a tutored up Trove thanks to Sidisi eating a random dork. Time was called just after he passed i was turn 0 untapping with Trove. I drew 3 that turn, my own card, his forest and his Segmented Krotiq, attack for a lot. He untaps and plays a pacifism. I draw my Elite Scaleguard play his Ainok Survivalist facedown unmorph eat his pacifism play the land i drew last turn and my Scaleguard allowing me to tap one of guys on my attack for lethal. Super fun game. Giving me a draw vs a win do to my punt.

Round 5, was another good one going deep but my removal was just better then Dan’s guys and i was able to stabilize thanks to a Champion of Arashin and a Echoes of the Kin Tree. I got to rebuy my Champion a couple of times thanks to Kolaghan’s Command and my card advantage was just too much.

Overall the pre-release was a blast. Sure i could hardly move and the room was blistering hot or freezing cold from moment to moment but i think that was on me not the shop. There were some cards that were real standouts i want to just list.