I don't know why Melissa loves to open Portal packs so much, but she
does. She doesn't have a lot of interest in the cards once they're
open, though, so I've got this unintended Portal collection, short
only 12 cards from the complete set. While sorting Portal cards and
building silly decks, I learned several of the cards that would
reappear in Tempest, including Needle Storm, Time Ebb and Gravedigger.
They all seemed pretty cool. Here's my Portal Sligh Deck:
When the spoilers started showing up, I wasted some time reading
rumors on The Dojo and some other sites and I got really excited about
the prerelease.
Melissa and Josh came over on Friday night. We had a dining adventure
at a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant with great food, then went
bowling, Melissa showed up my first turkey ever by throwing four
strikes in a row the next game. Whatever.
Melissa crashed early while Josh and I stayed up to have a few drinks.
He says it's all about Strawberry Passion Awareness, but I'm not so
sure it's like that. We got up way too early and headed out to
Mondovi, Wisconsin, a little rural community south of Eau Claire. Why
is a prerelease in Eau Claire? I have no idea, but Nic Csercse, the
bonehead who used to run Dreamers, pissed off Wizards and lost our
premier events, so I was just glad to have something going on within
driving distance.
There were many familiar faces from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Chicago
when we arrived at The Valley, a quaint little golf course and club.
The Valley really isn't big enough for the 235 players who showed up.
They ran out of burgers in a hurry. We received commemorative
Dirtcowl Wurm cards with a gold stamp between the spell type and the
expansion symbol, which I thought was pretty cool.
We registered decks but then kept our own cards, which I thought was
pretty interesting. The Tempest art is cool. Most of it has kind of
a dark and gloomy look, even the white and green cards. The circles
of protection have great art. I pulled a Time Warp, which is one of
the cards people seem to be talking about for constructed deck. I
also pulled two Overrun, which seemed like a tremendous sealed
gamebreaker.
Unfortunately, I couldn't play my green and my strongest colors were
definitely blue and red. I had enough good green cards to splash, but
they all required multiple colored mana. My white and black were both
solid with a sprinkle of shadow creatures and my choice of Disenchant
or Coercion and single-color casting costs. I chose the disruption
over the utilty and went R/U/b. Here's what I played:
6 Island
7 Mountain
Rootwater Depths
3 Swamp
Coiled Tinviper
Helm of Possession
Phyrexian Hulk
Coercion
2 Dauthi Marauder
Gravedigger
Capsize
Gaseous Form
Mawcor
Rootwater Hunter
Spell Blast
Time Warp
Wind Drake
Volrath's Curse
Firefly
Kindle
Lightning Elemental
2 Lowland Giant
Rolling Thunder
Sandstone Warrior
Wall of Diffusion
Unfortunately, I didn't plan on writing a report, and didn't keep
track of my opponents' names. Pairing 235 players in an overcrowded
restaurant was a bit of a mess, but I figured people would start
leaving in a couple rounds and and didn't sweat it.
I think my first opponent was local. He was young. We didn't talk
much and I'm not sure his deck was very good. He played a bunch of
enchantments and almost no creatures and I quickly beat him down with
a mix of assorted creatures two games in a row and the match was over
in a hurry. 1-0 matches, 2-0 games.
My next opponent is someone I talk to and trade with frequently in
Minneapolis, and I can't remember his name! I'm sorry! Anyway, he
busted out Choke on the third turn of the first game and I was
SCREWED! He had at least one Master Decoy and Puppet Strings and I
thought I'd hit the wall. I sided out my black for white with
Disenchant. In the second game, we had a weird creature situation
where our creatures were useless for blocking each other because of
flying and shadow and I won the race to twenty damage. In the third
game, Capsize kept his threats off the table and I beat him up in
another close one. 2-0 matches, 4-1 games.
I expected Capsize to be good, but it really seemed to decide that
match. I talked to Adrian Sullivan about how abusive it seemed
between rounds.
Next I played Ben Kookier. He had mana problems in our first game and
I ran over him with Dauthi Marauders. In the second game, it was my
turn for a mana screw and he just crushed me with Verdant Force. What
the HELL? I was in trouble in the third game when Capsize and Mawcor
came to my rescue. Okay, this buyback thing definitely seems suspect.
3-0 matches, 6-2 games.
My next opponent was a quiet guy whose deck just never seemed to get
going for him. He had a little mana trouble in the second game, too,
and I rolled over him in both our games. Capsize completely screwed
him. 4-0 matches, 8-2 games.
My next opponent was a local woman with a really fast weenie deck. I
didn't get mana in the first game and I was dead fast. Now it was her
turn to not see any red mana. She almost won anyway when she
surprised me with Living Dead, but I topdecked my Kindle to finish her
off. In the third game, I showed her the wonder of Capsize with 12
mana. 5-0 matches, 10-3 games.
Now I'm playing Gorm, another Minneapolis player I know. There was a
scuffle at the beginning of the round because Noah Weil lost his deck
and he was one of the seven undefeated players. They let him proxy
it, but he didn't finish fast enough so had to concede that round. I
didn't draw land and Gorm beat the holy hell out of me with a
Rootwalla and a Trumpeting Armadon. I sideboard for my second Gaseous
Form and my Sea Monster just so I could kill his fat creatures. He
pulls the Rootwalla out on the third turn again and beats me down to
three before I get control of the board. Then I took him down fast
with Dauthi Marauder, Mawcor, and Time Warp. In the third game, it
was Gorm's turn for a slow start and Capsize worked him. I was
gaining confidence in my deck and I only had to win one of the next
two. 6-0 matches, 12-4 games.
In the seventh round, I faced Dan Bock from Madison. I had no land in
the first game and he wiped me out in a hurry with tons of weenies.
Between games, he speculated that with all the tournaments running
around the world, there must be some big events where the winner has
rolled opponents with no mana the entire way and explained that only
one of his opponents hadn't lost at least one game that way. I
thought I was in for it again and I had to call a mulligan with only
one land and high casting costs in the opening hand of our second
game--we were playing with the Paris mulligan rule. Fortunately, I
had chosed to draw first and the card disadvantage didn't crush me.
We were trading damage when I busted out Time Warp to change the
equation. In our third game, it looked real bad again as I drew land
after land. Fortuntely, two of the few cards I drew were Capsize and
Mawcor. He was astounded as I held off his Verdant Force and Dauthi
Embrace with twelve mana and Mawcor killed his weenies and beat him
down. I'm in final eight. 7-0 matches, 14-5 games.
My final Swiss opponent is a guy from Green Bay that I'd met once
before, but I didn't catch his name either time. We were the only two
undefeated players, so we intentionally drew and played a couple games
for fun. My Tims ate his shadows and weenies alive. We talked about
comics and Packers until the match ended.
The final eight was to be Rochester draft, but when the eight of us
realized what incredible prizes The Legion had provided, we didn't
feel greedy enough to go after each other. We each left around 11:30
with 5 starters and 33 boosters--almost a box and a half of Tempest.
The prizes definitely made up for how cramped the first couple of
rounds were. I finished at 7-0-1 matches, 14-5 games after coming
back from a first game loss four times. Phew.
Josh and Melissa had been playing in booster draft side tournaments,
and Melissa won some starters. I traded my Mind Warp for an Abeyance,
so Josh opened some of my packs and got another one.
I thought Tempest was an okay environment and I really like the look
of the cards, but it seems like the creature base isn't as good as it
could be. All the creatures seem to have one toughness or else cost
four mana. There's a lot of elimination in the environment and tons
of color hosers. I don't think circles promote fun sealed deck play
at all. The buyback spells all seemed completely overpowered,
particularly Capsize, Whispers of the Muse and Elvish Fury. Although
it didn't play a huge role in my wins, Rolling Thunder also seems
grossly overpowered in an environment with so many creatures with low
toughness.
The prerelease provided a well-timed diversion from playtesting for
the Pro Tour and it was a beautiful, sunny day in Wisconsin. See you
next weekend in Chicago.