TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS
MY THEROS PRE-RELEASE DECK
To check out my other decks, hit the link below:
This
article serves two purposes: To share the nerd entertainment around
with anyone who might find it interesting and, in this case, to share my experiences with the Theros pre-release.
You
can find Magic Cards in super stores (Ex. Walmart, Target) but the best
place you can buy your cards, meet other players, and play in events is
at your local comic book store or hobby shop. I buy most of my cards at
The Comic Cellar.
Here is a link to its Google Maps location at 3620 Austin Peay Highway #2 Memphis, TN 38128.
And here is a link to Comic Cellar's Website
I
was worried I might not make it to the Theros Pre-Release but,
scrounging what I could muster, I made it to the midnight pre-release on
Sep 21st, at midnight, in the Comic Cellar. It cost me $30bucks to
signs up and, for that fee, each player recieved
6 boosters packs, including a special booster pack for their chosen
hero's path-- Honor (White), Wisdom (Blue), Ambition (Black), Battle
(Red), & Might (Green)-- and a promo card for your path (which you
could use in the event) and with the materials each player was expected
to build,
with all the lands they needed, a 40 card deck. There were five
one-on-one matches, each a best of three rounds, and the ranking in
these matches would land you more packs (with the top player getting a
box) and everyone getting, at the very least, a "pity pack". All
together, the event was a lot of fun and well worth the admission fee
($25 if I had pre-registered earlier), and the event went from 12 AM to 6
AM.
I
should also mention we got life dice, Hero Cards (to be used in a
connected event), and these weird, but kinda interesting quiz cards.
Theros
is the first set in the Theros block. This is a top-down design set
with a previously unexplored plane based on the themes of Greek
mythology; they've laid down the foundation with heroism, monsters,
powers bestowed by the gods, devotion to the gods, and beautiful imagery
coming together, set against a starry sky that tells the fate of men,
so that we ended up with Theros, a set with some of the most potent
flavor I've seen since I began playing the game.
The
white planeswalker, Elspeth (pictured above), has been running from
being a hero for a long, long time. What happens when she comes to a
plane she likes and the God of the Sun, Heliod, calls upon her to
undertake a great trial that, if she fails, could doom the plane she has
made her home? What happens when a planeswalking satyr from this realm,
Xanagos, trys to usurp the gods through dark machinations? Is there
more going on? Could there be another more powerful force (perhaps a
certain horned dragon) working to manipulate the plane? Only you can
find out by becoming the hero that Theros needs. Now, let's take a look
at the mechanics of the set, both old and new:
SCRY X- (Look at the top X cards of your library, then put any number of
them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.)
BESTOW- This mechanic allows you to cast enchantment creatures either as creatures or as enchantments for their bestow cost.
(If you cast this card for its bestow cost, it's an Aura spell with
enchant creature. It becomes a creature again if it's not attached to a
creature.)
DEVOTION- A mechanic that rewards you for having a specific symbol, ex.
, with either an entrance or activated effect.
(Each X in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to Y.)
HEROIC- Activates an effect every time the card's controller casts a spell that targets the card.
MONSTROSITY- In exchange for an additional cost, this mechanic allows you to put +1/+1 counters on the creature and activate some effects that range from adding abilities to destroying other creatures. EX. Monstrosity X.
(If this creature isn't monstrous, put X+1/+1 counters on it and it becomes monstrous.)
The gods were not on my side this time. Rather than dig myself out of the
rut I found myself in during my TWO Dragon's Maze events, I did worse
than ever. I went 0-4-1. My deck was so slow and lethargic that I wound
up forcing my first match to a tie. The sick part? I could blame my pool
of cards, but I can't blame my deckbuilding or playing. In fact, after
looking at my deck, several other players could find little to no "quick
fixes". This was probably the best deck I could build and it really
came down to fate not being in my favor. And yet, I'm okay with the
results of this pre-release-- all of my opponents were friendly and
fair, I got some cool cards, and my friend Katherine, whom I dragged out
to her first pre-release, did far better than me and got some amazing
cards both in her sealed and in her "pity pack"-- because in the end it
was still fun. I plan to keep going and hope I can learn from this
experience. Let's see if we can find out what went wrong this time (if
anything was wrong) and what I can do in the future to improve my luck.
I might do another article about my other options for what to play, but I'm gonna have to think on whether it is a worthwhile endeavor.
MY THEROS PRE-RELEASE DECK
"WHITE/BLUE BAG OF WINDS"
I had a really strong white pool of creatures/monsters to give me a good base of cheap creatures (Cavalry Pegasus, Setessan Battlepriest, Hundred-Handed One, etc) to build into my bombs. Then, I chose blue over red or green (had nothing good in black) because I had three blue flyers, a cheap blue creature that clone big creatures, and one big kraken to make it worthwhile. To get my creatures out and overwhelm my enemies, I relied on a suite of blue removal and other spells to boost my evasive creatures to go for damage over time leading into an alpha strike.
The problems? The deck is slow, the removal isn't always enough, and, worst of all, other people were able to put down fat enough creatures that, since my deck wound up being slow, a bad hand would wind up getting stomped into the dirt by red/green or white/red that had better monstrosity or a combo of cheap enchantments & combat tricks than I had. In the future, I'll consider make a second deck from my pool.
