I played in the MTG 2012 pre-release yesterday with SFL and her bf. I was very underwhelmed with the cards I had pulled from my six boosters and threw together a blue/white/green deck with little expectation of success. To my surprise it took me all the way to the top 8 and a prize of nine boosters.
Here’s the deck, with comments on some of the cards. I only linked the cards new to 2012.
Creatures
Stingerfling Spider (every time I used this my opponents looked surprised)
Llanowar Elves
Garruk’s Companion (frequent target of Spirit Mantle)
Jade Mage (case it almost every game; never once created a saproling)
Runeclaw Bear (x2)
Lurking Crocodile (very strong in a format where many played blue)
Armored Warhorse (x2)
Alabaster Mage (VERY useful card, often made several creatures lifelinkers)
Elite Vanguard (x2)
Serra Angel (at 4, my highest power, but I never cast it)
Peregrine Griffon (useless…)
Aether Adept (never once cast)
Phantasmal Bear (never once cast)
Spells
Rampant Growth
Titanic Growth
Spirit Mantle (the winner…)
Mighty Leap
Stave Off (used this many times, it was key to a few wins)
Ponder (x2)
+ Islands (5), Plains (6) and Forests (6)
Note the complete lack of removal (Spider/Aether Adept excepted) and only two fliers. Note the lack of any rare cards at all (the only rares in these colours I got were Doubling Chant and Mesa Enchantress) and the general underwhelming nature of the deck as a whole.
But it worked, over and over again. I never had any real land problems, and since most of my opponents seemed to be playing blue (or at least had no removal) such things as using the Alabaster Mage to lifelink my guys or pumping the Crocodile with a Titanic Growth were very effective. In many games I won with more than 20 life, using just that one card.
The two most useful cards for me were Stave Off and Spirit Mantle. Stave Off saved my bacon a few times – including casting it on opponents creatures to prevent buffs and (twice!) stopping Mind Controls on my guys. Spirit Mantle is just brokenly powerful in this format where people tend to play many creatures. Every time I got it out and on someone (usually the Croc or Garruk’s Companion) I won shortly afterwards.
I did pull one mythic from my six boosters, this guy:
Yes he’s big and flashy, but my red cards were crap and besides… (whispers)… I’m not a big fan of playing red!
Overall it was fun (as always), although I find the pre-releases unusually tiring to attend. Sadly, I was not able to play against SFL either, which I was hoping since this may be our last pre-release 🙁