I went to another Magic prerelease yesterday, for the new set Khans of Tarkir. I don’t think I’ve ever gone into one of these less prepared: I didn’t even know the correct name of the set until 3 days before, when I signed up. I had no idea what cards were in it, or what sort of deck I would play!
Only 24 players turned up, which is the lowest I’ve seen at a prerelease in some time. The veterans (am I one?) explained to me that interest in the set seems low compared to previous blocks, and that there wasn’t a high number of ‘money cards’ available. I didn’t care about any of this; I just liked the smaller number of players translating into a higher win chance. As it turned out the event would be five rounds with no playoff, and prizes would be awarded to the top 8. An approximately 1/3rd chance of winning gave me a bit of hope!
I soon learned KoT was a multicoloured set, with five different clans each of three colours. We were all able to choose a box specific to a single clan, which included 5 boosters, a special pack containing cards of only the colours of the clan and other goodies (a pin, sticker, die etc.). I chose the white/black/green clan called Abzan. My choice was based on a few factors:
1) No one had chosen it when it was my turn
2) I didn’t want to play blue
3) I did want to play white
As it turns out I got a middling bunch of cards, with few rares on-colour. I assembled a 40 card white/black deck that contained only the following two rares:
My first opponent was only 9 years old. He was one of a sizeable crowd of very young players who all seemed to know each other and were factioned by their parents. I’d say about a third of the players in total were about his age. I beat him with ease (2-0), which was unsurprising since his deck was terrible and he (clearly a beginner) was overly protective of his monsters. After the win, I spent the rest of the first round helping him improve his deck and going over a few tips that would hopefully help him do better in the following rounds.
While I was pleased with the win, since my opponent had been almost no challenge I still had no idea if my deck was any good!
I beat my next two opponents 2-0 as well. I was starting to realise my deck, while lacking in ‘bombs’, was focused enough to win more often than lose. In particular, I had 7 removal spells and 7 flyers, and two of them (the rares above) were good enough that if I got them off I almost always won. Despite playing Abzan I had almost zero ‘outlast’ cards (one of the new mechanics of the set) and of course no green. It was a weird deck.
After the third round I was in the top 4! In fact there were only 4 people undefeated at that point and I was matched against one of them in round four. To my amusement he played a deck very similar to mine but better in every way, and beat me handily. Although to be honest he was an extremely skilled player and simply outplayed me, and I feel he may have won even had we swapped decks. Afterwards he told me stories of pro-tours he had played in, showed me some extremely rare cards in his collection (prize cards for winning tournaments mostly) and even this striking alter:
He would end up winning the tournament, and he deserved it!
So after four rounds I was 3-1. In my last round I was pitted against the only other guy at 3-1 and beat him handily. I had played only ten games in the tourney, and won 8 of them. My only defeats were to the overall winner! This put me in third place overall, for which I obtained a prize of six boosters. Hooray! I also won a deck box as a door prize. It was a good haul 🙂
While I enjoyed playing, and was happy for the win, I have to say I can understand the (apparent) lack of enthusiasm for the set as a whole. The cards are complex, interactions are common and this is far from a beginners set. Games tended to be long and involved, and as a player it was often irritating not being able to predict the board even as far away as your opponents turn. I’m not sure I’d want to play in a limited environment with these cards.
