Event Coverage: Dragon's Maze Pre-Release

I attended the Dragon's Maze pre-release at Eclectic Games in Reading and chose Golgari as my guild. Before the pre-release a lot of people were asking on twitter and facebook what guild to choose. The best advice that I saw was just go for your favourite guild or the guild you feel more comfortable playing.

I was tempted to do 2 pre-releases, however I decided against it due to money and time constraints. It was less tempting to do multiple Dragon's Maze pre-releases as the promo cards were the same no matter what guild you played. I did wonder why the promo card was a Maze's End when, as far as I know, you wouldn't get enough guildgates to actually use Maze's End as an alternative win con.

As the intro pack rares were the guild champions I would've preferred the promo to have been the guild champion for whichever guild you chose to play. I guess the argument against this is that some guild champions are better than others, especially in Limited.

Unlike Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash pre-release events I've been to the guild packs weren't on the tables when I arrived. Instead we had to wait until the pre-release started and then each guild was called up and each player chose their guild pack at random. As I chose Golgari I was hoping for either Gruul or Simic as my secret guild ally.

I was slightly disappointed when I flipped my guild pack over and saw my secret guild was Dimir, although it did occur to me that the unblockables/semi-unblockables in Dimir could come in handy, especially with Scavenge creatures.

Unfortunately when I opened my Dimir pack I found I didn't really have any good Dimir cards. My Golgari pack on the other hand seemed insanely good. I ended up getting 3 Dreg Manglers, 2 Sluiceway Scorpions and 2 Daggerdrome Imps. I never expected my guild pack to be that consistent. I had hoped to get a Deathrite Shaman as my rare, but I got an Underworld Connections instead.

In my Dragon's Maze boosters I opened quite a few good Gruul cards, including Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and ended up building a Jund Aggro deck.

Deck List

Creatures:
2 x Daggerdrome Imp
1 x Kraul Warrior
1 x Riot Piker
3 x Dreg Mangler
1 x Feral Animist
3 x Rakdos Drake
1 x Rubblebelt Maaka
2 x Sluiceway Scorpion
1 x Thrashing Mossdog
1 x Ubul Sar Gatekeepers
1 x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed

Spells:
1 x Armed // Dangerous
1 x Far // Away
1 x Morgue Burst
1 x Phytoburst
1 x Putrefy
1 x Stab Wound

Lands:
1 x Golgari Guildgate
1 x Gruul Guildgate
1 x Rakdos Guildgate
1 x Transguild Promenade
5 x Forest
2 x Mountain
6 x Swamp

This is the final deck list, however originally I did have a Zhur-Taa Ancient, Contaminated Ground and 2 Sinister Possesions in the deck. I took all 5 cards out after the first round.

The problem I found with the Zhur-Taa Ancient is that it allowed my opponent to ramp as well. In the first game this allowed them to win by having enough mana to remove my creatures and cast Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts, despite having a Contaminated Ground on one of their lands. After the first game I realised that I don't actually need the mana acceleration as I don't really have anything to do with the extra mana, with the exception of maybe pumping Feral Animist if I had him on the battlefield..

The Contaminated Ground did wonders in the first game when I had it in my opening hand, but after playing a few other games I realised it became a dead card if drawn later on in the game.

Similarly the Sinister Possessions were handy to deter opponents from attacking with certain creatures, however in the faster aggro decks it didn't seem to matter as another creature took it's place and attacked. In mid-range/ramp decks with larger creatures the life loss didn't act as much of a deterrent. I didn't play against any control decks, but I can imagine they won't play that many creatures and the ones they did play they wouldn't bother attacking with.

To replace these cards I added some more removal to help my more aggressive creatures push through. After the second round, despite losing both rounds, I was happy with my deck. I seemed to be able to consistently get either Dreg Mangler or Rakdos Drake on turn 3 and start attacking. A lot of people I played against couldn't deal with the flying creatures. The flyers were made even better by scavenging counters on to them. The saving card in many games was Daggerdrome Imp as the life gain proved invaluable.

The deck did struggle against Selesnya populate decks, especially ones that contained Trostani's Summoner, as the army of tokens grew I found I couldn't push through and was forced to play defensively.

Due to the high number of Return to Ravnica cards I had in my deck it felt like I was playing Return to Ravnica sealed more than Dragon's Maze sealed. After the pre-release I reviewed my sealed pool and noticed that I did have enough good Selesnya cards (including a foil Advent of the Wurm and a couple Trostani's Summoners) to have splashed White instead of Red, however I felt more comfortable with the deck I had created.

Overall I went 2-2 and ended up coming 30th out of 50 players.

The Implicit Maze after round 2

Initially the Golgari weren't doing that well in the Implicit Maze, only moving one space after round 1 and two spaces after round 2. After round 3, however, the Golgari jumped a staggering 10 spaces and another 10 spaces after the final round. This put the Golgari in third. Rakdos, unsurprisingly, came first and Selesnya were second.

I really like themed pre-releases and hope Wizards do more. I'm especially looking forward to seeing what they do for the Theros block pre-releases.

All in all I'm not sure what the pre-release taught me about the Dragon's Maze sealed format, apart from it's a lot slower than Gatecrash sealed. In my opinion this is a good thing as Gatecrash seemed insanely fast and gave the impression to win you had to be playing Boros.

I have yet to do a DGR (Dragon's Maze, Gatecrash, Return to Ravnica) draft but I'm interested in participating in at least one, just to see what it's like.

Back after a short break

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, things have been pretty hectic over the last few weeks. For the most part I've been revising for my driving theory test, this consumed most of my spare time in the mornings and evenings. I took my theory test yesterday and thankfully passed. I now have to focus on my practical driving test, however this should still leave me with free time in the evenings to post on here.

Whilst revising I haven't been playing as much, however I did go to the Dragon's Maze pre-release and open a Dragon's Maze box. In my next few posts I'll describe how I did in the pre-release and my thoughts on Dragon's Maze.

I have also been trying to create my own guild theme decks aimed at teaching newer players about the guilds and how they play. I'm hoping to collate the deck lists and post them up.

Thanks for reading, I will update again shortly.

YMTC 4: Rules Text for Black Enchantment

Over the last week Wizards have been accepting submissions for the rules text for You Make The Card 4, so far it's been decided that the card will be a Black Enchantment.

I wanted to create a card that could be quite powerful but at the same time fun to play. I read a lot of people's suggestions about paying life to draw cards or gain abilities Black doesn't usually get. To me, however, these didn't feel very flavourful.

A lot of my decks focus on sacrificing creatures for bonuses, this gave me inspiration for the black enchantment card.

Sacrifice any number creatures you control: Search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to the number of creatures sacrificed this way and put it onto the battlefield. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

The concept behind this was sacrificing weaker creatures as an offering to summon a more powerful creature.

The sorcery speed clause was to make the ability fairer, without it creatures could be sacrificed and a more powerful one summoned at instant speed. This could be abusable with lots of cards with 'enter the battlefield' abilities.

It'll be interesting to see which rules text make the shortlist, unfortunately it may be a few weeks until we find out.

Guild Champions in Dragon's Maze Intro Packs

Today the previews for Dragon's Maze have begun, revealing a few interesting bits of information: Split cards have returned with a new twist that allows you to play both halves of the card (akin to entwine); Ral Zarek's planeswalker card; and Melek, Izzet Paragon card.

As excited as I am about these what caught my eye more was the banner on the Magic Products page.

In the top right hand corner where the intro packs are displayed Ruric Thar and Exava can clearly be seen on the front of the intro packs.

Here's a close up of the intro packs:

What isn't clear from the image is if there will be 10 intro packs, one for each guild, or whether there will be 5 tri-colour intro packs. As a case of intro packs contains 10 intro packs anyway so the number shown in the image doesn't necessarily reflect how many different intro packs there will be.

I'm hoping there will be 10 intro packs as it gives each guild an equal share, which I believe is something Wizards have tried to do throughout Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash. If there are 10 intro packs it'll also make getting each guild champion a lot easier with the added bonus that the champion will be in foil.

Personally I haven't been too fussed with the Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash intro packs, I'm hoping the Dragon's Maze ones will be better than the previous sets. That being said I'm still tempted to pre-order the guild champions I like instead of buying the intro packs to get them.

How useful are the Guildgates?

The Guildgate cycle in the Return to Ravnica block has been an interesting one, mainly due to the gate subtype and the cards that interact with the subtype (e.g. Gatecreeper Vine, Gateway Shade, etc.). However are they worth including in a deck?

In limited, both sealed and draft, the gates can be an amazing mana fixer especially if you're running more than two colours. The cost of this mana fixing, however, is speed. In RTR limited I didn't find this cost a problem, despite liking to play aggressive Golgari, Rakdos or Jund decks. I believe this is because as RTR limited was slower than GTC limited, true Rakdos likes to be agressive however all the other guilds seem to play at a more midrange pace.

From the Gatecrash limited I've played, it's very fast. Most people I've seen have played either Boros or Naya. There have been a few that have played more control style decks, however for them to compete against the faster aggressive decks they either need to play early creatures to deter opponents from attacking or have mana available to cast counter spells and removal, ensuring that they survive until the later stages of the game.

The guildgates coming into play tapped hurt both strategies. I think I'd rather play more basic lands in GTC limited than include the guildgates, this does however depend on how mana intensive your deck is. If your deck is heavily mana intensive then you may need the guildgates to ensure you have the right mana available when you need it. If, however, you're only playing a couple colours or don't have a mana intensive deck the guildgates may do more harm than good.

When I played in Grand Prix London i created an aggressive Naya deck with 3 guildgates, 2 Gruul and 1 Boros. As I was only splashing the white for a few cards and the rest of my cards were mainly red I would've been better off not including the guildgates, however at the time I believed they would help me.

The problem I encounter was every time I played a guildgate during the early game I actually wanted the mana available that turn so I could cast another threat and keep the pressure on. It would've meant that I could've dealt more damage quicker and got Battalion online sooner. In the late game the guildgate didn't seem to matter as much.

Outside of limited the guildgates aren't worth playing as there are much better mana fixers. In Standard there's the Core Set/Innistrad Checklands and the Shocklands. In Modern there's the Checklands, Scars of Mirrodin Fastlands, Shocklands and Lorwyn/Shadowmoor Filterlands. All of which can come into play untapped under certain conditions.

Maze's End, revealed as the mythic land and pre-release promo in Dragon's Maze, may provide a use for the guildgates. Maze's End reminds me of Door to Nothingness, but weaker as it requires all the guildgates as opposed to two of each coloured mana. Despite providing an alternative way to win the game I can't see it being used in any competitive decks as it seems far too slow and requires being built around. I can imagine it'll be quite a fun and cheap casual deck to make.

Overall the guildgates only seem useful in limited and even their worth in limited depends on how fast the format is and how mana intensive your deck is. Despite their limited usefulness I really do like the flavour of the guildgates and their involvement in The Implicit Maze. I really like the 'zoomed out' artwork on the Dragon's Maze versions, the artwork gives a real sense of where they are on Ravnica.

It'll be interesting to see what Dragon's Maze limited will be like, I'm hoping it'll be a bit slower than Gatecrash.

Guild Champions Announced at PAX East

At PAX East it was announced each guild would elect a champion to run the Implicit Maze. After reading The Secretist Part 2 the Implicit Maze has a Hunger Games vibe to it, I'm looking forward to seeing how Wizards implement this in the Dragon's Maze cards and the pre-releases.

The guild champions are a cycle of cards that were introduced in the original Ravnica block and MaRo heavily hinted throughout Return To Ravnica and Gatecrash previews that the guild champion cycle will return in Dragon's Maze.

Some of the Dragon's Maze guild champions have already appeared in The Secretist novel, whereas others are an unknown. We'll probably learn more about the other guild champions in part 3 of The Secretist.

Azorius Champion: Lavinia of the Tenth

Boros Champion: Tajic, Blade of the Legion

Dimir Champion: Mirko Vosk

Golgari Champion: Varloz, The Scar-Striped

Gruul Champion: Ruric Thar, The Unbowed

Izzet Champion: Melek, Izzet Paragon

Orzhov Champion: Teysa, Envy of Ghosts

Rakdos Champion: Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

Selesnya Champion: Emmara Tandris

Simic Champion: Vorel of the Hull Clade

As a bonus Ruric Thar's card was also revealed at PAX:

Ruric Thar's card reflects his character in The Secretist, I'm hoping the other guild champions will do the same. I'm really looking forward to this new cycle and can't wait for the Dragon's Maze spoilers to start next week. Despite having already pre-ordered a booster box I think I may pre-order some of the guild champions, especially if they're really good, hopefully this will avoid the issue I had with getting hold of Boros Reckoner.

Hopes for Theros

The Magic the Gathering panel at PAX East announced the set codenamed 'Friends' as Theros. Theros appears to be based on Greek mythology. This is supported by the names of the other sets in the block, Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx. Born of the Gods is reminiscent of tales of Hercules, the son of Zeus in Greek mythology. Nyx is the Greek goddess of night who gave birth to, among others, the deities of death, doom, misery and sleep (more information can be found here).

The second piece of evidence that supports the Greek theme was the image released during the PAX East announcement.

There has been some disagreement to whether the figure in the picture is throwing the spear or holding the spear in a specific stance, however everyone agrees that the figure is definitely a powerful deity.

My hopes for the Theros block:

• Each deitiy will have a legendary creature card, potentially with a new creature type of Deity or under the Avatar creature type.
• An offering mechanic to appease or appeal to the deities
• Journey into Nyx to have a strong black theme, like Torment

No matter what the Theros block holds I'm really looking forward to it. MaRo has already confirmed that a mechanic is returning, however he hasn't said which mechanic. This, unfortunately, doesn't give us a lot to go on. We'll have to wait until nearer the time for more information.