So now that the weekend is over and Dragon's Maze pre-releases have wrapped up, I gotta say I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. It was a fairly successful event even if I didn't pull any bombs. Here's the rundown. I went with Gruul since aggro is usually strong at events like these and I also went 3-1 during the Gatecrash pre-release with Gruul. Unfortunately, my secret ally ended up being Izzet. I'll be honest and say I wasn't that happy about with it but my friends calmed my fears and convinced me that Izzet had some pretty good cards too. Especially removal ; )

Well after deck construction began and opening packs, I decided to go Naya with a focus on Gruul. I had gotten some pretty good Boros cards to help fill out the deck: two Viashino Fireblades and 1 Warleader's Helix was what I splashed white for. Overall, I only ever lost games because of mana screw or just not drawing enough creatures. While playing a Dimir player, I lost the first game because I couldn't play enough creatures to stop him from casting the Dimir champion Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker.

Well, I lost that game pretty handily. After sideboarding, we played out a few turns (maybe 4 or 5) and I was able to smash in for 16 damage with one creature. Can't say I wasn't happy about that. Gruul is all about reckless damage and brute force. What's more reckless and forceful than a 16/1 creature? How did I get that? Well LET ME TELL YOU. I was able to cast a Madcap Skills onto Feral Animist. Then bloodrushing and using its activated ability to rocket it up to 16 for the win.

The round that I lost, though, was a bit disappointing. He was playing Rakdos and playing very straightforward. I've matched against him in the past and know he's not the greatest player. Unfortunately, because of card draw, I just could not get board presence in anyway. So there went my chances of a 4-0. But that's ok. I was still able to maintain composure and get my 3 wins. Which leads us to my final match. This was a Naya player as well but focused on Selesnya. Mid-game he began playing health regen cards which really begins to hurt against an aggro player. At some point, you just lose steam and can't break through their walls anymore which is what happened game 1. But thanks to some more Mad Cap skills and a clutch Street Spasms for 1 ._. I was able to steal the win.

The prizes didn't really having any cool cards in them either. I was hoping for the Golgari champion Varolz, the Scar-Striped because I've been theory crafting a Jund zombie deck that doesn't require Falkenrath Aristocrat (what? I'm sorta cheap) but we'll see how that turns out.

That was my pre-release in a nutshell. Pretty fun though I think I enjoyed RtR and GTC a bit better. Should we point out what card someone pulled that's hinting at Modern Masters? In case you haven't seen it, someone opened a pack that had Aether Spellbomb. I'm starting to get giddy over the set but at the same time wish it wasn't going to be so expensive but that's a topic for another day! Thanks for stopping by! Now time for me to sleep.