Magic 2010 Prerelease Tournament Report- Part 1

Today was by far the weirdest/hardest prerelease tournament I've played in. This wasn't because the people I was playing against were extremely good (though they were pretty good!), it was more because of the series of unfortunate events that happened throughout the day. By the time I ended up arriving at the store I was running a lot later than I wanted to be. I asked if I could sign up for the prerelease only to be told that they were full on players...fail....So I hang out for a bit to chat up some of the local players and I eventually decide to just go home and hang out there until the draft later in the evening. I get a couple blocks down when my roommate calls me up telling me they have a couple seats open. SWEET! I madly pull an illegal u-turn and head back to the store hoping that the spots weren't going to be filled by the time I made it back.

I walk in just as they are passing out the boosters and I quickly sign up and plop into an open seat. I crack the first pack...decent commons, decent uncommons... and Mirror of Fate.. Mirror of Fate? Ok I tell myself that it's only one pack and tear happily into the next one. I'm thumbing towards the back hoping for some bomb that I can build around when I stumble across another...freaking...Mirror of Fate...There is no way I'm going to run this in limited! Maybe if I had a few days to figure out how to abuse it properly I would consider possibly running it in a constructed deck but not in freaking limited! So there's two packs pretty much wasted as far as bombs go.. I crack the third pack and, fearing the worst, I flip to the back to find, much to my relief, a Baneslayer Angel. Finally something I can build a decent deck around!

Baneslayer Angel has been the subject of much debate mostly because of the insane amount of things you get for such a reasonable mana cost. For a converted mana cost of five you get a 5/5 creature with flying, first strike, lifelink, along with pro demons and dragons! Plus the art is breathtaking! The card that it most easily compares to is Akroma which has a similar power/cost ratio. Before I even post a decklist let me warn you that I had some crappy cards to work with..If I hadn't gotten Baneslayer out in a lot of games I wouldn't have won very many matches..if any.. With not too many noteworthy cards in blue or red the only option I had was to make a White/Green/Black deck because I wasn't extremely strong in any two of those colors. A few decent cards I managed to rip were: Elite Vanguard, Whispersilk Cloak, Nature's Spiral, Sign in Blood and Child of Night. I just looked through my deck again and I realized that the only rare/mythic in my deck was Baneslayer..It was kind of a sad day.

I almost forgot! The store where I was playing in is very small and had like 50 people in it. This doesn't sound like much but when it's 108 degrees outside and the A/C isn't very efficient it gets pretty hot. It was like a sauna in there! I'm surprised my cards didn't start to curl from the humidity and heat! Ok, enough about the crazy mishaps from the day! Here was the deck used during the tournament:

GWB Aggro

Creatures:

1x Llanowar Elves
1x Acidic Slime
2x Centaur Courser
2x Child of Night
1x Elite Vanguard
1x Griffin Sentinal
1x Stormfront Pegasus
1x Baneslayer Angel
2x Palace Guard

Other Spells:

2x Nature's Spiral
3x Oakenform
1x Pacifism
1x Angel's Mercy
1x Disentomb
1x Doom Blade
2x Sign in Blood
1x Whispersilk Cloak

Land:

2x Terramorphic Expanse
5x Plains
5x Swamp
4x Forest

I know the mana base looks a little weird but it worked out pretty well and the Terramorphic Expanses helped out when I needed doubles for the Sign in Bloods and the Baneslayer Angel. I will cover the matchups I had and how I fared in them in part 2 of this post but right now I am waaaayyy too tired and brain dead to try and type out another post. That is all!

Please comment, email (homebrew.magic@gmail.com) or tweet (@homebrew_magic) any constructive criticism you have pertaining to this or any of my posts. Your input is both needed and appreciated. Keep on Brewing!