Alara Reborn Prerelease Tournament Report
Their real names are Debbie, Brenda and Kim. Honest.
One sold out tournament, six packs of cards, three mythic rares and two losses later, I’m happy to tell you that Alara Reborn is one very interesting set of cards. The all-multicolor format left newbies befuddled – but it left experienced players befuddled too, so it was a pretty level playing field.
Yes, I did actualy pull three mythic rares in my six packs: Uril, the Miststalker; Sarkhan Vol; and Sen Triplets. Sarkhan would have been incredibly powerful, except I never drew him in four rounds of play. The Triplets are pretty awesome too, but I didn’t put them in my deck (would have had to go five colors, and I didn’t have enough mana fixing to make that work).
Mana fixing: Cards used to make it easier to obtain the mana necessary to cast your spells; the act of using such cards in your deck. Examples include cards that let you search your library for lands or artifacts that generate certain mana colors.
Uril, on the other hand, was amazing. At one point I had him up to a 16/15 with Trample, and he was gaining Exalted abilities too. My opponent conceded. On the other hand, I lost a game with Uril as an untargetable 10/10 on the board.
Ultimately, I went 2-for-2, which seems to be my record in every Magic tournament lately, and I’m ok with that. Alara Reborn was the real star of the show – it had players talking like I hadn’t heard in a long time. How often do you hear someone at a limited format tournament say, “I think I have to go five color,” and then see a bunch of other players nod sagely in agreement?
Even with three packs of Shards of Alara thrown in, providing some mono-colored cards along with all the gold card fun, deck building was still an incredible challenge. Where Conflux sort of forced you into playing three colors with a knowing wink, Reborn practically dares you to play four. The thought of just playing two colors was pretty much ludicrous. If nothing else, you were bound to pull at least one really good three-color card (lke Uril).
So everyone spent a lot of time scratching their heads during the build period. “I can’t believe I’m choosing mana fixing over creature removal, but I have to!” “There’s no way I can play any less than four colors!” “With all the multicolor casting costs, they made all these cards really good.” For my part, I managed to stick with three colors, with a splash of black. When I asked aloud, “Should I splash black just for Terminate and a Jund Charm?” everyone at my table in unison said, “Yes!” And it turned out that a single swamp and a Grixis Panorama were enough to get the job done.
I’ve talked before about how much fun it is to buy some boosters and have a draft tournament with your friends. Alara Reborn might be the best set ever for this. It will seriously challenge your deck building and drafting skills, and itll be a ton of fun. Go split a box of cards with some buddies and draft away.
April 27th, 2009 11:18 AM
Well, I know what I want to start my summer with.
April 27th, 2009 11:22 AM
Thanks for the explanatory annotation; it worked.
April 27th, 2009 11:25 AM
Draftwise, & basically all Magic-wise, my problem remains– If I can get a bunch of fellow geeks together to play games…well, I’d rather roleplay than anything else.
April 27th, 2009 11:57 AM
See, I have more Magic playing friends than I do RPG players, and we’re more likely to play some tabletop wargame than any of the above.
April 27th, 2009 10:06 PM
What would you prefer? I wonder if this is a like-draws-like situation? I mean, in high school & college, there were gamers of every stripe, but now I’m all pretty RPG. Then again, my last “post-mid-20s” group had formed based on drafts…
April 27th, 2009 10:19 PM
While I think the “draft with friends” thing is really fun, I don’t actually have such a group myself. So failing that, maybe try to find a local game shop that has draft nights.
April 28th, 2009 3:45 AM
Nearly all of us know how to play magic even if we all aren’t big on it, and honestly, we’d just as soon play, well anything. The main problem with RPGs is they take time, time that we’d probably get distracted during, especially if there’s book fumbling for combat. We’re a more simple bunch for the most part. We lack a DM figure and tend to compete too much to try to cooperate for anything, really. One can’t just Roleplay for 3 hours, and when one guy needs to go it all starts to fray. We’re the jack of all trades type mostly. Actually, I’ve noticed that at college, or, at least mine, Gaming is either HALO or WOW. One guy brought his D&D books, but got talked down in favor of MORE WOW! The only other Magic player is Protour and a dick. in short, there’s no games to be had on campus, come summer, though, that’s when all will occur.