I left work early yesterday with the intent of playing in the Time Spiral release tourney at Galleria. The product arrived late though, and Switch and I had to wander around Galleria for half a day before the tourney was able to begin.
As witnessed in the prerelease, Time Spiral seems to be immensely popular, which means high demand and low supply of boosters for the general public. And for good reason: Time Spiral is awesome, and provides an incredibly fun (and sometimes technical) limited environment. What it will do for Standard is another matter, but since I’m primarily a limited player…
Anyway, my sealed card pool had some good ones, but an overabundance of spot removal and card draw made me consider R-B-U, even though I had advised Switch only hours earlier that R-B was shallow in TS limited. What sealed the deal were the trio of Bogardan Hellkite, Nicol Bolas and Sol’Kanar the Swamp King. Getting one of those beasts into play basically meant winning the game!
Unfortunately, I did not do as well as I’d hoped. I plowed through the first 2 matches easily, but lost the last two. I must’ve given my opponent most of my luck in round 3, as I managed to cut his deck to a Mystic Enforcer in all three games. Round four, game one was close as I lost after running out of answers to his blockers. Game two had me winning on the back of Sol’Kanar while sacrificing all my other creatures to chump-block his Evil Eye (which prevented his other critters from attacking). Game three was a blowout though, as he gained a quick aggro advantage and quickly burned through all my removal.
Match record: 2-2. Game Record: 6-5
I guess my mistake was that I had built quite a slow deck. I didn’t have any decent plays until turn three at the earliest. And most of the time, I would just play a Chronatog Totem. If I got to the late game safely, I could easily win.
Great cards: Fathom Seer, Mystic Teachings (searches for Bogardan Hellkite!), Think Twice, Careful Consideration, Strangling Soot, Assassinate, Smallpox, Pit Keeper
Not-so-hot: Lim-dul the Necromancer
Next Saturday is constructed, I wonder if I can have a deck ready by then…
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