Last weekend was Prerelease time and so I rolled down to my LGS to play some The Brothers’ War sealed!
Being back at visiting one of the major events of Dominaria’s history sure is exciting and I was also really interested in the Limited part of this set as it promised to be quite interesting with all those retro artifacts, giving the possibility of some sweet techs.
Once again I found myself building a Mardu deck. I had to rely on three colors as I didn’t have the right amount of cards to build a playable deck with only two colors. My pool was a bit weak with good cards being distribute among all the colors, no clear bombs and only white with a good mix of creatures and non creatures spells.
The main strategy of the deck is what you would usually see in an Orzhov deck in this limited: a recursive aggo deck where I mixed red in it to add more creatures and removals.
You can click here to see the list I played.
We were 15 players and the tournament began after the announcement that there will be four matches.
Match 1 vs Azorius Artifacts
Game 1
Starting the first game by mulliganing down to four… sure I was up to a good start. He has a slow start almost giving me the possibility to recover but then he comes in strong with artifact synergies, quickly knocking me out. As a aggro deck, I feel I need to have a strong start to be able to deal with these midrangy kind of decks and so I felt pretty doomed right from the start.
Game 2
I have a strong start with my creatures, but I don’t find many removals and soon his board fills with artifact creatures… that become my death sentence once he plays Urza, Prince of Kroog; the huge buff it gives to his creatures is too much for me to handle and, once I’m still not able to find more removals, he quickly overwhelms me.
0 wins – 1 loss
Match 2 vs Bant Ramp
Game 1
I have a strong start while he gets stuck drawing only lands and this gives me the right start to put some nice pieces on the board and remove the few once he is able to play. He had a really slow start and I’m easily able to take the game home.
Game 2
I was wrong thinking that the second game was going to resolve pretty much as the first one and I end up using all my removal early on, having none once he starts dropping the really huge stuff like Rust Goliath. I’m not able to stop it and he tramples over me.
Game 3
In this third game I’m more cautious with my removals but he is also able to find many of his and so we spend the first part of the game in a war of attrition where neither of us is able to get ahead. We start filling our board, stalling each other as we are both removing each other’s big and/or evasive creatures. He is able to free himself from the stall by casting a Titania’s Command that completely turns the tables in his favor and he is quickly able to win the game.
0 wins – 2 losses
Match 3 – Bye
Yay! I actually won a game!
1 win – 2 losses
Match 4 vs Rakdos Sacrifice
Game 1
I saw how my opponents were playing while I was waiting for the previous match to end and I saw I felt safe keeping a slower hand but with a huge amount of removals. This let me get ahead in the first part of the game and I’m really close to winning the game but he is able to drop a powerful Steel Seraph that is able to swing once and give him some life back before I remove it. He is also able to remove my flying creatures and so we are both stalling each other. I notice however that he is drawing a lot and so I put pressure on him but asking him to count how many cards he had left in his deck… only three and I had Loran on the field that would accelerate this process.
He decides to go in an all-out attack that I’m able to survive and kill him the following turn.
Game 2
I keep a starting hand quite similar to the one of the previous games and it quickly puts me in the lead as he also gets stuck on mana. I quickly clean his board and then I swing powerfully with Misery’s Shadow. I put all my mana into pumping the shadow and, with him not finding removals to kill it, I quickly win the game in a few turns.
2 wins – 2 losses
With these results I was able to place 10th in the rankings. I wasn’t satisfied at all with my pool but it still was a nice evening spent together with friends.
Raven の Nest 