Fun Times With Magic: The Gathering, Part Two

May Garruk watch over us all, making sure we draw well and play by the
rules

Last Friday, I attended the Fate Reforged prerelease event at my local game store, Halflings' Hideaway. As I mentioned in my previous post, this was my first prerelease event for Magic: The Gathering since I started playing again. I thought I would write a post about my experience at the event, some of the more interesting moments I had, and whether attending a prerelease event like this is worth it (here's a hint: it totally is if you like playing Magic).

Like every Friday night, the store held their usual Friday Night Magic tournaments. Since I had some time to kill until the prerelease started at midnight, I decided to participate in the Standard tournament. I had two decks that I could have used, a Blue/White Control deck and a Red/White Aggro deck. Due to the latter deck working more smoothly than the former one, I decided to use it instead.

I managed to win my first match pretty easily due to the player being rather new to the game, but I decided to give him some advice afterwords. The second match was much more arduous, going up against a Black/White midrange deck run by a friend. She won the first bout, but the second one was much more tense. I managed to get her down to 2 life and I would have won if I had drawn just one of my burn spells. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The third match wasn't as tense, going up against one of my most hated decks: Mono White that gains life at an insanely fast rate. You can probably figure out how that one went.

Just look at that value!

Once the Standard tournament was over and everyone was ready, the prerelease began and everyone was handed a small box labelled with the insignia of their chosen clan. Originally, I was going to pick Temur (Green/Red/Blue) due to my love of big creatures and burn spells, but I ultimately decided to go with Jeskai (Blue/Red/White) to try something different. I'm also glad I made that choice because one of my packs had a certain colorless planeswalker that everyone wanted to pull: Ugin, The Spirit Dragon. I was one of four people who ended up pulling an Ugin, and I believe I was the only one to pull him from their normal packs (not the special promo packs we received afterwords).

Having pulled such a powerful card, I made it my goal to play him at least once before the night is over. Thankfully, I managed to do just that and pull off his ultimate and win my first game with only a few rounds to go. Unfortunately, I think the sheer amount of luck unbalanced something in the Universe, so I ended up drawing incredibly crappy hands the rest of the night and getting horrible luck, so I only won the one match. However, due to the structure of the tournament where you one a pack for each game you won, I did manage to get an additional pack of Fate Reforged.

It was nearly 5:30 in the morning when the tournament finally ended. Due to being incredibly hungry, a friend and I decided to the nearest IHOP, which is 30 minutes away. However, it was totally worth it, even if it meant I wouldn't be home until 7 or so. Once I made it back, I quickly sorted out my new cards before passing out.

In the end, I definitely had fun at the prerelease and I can't wait for the next one for Dragons of Tarkir. These events are totally worth it if you enjoy playing Magic: The Gathering. Not only do you get the chance to nab some cards before they're even released, but you also get to spend the night playing with them. What's not to love about that?