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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 12:03AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2006
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Overall I liked the set, and I had fun playing it. My only complaint was that the format was too bomb-dependant. In my first sealed event I built a deck that would be insanely good in any other format. I had 2 Emancipation Angel  s, 2 Gryff Vanguard  s, 2 Cathedral Sanctifier  s, and a Nephalia Smuggler  to abuse the hell out of them. I had good removal like Banishing Stroke  , Divine Deflection  , Vanishment  , and 2 Peel from Reality  s. And there were a number of other cards in my deck that were pretty good for me. I ended up completely scrubbing out because I had no creature in my sealed pool larger than a 3/4 (unless you count Flowering Lumberknot  , bleh), and my opponents were just dropping Giselas and Brunas and soulbound monstrosities that I just couldn't compete with. In fact, almost every game I won was on the back of a single Latch Seeker  . It was very frustrating. I will say I'm looking forward to drafting this set, because I can see it being far more balanced than sealed while still being very fun.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 12:53AM
#12
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Seems a lot of you are complaining about the set playing differently than other sets. I kind of prefer that they mix things up that way...
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 2:45AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Jan 12, 2011
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I had a blast! I hit temporal mastery, reforge the soul, and thunderous wrath...so obviously like a true noob I had to build around those kewl new miracle cards, with or without support. Only won half of my games but enjoyed every one of them. I am looking forward to a slower format.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 3:59AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Mar 27, 2003
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I will preface. I hate Sealed. HATE it. It is the worst format in the world. I still had a good time (I usually do, at prereleases). My pool was solid, not amazing. Two dead rares in Demonlord of Ashmouth and the Stairway to Hell. I was running UW flyers, splashing red for Pillar and the pinger enchantment and Hound of Griselbrand, but I was struggling to trim my last few cards, so I just cut the red and went with a removal-light UW Angels deck: // Lands - 17 7 [UNH] Plains 7 [UNH] Island 1 [AVR] Cavern of Souls 2 [AVR] Seraph's Sanctuary // Creatures 1 [AVR] Midnight Duelist 1 [AVR] Cathedral Sanctifier 1 [AVR] Thraben Vanguard 1 [AVR] Scrapskin Drake 1 [AVR] Emancipation Angel 1 [AVR] Devout Chaplain 2 [AVR] Mist Raven 1 [AVR] Goldnight Commander 1 [AVR] Herald of War 1 [AVR] Gryff Vanguard 1 [AVR] Spectral Gateguards 1 [AVR] Voice of the Provinces 1 [AVR] Goldnight Redeemer 1 [AVR] Archangel // Spells 1 [AVR] Defang (1 more SB) 1 [AVR] Spectral Prison 1 [AVR] Zealous Strike 1 [AVR] Amass the Components 1 [AVR] Geist Snatch 1 [AVR] Vanishment 1 [AVR] Spirit Away 1 [AVR] Scroll of Avacyn
Round 1 - RGW Aggro, (52 card deck)
Store owner. Inexorably overran me in a really long game G1. G2 I curved out and he had mana issues so he was slow. Won G2 with 8 minutes in the round, and decided to draw.
Round 2 - UR Control
He had similar blue good cards to me (Spirit Away, Gryff, Raven), but he also had Moonsilver Spear, the 2RR Vindaloo Dragon, and a bunch of Peels. He beat me G1, but slow starts in G2 and 3 meant I could start dropping Angels and chipping away. He almost locked me out completely G3, bouncing my Archangel and stuff four turns in a row when he was at 4 life, when I bounced his Raven with my second and he Peeled his and mine. I thought he'd got me, since I needed to kill him or he would -4 Tibalt for 7, and attack for 12. (I was only at 10). Then I saw I had Zealous Strike, attacked with my two one drops, and killed.
Round 3 - GBu
Ran him over both games - his deck was slow, and I got a couple of good blockers and just stalled into flyers.
Round 4 - GR Aggro
G1: Turn 2 Wolf, Turn 3 the 4 +1/+1 counters. I died shortly after.
G2: I had enchantments to stop his early Wolf and beaters. Turn 5 Herald, Turn 6 Angel, Turn 7 beat down, bounced his Spear with a Miracle.
G3: He was slaughtering me with a bladed bracer equipped Howlgeist. I locked it down with Prison for a turn or two. He drew "Grounded", and played it on his own Howlgeist to get rid of the enchantment. One attack from it would kill me. I ripped a 7th land, and thought hard about either casting my Goldnight Redeemer to gain some life, or Spiriting Away. I went for the latter (I wish I'd made a Howl's Moving Castle/Spirited Away joke), he had nothing, and I followed up with the lifegain Angel. Done.
My only money card was Cavern of Souls (in my pool). I also got a Champion of Lambholt, Silverblade Paladin in my prizes. Didn't get Teminus, Tamiyo, or Entreat the Angels, unfortunately.
Came second of about 36. My best Sealed before has been 2-2. My best Sealed performance ever.
The Helvault thing was fun, although both our store Helvaults were boring normal ones with d20s and giant angels and DFC tokens. No Demonic Tutors or Exalted Angels or Decree of Justice. But it was fun, especially in one round where a guy one seat down from me said "This is my first prerelease, so you get a point if you introduce yourself." to his opponent, and three of us leapt across the tables to introduce ourselves.
It's really not even about giving niche cards to black.
It should be about giving black cards to Niche.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 4:26AM
#15
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Date Joined:
May 11, 2011
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my friend and i entered in the 2hg today and managed to place 4th, which was all the more satisfying since our pool last time was so terribad. we managed to play all eight of our rares between us, which i thought was actually pretty remarkable. i had restoration angel and hound of griselbrand in my pretty sweet boros humans deck, and my friend had a buttload of sweet rares: misthollow griffin, crafterhoof behemoth, exquisite blood (on the splash lol), somberwald sage, ulvenwald tracker, and alchemist's refuge. craterhoof behemoth is a massive, massive bomb, and having the sage to help accelerate the fat out was amazing.
i was quite pleased with thatcher revolt, especially in multiples, and the boros humans deck looks like it'll be so fun to draft. borderland ranger is also going to be a huge card in draft, i can see it now. overall i really enjoyed playing with the set, and actually winning was a good feeling too.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 5:58AM
#16
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- Gleemax RP Justicar
- BCP5 Design Lead
- Never Gives Up
- Peace
Date Joined:
May 12, 2006
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I opened a terribad bunch of cards, went 1-3 sadly. Had to cobble up a weird BR land destruction deck (yes, you heard me) consisting of 2 Demolish  , 2 Polluted Dead  , a Descent into Madness  , a Reforge the Soul  and a bunch of black removal. The lack of creatures essentially screwed me, given that my cardpool was predominantly full of black removal spells.  It was still a fun experience though, and I have to admit I purposely played badly for one game to attain the Helvault criterias.  Don't think it mattered much though, on hindsight. I agree that this set isn't as flavorful as most others. Hopefully RTR doesn't continue this trend.
 Cookie Count: 1 million + 1039
Wooden Spoon Count: 2
YMtC Trophies
1st: 9 2nd: 11 3rd: 13 4th: 4
I lost >6000 posts during the last forum migration. 
#14000th post at 05/11/09
#15000th post at 22/02/10
#16000th post at 10/06/10
#17000th post at 27/10/10
#18000th post at 27/04/11
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#21000th post at 21/01/13
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 8:34AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jul 16, 2007
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Played a slow GBu deck with mana fixing, big creatures, soulbonders and removal, but unfortunately got paired against fast RW decks all night and lost several close games. It was still fun though.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 8:54AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Mar 19, 2011
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After a week of saying to my friends "don't draft black! Black is so bad in this set!", guess what happened to me... Opened terribad rares ( Gloom Surgeon  , Treacherous Pit-Dweller  , Otherworld Atlas  , and Angel of Glory's Rise  with nothing like decent W/B commons/uncommons to run them. Ended up running a pretty decent aggro    deck with plenty of soulbond, card draw, and bounce. Crippling Chill  and Into the Void  will both forever have a place in my heart after the amount of sticky situations they got me out of, and Somberwald Vigilante  has become my new favorite red weenie (though it's still no Godo's Irregulars  ). Came tenth out of thirty overall, so I claim the moral victory despite not opening a single bomb (unless you count Stolen Goods  as a bomb). Most satisfying victory was going 2-0 against a guy who'd pulled a foil Avacyn and took great pleasure in gloating and revealing in from his hand every five seconds. In the second game I actually let him cast her, because guess who had a Geist Snatch  waiting...  and that's what you get for showing off what's in your hand. After the event, I tore all four of the Homicidal Seclusion  I had pulled into tiny hateful shreds. Oh, and Ulvenwald Tracker  and Somberwald Sage  are both utterly nutterly butterly. All in all, great fun, though I am annoyed that black sucked so much and was pretty much unviable as a draft option. I don't think I saw anyone playing black yesterday. Naughty Wizards, I'd thought we'd learnt our lessons from Torment and Judgement about overbalancing some colours over others...
"Waaah there's a few cards I don't like in the latest set! This game sucks now! Everything should just always stay the same because I'm threatened by change! I'm going to quit! I'm quitting! SOMEONE PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEE" - approximately 10% of MtG players on all forums, ever.Read my thoughts, feed my ego! - www.tzaphiel.wordpress.com
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 9:41AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2012
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I had an overall good time, running a GWU deck (only 4 each of Blue and White with around 16 Green) and winning 5 out of 6 matches (Win/Losses: 2/1, 0/2, 2/0, 2/1, 2/0, 2/1), only losing badly to a R/W/u aggro deck. I ended up placing 9th out of about 50, one spot away from being in the finals of the top 8. I'll agree with others, alot of my game did stall out until one of us pulled the wonder card or was able to somehow maneuver through the opponent's defenses through careful trades or bluffs, which I actually really liked. And I also feel having a bomb card (I had Sigarda, Host of Herons  ) helped tremendously, especially since the games tended to stall. My Soulbond stuff worked wonders, and the Nightshade Peddler  s held off even my opponent's biggest threats, especially the angels when I had the peddler's bonded to Geist Trappers  . And then combining Wingcrafter  with Flowering Lumberknot was tough. And even crazier for stalled games was dropping Goldnight Redeemer  when the field had been built up. This happened during my last game, and me and my opponent both played the Redeemer with large fields. Some of my favorite combat tricks were Joint Assault  , Terrifying Presence  , and Divine Deflection . My third game of my first match, my opponent dropped a Malignus  at an 8/8 to hold off my 7/7 Vorstclaw  . I still swung into him and he said, "Why did I have to be like that?" I believe he took the first hit, and then the second time I swung, he blocked and I played Joint Assault , which I had ready the first time. In regards to black, my pulls were generally terrible, or I didn't have enough black otherwise to even think to run it. Out of all the people I played, only one player ran black. It's disappointing to see one color almost stricken from the tournament. I know a few others also had black, but it was minimal. Here were my rare pulls, including the two extra from my 2-booster prize: Divine Deflection , Devastation Tide  , Craterhoof Behemoth  (Which I would side board in for drawn-out games, but still never got to play him), Dual Casting  , Zealous Conscripts  , Sigarda, Host of Herons , and the prize rares were Descendant's Path  and Revenge of the Hunted  . I think I did good overall on the rares.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 29, 2012 - 10:09AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Feb 18, 2010
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Also, to those who have a habit of using instants and sorceries as verbs when you cast them, be careful around Righteous Blow  . I learned that the hard way.
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