Official Prerelease Thread (Future Sight)

[andrewpate]

Prerelease time again, already!  Here's the place for interesting experiences.

I split a draft ($30 to play 5 rounds of Sealed for half a box?  No thanks.) with a buddy of mine with the following deck:

3 Plains
3 Mountain
6 Island
1 Nimbus Maze
2 Keldon Megaliths

1 Riddle of Lightning
1 Arc Blade
2 Emberwilde Augur
1 Ghostfire
1 Fatal Attraction
1 Sparkspitter
1 Judge Unworthy
1 Goldmeadow Lookout
1 Magus of the Moat
1 Knight of Sursi
1 Blade of the Sixth Pride
1 Street Wraith
1 Aven Augur
2 Whip-Spine Drake
2 Foresee
1 Bonded Fetch
2 Venser's Diffusion
1 Cloudseeder
1 Infiltrator il-Kor
2 Leaden Fists

I would like to comment that my curve, as you can see, was very low, so I would not normally recommend the 15-land configuration for most decks.  That said, running off-color Street Wraith in place of a land was, at least in this deck, never regretted.  He was totally awesome.  One game, I had a turn that went: Bonded Fetch activation --> Foresee --> Street Wraith (drawing Foresee) --> Foresee.  For , I was able to see almost half of my deck.  That game, I was forced to stop using the Fetch (I eventually just chump blocked with him) because I was afraid that I would deck myself before my flyers could kill my opponent.

To sum up these sentiments:  there is an absolute ton of library manipulation available in this set.  Blue especially has gotten some amazing new tools.  The cycle of scry spells containing Riddle of Lightning is quite good all around.  The spells that keep re-suspending themselves (such as Arc Blade) were, on the whole, disappointing, and for the most part not terribly worthwhile.  The best thing Arc Blade did for me was deal 5 with Riddle one time.

Magus of the Moat is the major bomb of the set.  He runs the table.  And with several good new common flyers (Whip-Spine Drake is notably both a monoblue creature and a monowhite one, if needed) in its color, not to mention Castle Raptors and friends from the earlier sets, it should be fairly easy to make a Skies deck similar to my above list in Sealed, and any time you open this in pack 3 and are in white at all, overevaluating the common flyers from that point on should help you set up for a solid lategame plan.

I had a buddy do very well in Sealed with a Stuffy Doll/Fatal Attraction combo.  This seems a lot more feasible than some previous Stuffy Doll combos since Fatal Attraction is both common and a justifiable inclusion on its own merits.  Keep an eye out for them if you have the Doll.

I feel that blue got the most from Future Sight for Limited, most notably Infiltrator il-Kor, Whip-Spine Drake, and Aven Augur in the common slot, as well as some good uncommons such as Cloudseeder, while red is still probably the best color despite getting few new tools.  Death Rattle and Ichor Slick are some great new removal for black, which also got Deepcavern Imp and the not-to-be-underestimated Snake Cult Initiation, and Kavu Primarch, Imperiosaur, Llanowar Mentor, and Nessian Courser are all great drops for green.  White is also a very benefitted color, with a great new trick in Judge the Unworthy and arguably the bombiest uncommon, Goldmeadow Lookout.  Blade of the Sixth Pride is also a solid 2, and don't forget that the Drake works fine without any blue in your deck.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with this set from a Limited perspective.

Other notable experiences include a grandma who totally sharked this one draft (watch for Evan Erwin's interview with her), a guy with 6 copies of Virulent Sliver who killed on turn 3 once with them, and a friend who sat between two beginners and ended up drafting B/G with 4 Nessian Coursers, 7 Kavu Primarchs, and 6 Ichor Slicks.

[Illissius]

R/G is pretty hot. Red has scads of removal, green is full of fat. Kavu Primarch in particular is silly, especially in a format where Future Sight is half of it and the most common form of "destroy target thing" is Death Rattle.

[erictehfatz0r]

I Went 4-2 at the Columbus Pre-release, playing a W/R basically built for me by my TS Tournament Pack. Amrou Seekers, Doomsayers, Celestial Crusader, Sudden Shock, Rift Bolt, Grapeshot, etc etc. FS Piled on the goods with Thunderblade Charge, 2 Ingus, Rift Elemental+Arc Blade, Riddle the Lightning, and Akroma's Memorial.

The best card I played both with and against was Gathan Raiders. There was one game where my opponent had blocked my two 3/3 and 3/4 creatures with morphed guys, discarded his remaining two cards in hand to unmorph two raiders, and then two turns later swing for the win. Those guys are bombs imo.

My Round 3 loss was to a deck that did this in 5 turns:
1: suspend Knight of the Sursi
2: Benalish Cavalry
3: Griffin Guide Cavalry, swing.
4: Suspended knight comes into play, swing both, play another Knight
5: Fly at me for EIGHT.

He also had infy combat tricks that let him 3-for-1 my guys in game 2.

My second match loss came at round 6, where it mattered most . Game one got wtfpwnt by my own manascrew, then game 2 missed early land drops, then got pwnt by both a Kher Ridges and Tombstalker while I was drawing the missed land. Beats.

All in all, I think my pool was really strong in the two colors, and afterwards drafted to a 2nd place finish, losing to a guy who drafted 4 Judge Unworthys, 4 Knight of Sursi, 3 of the Blue flier, and the blue recurring bounce. He also had "removal" in the form of two Second Wind that locked down my 4 Gathan Raiders. Frowntown.

Day Two, I get into a flight that had me opening both Teferi and Baru, but all of my removal was white and red, so I misbuilt my deck (GWr)and went 2-2. However, because there were only 7 people after round 3, I still got 5th place and 3 packs. Woothe.

Props to Gathan Raiders, Judge Unworthy, Thunderblade Charge, and my ability to play on 50 minutes of sleep.

Slops to Columbus for not making drafts after four pm. I wanted to get back at myself for building so poorly by drafting, but drafts had ended at 2, while I couldn't drop from the tournament because I was guaranteed prizes.