Mr. Sven and I stopped by the Lorwyn pre-release tournament yesterday. I decided to go with a black/red deck, heavy on goblins with a few elementals and giants thrown in. It was a great time, though my deck didn’t do as well as I had hoped. Sven, though, may have walked away undefeated, had his lands agreed with him in one of the final matches.
Match 1
I was up against Patrick first. He came out with a Nath of the Gilt-Leaf , which drove me crazy for most of the first fight. He also had a Bog-Strider Ash and a Hamletback Goliath which just made things worse for me. He pounded on me for a while as he made his way toward 31 life, then killed me. The second match was closer, possibly because his broker kept bugging him for money to enter another tournament and to get food. I hit him down to 7, but by that time it was too late for me.
Match 2
The second match I was against Patrick’s younger brother, Jacob. He had a Pepsi and some mini donuts by this point, which he opened very delicately before dipping his nose into the bag for a sniff. Our matches were pretty uneven. Round one I pounded on him until he was dead. Round two he pounded on me while I struggled to find another mountain. He started gaining life, and killed me. Round three was similar to round one, and I toasted him with a Flamekin Brawler.
Match 3
Here I fought Shaun, who Steve beat in his match 2. He came at me with all his faeries the first round, beating me down to five. All I could do was throw a cow at him. It must have angered him, because he killed me the next turn. Match two his deck didn’t perform all that well, and I ran him over without being touched. Round three he came at me again with a horde of faeries which I couldn’t stop, and he gave me my second loss of the day.
Match 4
I played match four against Brad, who had built his deck next to me. He played mostly online, and it was his first pre-release tournament. I didn’t ask how well he did when we met up, but that we did means he couldn’t have been doing all that much better than me. I came at him pretty hard in the first match, and he couldn’t get much in the way of my goblins. I got him to 11, he had me at 17, and he conceded the round. Our second match went much the same, only I was at 20 and he was at 12 when he conceded. We looked through each others cards after the fight, there was some confusion, and I accidentally wound up with a few of his elementals. Sorry Brad.
I realized after ’sorting’ the packs I won that this set is screwy. I didn’t divide them by color, but by summon type. When I wanted to go back and see what Merfolk I had, where my Elves were, and who all was a Treefolk I realized I might have to skim through a whole color.
Then do I pull them out and make a stack?
So messy!
Not sure why that comment was eaten, but it has been spit back out. It seems the set wants to be sorted by color by summon, which seems worse than Ravnica’s guild/color sort.
After much deliberation I think Elementals get my nod from the new set.
Kithkin went from an impossible theme to a viable one, a cool one, but Elementals win in my head.
Simple combos can form the backbone of the deck I have in mind.
Smokebraider x4
Flamekin Brawler x2
Ceaseless Searblades x4
Flamekin Bladewhirl x4
Look at that, Smokebraider accellerates AND if he inflates the Brawler +2/0, then each of the Searblades get +3/0 because 3 elemntal abilities just triggered!
But we can do better than that!
We can go backwards and get older Elementals.
The double striking, firebreathing Char Elemental guy.
Inner-Flame Igniter
Incandescent Soulstroke
Soulbright Flamekin
And old Elementals.
And then, the shocker, all those crazy Incarnations like Vigor, can be cast with just two Smokebraiders helping.
Sure, I’ll make an elf deck, it might kick ass, but I think Elementals will be fun and new and different. Way cooler than my mediocre beasts deck.
Imagine the realistic fun of using the Incandescent Soulstroke to bring out a Nova Chaser, giving him haste to go with his trample and he has +1/+1. An 11/3 Trample Haste that dies at the end of turn.
I agree. The Brawler alone was just crazy at the tourney, backed with some other elementals that pop off differently the third time to give all your guys a bonus is just powerful fun.
I don’t much care for the Goblins, Faeries, or the Merfolk. Elves do some neat things, but I don’t think I’ll build an elf deck. The Kithkin I like, but Brigid is my only standout right now. Giants I’ll probably play with, since they feel like the goblins of old with higher P/T and casting cost, and Elementals are going to be great to play with.
I looked at the preconstructed decks and was pleased to see that I don’t have to do much in the way of ‘reserving rares’ to support my elemental and elven wants.
Also, the Elemental lord guy is in the Elemental precon, so that might keep his price low.
I think Lorwyn goblins opens the door for some interesting black/red Goblin deck, but it might take another expansion to get to where it needs to be. Of course that B3 Grenade/-5/-5 thing would be great with Squee, or the BR goblin that resurrects. And the black Goblin champion is a pretty sweet addition to a goblin deck.
Faeries are ick.
Merfolk I might shoot for. I’ll look back at my merfolk of old. I’ll base the deck on The merfolk that allows you to tap merfolk to grind, then merfolk that allow you to do things when they become tapped, and then other merfolk still that do something whenever a merfolk is tapped.
I’ll tap this guy to grind for one, when he becomes tapped I can pay U1 to bounce a permanent because of his own ability, and I gain 1 life for each of that merfolk that looks to that. Grinding, life gaining, bouncing works together well. I slow you down, deck you and buffer my life total. I think I could make it work with the blue Planeswalker. The white one could help, but not as much.
I’m trying to figure out what to do with the Elf deck to make it cool rather than just functional. I’ve found a couple of interesting combos with older elves, but nothing that cool. I don’t know that black brings enough to the table to warrant inclusion. The BG3 guy is sweet, but the black elves don’t interest me much.
Was there a guy that reduces the cost of giants by two? Because he would seem to be mandatory. Giants could be pretty cool.
Your webpage loaded funny.
As I view it now the little clock that is usually appears next to the timestamp of the post appears more times than it should, sometimes in the text, but always aligned on the x axis.