Pseudo-Newb and the Helvault!!!

I was ridiculously excited about the Helvault.

When I first saw the art and the name of the set I was greatly relieved because it  meant that maybe WotC was getting over it's We are Serious People doing Serious Things so we'll suck all the gleeful skittering joy out of Phyrexians as a bad guy and make all this sharp metallic overmanaged look-alike dystopia garbage instead.

The good guys were going to get a day ( at least a minute) and I like angels and demons. I miss Doug Shuler's art ( before computer inking). 

And then I like the idea that we were going to interactively do something. Let's not lie to each other here. I'm old in marketing terms. And let's also be honest. I went to three pre-release events. I was the sole player who had a uterus of their very own. It's been six months, I'm not a stranger to the players. I've been hawking the Lady Planeswalker's Society for a while ( and for the Helvault event I wore the T-shirt) but I still have that sense of pressure every time I know I'm the only woman in the room, that if I play badly I'm letting other female players down. 

Yes it's stupid. No, no one at the store makes me feel that way. It's all me in my own toxic soupness and the fact that I've been gaming in tabletop RPGs since I was 10 and I keep working in industries where the number of uteruses at the meeting I attend is pretty small, so sometimes I'm just tired of being the only girl in the room because it feels unfair to women in general that I should be the visible one. There is not such thing as a "women's view" there are other women who's be thrilled at this scenario. women who it would never occur to them to notice, women who wouldn't be comfortable at all, women who'd get jazzed from the competitive space. women who'd play it up, women who'd play it down.

But none of them are there, just me, with my learning curve, my symbol processing disorder and my twisted yet feminine sense of humor ( which is also not representational of any group). 

BUT WHAT I DO HAVE ARE POPPETS!!!

Yeah that's right. 

When Blogs collide. 

Here are the Yetzair Ha Tov ( the good influence or the "Angel" poppet) and the Yetzair Ha Ra ( the evil influence of the "Demon" poppet - Jews have demons as part of their mythology but not so much devils) who came with me to the Helvault to play. Here they are looking over mana

Before the Game some folk were playing commander. 

Preparation: I tried, I really did. I know it's finals but I attempted to get through the whole FAQ for Avacyn Restored ( and I still haven't made it) read the articles but ran head first into how hard it is to read the tournament reports and make any kind of real sense of them. They literally just read like card lists a lot of the time. I had played the day before but mostly what I had learned was MORE MANA for Avacyn and the hope that I might be able to play green or red. 

Here's the pool

White	Green	Red	Black	Blue & Artifacts
Angelic Wall Archangel Cathedral Sanctifier Defang X2 Devout Chaplain Farbog Explorer Midnight Duelist (Foil!) Midvast Protector X2) Righteous Blow Seraph of the Dawn Voice of the Provinces Terminus – I used it three times! Thraben Valiant	Abundant Growth Blessings of Nature Descendant’s Path Druid’s Familiar X2 Borderland Ranger Flowering Lumberknot Geist Trappers X2 Grounded Joint Assault Lair Delve Natural End Snare the Skies Timberland Guide Triumph of Ferocity Trusted Forcemage Nightshade Peddler	Fervent Cathar Mad Prophet Hanewir Lancer Pillar of Flame X3 Kessig Malcontents Kruin Striker X2 Lightening Prowess Riot Ringleader Scalding Devil Thatcher Revolt Thunderbolt X2 Rite of Ruin Vexing Devil	Butcher Ghoul Evernight Shade Mental Agony Predator’s Gambit Harvester of Souls Hunted Ghoul	Ghostly Flicker Angel’s Tomb Scroll of Avacyn Nartsted Scrapper’ X2 Alchemist’s refuge Desolate Lighthouse Haunted Guardian Bladed Bracers

With 20/20 hindsight I'm thinking maybe I should have played green - but the mana curve for the green creatures seemed to high and I haven't played a lot of green in general and the only thing I got that I really understood was Vexing devil. I had no obvious bombs in green. 

This is what I ended up playing:

Angel's tomb

Archangel

Cathedral sanctifier

Defang

Desolate lighthouse

Devout chaplain

Farbog

Hanweir

Kruin striker x2

Lightning prowess

Midnight Duelist

Pillar of flame x3

Righteous blow

Scalding devil

Scroll of Avacyn

Seraph of the dawn

Terminus

Thatcher revolt

Thraben valiant

Thunderbolt

Vexing devil

Voice of the provinces 

Comfort Level:  I was having a good time. I had a couple of miracles, I had a vexing devil. I knew I had some good cards for constructed or at least constructed casual with the lands I had. But I was uncomfortable - I didn't feel like I had a feel for the set at all.  I moved my head into "learning space"

Results - 5 matches 2-3

I won my first and last match. The first one I won 2-0 but mostly because my opponent was not doing well with mana. On my fourth match I played my husband which was nice because frankly no stress, no ego, and I won my final match which meant that I got an extra booster pack. 

It was really cool playing with the achievement cards actually meaning something:

I broke the third seal.

Takeaways

However,  here are the things I learned:

I got to see how effective soul bonding was when it was used against me. 

I got to use miracles alot.

Thatcher's Revolt is awesome.

Opening the Avacyn packs seems to be more "let down-y" than opening Innistrad packs. 

Every single time someone gets and angel that's a mythic rare on the table it pretty much ends the game.  That may change as I understand the format better, the same way planeswalkers eventually became manageable.

I kept getting sleepy and unfocused during play despite my best intentions I've played every single round of Avacyn Restored in a sleep deprived state.

I need to play more magic. 

I have a really awesome system for marking Soulbond cards and I got to share it with my opponents.

Lots of fun was had. But I did do the final pre-release event because I was still looking for some of the angels. 

When the Helvault was opened and all of the other angels and demons were loose this is what was still there: