Pseudo Newb and the Multiple PreReleases - 2 Headed Giant

 Ok so this is kind of mind bendy, I'm going to do one "where-I-am-with-life-and-art" blog on the pre-release on my regular Dreamtime Drinne blog,   but it's not going to have a lot of specific Magic in it and then I'm going to write this blog ( or more accurately I'm going to write this blog first ) because it's the competitive journal. 

For anyone who reads this ( it's still odd for me to think of people reading this but I've been handing out the location so I'm going to assume people now do) you may not be familiar with the fact that I use pictures of Poppets which are small sculptures made by Lisa Snellings  so this will be one of the few times I'll have subject/picture crossover because I took Poppets to the Helvault pre- release. So same subject, completely different angles, but unusually this entry will have poppet pics. 

Our Helvault pre-release was on Sunday but before Sunday there was Saturday.

I wrote about Friday's surprise two headed giant here.  That Friday a friend of mine who had been unable to get together with me for several years asked what I was doing Saturday, this was after my friend who is the owner of the LGS* I go to mentioned he was worried about attendance for the Saturday Two Headed Giant Pre-release because there was only one giant pre registered. 

(* LGS  = Local Game Store)

Now you have to understand that I have a circle of friends that can call me up at 4 am in Texas tell me they need something and I will go to them or arrange for them to get it. Period. No questions asked. 

The rest of my circle of friends will be asked for an explanation. 

The LGS store owner is one of the first kind. When I found out that Wizards tracks and ranks store attendance and that he missed one achievement by 2 people's worth of attendance; I told my 4am-in-Texas that he should call me, it takes me 20 minutes to get to the store on short notice and that the same goes for anyone in my household. If he's short for sanctioning we'll be there. 

It's like being on call to make minyan. For pretty much the same reasons. 

So the conflict was actually that the other friend is also a 4am-in-Texas friend, but I didn't know if he could handle groups or if he still played Magic. But I did offer him either the opportunity to be my second head Apparently he hadn't played since 1999. And he said yes. So I was getting a chance to be with some of my favorite people and playing magic with winning completely randomly optional since Old School Friend  hadn't even seen a rules document since 2000. 

Sealed Deck Two Headed - with a brand new set at a pre-release - OH YEAH

So we're all signed up, we get the 8 sealed packs, I split the packs between us and use the "write what I opened down and then we mix to build the best decks system" 

Time for newb notes:

Sealed Two headed giant works like this - you get eight packs per team, you are allowed to mix and share the cards to build two 40 card minimum decks. This allows you to maximize the power of the decks and the interactivity. You are allowed to cast spells on each other, but you are not allowed to control things the other head controls. 

It's a good idea to agree on how to split the cards before you build so I used the "you open it it's yours" rule. Old School Friend opened, Tamiyo, Angel of Glory's rise, Restoration Angel, the Descendants Card and Avacyn. 

I was not so lucky. 

But all that aside Old School Friend told me he was most comfortable playing white and since we were both unsure of the mana curve and all of the casting costs looked high we figured white weenie was the way to go and that I would play Blue Black ( UB) to take advantage of the Tamiyo. 

My Pool was

Red

Havengul Vampire

Scalding Devil X2

Riot Ringleader

Guise of Fire

Pillar of Flame

Raging Poltergeist ( he was useful!)

Thunderbolt

Mad Prophet ( I love this card even though he's expensive)

Haneweir Lancer

Uncanny Speed

Thunderous Wrath

Fervent Cathar

Battly Hym

White

Goldennight Commander

Riders of Gavony

Angel's Mercy

Spectral Gateguards

Thraben Valiant 

Holy Justicar

Cursbreak X2

Cathedral Sanctifier X2

Defy Death

Righteous Blow

Voice of the Provinces

Midnight Duelist

Emancipation angel

Defang X2

Blue

Peel from Reality ( Useful card!)

Mist Raven ( I don;t think I used this card well) 

Fleeting Distraction

Fettergeist x2

Mass Appeal

Alchemist's Apprentice X2

Rottercrown Ghoul

Infinite Reflection

Crippling chill

Ghostly Flicker

Gryff Vanguard

Black

Renegade Demon

Driver of the Dead

Grave exchange x2

Dark Imposter

Homicidal Seclusion

Butcher's Ghoul ( I will be using this in draft) x2

Marrow Bats

Essence Harvest

Green 

Blessings of Nature X2

Borderland Ranger

Flowering Lumberknot

Nettle Swine

Wandering Wolf X2

Gloom Widow

I remembered to record my decks for the other pre-release events but didn't manage to write down exactly what we constructed for this one. 

So back to regular Pseudo Newb traditons

We just made the sanctioning amount - there were enough teams so we played four rounds.

Results - 1 -3 

Round 1 - we played the best possible people to play in a first round where someone was playing for the first time in 12 years. Awesom Eric and his brother, who were super patient and really helpful ( just like he has always been with newbs and me when I'm working for better strategic understanding) . They beat us but it was close. I was at 4 mana for the entire game - originally I was running 16 lands. He went through the deck with me afterwards and said my build was good but suggested two things to swap out - one that I had already tagged as a dead draw in that build and the other I just took his advice and put in 2 more islands. I had Tamiyo in my hand at turn 3 and couldn't cast her at all. 

This is when I realized a serious drawback with Two headed sealed. You have no way of knowing how your deck is really working or if you're the problem because it's only one game and then the match moves on.

Round 2 We played two people who had obviously studied the pre-release and we were pretty much playing against green. Green is much faster and soulbond worked really well for them I was sharing my shiny marker bits (I'll write more about them at the Helvault entry) and I have to say as markers they worked really well and apparently cut down on confusion that other people were having with soulbond. I was never confused. I also had the Ipad open to the Avacyn Restored FAQ.

I don't know how that game really would have gone - I had a strong opening hand but got stuck on 3 Islands for the whole game. Tamiyo was in my hand at the beginning. I was still able to do a lot with bounces and leeches and geists but I couldn't contribute to the late game at all. 

Round 3  - I'm not going to identify the team at all, but they were already tilting* at each other as team mates when they sat down. 

 ( a very useful slang term - think of tilting a pinball machine)

It was the third round, and I found where my LD is going to hit me in this set - I misinterpreted a card ( which is gonna happen to everyone at a prerelease sooner or later) but Player 1 had been undermining and second guessing Player 2 the whole match and they were thinking of making this their last round. When I mistakenly thought something was still a legal target for resolving on the stack they really grumped at each other. I was worried about how my Old School Friend would take this but he handled it fine. It's just a game, but I have noticed that when couples or relatives pair with each other and have other style differences outside the game or really different strategies inside the game, they don't seem to have very much fun.We could have played to a draw ( I finally got Tamiyo out!!) but Player 1 convinced Player 2 to forfiet so that we could get a pack. They did stay for their final round and they won that one so the good Karma was pretty instant for them. 

Round 4 -The pairing were random because there was a clear winning team. AND SO we of course got paired with that clearly winning undefeated team. Who beat us quite soundly. But at least I got lots of mana this time. They were just massively better than us. 

Preparation;

I had luckily played two headed the night before. I had been reading some of the suggested draft strategies but really it didn't help. I'm in the middle of finals and just couldn't develop any sort of strategy to hold on to data. Besides which we know I'm an experiential learner at this stage of dealing with the cards and strategies. I spend some prep time covering basics with my Old School Friend and we had a great time.

Takeaways.

I'm going to have a problem keeping track of lifegain for the opponent because of multiple effects on the board

In the third round a gentleman who I refer to as Doughboy since I blissfully keep forgetting his name came around to the end of the table and started looking at both of our hands, asking questions and then suggesting plays - this was with the team that was already testy with each other and I was already edgy "I love you dearly but you need to stop talking and get away from the table" was all I said. 

For newbs reading what he was doing was illegal besides being a pain in the ass. I've had this problem with him before - he just doesn't get it. Although I got my butt beat by the champs in round 4 I luckily was re-paired because he was about to sit down and play against us. He also happens to be the partner of the kid who made his mother wait in the car last pre-release. He really does have a talent for doing the worst thing at the worst time around me. I did not tilt at him.

I did tilt when 4 different people were telling me 7 different life totals instead of answering my simple question of what that opponent's life total was at that moment. Including people who were not playing. 

GRRR. Actually Old School Friend answered clearly and got everyone else to stop. We were able to regroup. It was just a blip and easily gotten over - it's making the journal because there are two reasons that it could have happened, one is simply the LD I might not have understood what was happening because too many inputs were happening, the other is that I might have a real weakness in following the soulbond secondary lifegain effects.. Can't tell yet. Need to make a note. 

I want to make a deck with Latch Seeker and Invisible Stalker. 

Next entry - Helvault!