Alara reborn prerelease lessons learned

The Alara Reborn prerelease in the end of May was my first prerelease ever. I had to travel to a nearby city, a journey of an hour.

At first I was repulsed, because I didn't know that in order to enter the event, I would have to pay more than if I had bought the same boosters one week later. I thought that playing in events -buying in lot- you would get a discount. They replied by saying that I payed the extra money for the experience of it. I don't really care for buying new cards, when the value/cost of those cards is the half two years later. Anyway, I doubt I'm ever going to sell them anyways.

But alas, I was a girl, the only girl in the tournament, therefore, they gave me a discount.

I liked cracking the boosters, usually I just feel wrong, but after the third, there was too much to keep track of! See - I didn't know most cards before this event. After piling colours and creatures and instans, I settled for forests, mountains and plains, splashing a island/mountain mythic rare dragon card I never got to use. I noticed Mind funeral is so bad!! I thought...I got two of them! It says to mill target player until four lands are revealed. What an overpowered card, I thought, in limited, it could very well take down half a deck.

Before going to this event, I thought that this lovely vanilla card Woolly thoctar (5/4 for RGW)  was overpowered, but seriously, when you only have basic lands, it's properly balanced, it is really hard to play. It seems everyone manascrewed at least once this tourney. On the other hand, the non-basic lands are what really is overpowered. They destroy the mana management: it is supposed to be hard to play many colours!

And I did'nt include proper mana base in my deck...when I chose to play white, green and red, and most cards had white in their costs, still I had like 7 forests, 6 plains and 3 mountains. I remember counting all mana symbols, thinking I was smart, and concluding that there were most forests, so I needed most forests.

Furthermore, there are these overpowered mythic rares..in sealed they aren't that overpowered, because most have high mana costs, hard to hardcast, but in constructed people will break them. That's what's magic seems to be about: breaking the rules, tweaking and finding the ultimate combination from a million cards :9.

In my third or first match, a guy played this lord of extinction, me gasped, but I managed to remove him with something. That card is overpowered. It seems to me like wizards is tring to go over the top, always growing, always trying to outdo themselves. Bad. I hate power creep. It's like the economy, mortgages and inflation blah blah blah.

Out of all cards, mostly I got only one copy. That inspired my to the idea of sealed singleton: You construct your deck from whatever pool you like, but you can only use one copy. Furthermore, there's another restrcition, on rarity, simply because boosters are made that way. If you get six boosters you would have 6 rares and 12 uncommons. But remember, you wont ever use all your uncommons or rares, so lets say: 3 rares, 6 uncommons. Seriously, it's so much more fun when you actually get to play those cards in your deck. The deck size helps too, 40 cards.
- > so the format is: deck of 40 cards, singleton, 3 rares, 6 uncommons.

After my second match, I just got all the "junk" cards from my opponent, because he's only after the BEST cards, the vintage playable..he's only after the power...the power...I like that, because it gets me cards, he gets rid of things he wont use, and I don't care about power. There's so much waste in this game...people should be baddrafting a lot more.
_

Well, how did I fare? I was winning due to mana screw and losing due to mana screw, because of the block's implicated mana screw effect of the MULTICOLOURED. There was a guy that manascrewed both rounds we played, for like, unbelievable eight turns...

Eventually, I actually got fourth place of like thirteen or something, that's pretty good, I think, and would have gone to the finals, had it not been for a guy with walkover. I think I got so far due to the guy manascrewing, a good pool of cards of which I chose some good cards, and me not playing completely brainlessly. There were these times where my brain would boil and the nervous system was working at overload, trying to decide what to do. That's what I like about playing this game, heh.

AND:
Now I want to point nose of Viashino skeleton, that is ONE pointless card. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT HIGH MANA COST? USELESS CARD?

Product changes following the release of Shard of Alara

With Shard of Alara Wizards introduce:

• Land in booster packs
• New rarity - the mythic rarity

Links to news: Changes as of Shards of Alara

Land in booster pack
Wizards now added land in booster pack, effectively reduzing their size to 14 - to make noobs easily obtain lands: Now, getting hold of land was never really a problem. You can get heaps of lands from some older players. SERIOUSLY, I KNOW SOME GUYS that have like 500 lands. And that is few. The only time it is a problem is for totally new players without a playgroup or community...

Secondly, originally there were lands in boosters, and then players complained about TOO MANY lands, urging Wizard to change this. It was changed. And now it's changed back. Urges me to say: this will be changed back sometime.

Thirdly............you can play without lands LOL

New rarity - MYTHIC RARE
Magic rarity got steeper: now there are four. I don't know the mathematics, but this wil replace the normal rare you pull in a booster pack. Meh, I don't care because I'm no collector or the kind of person seeking multiples, but I think it is not good for the game if they are made broken/overpowered, filled with abilities just to be or just because they are sooo mythic rare. Stupid. And market price just got higher. It reminds me of a similar situation that happened to another, now dead, CCG (Doomtown): how players complained and were alienated when the game changed to a less flat rarity (there were two originally). Why? Now you had buy three boxes to get playset of all cards.

Intro pack thing
I don't know what was before. Anyway, this starter pack will be called intro pack and serve as an introduction into the current sets, with some liner notes about set and game mechanics. BUT: they will only contain 41 cards - illegal as decks. And a third of those cards are lands. Why?