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?

Comments on the core set policy changing with M10

Changes brought with the new core set that will be released in june:  
Link to news: Recapturing the magic with Magic 2010 


Decreased set size
Isn't this a good thing? Less cards to collect, less bad/redundant card ideas. Will this earn Wizards less money? Smaller sets will also lead less variety, as common cards make up most of a set's size. BUT: with the introduction of a new rarity, this in practice means that collecting all cards will be harder: booster peasant will have to crack open more boosters to get the cards they want. That equals more money to Wizards. YaY.
 
Core set change
There will be new cards, and not only reprints, making it desirable even for older players. And there will be a new core set every year, as if it was a good thing wizards even call it 'refreshing the core set'. The core set will not have the same cards every year, and there will be new cards - that sounds like an expansion to me. Wasn't a core set supposed to just be there, as a stable supply of staple cards that could always be used?

What is a good thing is card borders be black. That's good on the eye. All that remains now it that I finish painting the old ones.


Set rotation thing
The core set will rotate out with the preceeding block. So all noobs that buy core set cards can't use them in tourneys and games the following autumn (that is, standard games).

New names for old concepts
When cards are in play, they will be on the battlefield. Personally I liked them being in play better, I just think it sounds and looks nicer.
When a spell is played - it is now casted.

Change? Change is SCARY! I welcome CHANGE.

Foils? WHAT, FRAIL CARDS?

....and if you scratched the surface of the front of a foil card, you could see the metallic sheet shining through from under.

I used to collect pokemon cards, and tried to play the game, too. Everyonce in a while, foils would appear in booster packs. Foils with circles and with stars in them. But they were real foils cards, holographic foils, real metallic stuff, they were resistant to ANYTHING. Once, my Ditto (akin to the "Clone" mtg card) foil went through the washing machine, I was devastated - or just a little -  only to find that the card back was a bit damaged, the front and the back of the card had parted, leaving the holographic front totally unscathed! That's quality printing!

I first encountered foils on my first Magic draft, which was a triple timespiral draft (cards piling up at my seat, I drafted UG to hell, maining several Durkwood trackers and an Eternity Snare). In the rare pick at the end, I  picked this weird card (Chameleon Blur! the art = ???), it was kinda darker and shone...and I asked..."what the..Is that a foil? How funny..it isn't like the pokemon ones, it's not real....." At the end of the event, we all got our promo cards, all foil, them too...And then I played with them...Only to discover...

..they rip in the ends! You can peel of the foil tissue! They are easily damaged! WHAT A SCAM!!!! Foils really sucks! - especially when you're a noob who doesn't care for sleeving and unsleeving all the time. The card just selfdestructs!