Fate Reforged Pre-release

Deck Construction
3: Pine Walker, Cloudform, Yasova Dragonclaw, Write into Being, Frontier Mastodon, Glacial Stalker, Alpine Grizzly, Snowhorn Rider
4: Temur Sabertooth, Lotus Path Djinn, Shaman of the Great Hunt, Ugin's Construct
5: Feral Krushok, Fierce Invocation, Bear's Companion
6: Riverwheel Aerialists
7: Atarka, World Render

Winds of Qal Sisma, Savage Punch, Enhanced Awareness, Bathe in Dragonfire, Pyrotechnics

Lands Forest x7, Island x6, Mountain x 3, Swiftwater Cliffs, Frontier Bivouac (8 green, 8 blue, 5 red)

Key cards from Fate Reforged

           

Match 1

Facing Travis, who seems to know what he’s doing. I keep a two-lander with some good three drops while on the draw. He develops and I miss my land drops on turn 3 & 4. I get out Ysurva eventually with him having a morph and tapped out. I think I need to take some risks so I Bear Punch the morph and he reveals…

Ruth. That’s what they call a blowout my friends. I thought about this decision a lot and I stand by it. If it was 3x KTK I wouldn't have risked it because the board state was dire but not that dire but only 1 seeded pack? Bah.

I take my revenge in game two, getting the ridiculous combination of Ysura and the Shaman. He briefly stabilizes with a Mer-Ek nightblade who I can steal but ironically not attack with to give him more +1 counters. But his life total goes 21-13-1-Dead.

Game three is heroic. Villain gets some manascrew but drops two Sultai Banners so he DOES have cards he can play. Ysura makes a third appearance and I drive him down to 1. I make a CRITICAL error the one time I steal his Mer-Ek nightblade I didn’t attack. I didn’t want to give a free +1/+1… but that only happens if I also have the Shaman. So yeah, he stabilizes and starts building his board. All of my outs arrive one turn late. I stick a dragon and he has removal. I cast Cloudform (where’s your removal now Heinrich!) and he gets his mythic 3/5 flier. Now I need ANY of my removal to fly in but he gets a Mastodon (that’s 10 points of damage). I tap out to furiously draw cards, get my Bear Punch… and he cracks me down in one go. Great game, tough beat but a memorable one. Beats a durdly game with mana screw.

 

(1-2)

Match 2

To the loser’s bracket! Facing off against a genial player named Colin running Mardu. Both of us curve out nicely and develop the board. I actually live the dream and manifest the 5/4 vanilla. He still ended up dying, but took two cards to do so. I take the first game handily but on the second game he Mardu’s it up with a 2-3-4-5 drop complete with the ridiculous token-mover guy. I almost stabilized but I made some misplays early and should have traded off and didn’t. Boo.

Rubber match is a fun one. I land a vicious 3-4 punch of a Cloudform followed by Ugin’s Construct. No colored permanents in play so that is that.

 

(2-1)

Match 3

Round 3 (getting a little hungry now, missed tacos due to pouring rain) against Debs. A very slow thoughtful player, it’s hard for me not to get impatient and not think about my plays. In the first game we both hit our mana drops and I was faced with my first tough call. She attacked her Cloudform into my Lotus Path Djinn with four mana up. I’m tapped out and can’t trigger prowess in any way. I don’t block. Unfortunately she continues to develop, buffing her manifest with a runemark and gets out of control quickly. She also lands one of the 4/4 dragons and I pretty much crumble.

Game two is quick and dull: she doesn’t get any white mana so despite not having a three drop I am 

able to quickly gun her down. She DOES get out her 4/4 dragon again but too little, too late.

Game three starts out the same and once again on turn six her damn dragon comes out. I bear punch it down and what does she have?

 

I can’t believe she’s running that card. Yeah I don’t have a lot of answers for a 6/6 dragon. It gets runemarked and the game ends shortly thereafter. Oy.

(1-2)

Match 4

I don’t even want to talk about round 4. Rob kindly brought me a chicken and hummus pita and I’m facing off against yet another mardu deck. Game one: Executioner, Strike Leader, Rush of Battle. Well okay then!

  

Screw these guys.

 Game two is even more humiliating. He goldfished for five turns and I built a pretty good board state! Then he top decks

Ah yes, of course! The Mardu Wrath of God! The out comes his kill-squadron from above and I crumple quickly.

(0-2)

So what to learn from the pretty brutal defeat? It’s hard to learn too  much because the pre-release is about 60-70% Fate Reforged and drafting will only be 33%. My deck should have traded at least one of my 5 drops for a banner. The format was THAT slow and my bombs were THAT bomby. 

1*   Manifest is only a two-drop. That said, I really liked it in my deck with a high percentage of chunky vanilla creatures. Probably the best case scenario for that mechanic.

2*      The three-drop is a lot less crowded without all those damn morphs. I’m not saying Banners are suddenly playable but there seems to be a lot bigger playables than in KTK where rushing to 5 or 6 drop is more meaningful.

3*      Two color + splash  seems ideal. Welcome to the return of double-mana (Cloudform, Dragon etc.) that will pay dividends with a focus.

 4*   FR has almost none of those cheap walls (Archer's Parapet, Monastery Flock, &c) that grinds down KTK. I'm not sure what that means but I'm sure it means something.