MTG: Dragon's Maze Release event
May. 6th, 2013 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOn Sunday I went to the release event for Dragon's Maze.
The format is ridiculously slow and multicolour even by sealed deck formats. With five colours and ten coloured pairs, it was almost impossible to even sort the cards by colour, let alone decide which combination to play. I ended up choosing medium green + black creatures, as they had the most medium cost stuff, plus all the dual lands, plus two nice pieces of green mana fixing, plus everything that looked like it could turn a board stall into a win (ie. giant creatures, card advantage creatures, and removal).
It was rather a mess, but it seems I was lucky (a) to open quite a lot of good high cost cards and (b) play them. So I won three matches fairly easily, then drew one against someone with about the same level of deck and the same level of skill as me, and then play one against someone pretty good, which was close but I lost.
In the final match, he also had a slow deck full of bombs, and after the first game I sideboarded ruthlessly, taking out most of the three-four cost stuff, and putting in (a) any 5/4 or better creatures and (b) a little more mana fixing and two spells with two red mana in the cost. I'd thought it was ridiculous to try to squeeze that in, but the game went long enough I never had a problem casting any card no matter how ridiculous the mana cost.
In fact, I would have done better to sideboard in even more high-cost cards. I put in a 3-cost burn spell that's normally very good in limited (and would have won if I'd got through three more points of damage), but it was never relevant, another 5-power creature would have been a lot more useful.
I came fourth out of 24, which is quite good, considering I don't practice a lot.
I felt a bit sorry for my last opponent. He was obviously a significantly better player than me, and though he hid it, he was somewhat annoyed that I couldn't play as fast as him, and to think through every non-trivial decision whether I was winning or losing.
The format is ridiculously slow and multicolour even by sealed deck formats. With five colours and ten coloured pairs, it was almost impossible to even sort the cards by colour, let alone decide which combination to play. I ended up choosing medium green + black creatures, as they had the most medium cost stuff, plus all the dual lands, plus two nice pieces of green mana fixing, plus everything that looked like it could turn a board stall into a win (ie. giant creatures, card advantage creatures, and removal).
It was rather a mess, but it seems I was lucky (a) to open quite a lot of good high cost cards and (b) play them. So I won three matches fairly easily, then drew one against someone with about the same level of deck and the same level of skill as me, and then play one against someone pretty good, which was close but I lost.
In the final match, he also had a slow deck full of bombs, and after the first game I sideboarded ruthlessly, taking out most of the three-four cost stuff, and putting in (a) any 5/4 or better creatures and (b) a little more mana fixing and two spells with two red mana in the cost. I'd thought it was ridiculous to try to squeeze that in, but the game went long enough I never had a problem casting any card no matter how ridiculous the mana cost.
In fact, I would have done better to sideboard in even more high-cost cards. I put in a 3-cost burn spell that's normally very good in limited (and would have won if I'd got through three more points of damage), but it was never relevant, another 5-power creature would have been a lot more useful.
I came fourth out of 24, which is quite good, considering I don't practice a lot.
I felt a bit sorry for my last opponent. He was obviously a significantly better player than me, and though he hid it, he was somewhat annoyed that I couldn't play as fast as him, and to think through every non-trivial decision whether I was winning or losing.