Tournament Report

I went to the Rise of the Eldrazi pre-release this past weekend and here's what I have to say about it.

First off, the Eldrazi are freaking insane. I realize they are expensive, but with the set, getting them isn't extraordinarily hard, and this is coming from Sealed. In Sealed, you can run 9-costs (yes, plural) and expect to play them. They are unbelievably powerful, and annoying as hell to face. I went 2 wins, 2 losses and dropped the first day, but 3 out of the 4 wins I got were from Eldrazi. That's how good they are. Sealed runs really slowly, as you might guess considering the high drops you can run. There is a lot of stall to get there, with lots of walls just to tide you over to your giant creatures. It makes the set interesting. I think that getting Eldrazi will be easier outside of Sealed (more Spawn token producers and just easier to build to it), but that they might get overwhelmed quickly in Constructed, just because people are able to build a lot faster and clear things, making it harder to get to your Spawn tokens, just killing your Spawn tokens or anything like that.

The levelers are really good also. The second day, I ran levelers and was consistently building threats early, which is the main advantage to the levelers. It may be expensive to get to the final level, but along the way you can beat face. There is a 2 cost Green creature that's 2/2 to start, but with 2G, he becomes a 4/4, and paying the cost three more times gets you a 6/6 Trample. So, turn 2, get a 2/2 out, turn 3 make him a 4/4, then beat face until eventually you get the mana and make him a 6/6 Trample. Technically, over the course of the game, it costs 14 (9GGGGG) to get a 6/6 Trample, but it is worth it.

Also, I despise tiebreakers. Our tournament Sunday went 6 rounds, and I went 4 wins, 2 losses. Because my tiebreakers were apparently worse than other people, I ended up in 9th place. There was prize support for, you guessed it, top 8. 1st got something like 30 packs, and 2nd got less, 3rd and 4th got less, and 5th-8th got 5 packs each. Somebody who had the same record as me got 5 packs while I got nothing. Stupid tiebreakers...