Subject: Urza's Saga Pre-release report- Syracuse, NY Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 18:33:13 -0400 From: Mike Van Zander To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com So after a standard college friday night with a little partying and a little more complaining about my ankle injury, my friend Derek Rollins calls me and convinces me that I would be a million times better off to ignore my club soccer match saturday morning and go with him to the pre-release in Syracuse. I'm not too big on 250-person tournaments with no real prize support, but I figure, hey, I'll go, get my cards, play a few rounds, and then draft. I hate the fact that I'm not in Chicago drafting this weekend, but then again, I'm a bad player. Saturday morning I fall asleep in the shower and barely make it out to Derek's car on time... 3 hour nights for a week straight are bad, i hear... but you all know that I could insert any magic player's name into the rest of this little anecdote and it would be the same thing, so for the sake of you who actually want to know about the new environment I'll fast-forward magically to how things went and how Urza's Saga looks. >>>FAST FORWARD>>> ok. The spoiler revealed quite a few interesting cards, quite a few seemingly breakable cards, and the typical chaff... the only problem is that the seemingly breakable cards all seem a bit tantalizingly more difficult to break this time around... but it shall be done, and it shall be enjoyable... you've all seen the spoilers, heard about all the big bad cards... well, i didn't get very many of those... but here's my deck: BLACK STUFF: Expunge (Terror for 2B, with cycling) Befoul (2BB, destroy land or nonblack creature) Despondency (1B, creature gets -2/-0, perpetual enchantment) Vile Requiem (2BB, put a counter on it during your upkeep... 1B, sacrifice: destroy up to x nonblack creatures, x being amount of counters) at this point i'd like to interject... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING????!!!! This card is quite possibly the most broken sealed card in the set, and I had opponents basically give up the moment it hit the table... it's unstoppable unless you remove it immediately) Priest of Gix (2B, 2/1, add BBB to your mana pool when he comes into play)- just great, but I couldn't bring myself to play with both Witch Engine (5B, 4/4 Swampwalk, silly but maybe breakable ability) 2x Phyrexian Ghoul (2B, 2/2, sac a creature to give +2/+2 til end of turn) fallen angels are good... plus this card has great combos, maybe even worthy in standard) WHITE STUFF: Disenchant-well, duh Redeem- (1W instant, prevent all damage to 1 or 2 creatures) hmm, is this card any good? Opal Gargoyle (1W enchantment, becomes 2/2 flyer when opponent casts a creature)... these opal things are awesome in sealed Angelic Page (1W 1/1 flyer, tap to give attacker or blocker +1/+1 til end of turn)... great ability Monk realist (1W 1/1 cloudchaser eagle who doesn't fly) Pegasus Charger (2W 2/1 flyer, first strike) GREEN STUFF: Fertile Ground (1W wild growth that lets you get any colored mana) Titania's chosen (2G 1/1 who gets +1/+1 counter when a green spell is cast (usually sideboarded out) Argothian swine (3G 3/3 Trample) -------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: Everyone's favorite gaming company, Wizards of the Coast, has butchered trample... now you must assign lethal damage to all blocking creatures before you can trample through... this is a very terrible thing... Why, after 5 successful years with a game, must you alter such a rule, especially since it makes creature stalls even more mundane... ball lightning did not need to get weaker, especially since fireblast's replacement is... well, nothing. Trample was such a great ability, but now... it's up there with rampage. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2x Gorilla Warrior (2G 3/2) 2x Treetop Rangers (2G 2/2 unblockable except by flyers) Blanchwood Treefolk (4G 4/5) SPOROGENESIS: I got quite a few looks for this card, but it's great... 3G enchantment, put a fungus counter on a creature during your upkeep, and when a creature with a fungus counter dies you get a 1/1 saproling for each counter on it... think phyrexian ghoul... this card was my mvp, believe it or not) oh yeah, 6 swamps, 6 forests, 4 plains, and a slippery karst, the cycling forest this whole tourney pack thing with 6 of each basic land and no additions sucks... you can't go 7/7/3 anymore, only 6/6/5, unless you get the nonbasic cycle lands... that i think makes luck in drawing the right land much more important than before... I fortunately had the ability to go 7/6/4, which proved to be perfect. By the way, the prerelease card looks awesome, and should probably fetch more demand than any of the other prerelease cards... just thought i'd complement wizards at least once this article... on to the tournament: Round 1: Robert Game 1 I dropped Gorilla beatings for a while, whittled him down, got out sporogenesis and a phyrexian ghoul, then recoiled in horror when he brought out a phyrexian colossus (I know wizards tones down broken cards like timetwister, but i didn't know colossus of sardia was broken enough to be made weaker) and I had no disenchant for the 8/8... however, he had less than 8 life, and i had 12, so i just sat back until sporogenesis gave my gorilla approximately a dozen counters, then sacced it to the ghoul and attacked with a dozen 1/1s for the kill Game 2 was I think exactly the same, only a few turns quicker. (1-0 matches, 2-0 games) After this round Deadguy Dave Barthalow asks me to money draft against him and Vipul. Round 2: Pete from syracuse, playing R/W/B (i think) Game 1 was all about mindless gorilla beatings with removal Game 2 pete played some first turn goblin that lets you play goblins if it damages the opponent... then he had four creatures out by turn 3 and stomped me before i could find anything to control the board with. Game 3 was all about mindless gorilla beatings with removal, and this amazing card known as vile requiem... I kill your four creatures for 6 total mana, then attack... hmmm... (2-0 matches, 4-1 games) After this round Deadguy Dave Barthalow asks me to money draft against him and Vipul. Round 3 vs. Haru, R/W/G with multiple heat rays, the new gerrards, beatings Game 1 Haru came out with some beatings and 2 heat rays, killing my stuff and bringing me to 6 before gerrard's-ing up to 28... then I brought out treefolk and tree-swinging elves, killed his creatures with redeem and expunge, and killed him in 4 straight attacks when he hit a land pocket. Game 2, I learned that the greatest skill top-level players have is the ability to cut their opponents to bad land draws... haru drew all plains, and green and red spells, and I beat him down, killing a plains just to add insult to injury... (3-0 matches, 6-1 games) After this round Deadguy Dave Barthalow more insistently asks me to money draft with him and Vipul. Lyle Cohen, team Sped... playing my colors, with my witch engine... ah, the chance to gain decent ratings points... I get a slow start in game 1 but eventually get board control and clear him out with vile requiem... I get my witch engine going with sporogenesis out but he casts Wrathageddon and chooses wrath (catastrophe, i believe it's called) before dropping his own Witch engine... this is NOT SEXY... fortunately, I enfeeble it, get out some unblockable tree elves, and eke out the damage race with a ghoul and saprolings... Game 2 is a much quicker witch engine beating, as I remove a land when he's landshy and simply outrace him... he had a pretty strong deck, but ended up dropping after the next round, I believe. (4-0 matches, 8-1 games) Dave Barthalow has won the first draft of the day by this point, and he challenges me to a money draft against him and Vipul. At this point there are 12 4-0s, including 4 guys from Millenium Games in Rochester, the store I frequent... myself, Derek, Rich Lipman, and ray placious... we all hope we can avoid playing one another, and as the fates would have it, we are granted our wish... Round 5: Joseph Beck, R/B/W Before I start this, I'd like to elaborate a little bit on my 5th-round curse... every PTQ i Play in, I go 4-0, needing 5-1-1 or something like that to make final 8... then, i lose in the 5th round, and the 6th round, and go home bummed out... it is gospel... so it shall be written, so it shall be done... I remind myself of this happy thought before the match begins, and sit down to my doom... Game one is NOT SEXY... I get killed. I see very little in the way of creatures, very little in the way of anything... but now I should elaborate on my sideboard... I have a pro-red 1/2, a pro-black 1/2, and MISHRA's HELIX, which is an inverted Candelabra that you have to tap... once you are ahead in mana, it is a lock... game 2 I get an early advantage with green beef, and Joe smiles smugly as he drops COP: Green... oh well... I have 4 more mana then him, and proceed to slam down the helix and lock up his plains and mountains for the rest of the game while dismembering him with evasion creatures. game 3 is long, drawn-out, and intense... again he gets an early cop: green, and again I helix-lock his plains and wear him down with green fat, but he's been chipping away at my life total as well with beatdown weenies... then he disenchants my helix, and has me on the ropes... I've just dropped sporogenesis, and desperately need a phyrexian ghoul... I topdeck my witch engine to scare him, but he shows me a heat ray and attacks to drop me down lower... I befoul a plains to get a bit of damage through, then sweettalk my deck and convince it to give me my phyrexian ghoul... I hold him off, slowly putting counters on creatures and playing defense, being chipped away at by a flyer, then I topdeck the pegasus... he plays some first-strike instant to mutual in the air, and we are at a standoff again... somehow he kills my ghoul, and things look glum... then, like the pro player I definitely am not, I topdeck my other ghoul, lock up the board for a few turns, kill a creature, sac all my guys for many many saprolings, and win at 2 life... what a game. (5-0 matches, 10-2 games) Dave Barthalow watched a great deal of this match, and kept challenging me to money draft with him and Vipul... Rich Lipman said he'd draft with me, but I was still in the main event, wanted to draft for real afterwards, and didn't really feel like drafting for money with anyone there as my partner... Round 6, Bob Stroud, R/B/W Bob was pretty surprised to be at the top tables, and it showed... it was pure beatings, topped off with a Witch engine which hit him 4 times while the rest of my fat kept his little weenies from doing anything... I don't think he damaged me game 1. Game 2 was a fairly similar beating, though he hit me with a few goblin dune buggies or something like that early before my elvish tree-hoppers and witch engine did him in... (6-0 matches, 12-2 games) At this point the rochester crew was in great shape... the only 3 6-0s were me, ray placious, and rich lipman, and derek had just dropped to 5-1 by losing to ray... that guaranteed large quantities of product for the rochester group... at this point, Dave Barthalow approached me and decided he didn't want to money draft Urza's Saga, because Vipul was doing horribly in the tournament... he wanted to draft rath cycle... I told him I'd draft at some point down the road. Round 7: Of course I'm the one who gets paired down, but it's against Derek Rollins, my ride, friend, accomplice, etc... we do a little math and figure out that if I win, I get a box, and if he wins, we each get 1/3 a box... so I stomp him... Vile Requiem is strong against decks without enchantment removal, and I dropped it on the third turn in both games to seal quick victories... that's definitely a condition for concession. (7-0 matches, 14-2 games) So the rochester ride is over, and I, superScrub, am the winner of the Syracuse pre-release... Woo-hoo, now if only the rochester guys who went to Chicago could have performed like the rochester guys who went to syracuse. After this I decided yet again to decline Dave Barthalow's offer and enter a side booster draft, in which I drafted some blue/green beatings with 4 elvish treehoppers, 2 symbiosis, 2 free counterspells, a somnophore, several flyers, fat, and a GAME BREAKING DRAFT CARD (to be kept secret for now)... I reached the finals against Derek (surprise, surprise), who had the rest of the green fat at the table and 4 (yes, 4... FOUR!) Pacifisms... we decided to split and go home, but I left Dave Barthalow with a promise I'd money draft some other time... Dave, if you do read this, I intend to honor that... just pick a time. so props and slops: props: to the rochester people, for doing great things and dominating the event to greg, paul, and chewy, for teaching me how to play limited events to wizards for making vile requiem to somnophore to everyone i forgot slops: to wizards for making COP: Land a rare and for KILLING TRAMPLE to $2.50 hot dogs to thin aisles for fat players Good day everyone, and remember, there is a truly broken card in the Saga... you all just have to figure out what it is. -mike Van Zander mvz to the world living death guru (PLANAR VOID SUCKS) dark prince of fatties reader of machiavelli proud owner of 250 teferi's drakes all-around nice guy mz001g@uhura.cc.rochester.edu