Cave Musings 6-Sad day in Eventide

Welcome back to the cave everyone. Today I'm going to discuss my eventide prerelease experience with you, show you my pool and my deck list with a tournament report on how I did. So lets begin on my experience, just to let you know as of now it was a really rough one.

The morning of the Eventide prerelease I was really pyched because after viewing all of the cards in the set it seemed like it was going to be a blast. So after a week I figured out the mapquest is horrible at giving proper directions while common sense followed after taking a left to get to the venue instead of u-turning for no reason. I enter the main lobby head up to the ninth level and headed into the conference room that they were setting up. For those that don't know I like to be the first person to actually sign up and I don't mind getting up in the morning.

I then see Kevin and Tom, who comes to Tate's and play type II and draft and you will see again later on, hanging out with a couple other guys so me, Tom, and two other guys which I forgot to get their names so sorry to those two, and we decided to have a couple two headed giant games and a four way fight. So then we got the call that seating took place and I sat down talked to the four other guys at the table talking about draft combos and we opened our pool and this is what I got:

• Raking Canopy
• Gloomwidow
• Gloomwidow's Feast
• Gleelful Sabotage
• Toil of Renown
• Nurturer Initiate
• Twinblade Slasher
• Wickerbough Elder
• Tilling Treefolk

• Old Ghastbark
• Safehold Duo
• Safehold Elite

• Snakeform
• Grazing Kelpie

• Tattermunge Maniac
• Mudbrawler Raiders

• Beseech the Queen
• Incremental Blight
• Ashenmoor Cohort
• Smolder Initiate
• Torture
• Smoldering Butcher x2
• Talara's Bane
• Soul Snuffers
• Lingering Tormentor

• Fulminator Mage
• Sootstoke Kindler

• Drain the Well
• Desecrator Hag
• Gift of the Deity
• Rendclaw Trow
• Woodlurker Mimic

• Dream Fracture
• Wilderness Hypnotist
• Flow of Ideas
• Whimwader
• Cerulean Wisps
• Inundate
• Sinking Feeling
• Oona's Grace x2
• Ghastly Discovery
• Dream Thief
• Merrow Levitator

• Oona's Gatewarden
• Torpor Dust
• Scarscale Ritual
• River's Grasp

• Mirror Sheen

• Chaotic Backlash
• Hotheaded Giant
• Heartlash Cinder
• Ember Gale
• Burn Trail
• Cinder Pyromancer
• Puncture Bolt
• Unwilling Recruit
• Puncture Blast
• Rustrazor Butcher
• Horde of Boggarts

• Duergar Hedge-Mage
• Double Cleave x2
• Scourge of the Nobilis
• Duergar Assailant
• Hobgoblin Dragoon

• Apothecary Initiate
• Safehold Sentry
• Runed Halo

• Harvest Gwyllion
• Cauldron Haze
• Edge of the Divinity

• Mistmeadow Witch
• Barrenton Cragtreads
• Steel of the Godhead

• Elsewhere Flask
• Trip Noose
• Antler Skulkin
• Wingrattle Scarecrow
• Shell Skulkin
• Thornwatch Scarecrow
• Watchwig Scarecow
• Fang Skulkin x2
• Painter's Servant

• Fetid Heath(B/W)

It's a interesting pool to look at and my red is really deep so I stuck with it through out my building process. However I didn't have a enough to go mono colored so I did two colors and I liked my white and I had Incremental Blight so I splashed it coming up with this:

• 8x Mountains
• 6xPlains
• 2x Swamps
• 1x Fetid Heath

• Barrenton Cragtreads
• Fulminator Mage
• Duergar Assailant
• Hobgoblin Dragoon
• Horde of Boggarts
• Rustraozr Butcher
• Cinder Pyromancer
• Safehold Sentry
• Harvest Gwyllion
• Painters Servant

• Incremental Blight
• Trip Noose
• Elsewhere Flask
• Edge of Divinity x2
• Steel of the Godhead
• Runed Halo
• Cauldron Haze
• Puncture Bolt
• Burntrail
• Unwilling Recruit
• Puncture Blast

So Lets see how I did in Match number one, shall we? I played against of all people in the flight my buddy Tom Delia. I heard while I was building that he had a surprise in his pool. I actually knew what it was but I'll let it sink in about now...he got not one, not two, but three lieges in his pool. Ya and they were all red lieges, so he received a helix liege, a gruul liege, and a rakdos liege. So when I heard I was paired up with him and heard he was mono-red my outlook kinda went out the window and was like,how in the world am I going to get through this match. So lets begin with the match.

Match One: Tom Delia Liege Rocker(mono-red)

Game 1
So we each roll a dice and I get to go second. I draw my seven and see 2 plains, 4 mountains and Harvest Gwyllion, I mulligan to six and I get plains, mountain, puncture bolt, sentry and cauldron haze. I decide to keep due to I knew I can deal with his early threats and sentry can become a 2/4 blocked so I didn't mind attacking with him. Thanks to Tom I found his opening hand was this, Steam Hopper, Lurebound Scarecrow, Helix Liege, Giant Baiting,Battlegate mimic, and two mountains.First turn, He plays his mountain and plays steam hopper, I thought to myself I better get this under control now since his one drop can fly, however I didn't want to waste my bolt there and then and wait for a bigger threat in a 2/2 form. So I play my mountain and pass the turn. Second turn, He plays his mountain and swings. He passes and I draw edge, play a plains and sentry. I pass the turn and he draws playing his third land and plays Noggle bandit. Looking at this thing I was glad I didn't waste a bolt. So drew played my plains, bolted his bandit, and played edge and swing for 3 leaving us at 17-19. Fourth turn, he draws plays Noggle Bridge breaker a 4/3 picks up his land and plays the land. Yuck a 4/3 for 4 is pretty good. So he taps and hits me for one and ends his turn, I draw another edge play it on sentry making him a 4/6 which is pretty nice.

Now here is something that I was dumb enough to forgot, I'll show you what I mean, I swing and were at 13-18 in my favor with him having slight board advantage. So what am I so mad about? He draws and taps out both guys for giant baiting and swings. I take 8 and go to 10. Wait? Why did you take 8 you say? Well for one thing the untap ability on the sentry I forgot about, after I drew I noticed my mistake. Ladies and gentlemen this is what we call in magic, RTC. Even if its new or old know your cards. RTC means read the card. So I draw into burn trail and I was so happy to see it. As you may noticed and same here after I drew that I was missing some creatures. I burn Bridgebreaker and swing. He takes 4 and we go down to 9-10. Ya this is the part where it goes down hill. He plays his land for the turn and plays Helix Liege. I knew he had three but this is the one I did not want to see at all. From here he draws into lurebound, while I had scouge on sentry making him a 5/7 lifelink. however he was attacking with more creatures and burning me for 6 a turn going from 7-12 to 10-13 to him being almost at 18 life and me at 0. me 0-1.

So what happens here, I shug it off and side board out mage, gwyllion and my two edges, for unwilling recruit and two double cleaves for blocking and duergar assailant. So game 2

Game 2
This was a wipeout for Tom, we both mull to 6 and he draws and I draw, I went first going mountain Duergar assailant, while he almost mirrors the first game wtih mountain Steam hopper. I attack and we go to 19-20. a couple of turns later, he has r/u mimic, the gruul liege, and tatterkite. My field is sentry, with elsewhere flash and runed halo naming Helix liege. So instead of me being all happy about drawing halo so I don't lose like last time I lose like this. Before attackers are declared he plays inside out on the gruul liege, his mimic is a 3/3 unblockable, and a 2/1 flier. attacks, before blockers declared kills sentry enough for alpha. So C'est la vie(that is life). I lose 0-2.

So far in this sealed I found that after talking to John, another guy I knew, and Tom, that I had better cards to play with and I agreed. So I looked at my pool and switched the deck into green/red and I took all my white out and replaced it with:

• Fang Skullkin x2
• Mudbrawler Raiders
• Woodlurker Mimic
• Snakeform
• Twin Blade Slasher
• Safehold Elite
• Safehold Duo
• Tattermage Manic
• Wickerbough Elder
• Old Ghastbark
• Rendclaw Trow
• and fixed my mana base to 9x mountains and 8x forests.

So lets see how this worked out. I think fate is funny and a very,very weird thing. I played another friend of mine, Kevin Gallory who was not having a great start like me so lets see how it goes.

Match Two Kevin Gallory I got Goats (r/w mix)

Unfortunately I lost my notes for this match but I can tell you that we both won a game each and in the third game he had me locked with Cragganwick Cremator w/ elemental mastery. The b/w hedge mage creating two soldier tokens, and the most annoying enchanment of all time....Light from Within. So not only am I looking at a lot of damage, I'm getting screwed up cause his fifth land which was my coffin of the game, Springjack pasture. Yes I lost to goat tokens. Not only did I lose to goat tokens, he even made it harder for me to come back at by playing Flame Jab. After I stabilized the board due to killing cremator he gained life with scouge and just keeped playing tokens while my only evasion creature of the game Hobgoblin Dragoon and Wickerbough Elder destroyed his scouge. He plays the only card to kill me while he had enough like and I was dwindled down to only 2 life remaining he plays Windbrisk Raptor and I scoop it up.

I ended the day with 0-2 drop, 1-4. Heck at least I won one. I was really frustrated in how my sealed and my own skills failed me and it showed throughout the day afterwards. I didn't want to stay after I dropped because the drafts I heard was four hours away then the next day heard they started to do so after I left. Karma is a funny thing. So what are my final thoughts on Eventide for today. Its more of a limited and block format but fun cards nonetheless. So until next time I'll be seeing you in the cave.