Dragon's Maze Pre-release

Well, another pre-release has come and gone, I hit up my LGS for the midnight as per my norm.  Take a power nap before and then get up at 1130 and roll out.  We only had 20 players this time, down from the norm, but given the set size I kind of expected it.  The owner also changed up how he did the event, you didn't have the option to preorder the guild of your choice, but were given a guild and then we had 10 minutes to trade with the other players.  I was surprised to get Izzet paired with Boros (I opted to keep mine) I was hoping for some really good stuff, but alas no mythics from Dragon's Maze, but I did get another Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius to add to my collection.  I took the same strategy I always do, sort by color, dropped the two colors that weren't in my guilds (so I wound up with a Team America style build), and then started looking at the mana curve, oh and dudes, can't forget dudes (you can't win without turning dudes sideways).  First let me apologize, it was late, i didn't take notes, and I already broke the deck apart.  Typical ramp, several one drops, into two, then three, and four and finally, yes i put in Niv-Mizzet, sadly I was only able to drop him in once and he got dealt with swiftly.

I have to say there were several cards that got played against me that I was thoroughly impressed with;

First I just liked the art and hexproof here on Ascended Lawmage, I think I really want a playset of these in foil...

Now this guys not out of Dragon's Maze, but I kinda liked it, given that it gives all your creatures haste and they have to attack each turn made me stop and think and start casting creatures during my second main phase, something that's always been a problem for me.

 

Then there was the match that the Maze Abomination came out, and as you can see, that makes the Hellraiser Goblin not as good, especially since the player I played knew to take out my other attackers first so that everyone had to attack and die...

Hidden Strings was a card I actually got two of in my sealed pull, I really liked this and it made it very easy to occasionally get through and attack or untap an attacker and have him ready to block.  especially when I would use it ciphered onto a flyer...

The last card that I encountered that seems to be REALLY good is the Savageborn Hydra, wow, event with 3-4 counters this guy is a beast, and I have to say I want to build a deck around him...

While these aren't all the cards I'm excited about, these are the main ones that I encountered/played at the prerelease and I have to say given the size of the set, at 156 cards minus the 10 guild gates, the 10 Clue Stones, the fact that there are only 10 mono-colored cards for each color, this set still has some good flavor and will make a nice addition to the block.

Now I can't wait to see what M14 has in store for us, I'm hoping for something special given its the anniversary of the game (come on full art land) and then Theros this fall.  I will be sad to see innistrad block drop off, there's some sexy stuff in there!

Take care all, and remember...everyday i'm shufflin!

Oh, and I went 3-1 in the pre-release.