This was my deck:
https://deckbox.org/sets/3906331
When I play on Aren, I rarely play a blue-focused deck, but I felt totally hamstrung with this prerelease—out of the six packs I opened, plus the rare promo card, almost all of my rare were blue, something like 6 of 8/9. So that pushed me strong in that direction. I did successfully play some counter spells, so I’m officially a blue asshole.
My first opponent was playing black-red, and his deck plays very fast, so I felt like I was on the defensive very early. My deck just wasn’t fast enough to be a threat, but in the second game I was able to play defense and chip away a bit and felt like I had already learned a lot through two games. My opponent was very chill and helpful. I did sneak in my biggest card as a flash, it felt good to make one of those huge splashes, but my opponent killed it immediately with an instant (he apologized lol). Fair play. The card is Lord of the Eagles in this treatment:
My second opponent was also playing blue/white and he had a lot of the same cards as me, and he was a little less…forgiving lol. He beat me a bit more handily but clearly understood the synergies and plan of this sort of deck better than I did.
My third opponent I think was a much better match for me. We took our round past the time limit and the very last game was a squeaker. She won the first game pretty easily, but for the second match I finally had everything click, ever draw was something I could use, I suddenly had 2-3 cards triggering every turn, creatures were growing, it was just a bloodbath. She was playing red/white and seemed to have bad draws the whole game, but I’ll take it! The this game was the best one I played all night, it went to overtime. I started really strong with a lot of the same cards I had in game #2 and took an early lead. It really looked like I had it, and I had my next two turns planned out: counter her next creature (she was starting to go wide), splash out my huge eagle again, and then I could fly right over her for the win. But she played an instant instead and in thinking through how it affected my guys
I forgot to play the counter spell on it. If I had, there’s no way she could’ve stopped me. I let out an “Oh no, I forgot!” but she had already changed her board state, so I understood it would be unfair for me to step back (my first opponent let me do that more than once, but he was bodying me, so he didn’t care). She then had too wide of a board for me to defend and I lost on the very last turn. But I’d rather go out in a close game than get blown out again.
Thinking about going for draft in the next couple of weeks, then maybe thinking if I’ve got the stone to try commander. By the time the next set rolls around, I may try to do two prereleases in the same weekend. It’s been years and years since I’ve had a social hobby that was this fun, even playing with strangers was worth it.
