This coming week in the US we have a lot to celebrate: Our Independence, fireworks, BBQs, drinking… and most importantly the prerelease of a new Core Set M13!!
Since 2010 Wizards has been giving us a Core Set every year. In the past Core Sets came out every two years and were solely made up of reprints. No new cards at all. This was great when you got Birds of Paradise and Wrath of God, but sucked when you had to see another reprint of Disrupting Scepter. Starting in 2010 the Core sets were now comprised of reprints, functional reprints, and BRAND NEW BROKEN CARDS (Primeval Titan, Baneslayer Angel, etc).
Prereleases are a great way to play with a new set and start picking up cards for trades to all those standard players at your store. Prereleases are generally Sealed Deck (some places also will run Two Headed Giants which is a team Sealed Format). In Sealed Deck you get 6 packs in which to build decks. The site provides all the basic lands you need, and your deck needs to be a minimum of 40 cards (and honestly you should stick as close to 40 as you can). We’ll get to actual deck construction in a bit, but first I want to tell you what you can expect at your first event.
The first prerelease I ever attended was for Time Spiral. It was a regional prerelease in San Diego and was the largest magic event I’d ever been to. I had never played a sealed event before, and for this set I didn’t know anything about spoilers. I sat down with my 6 packs, and opened the first one, pausing to read every card. I looked through the commons, the uncommons, and the rare (I still remember opening and playing Ith, High Arcanist). But then something strange happened. There was another card past the rare, with some weird purple rarity symbol and an old Magic Border… in this case it was Merieke Ri Berit (originally printed in Ice Age it turns out). I get to steal a creature? And if I can untap this card somehow I can destroy that creature and take another one?? What the hell is going on here Wizards? One of the reasons I remember this so clearly is because Merieke was my kind of card. I loved the color combination and in fact would go on to make Merieke my first ever Commander/EDH deck. So there I was with an Ith, High Arcanist and a Merieke, and a ton of other random cards and I was expected to make a deck? This to me is the beauty of a prerelease as a casual player. I don’t have to worry about competing against decks with 100s or 1000s dollars’ worth of cards. My skill can got a lot further (as limited as that is too).
Almost every prerelease I have attended since has been at my LGS. In fact in the last few years Wizards has made the move to have prerelease and release events be run by stores. This is a great way to get you more involved with your local community and also try out different stores to decide where you want to play. The first thing you need to do if find out when sets are coming out and call ahead to the store you want to play at. Most take signups and these events can fill up quickly! The same basic rules apply for attending a prerelease as going to your first FNM. Make sure to call ahead and sign up, bring sleeves, playmats, life counters, dice, etc.
The final step for going to your first prerelease is making a decision about spoilers! Wizards and other sites slowly put out spoilers for the new set in order to get players interested. Usually by the day before a prerelease you can look at the whole set. This means that you have a few options. You can look at nothing at all. Come to the set blind and get to see the cards fresh when you open your packs. This in some ways is the most exciting way to do it, but is going to lead you the least prepared for deck building. The second option is to follow the official spoilers on Wizards site, get an idea of the set, but still leave yourself with some mystery. The final option is to print out a spoiler list, study the hell out of it, and know what every single card in the set does. I’ve done varying degrees of all of these. Now that I often want to try and win more packs to crack open I usually at least go through the complete set once or twice and try to get an idea of what cards might go well together, and what are some common/uncommon cards I might have played against me.
When it comes to your actual deck construction the first step is to simply rip open all 6 packs and ohhhhh and ahhhhhh and get excited about your rares so that everyone around you know you opened the Hotness… ok that’s what I do, but sometimes it might give away info to future opponents. After you’ve opened the packs, separate all your cards by color. For sealed you most likely are going to be in 2 colors at least. Your goal should be to see if you can make something strong with 2 colors so you don’t have to freak out about missing your land drops. Most sets will allow you to splash for a third color, but if you do it should only be for a few cards. Once you have your color piles you look to see what you have in each color. You might really love playing blue, but if you only have 6 blue cards and 3 of these are unplayable you don’t want to play blue. When I first look through my piles I am looking at a 3 things: Bomb rares, Evasion and Removal! Most sealed formats are going to be creature heavy and won by combat. So if you can get rid of creatures, or stop creatures from attacking you, you are in a good spot. Also if you can make your creatures hard to block (flying for example) you can sneak a ton of damage in.
When you are looking through your cards you want to aim for ~23 playables and ~17 land. This formula is a pretty safe one especially for your first event. We’ll talk in future articles about more advanced deck building, but this article is just aimed at helping you build a deck that can win a few games and let you play with new cards! Prereleases, even more so than FNM tend to have a lot of new players, and casual players who don’t normally play in competitive events. Everyone likes opening new sets, so tons of people come out of the woodworks for these events. Have fun, and get a chance to learn how cards will play together!
I want to thank all the readers who have been coming to check this out. I have been pretty shocked by the amount of traffic I have gotten, and I want you all to know how much I appreciate it. I want this blog to be for everyone and to really help cut down on the intimidation factor that can come with joining the magic community.
I can be reached on the comments here and @HobbesQ on twitter! I appreciate any and all feedback.
ps: I will be doing a giveaway this week! One lucky commenter will have a chance to win this!!
Thank you very much for this article. I’m going to attend the pre-release at my local store and I was pretty worried because it’s going to be my first one, so thanks again for all the recommendations!
I’d be glad to hear how it went! The biggest thing is just trying to find some synergy between the cards. It’s not going to be a consistent deck like a constructed deck with 4x of cards. Also often playing a big bomb rare is good, so that might drive your decision on colors. Good luck!!
Really enjoy this post and can speak directly to the fact that pre-releases are a great way to enter the game. I played magic in Middle School (During the Beta – Revised print runs roughly) and had trouble getting past the folks with plenty of cards and money to really enjoy the game. In high school athletics and other activities kept me from doing any form of Tabletop gaming or TCG; honestly during that time I had little to no interest in playing them either.
I was re-introduced to magic at the age of 28, I had recently recovered from what is known as a “Hartman’s Procedure” to remove my Ostomy. A friend invited me to the LGS he spends time at for the Innistrad Pre-release event, I accepted and had no idea what that would spark in terms of nostalgia. I had studied the cards a bit, similar to Thomas’s second strategy of read a bit and leave some to surprise.
The short story is that I drafted poorly, played even worse (not being practiced in even casual play), and had an absolute blast. Every person at that card shop accepted me as a new part of the community, and 90% were very helpful once it was clear I was a new player. I had fun and that was the best thing for the LGS and WotC as it has led to a collection of over 50,000 cards, many of which are very high end staples in their respective formats.
It is a great way to immerse yourself in the game, and worst case scenario even if you hate it, you haven’t spent much and you can give the cards gained to another new player; I can’t tell you how many times I have handed a stack of Commons/Uncommons to a new player and had it come back to benefit me in some way, even if that means expanding the pool of cards and traders to trade alongside.
Great post, great format. Thanks.
Marshall
Yah, once I have the uncommons/commons I need from a set, I try to give them to new players after draft/sealed events. It’s amazing how just getting commons and uncommons makes people excited and want to play. It’s so nice to be able to go home and build a fun deck and not have to like struggle to find cheap cards or pay for shipping to get them! Thanks for commenting Marshall and glad you are back as part of the community!
Yet again, another solid article. Might I add some clarification to your “23 playables” comment?
You’ll normally want 16-17 creatures. Not that running fewer won’t win you games, but this greatly increases your chances. Without creatures you can’t attack (duh) but mor importantly, you can’t block (oh snap!). By playing at least 16 creatures you’ve increased not only the reliability of you deck, you’re also increasing the amount of interaction you’ll have with your opponent, which should lend itself to a more enjoyable experience. Trust me, sitting there, getting walloped by creatures that your removal spells can’t/won’t answer is a guaranteed way to start looking sad-panda.
And lastly, for purposes of winning stuff, I’d just like to say that this blog is super farking awesome and that the author must be like some ridiculously intelligent, unfathomably handsome, Magic demigod. I’m surprised WotC hasn’t yet made a planeswalker card based on him.
Thanks Christo. Yah I forgot to give a good guideline on the number of creatures! It also makes combat tricks more reliable (another thing that is common in sealed).
Being able to be interactive will make the game experience more fun, even if you end up ultimately losing
All the magic I play and I have still not been to a pre-release. Then again I am a certified EDH / CMDR junkie, the 60 card formats all seem so foreign to me. There was even a time when I was collecting release / pre-release cards and pretty much had every one except for the Russian Shivan Dragon and maybe 3 others.
Great article for people looking to attend, maybe I will even find my way to one this year.
I like to use it often to get a bunch of new cards from standard to trade and to try and open the EDH stuff I am hoping to get. It’s really got the least competitive feel and has some of the inconsistency/randomness of EDH since you rarely have more than 2 of any one card. I always think it’s a great place to start since you also get the promos just for attending. And most of us EDH junkies are also foil whores so…..
Christo already touched on this. Having the last creature standing will win many games in sealed, so it’s ok to be playing the “bad” ones, as long as they’re “bad” and not *terribadwhyamIplayingthis*. I’m certainly guilty of drafting the control deck that can survive 20 turns but not actually win because I didn’t think to put in one of my three last pick Flameborn Virons.
The number of creatures this means will vary from 12-18 depending what colors you play. Blue-red decks will inherently have fewer creatures than green-white decks.
Also, feel free to ask your opponent for advice about tweaking your deck after a round, many are happy to help. If they recommend card changes you don’t understand, ask about their reasoning.
And since it was kind of glossed over in the post: PLAY A 40 CARD DECK! Not more.
Yah one point i did forget to mention is that unlike a lot of other events you can change your deck around between rounds! Thanks for catching that Stuart
Nice post on pre release games. I can’t wait to attend my local game. Keep up the great work.
Thanks!! I hope your event goes well! I can’t wait to hear about it!
I did not read this. I just want the iPhone case. I don’t even have an iPhone. #Trolling HobesQ
I just have no response to how much you hate me
Ahh, prereleases. My first one was BOK – i opened a Jitte and 0-3 dropped. Almost traded it for a That Which Was Taken. Still have it. Anyways, good read, keep it up hobbes!
Thanks man! How much had you played before this prerelease? Also what deck did you play? Kamigawa was so odd!
Another great article, definitely keep them coming. I don’t really have much to add other than “Pre-Releases are awesome!”. I like the way you’ve aimed your recent articles at helping out newer players. Congrats on gaining the large following and keep up the good work
Thanks Ed, hopefully I can keep the topics coming. I might branch out and do a deck tech on a silly casual modern deck I built for 6 tix on mtgo
Wow this took me back to my first prerelease. I hadnt been playing for long and i got monkey stomped. It was fun though and if i remember correctly i got some good cards
Yah I mean I think one of the things I hear from a lot of players is, “I lost but I had a great time.” There are a lot of players at our store that I only see during release events, it’s kind of cool
Great article! I would also like to add that you should mention that while 40 cards isn’t a hard limit, it basically is. I can’t recall how many times I’ve seen a new player build a 60 card deck, even after being informed multiple times that 40 is the lower limit on decks. You should mention that even though more seems better, more consistency, which you get with 40 cards, is much much more important than more cards. Also, M13 is shaping up to be my favorite core set in a long time, though I love silly reprints. One last thing: way to make me remember how awesome regional prereleases were. I miss those more than most things Wizards has gotten rid of in recent memory.
Yah my favorite playmat has been the Shadowmoor one I got at the Boston Regional prerelease just for playing in two flights. I also remember that I opened 2 reflecting pools…
Gaming tips aside, when it comes to finding a store or community to play at, shop around. Believe it or not, there are stores with (mostly) friendly people that will make your overall experience better. You know you found the store when people are happy to see you, are willing to teach, and fun is a priority over hardcore competition. So, if the first store you go to is full of rude players who want to cite an obscure technical rule to tell you why you can’t do something, after the fact, and ask for the judge to disqualify you, keep shopping around. It’s not worth your time if you’re not having fun.
That’s a great point Dave!! Yah for me the atmosphere of the store is the most important aspect when trying to find somewhere to game (otherwise I would just game at home!!). Thanks for reading, check out the older posts too on trading if you havent had a chance to yet!
I read this article and made sure to pass this onto other players that were going to their first pre release event.
It was a great way to show them a great first step in there pre release experience. So thank you for the great article.
Thanks! How was your pre-release?? I think this week’s article is going to look at my pre-release experience from this week and how I went about building my deck
It was good! Not as busy as the Helvault event from AVR, but to me it felt more back to its roots with things like Red mages burning people to a crispy mess and Blue mages milling like no tomorrow. And don’t get me started on Exaulted! So good!