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It was 10:30pm on Sunday night and much to the dismay of my Significant Other, I had just spent 33 of the last 39 hours playing Magical Cards. Yes, pre-release fever had taken hold. We are fortunate in Sydney to have Chris Foggin as a Tournament Organiser. He merrily runs 4 distinct tournaments over two days on pre-release weekends (6 if you also count the Central Coast!). This is excellent for those having to work one of the two days, or for those who have something OTHER than magic to do with their lives. It is even better for those like myself who gleefully plunk down their cash for all four events. Needless to say, with 21 limited matches involving Judgment under my belt (18 sealed and 3 draft), I felt I had a pretty good idea as to the impact of the new set on the limited environment.

Lest you assume I am going to spend the next 5 pages recounting said 21 matches, I will quickly sum up the two-day melee.

There was a hell of a lot of G/W decks.

And when I say "hell of a lot" I mean every single deck barring one silly U/R Ben Seck incarnation - which actually worked very well. In fact, it wasn't until the very last match that I faced an opponent without green in their deck… presumably because the Chamber/Boneyard combo, matched with some nice black removal, is somewhat good in the slow-as-slow-can-be format that marked this pre-release. I lost. Badly. As you do.

The pre-release is undoubtedly my favorite part of Magic. Add the excitement of playing with the new cards to the joy that is sealed-deck and it just makes for good times. With Judgment in abundance there was a distinct lack of removal in this format, changing the power of some cards dramatically. For example, in the first tournament, I built a solid G/W/u deck with my cards. I made an enormous mistake when I opted to relegate the Deluge to the sideboard as 24 over a Krosan Wayfarer as 23. Big, big mistake. Huge. Deluge - in my opinion a good card that warrants about a fifth pick in draft, is INSANE in this format. Approximately 70% of my games went on to some sort of creature stall/standoff. I brought it in after game 1 in every round, bringing out the very sub-par Wayfarer. As a side note, I did have one game where my opponent went first, playing Forest - Wayfarer (sac) - Forest - Farmhand. A fairly impressive limited start, providing 5 mana on turn 3, but very few cards left to back it up.

But even the power of Deluge pales in comparison to one other little ripper in this format. Due to this one card I was able to easily win a game whilst staring down both a thresholded Mystic Enforcer and a Phantom Nishoba. How good! Of course I am speaking of the Nomad Decoy. Not one of the decks I faced in the five rounds could deal with him.

On the reverse, I had to laugh when I drew a Gorilla Titan, normally fairly nice as a 4/4 trampler, when the first thing I thought was "why couldn't he be BIGGER?" while I was looking at two Warthogs across the table.

Following is a list of what I deem to be the best cards in this particular format. This takes into consideration that G/W is going to be very heavily played, removal and tricks are going to be light, and ground pounding is the general situation. I have also left out the rares, as it is not terribly hard to figure out that Phantom Nishoba and Commander Esha are pretty good. It's probably only relevant if this is article happens to be posted before the Sneak-Peeks on the weekend, as it is pretty specific to the Judgment heavy prerelease format:

1. Guided Strike - I included this as the 20th or 21st card in my deck in the first flight, not yet understanding the format and what would be powerful. This card, every time it was cast, meant I kept my creature, my opponent lost theirs, and I drew a card. I would rate this even higher than Shelter in this format. It means your Phantom Tigers/Nomads can take out bigger guys and not lose a counter. It means that the 2/2 and the 3/3 blocking your 5/5 warthog both die, your opponent takes a point of damage, and your warthog lives. And you draw a card. How good.
2. Elephant Guide - There are a fair few playable two drops in Judgment, so a turn 3, elephant guided 5/4 or 5/5 usually wins. I lost one game to a turn 3, 5/5 mongrel (Ryan Dare). Sigh.
3. Phantom Flock - 3/3 flying that's hard to kill in a ground heavy/stall format. It works.
4. Anurid Swarmsnapper - blocks multiple creatures, blocks fliers, blocks nearly all the phantom creatures and lives while they shrink.
5. Spurnmage Advocate - insane. 1/1 for one that has recurring removal. Gets Wonder and Brawn out of the graveyard whilst killing off a creature. Shuts down decks that rely completely on one or two evasion creatures for the win. Drop him on turn one and it's more or less a first turn kill
6. Unquestionable Authority - This was mad, mad, mad, in this format. As much of a bomb as the Phantom Nishoba. With little removal or bounce, this cantrip will let your man go the distance. Played on a Warthog, it lets your man go the distance quickly.

So how did I do? I ended up 12-5-1 overall in the Sealed. Not good enough to win any individual flight (highest was 3rd), but good enough for just over a box of draft packs over the four flights - that's fine.

So barring the last cool play that I have to tell you about, that about sums it up. It was the third round in the first flight. It was a fairly even game, but I had recently cast Unquestionable Authority on my Warthog so I was looking ok. My opponent had one card left, as did I, so I went for the alpha strike to win. Of course (and it would make a pretty crap story if it wasn't so), he had the Moment's Peace - giving him not one but two more goes. Fortunately my one card was Cunning Wish. I went through my sideboard, picked up my Syncopate and removed his Moment's Peace from the game for the win. Good fun.

Now on to draft. A bit more speculation here, as have only done one Od-To-Ju draft as yet. Unfortunately this commenced at about 11:30 Saturday night, after having played nine rounds of Sealed Deck, so the result is that I can't remember a thing about it now. That being said, Sealed gives you a pretty good idea of how good or bad a card will be in draft. All of the above cards I would consider to be very high picks in draft. Guided Strike would be especially useful in the U/W or G/W decks - a bit of an extra trick to kill creatures. Elephant Guide is useful across all the Green Archetypes, and Phantom Flock just works. The Swarmsnapper is a bit defensive - so again looking at G/W or slower G/U, and the Advocate goes in any white deck just fine. Unquestionable Authority would be playable in limited even if it were not a cantrip.

Black. Having the spoiler over a month before the actual pre-release meant it was fairly obvious that Black was going to be a bit weak. That being said, I didn't realise it would be also nearly non-existent. In the 4 events I played I averaged 2 to 4 Judgment cards per event… basically one per pack. This seriously limits the B/x decks that have been so popular in Od/Od/To. It would seem we would be heading more towards an X/b mix. I would not be expecting to get more than 2 black cards in total out of the Judgment pack - so plan on getting the good stuff out of Od/To if you want to secure Black as your main color. Toxic Stench, however, is most excellent in draft, and the uncommon Treacherous Vampire is incredibly good and splashable at only 4B.

With Judgment, as you would expect, G/W will be an acceptable, but still not preferred, draft archetype. There are quite a few tricks available at the common level with Sudden Strength, Guided Strike, Prismatic Strands, and Serene Sunset. Add to this some fat that has been missing in Od/To with the Phantom Centaur and the Warthog, and your G/W has some potential to break through the long stall games.

This does bring up another consideration, however. I would imagine that the popular opinion is that Green got the best limited cards in the judgment set. G/U, G/R and even G/B have been fairly heavily drafted archetypes. If G/W is now also viable, it naturally means that a lot of people will be after drafting green. I would be surprised to not find at least 4 green drafters on any one table. This means that waiting for the Judgment Green to complete your deck could leave you in a bit of a lurch if there is not much to be had.

Other than that, I cannot see the archetypes changing all that much - as Dan has mentioned in his article, U/B, U/W, G/R, and U/G will still be the powerhouses they have been. With only one chance at a Rites of Spring, Farmhand, and Sac lands, now that we are down to one Odyssey pack, the 3 or 4 color green draft decks look a bit shakier. Judgment is pretty slim as far as mana fixers go, with the lone exception being the Harvester Druid - who only really "fixes" if a Sac land is in play - which would then let this guy produces any color of mana.

Another trick that proved very useful during the day involves the phantom creatures and any sort of creature pump enchantment. Add the red Arcane Teachings Enchantment to a Phantom Tiger, and you get a 5/4 creature with 2 counters on it. It takes damage once and it is a 4/3 with one counter. Twice and it is a 3/2 with no counters. At this stage it becomes the uber-blocker. With no more counters to remove, it can no longer die as a result of taking damage. Think Beloved Chaplain that is also immune to burn. Almost, anyway.

And that will do for now.

• Chris Foggin for arranging the event and putting up with all the annoying magic players. Checkout the Australia calendar on MTGParadise home page for the latest tournament happenings
• Ben Seck - for being a good sport when I pulled the psychological mind games for the somewhat dodgy win in the last flight. Of course you know that if it were anyone else but you, I'd have let them take it back. Or maybe not.
• The guy who, after removing all the creatures from his opponent's graveyard with the Selfless Exorcist - thereby negating any chance for his opponent to reach threshold, started systematically removing his OWN creatures from his own graveyard - negating his own threshold. Still contemplating that one.

Bad Karma

• Kogarah - interesting place. The word Seedy comes to mind. I realise there was not much choice in venue as the UNSW pulled the plug at the last minute - but at Rockdale/Bondi/Uni I can be comfortable that my car will still be there when the tournament has finished.

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