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For example, today I had the opportunity to go to a charity event for work. It was a lunch with a bunch of cricketers that I have never heard of. The general email I received said that AB, Steve Waugh, Dean Jones, etc, etc would be there, and apparently that was a pretty cool thing as far as cricket goes. Now I have only been in Australia for 6 years which is about 25 years too few to really grasp the game of cricket. I'm sure it is a reasonable game, but considering I can't be bothered sitting through 3 or 4 hours of baseball, I doubt cricket will ever be that engaging for me. In any case, I wasn't really into going, even though some of the guys I work with were pretty keen. An afternoon of not being in the office and the promise of a good steak prevailed so I decided to take the plunge. I got the ticket on the way there and there was a list of guest speakers on it. First on the list was this Mark Taylor and second, SECOND, mind you, was the honourable John Howard. Now, this second and obviously less important speaker was completely left off the email that I had received. I mean, who cares about the PM when something Kerr Jones (sp?) was gong to be there. My friends, if the Americans ever thought they were fanatical about their sport, they really need to have a look down here to see what real sports fans are like. Of course we rocked up half an hour late and apparently missed Jonno anyway. I was a bit miffed... my work mates couldn't give a stuff.

So, pre-release. This is the first pre-release for a new basic set I will have played in for a long time. I've played in the Torment and Judgment versions, but I expect this to be much more interesting.

Thursday night marked my last draft for OTJ - at least in real life, and I can say that after literally hundreds of Odyssey drafts, I am ready for this set to be retired from the limited formats. Quite a lot of Sydney players are anticipating the Onslaught limited format to be broken, with too many bombs and ridiculous limited cards. Personally, I am quite happy to mix things up a bit. Odyssey block contained a lot of very mid range cards with a few bombs and the usual unplayables mixed in with the bunch. I don't know how many games I have played; first turn Suntail Hawk, second turn Phantom Nomad (or turn 3 Cephalid Looter, turn 4 Springing Tiger). These are all nice cards in their decks but a too bit predictable at this stage.

So what will I be drafting in Onslaught? At first glance, I quite like the re-emergence of creature-type decks - goblins, elves, et al. In a constructed environment I envision at least 2 or 3 of these deck types being viable right away. In draft, however, this may cause some problems. Individually, these cards are relatively under-powered, and starting off into an elf themed draft only to discover that half-way through pack 3, you only have 4 elves... well that's pretty average. Therefore I would imagine cards like the mid-range green beasts would be of higher draft value.

I believe some of the best draft cards will come out of white, which also has my favorite initial card in the set in Oblation - 2W -The owner of target non-land permanent shuffles it into his or her library and then draws two cards. The utility of this card seems quite amazing. Swing with your White Weenies, damage on the stack, draw 2 cards, play 2 more weenies. Big green fattie in your way, put it back into your opponent's deck and swing for the win. Late game enchantment turn out to be not that useful, oblate it and draw a couple of new cards. Mobilise a soldier, sac him to draw 2 cards... you get the picture. U/W and mono W may use this card well.

The second set of cards that seem really good in limited are the Gustcloaks. Drafting a few of these really throws a wrench into the attack step. A few guys going to die in combat? Pull them back instead and now they can defend if necessary, or more importantly, live again to alpha the next turn... and the next. Considering that even without this useful ability, they are still very efficient creatures (2/3 flier for 3W, 3/3WHITE guy for 2WW, 2/2 flier for 1WW), these seem to be good utility white draft cards.

What I hope to see in Onslaught block is the diversity, if not the balance, of Odyssey block. Some of the best draft archetypes in Sydney have only been discovered in the last month or two - at the very end of the block format. U/G threshold and R/W speed made cards like Anurid Barkripper, Mental Note, Suntail Hawk and Trained Pronghorn be amazingly good cards. Couple this with the fact that you can quite often get these cards 6-10th picks, and the power of these decks was realised..

Continuing on the digression theme...

Two weekends ago, some of the Sydney players, being myself Nick Wong, Time He and Ben Seck went down to Canberra for the last chance at PTQ Houston, all with a fair bit of insight/practice in the format as the number of block tournaments in Sydney numbered quite a few. We went down the night before, as usual, after getting in a final draft at Eastwood. Unfortunately, being the end of season, OTJ packs were scarce so the usual copious one-on-one drafting was absent, however this did give us time to test our block decks a bit. From the onset, we were all set on different decks, I was using U/B Zombie Infestation with a Psychatog and a Guiltfeeder for good measure, Nick was running Wake (Harvey), Tim was mono black control with Faceless Butchers, and Ben was running pirates. Some play-testing against my deck, which in theory should have been an excellent match-up for Ben, resulted in a very even win distribution. After watching Nick play Wake, Ben decided to switch and also play this deck.

We slept, we ate and we had to call Dave to ask for a continuance as we were running late - all regularly occurring events for Canberra treks. There were quite a few players when we arrived - no doubt spurred on by the copious amount of prizes on offer. Much to my dismay I browsed a field that was littered with Green decks. G/B madness, G/B threshold, G/W, G/R, G/B! G, G, G, bloody G. So I would soon lament. Having played a few Canberra players at the Worlds PTQ for Houston (all of which were playing mono-black control), I wrongly estimated the meta-game. I now know the source of my error - you see people who can afford to come to Sydney for Worlds can generally afford to buy Mutilates, Shades, Echoes, etc... Mono-black control is an expensive deck. Kids who have no money can always play U/G as the deck costs 10 cents. Sigh.

I know specific matchup details are of general interest, but considering the Odyssey block season is over and considering I was, in a word, crushed on the day, I will summarise.

Round 1 I played U/G Speculation, and won, just. Round 2 I played U/G speculation and did not. At this stage, I was the first Sydney player to drop a match. I would quickly be Sydney's second match loss the next round when bested by a G/R Anger deck. This guy quite nicely explained to me why my cards were "bad" and his cards were "good" whilst I smiled and ground my teeth - getting smashed in the head by a turn two mongrel. I think it is called "taking your lumps".

So I am 1-2 and the other guys are 3-0 and what the hell, I am there so might as well keep playing right. I sit down for Round 4 and I can kind of see the other Sydney guys off in the distance, if I squint a lot. I am playing a kid who has, so he tells me, an 89 card deck. It was thick, unsleeved and sticky, so I took his word for it. He also told me that 16 Green and 16 White mana were in his deck (seemed reasonable to me). He goes first and plays a Suntail Hawk. I play a land. He plays a second turn Phantom Nomad. I play a land. He plays a 3rd turn creature. Not sure what, but it was something that you would probably pick 12th in draft. Fourth turn he drops a Brawn. I drop a land and manage a Chainer's Edict. He plays a fifth turn Aven Flock. I cast Deep Analysis, looking for something and have out a Guiltfeeder to block a bit. On the seventh turn, he plays out a Stone Tongue Basilisk. You do not understand how much I wish I was making this up. Well, my Guiltfeeder is no match for this fatty, and my massive card drawing has yielded an Innocent Blood and another edict, but apparently his deck, other than 32 lands, is 67 creatures, so my bloods are picking off Phantom Nomads and Anurid Barkrippers, while his Stone Tongue kills my Guiltfeeder and then me. My only consolation at this point is that this will make some rather amusing fodder to write about later. I am writing about it now and not at all amused. In any case, in the second and third games I drew a massive amount of removal, actually found an Upheaval and zombied the wins.

So at 2-2 I play on, confident that a 4-2 will get me a few draft sets at least. Round 5 and I play yet another U/G deck. I lose and am now 2-3. Meanwhile Ben and Nick have ID'd, Tim has lost his first match in a very good game with one of the younger Canberrans named Dominic (watch out for him). Last round and I play the friend of the kid that beat me with the Stone Tongue Basilisk previously. He was G/B and I won the rather uneventful match, after being called "mean" several times for Circular Logicing his spells. As you do.

So, I am 3-3, which qualifies me for 2 Judgment boosters and a headache. Tim won the last round and all the OTHER Sydney players are in the Top 8. The rest can be found in David Low's report, but Tim beat 2 U/G decks to get into the finals while Ben beat Nick in the mirror (rather unfortunate that they played each other first round, as both wanted the spot) and then a G/W deck to get the other finals spot. The usual split followed by pizza and the revelation that if they wanted to get back to Sydney that night it would cost them 400 bucks for cab fare (I was staying in Canberra for a few days for work). So after the first night at the backpackers, we were now staying at the Crowne Plaza on my work's bill. Good times.

All that just to tell you I got beat in the head by a Stone Tongue Basilisk in constructed.

Back to the pre-release and I think I'll stop here as early morning is generally the time in which you consider how Touch of Invisibility MAY just have its uses, and that perhaps Sligh really can make a comeback in Standard...

It is 1:30AM and I am really just holding out to see if the one Australian participant at Boston will win his first round, which is probably going on right about now. All of Sydney is barracking for you mate... well at least those of us that you owe money.

So it goes.

Scott Hunstad

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