New Phyrexia Pre-Release Write Up - May 7th 2011

Three of us went to the NPH launch in Birmingham Yesterday and it was interesting and fairly relaxed.

My brain was already tired from a hectic week so I really wasn't at my best, but from my 6 booster packs for the sealed deck thing I got Karn Liberated & a Mox Opal so within a few minutes of the start I'd got my entrance fee sorted.  Karn is a decent card, but doesn't really suit my play style so I may pop him up on ebay this evening so that someone can trasure him more than I do and I effectively get free entry to the NPH Launch next Sun.

Play wise I went White Blue Red but mostly in artefacts and thinking like a regular deck I went with lots of cheap cards (& Karn).

My first opponent beat me quite easily (he ended up top 8) and we had a good long chat about games afterwards.
My Second also beat me (mostly by stealing my Karn & other top cards) and then gave me a few hints on my deck based on my other cards.
This trend continued with the third opponent who beat me (closer due to some of the tweaks) and then helped rebuild my deck. I found I'd left out some good synergy cards that worked together with the other artefact creatures.  Effectively this turned my defensive artefact pile into a Tempered Steel deck.

I then proceeded to win the remaining 7 games, to get a lovely 50% win rate (the extra game was due to a speedy turn 5 win that meant we had time to try again).  The last 3 opponents were all good sports and we swapped card tips and strategy advice and generally had a good time.

The NPH set changes things a lot as I often did more damage to myself than my opponent did to get things like Slash Panther out faster, but it turns out that this is a pretty effective way to control the board. Phyrexian metamorph is 3 mana and 2 life to copy that amazing high mana creature your opponent played in their last turn, or to duplicate your Slash Panther for 8 damage that turn.  And the launch promo is a foil copy of this card so I may just have to pop along to that too.