Robin Wouters is back with a report on the Khans of Tarkir Prereleases he played in Outpost Antwerp. He then goes on to discuss some of the newly released Khans of Tarkir cards.
"I had a blast this weekend, playing in two Khans of Tarkir pre-release events! For the Afternoon pre-release in Antwerp on Saturday I choose Temur because a survey on the internet (one with some quirky questions) had destined me to be one of the Temur, and they were right, I am a sucker for big creatures and Temur was right up my street. As four or more power seemed to be very important for cards like Savage Punch (three of them in the deck, pretty insane), the Alpine Grizzly (and I had two of them) was an important early drop, triggering ferocious. Dragon-Style Twins was the only rare I could use, but with Become Immense and even the Savage Punch (if the ferocious triggered) it was pretty good. I ended up 3-2, loosing to a really good Abzan deck and one super close match were I thought I had the game, but when I wanted to Savage Punch my opponents Sidisi's Pet with my Dragon-Style Twins (triggering ferocious making my Twin a 5/5) so I could punch through for the last damage, he played a Become Immense on the Pet resulting in me losing my Twin him gaining 7 life and still in the game… But it was a very close match, it could have gone either way after that play. I think if my opponent had stumbled once, maybe drawing two lands in a row or if I had a bit better of a draw the game could have tilted back in my favour, but I was the one drawing two lands in a row and losing the game.
On sunday I went to Outpost Ghent for the Two-Headed Giant pre-release, joining Mark Dictus, my teammate for such events. As Abzan had been a bit too popular this weekend, and pre-release packs of them were scarce, we choose Temur and Mardu (in 2HG you can’t choose two of the same packs) because we wanted to diverse our options, with only red as a mutual color in the packs. After we opened the packs it seemed to me that a Temur deck and a Mardu deck were definitely viable options, but with that many cards (12 boosters total!) you better keep an eye open for other options. So we build a Temur deck and a Jeskai deck, both of them focussed on being very aggressive, choosing a lot of the two drops and three drops our pool offered. We won our first three rounds and each match was very exciting, we lost the fourth round but still had a blast (and if Mark hadn’t been stuck on 2 mana for 5 turns, we could have won). For the last round we made a drastic decision, we changed our decks a bit, just to try it out, making the obvious Mardu and Temur option, giving the Temur deck some of the blue cards out of the Jeskai deck and we won our last round. Each build we had performed pretty good and I can’t say if our earlier builds were better than the last ones, but I had played the Jeskai deck and after the Mardu deck and I must say that the interactions in the Mardu deck were a lot of fun! So we had a lot of fun, some exciting matches and we ended up 4-1!!
Enough about the matches, now something more about Khans of Tarkir cards, and I think I best start with the Fetchlands that got reprinted… I think a lot of people were very excited when they heard this news, as I have those lands from back in Onslaught I think they should have made the new ones the mythic rares of the set, preserving the price range a bit. But overall I think it is a good thing that those cards got reprinted, making older formats step by step a bit more affordable for new players. And naturally they will be important in Standard too.
For me Utter End was the card that got me the most excited at first glance, a new kind of Vindicate that exiles a nonland permanent, although four mana does not make it super, but it’s just a solid removal spell!!
Sorin, Solemn Visitor made me feel, as many other people, that it is just a worse version of the old one.
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker maybe is a good finisher, becoming a big dragon with haste as it’s plus ability. Or being an expensive removal spell as its minus ability. I’m still not sure what to think about it’s ultimate, in a red burn deck you probably want the extra cards as you will play out your hand before the end of your turn, but you don’t want an five mana planeswalker in your deck…
Some other good cards (in my humble opinion):
- Savage Knuckleblade : three mana for a 4/4 creature are just always good stats, and it got some nice abilities that go with it.
- Rattleclaw Mystic : a new kind of Birds of Paradise.
- End Hostilities : wrath effects always finds its way into some kind of control deck
- Empty the Pits : making ZOMBIES!!!! Always a good strategy (says the dredge player in me)
- Surrak Dragonclaw : the answer for aggro players against control?
- Clever Impersonator : it copies almost everything…
I’m still not sure if the charms will find their way into Standard, but some of the abilities are really good, but are they good enough, Mardu Charm is the best one I think, but of course it all depends on the strategy you are playing.
If you haven’t played in the pre-release this last weekend, be sure to attend the one of the Release events in the Outpost of your choice as Khans of Tarkir is a really fun set for sealed deck!
Robin Wouters signing off … till next time!!!!"
