I went 3-1 in the prerelease, with a deck I’d describe as rather average. It was a White/Blue deck which had some lovely combo-type cards in it, but rather fell victim to removal. Thankfully, none of my first three opponents had such removal, and I was able to get a lockdown with a couple of artefacts that reminded me of Icy Manipulators – Tumble Magnets (Tap: Remove a charge counter to tap target creature or artifact). The trick was that they only had 3 charge counters, so could only be used thrice.

However, I had a couple of 1/1 flying creatures that, when they hit my opponent, they would give new charge counters to the artefacts. So: tap the potential blockers, attack for the recharge and normal damage. 

Add to that an enchantment (Tempered Steel) that gave +2/+2 to my large number of artefact creatures and you had the possibility of doing quite well. And so it proved for the first three rounds. The third round, against Dave, was particularly memorable: he’d managed to get a combo together where an imprinted creature on an artefact allowed him to return another artefact from his graveyard every turn, for the low cost of 4 mana. As the artefact he was returning created a 1/1 creature and drew him a card… and then returned to the graveyard, there was the potential for a very bad game on my side, and with the scores tied at 1-all, it was very likely I’d be defeated.

However, the Tumble Magnet combo came out, and so did another of my “win” cards: True Conviction (3WWW, Enchantment; All your creatures gain doublestrike and lifelink). With this weight of cards against him, I was able to win just as time was called.

The final round was against Julian, and he had an absolute killer infect deck. Infect damages creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and players in the form of poison counters. The second (and last) game went this way:
Turn 1: Julian plays Swamp

Turn 2: Julian plays a Swamp, a Plague Stinger (1/1 flying, infect). I play a 1/1 flyer.

Turn 3: Julian plays a Swamp, a Darksteel Axe (equipment: indestructible, gives +2/+0) and equips the axe to the Stinger, hitting me for 3 poison counters. I play a 1/1 flyer.

Turn 4: Julian plays a land, and gives my flyer -1/-1, killing hit. He attacks for another 3 poison counters. I play a 2/2 flyer.

Turn 5: Julian plays a Skin Render (2BB, 3/3, put 3 -1/-1 counters on target creature when Skin Render enters play), killing my flyer and attacks for 3 poison counters. At this point, with nothing in hand, I concede.

It might not have gone *exactly* like that, but it was close. Every creature in his Green/Black deck was Infect, except for the two Skin Renders. Very scary indeed – especially from the 6 pack sealed pool.

I was able to “play” in one more prerelease before I started running my Saturday Evening D&D 4e game. In actual fact, it was just the one round. I got my cards – nice, a Koth! – and was preparing my deck when it was revealed that I had the “bye” for the round. Oh dear! I dropped from the tournament, getting a couple of packs for my “win”, and spent a happy hour discussing the BattleTech league I’m running with Nash.

So, I didn’t really get that much of a chance to assess the set. Games could go very quickly, or very slowly. I’m sure there were some in-between times, but I didn’t see them. My pool was very heavily weighted towards smaller creatures; I’m sure there are larger ones worth playing out there, but I didn’t see them myself. It’s certainly a set where you really have to think about what is going on. Drafting it looks like a lot of fun: many combinations of cards to explore.