It’s only June, and this is my 3rd pre-release of the year. Oh, and that’s because I even skipped one.

I feel like I’ve played a lot of Magic in the last 6 months. Between the Friday commander nights, the Lorwyn league, the pre-releases, and a tiny bit of standard, I think these months have been some of the most densely packed with magic. As I mentioned, this was my third pre-release in the year. The LGS didn’t host any Ninja Turtles, so there wasn’t a pre-release for that. I somewhat agree with the decision. We needed some room to breathe. Lorwyn and Secrets of Strixhaven are nice sets, and it would have been a shame if we didn’t get enough time to enjoy them. And now we got Marvel Super Heroes. But is it any good? Spoiler: I will not answer this question.

The pre-release

I will admit from the start that this was not my favourite pre-release so far this year, and this is only due to the card pool I got. I am not saying this because 3 others opened The Mind Stone, nor because the one who won the thing opened the most disgusting green pool I have ever seen in limited format in my life. I am saying this because I just didn’t feel like I could make a fun deck out of my cards. My promo ended up being The Ten Rings. Then, I opened that again in one of my packs. So, I was two rare slots down because, while this seems like a fun card, it can’t be played that well in a limited environment.

I came up with a White-Black deck leaning on some Spy effects. What I mean by that is effects you get “when a creature attacks alone”. Honestly, it did better than expected, especially when Black Widow, Double Agent and S.H.I.E.L.D. Spy Kit were on the board. My “bomb” ended up being the Super-Skrull, though I underutilised it, since I could only use the white ability. Still, it was a 4/5 flyer for 4, even though I never really got to play it on turn 4. And with that, I got 5th place in the event. Not bad, if you ask me. Anastasios played an Esper deck. I didn’t get to play against him, but it must have been a good deck since he ended up 2nd place.

As for the set itself, I haven’t played much yet. In fact, I will probably miss half of its play time before the Hobbit releases, due to work related stuff. Some say it’s not that fun because the 3 main mechanics are not interesting. I cannot find myself to disagree completely, but I think Power-up is interesting in a way. There may already be an answer to that, but I wonder if it is overall worth it to wait to play a card and have enough mana to pay for its discounted Power-up cost at the same time. At least, on the pre-release, both options worked well. At the very least, I am going to see some cards getting played in Standard. We are playing a lower tier Standard (power wise) with some new players and it’s been fun.

But what about Commander?!

Well, in Commander things are certainly more interesting. We got an illegal number of new legendaries and some big spells. I’ve already seen a lot of new decks online. Of course, a Red Blue Iron Man deck is the one that piqued my interest. I already have two Izzet decks. Why do I keep wanting Izzet decks? Because they are cool. And if you add some black, you get a Grixis deck. Equally cool. Which leads me to the pre-cons.

I wasn’t really planning on getting any of them this time. Universes Beyond pre-cons have an increased price, and I don’t really appreciate it. Then Nicole started looking at the Doom Prevails deck and got quite excited. So, this time we’ll be getting the Doom Prevails deck. I guess I will let you know if it’s any good in a month. Why? Because they haven’t arrived yet, as WotC announced a delay in shipments. I don’t really mind that, to be fair. I am willing to wait more than usual, if I am to receive a product I want. Now, if only that were true for the rest of the product lines, like, I don’t know, Secret Lairs, maybe? Yes, I am still quite salty about the Goblinstorm fiasco. There’s nothing to be done about it, really, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep mentioning how badly Secret Lairs are organised. Oh well…

As for the rest of my decks, I’ve been shuffling things around a bit. Just small upgrades here and there. My main objectives now are reviving and upgrading the old Derevi, Oloro, and Nekusar decks. It is taking me some extra time because I’ve also been working on other decks, like Ayula, and upgrading my Ghyrson Starn deck a bit. Both decks are excellent, by the way, and very fun to play.

And that’s all for now. Hopefully, next time I will be back with some Derevi and Dr. Doom insights. As for now, I am going to try my Arcanis and WorldShaper decks again today.

And until next time, have fun!