Fans of the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering will know that the Prerelease events for Theros, the game's 62nd expansion and the first of three sets in the Ancient Greece-themed Theros Block, took place this weekend. Normally how these limited format events work is that each player receives six 15-card randomized booster packs and creates a 40-card deck (23 spells, 17 lands) from the cards found therein. That was how the Magic 2014 Core Set Prerelease went down, my first ever sanctioned MTG tournament. However, things worked slightly differently for Theros: instead of six random booster packs, players choose a "Heroic Path" based on one of the five colors of mana. They then receive a Prerelease pack five random booster packs, plus a sixth "seeded" booster pack weighted towards the chosen color, including a promotional card that is legal to put in your deck.
Seeing as I have a natural affinity for Blue mana (both my Legacy Highlander Constructed decks have Blue in them), I chose the Blue mana-themed Path of Wisdom. (The other four paths are Honor, Ambition, Battle, and Might, going clockwise around the color wheel.) Each Prerelease pack also included a set-specific Hero Card, and in keeping with the theme, mine was The Philosopher, an occupation I can relate to, given my academic training - I think my bachelor's degree in Philosophy (trans. "lover of wisdom") qualifies me for the rank of (at least amateur) Philosopher. You can't use this card now, instead saving it for the final battle at the end of the set's Hero's Path arc. I personally don't plan on continuing the journey, but it's a cool card to frame next to my philosophy degree.
"Welcome, Hero!" I heard this phrase three times in quick succession upon opening my Prerelease pack, once in my head when I read it to myself and twice when more enthusiastic players at the table announced it aloud to no one in particular. Each path has a different quote from a different key character associated with that path's color, and mine came from the Oracle of Sphinx Isle, a creepy-looking white-bearded Sphinx with empty white eyes and deep blue wings, finely illustrated by Steve Prescott. But as cool as the Sphinx is art and flavor-wise, he's not even the special foil rare promo card in the pack: that honor goes to Shipbreaker "Release the" Kraken, a good example of the new Monstrosity ability introduced for this set. Activating this ability requires a SHIP-load of mana, but when it pops, it has one of the most devastating creature removal effects in the set, tapping up to four creatures for as long as the Kraken remains in play. The next card I saw in my seeded pack was the card behind the key art in the Prerelease pack: Prognostic Sphinx, making good use of the Scry mechanic, which comes back with a vengeance in this set. Others who took the Path of Wisdom were lucky enough to pull Thassa, God of the Sea, one of five color-specific Gods that are Enchantments as well as Creatures. She is special enough to show up on the packaging for one of the booster packs.
I mentioned that each color-specific Path had access to a foil rare alternate-art promo card, and I was lucky enough to draw White's promo card from one of my random booster packs, albeit not foil and with the standard art. Celestial Archon is a good example of the new Bestow mechanic, where an Enchantment Creature can enter the battlefield as an Aura, targeting another creature and making it more powerful. But then the beauty part is that if the enchanted creature ever leaves the battlefield, the Bestowed Enchantment immediately becomes a creature with the power/toughness and abilities that it granted as an enchantment. I got another relevant example of Bestow with Nimbus Naiad, one in a cycle of five Nymphs, one for each color. I also drew two more irrelevant examples of Bestow in the Black and Red Nymphs (Cavern Lampad and Spearpoint Oread), and then when I drew an Observant Alseid (White) from the one booster pack I received as a consolation prize for coming in second place, I knew I had to trade for Leafcrown Dryad (Green) to complete the set.
One more word about flavor and trading before getting into my decklist: Anyone who's familiar with ancient philosophy knows that perhaps the most famous Greek philosopher Socrates was executed by being forced to drink hemlock, a liquid derived from this poisonous plant. Socrates immediately comes to mind, then, when seeing the card Sip of Hemlock, except that while Socrates was generally agreed to be an ugly bearded man, the poor dead person depicted on the card art is an attractive dark-skinned woman. I should know, because I drew three of these cards in my five random booster packs, plus one more in my prize pack. Being the curious philosophy major that I am, I kept my eye out for any other cards that depict the same Socrates avatar, and saw one when my first opponent played Traveling Philosopher, a 2/2 "vanilla" (meaning it has no special abilities) Human Advisor. As it's generally agreed to be a low-value card (it was given a grade of D on Hipsters of the Coast, tied for second-to-last among White Commons), I was easily able to convince someone to make a gift of it to me. More interestingly though, Traveling Philosopher is one of nine vanilla creatures to feature quotes from the fictional Theriad in their flavor text.
Rather than go through all the cards, or even all the themes, I ended up using for my deck, I put together a depth chart of the cards in my deck (a deckpth chart, if you will?) using the aforementioned Hipsters of the Coast 23/17 article that grades all the Commons in Theros. The one remaining rare that I haven't discussed and the five uncommons form the base, out of which a tree of commons spring, each one superimposed with its online rankings. For the sake of comparison, Nimbus Naiad was given an A grade, the highest among Blue commons. As I mentioned, this deck earned me a second place finish in the round-robin style tournament: I won my first two sets two games to one, before losing to one of the two eventual winners who finished the day 3-0. Overall the set was fun to play with and it's always nice to win a few games, but overall the most fun part was hanging out with fellow Magic fans, meeting new people, and diving into the competitive spirit that characterizes both Magic in general and the Ancient Greek mindset in particular.
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