Guess what time it is! It’s prerelease time! For this edition of “This week in Magic” we’re going to go over some first timer tips and tricks, as well as some of the cards you may want to keep a close eye for if you want a chance to win some of your prerelease tournaments this weekend.

First timer advice

This is it. You’ve watched your friends long enough and now you want to try your hands at Magic: The Gathering. For your first, official event, you’ve decided to come to the Fate Reforged prerelease. Well here are a few tips and tricks that will help you out at your first event.

• Stick to a 40-card deck – Don’t go to 41 or 42, and it’s illegal to play with 39.
• The secret to a well-balanced deck is to play 17 lands and a mixture of 23 creatures and other spells. There are times you can even go 18 lands and 22 creature and other spells. As a last drastic move, you can go as low as 16 lands and 24 creature spells.
• Don’t play all five colors in deck. When it comes to the Limited, you usually want to play into two colors. Kudos to you if you can play one. I think that the farthest I will take this idea is with three colors.

Mardu, Sultai, Temur, Jeskai, or Abzan

One of the first things you’ll need to do when you register for the event is choose a clan. In the end, there really is no wrong or right answer. However, I do have my own personal preference. Mardu was my clan of choice during the Khans of Tarkir prerelease. There is a good chance I’ll be choosing them again.

One thing you need to keep in mind is how many packs of what you’ll be getting in the prerelease kit. For this event, each player will get one pack of Khans, one seeded pack according to the clan chosen, and four packs of Fate Reforged.

With that in mind, there is still a good chance I will choose Mardu again. It’s the most aggressive clan out of the five. In my experience, early aggression has always seemed the best route for myself. The entire idea is to keep playing early threats and force your opponent to deal with them. In a Limited format that the prereleases are, there is a limited amount of removal. In this case, you are left with a couple of options. The best option is to be playing Mardu as well. Early aggression is well fought against with early aggression.

Removal, removal, removal

This leads me to my next prerelease reminder. Like I’ve said before, removal comes in limited numbers. No matter how bad it looks, consider running it.

An obvious removal spell you’ll want to look for is Black’s new board wipe. Crux of Fate will definitely be a limited bomb. There is nothing like ruining your opponent’s game plan by resetting the battlefield. Crux of Fate is also interesting because of the two modes available. So whether or not you’re running a crew of dragons, this spell going to mess up someone’s plans.

Douse in Gloom is another card I am a fan of. This card reminds me of Pharika’s Cure which is still in Standard. At a casting cost of three mana, it feels a little slow. However, it makes up for it in specific mana cost. Thus making it a little more versatile.

Removal spells will be in higher demand thanks to the reintroduction of dragons into the format. For this you can look for spells like Valorous Stance and Sandblast. Red’s Bathe in Dragonfire is another great removal spell for those pesky dragons.

Sleeper spells

In every prerelease, there is a spell or two that come out of the gates and surprise people. These are just some spells that really stick out to me and could have a great impact on your game.

I feel that the top sleeper spell has to be Fascination. This is an X spell that not only draws you card, but mills your opponent. This card alone can end a game. However, multiple copies of this spell in the late game is almost a certain victory.

Wrap up

That pretty much wraps up this week’s blog post. Don’t forget that this week’s prerelease events kick off at midnight this Friday at both store locations. For more information you can click here for the Forum page. Here you can find the times and Limited formats that will be available at each store on each day.

It should be a pretty busy weekend. Hopefully you’ve done the smart thing and pre-registered for the event to make sure you get the clan you want. If you haven’t yet, there should still be time.

One last thing before I let you go. There should be a lot of people attending the event this weekend. Do us a favor and take some pics of you and others playing! We’d love to show off some of the sights we get at both stores. Maybe we’ll even put them up here on the website. Also, don’t forget to tag Battleground Games & Hobbies on Facebook if you post your photo there!

About the author

Simeon is now the Community Manager for Battleground Games & Hobbies. If you have any questions or inquiries, then you can reach him at Sims@battlegroundgames.com. He is also an avid gamer who loves to play board games and video games. He graduated college with a degree in Political Science, and now serves the public by writing about games. You can check that out here. Don’t forget to “like” him on Facebook as well. It’ll update you on all of his newest content. Best of all, you can follow Simeon on Twitter (@SimeonCortezano) for some real time hilarity. Thanks for reading!

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