Dragon's maze pre -release - Magic the gathering

This is my journey through the maze.

Two headed giant Format

This will be my first official pre-release i have been to. So i am looking forward to getting my hands on the new shiny cards for Dragon's maze. The format will be two headed giant so that it will be two players versus two players with a combined health points of thirty. The game will only be one game instead of the usual best of three due to the increased number of players and increased health points involved.
There are also several acheivements to win extra boosters throughout the day.

Achievements:

Azorious : Have five enchantments in play
Boros: Have ten creatures on the battlefield
Dimir: Mill out a player
Golgari: Have twenty cards in your graveyard
Gruul: One player has ten land in play
Izzet: Play five sorcery  or instants cards in a turn
Orzhov: Kill a guild leader or guild champion.
Rakdos: Deal thirty plus damage in a single turn.
Selesnya: Have life total of fifty plus.
Simic: Get a creature to 15/15




The event started at eleven in the morning with the players getting their guild pack and a super secret guild that shares a colour with your chosen guild, i decided my chosen guild would be Dimir, they have a lot of unblockable creatures and a good few spells that make creatures unblockable, they also have some cards that let you produce horror tokens (1/1 blue black  tokens with flying, don't underestimate them) . That was kind of my game-plan, unblockable creatures and flying tokens. The super-secret guild i was given was Golgari, which was handy as my fellow team mate was playing Golgari as her main guild choice, her secret guild was Gruul. By about half twelve everyone had their decks built and were eager to begin their games. 

Decks

Dimir

Land:
4x Island
6x Swamp
3x Forest
Dimir guildgate
Golgari guildgate

Creatures:
Undercity enforcer
balustrade spy
Dreg mangler
Deathcult rogue
Wind drake
Gatecreeper vine
Trestle troll
Metropolis sprite
Daggerdrome imp
Shadow alley denizen
Ubul sar gatekeepers

Instants, Sorceries and Artifacts:
Far- away
Dimir charm
Fatal fumes
Psychic strike
Midnight recovery
Stolen identity
Crypt incursion
Grisly spectacle
Shadow slice
Aetherize
Phytoburst
Mending touch
Hidden strings


40 cards
The boosters i got didn't really have the cards i was hoping for having only one unblockable creature and the spells i got for Dimir were mainly mill spells  but not enough of them to make the deck overly effective.  so i started to rely on my Golgari creatures in my deck instead for the punch i needed.

Golgari

Land:

6x Swamp

8x Forest

Golgari guildgate

Creatures:

Slitherhead

Maze behemoth

Trestle troll

Daggerdrome imp

Jarad, Golgari Lich lord

Disciple of the old ways

Skarrg Goliath

Thrashing mossdog

Sewer shambler

2x Karozda gorgon

2x Maze abomination

Kraul warior

Instants, Sorceries and Artifacts:

Drown in filth

Giant growth

2x Crypt incursion

Grisly salvage

Pit fight

Aerial predation

Chorus of might

Seek the horizon

Predators rampage

Stab wound

40 cards

Time to Run the Maze

Game One

Against an Izzet and Selesnya alliance.
The game started off as fairly defensively play on our part, having to rely on cards such as Hidden strings to keep the attacking creatures at bay.

The planeswalker  Ral Zarek came into play quite early in the game. Using his +1 ability to tap/untap creature and causing our team to have its defence wide open for a harsh hit from their attacking creatures. along with creatures like Haazda snare squad tapping more of your creatures, leaving us on dangerously low life points

Tapping like crazy!

We recovered some life points back by plying crypt incursion giving us a small help , but the respite was short lived and Ral Zarek used his -2 ability twice over the turns taking out our last remaining health points, ending the game. A loss.


During this Game we all got our Promo Maze's end card for taking part.

Game Two
Against a Gruul  - Simic collaboration.

The game started off with our side with in a delicate control with a combo of Black alley denizen and undercity informer. until the Gruul player played a  Scorchwalker, a 5/1 red creature and enchanted it to make it more powerful. We played a combo of Stolen identity and Pit fight to overcome the brutish creature, Jarad, Golgari lich lord came into play only to get turned in to a frog lizard by Rapid hybridization. 

The Planes walker Ral Zarek made another appearance (He seems to hate the Dime/Golgari guild). Ending the game with his -2 ability again.


Dimir/Golgari  -0 
Ral Zarek - 2











Game Three

Against a Boros - Orzhov Pact.

This game was a real grind  of a game with lots of life points exchanging due to extorting and Stab wound. The Izzet player managing to keep his Blistercoil weird in play for most of the game.

We managed to get the Simic achievement by getting Jarad up to a 19/19 using Scavenge and Bloodrushing. We both received a booster pack of Dragon's maze.

Maze Behemoth gave the Izzet-Orzhov pact issues as it gave the multicoloured creatures trample. 

One of the crucial moments was when i countered the  Izzet player playing the Molten Primordial with Psychic strike.

After the slog it was the Dimir Golgari that came off worst and notched another loss.

Game Four,

Well there wasn't really a game four, due to our poor performance we picked up the bye.

So we took this opportunity to go grab a bite to eat and discuss strategy.  But mostly we ate food.

Game Five,

The last game of the pre-release was against a Boros -Gruul union.
 the Game started with or team gaining lots of life, at one point up to forty nine life. This was mainly down to both of us playing a Daggerdrome imp

Lifesaver

\

My team mate got slightly mana starved and i had to resort to anti attack tactics and Aetherize was one of them, just to give us a few more turns to get the mana we needed.

All three of these cards were played during this game to build up our life points.

Aurelia, the Warleader ended our hope of a single win when she came into play, then bloodrushed and smashed us apart (their side did a total attack of fifty two life damage) and won the game for the Boros -Gruul Union.. 

It should not be a surprise to anyone to know that we landed in last place of seventeen teams. The day was a lot of fun and it was good to see the new set (and get kicked about by a planeswalker) One of the cards i picked up was the Selesnya guild champion Emmara Tandris. Who went straight into my Selesnya deck.

I was very happy at how the event was handled  and the two headed giant created a nice  fresh challenge to the game. I will definitely be  taking part in future Magic the gathering events.