Journey Into Nyx Prerelease Planning

Its that time again. How to choose the color for the prerelease. The promos can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1468.

If you didn’t bother to follow the link, here’s our cast of characters:

Dawnbringer Charioteers 2WW
Creature – Human Soldier
Flying, lifelink
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Dawnbringer Charioteers, put a +1/+1 counter on Dawnbringer Charioteers.
2/4

Scourge of Fleets 5UU
Creature – Kraken
When Scourge of Fleets enters the battlefield, return each creature your opponents control with toughness X or less to their owners’ hand, where X is the number of Islands you control.
6/6

Doomwake Giant 4B
Enchantment Creature – Giant
Constellation — When Doomwake Giant or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, creatures your opponents control get -1/-1 until end of turn.
4/6

Spawn of Thraxes 5RR
Creature – Dragon
Flying
When Spawn of Thraxes enters the battlefield, it deals damage to target creature or player equal to the number of Mountains you control.
5/5

Heroes’ Bane 3GG
Creature – Hydra
Heroes’ Bane enters the battlefield with four +1/+1 counters on it.
2GG: Put X +1/+1 counters on Heroes’ Bane, where X is its power.
0/0

Apparently, the mix of boosters is going to be 2 Theros, 1 Born of the Gods, 2 normal Journey into Nyx and one seeded Journey Into Nyx, with emphasis on the chosen color. Maybe the last one can include cards from any set. That would make sense. The last one was very disappointing in the Born of the Gods prerelease, but that was probably partly because I got a [scryfall]Mindreaver[/scryfall] as the rare, but also because the seeded booster included way too many cards which could be usable in my deck if I played a certain other color, so its not actually that much better than any other booster, except for the rare.

Spoiler: I went with black, but I didn’t think it through. I just wanted to register as early as possible and went with my gut and even though the gut technically is a brain (not the actual gut, but our digestive system as a whole), its not nearly as intelligent as our actual brains, so don’t count on it.

Now that I’m reading these with more time, I think I would have rather gone with white, blue or green for different reasons.

Dawnbringer Charioteer is probably the most cost effective of the cards. Flying and heroic has been a very strong combination in this format. Both [scryfall]Wingsteed Rider[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Akroan Skyguard[/scryfall] are excellent bestow targets. Dawnbringer Charioteer is probably very strong too. Granted, its probably most suspectible to removal of the bunch, since it dies to [scryfall]Last Breath[/scryfall] and pretty much every other removal spell besides cheap burn. However, this is sealed and good removal is not plentiful. Lifelink is excellent in this format, as is the fourth point of toughness. Also, white is probably the deepest color at the moment in the block, so you’ll probably get the best help for this card from the seeded booster and will be more likely able to build a deck with this color.

Scourge of Fleets is something I would like for my EDH collection. It would be an excellent addition to my current [scryfall]Tromokratis[/scryfall] deck. For sealed, its not that great. You can get some blowouts with it, but you’ll have to play very heavy blue to abuse its ability and seven mana is pretty costly, although due to the ability, you won’t mind playing it late even if it was cheaper. I’ll try to trade for one at the prerelease.

Doomwake Giant is pretty cheap 4/6 for five mana, which is pretty good in its own right. It can dodge plenty of removal and if played right, its ability can be very powerful. However, it not going to be that easy to use in most cases. Maybe you get lucky and can get an enchantment with flash (such as [scryfall]Boon Satyr[/scryfall]) and use that to trick your opponent. Unlikely, though. I still like black…

Spawn of Thraxes could be great. Late game reach can be important, especially in a low curve heavily red deck. However, the Spawn does cost seven, so it isn’t a very good curve topper for this kind of deck, which would much rather see, say, [scryfall]Fanatic of Mogis[/scryfall] or even just a [scryfall]Lightning Strike[/scryfall] to finish the opponent.

Heroes Bane is much more reasonably costed. Sure, it’s going to need a supply of mana for the turns to come, and it doesn’t have trample, but it can grow into an uncontrollable threat pretty quickly. You also have plenty of ways to ramp into it on turn four, if you want to go that route.

So, now that I’ve thought about it, I would probably go with white, but as I said, that ship has sailed (unless I go to another prerelease…)

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