Magic 2015 Core Set Prerelease Planning

That time again. The prerelease promos were spoiled yesterday. All in all, M15 feels like strange set. Seems like a collection of all sorts of cards, without a real emphasis. This partly probably because of the “designer cards”, which get a lot of attention.

But, actually, I like all the prerelease cards. Some of them would be pretty poor in some contexts, but in this context, even the seemingly bad red dragon is actually quite strong.

White

resolutearchangelpromo

How awkward. There are going to be quite a few people at the prerelease hoping to reset their life total. Gladly, its pretty expensive and white doesn’t seem to have too much flying in this set, so games against white are going to be either over quickly, or be very controlling, and thus the life total doesn’t actually even matter that much.

On the other hand, there’s more bounce in blue than usual, so its very possible that there will be more than one life reset per game. That’s not going to be fun. Probably even less fun than the [scryfall]Dawnbringer Charioteers[/scryfall] from Journey into Nyx. I bet there’s going to me more draws than usual, and decking can become an actual unintended wincon.

The Angel does seem to be beyond most efficient removal in the set, so that’s going to be a problem, but on the other hand, the not so efficient removal is going to be good enough, as the Angel does cost seven. Four or five costing removal is going to be plenty enough.

Blue

mercurialpretenderpromo

This ones interesting. After all, each player is going to have at least one bomb in his or her pool, so you’ll have plenty to copy. Is it going to be worth it? If you want to mess with the white players, than very much so. Look at the Angel above. Now, if the game goes long, you’ll be able to do that as often as you want. What else do you need?

On the other hand, if you are in the market for a specific ability, why not just take that color from the beginning? Then again, blue seems to be pretty strong. Flyers are always good in limited. Bounce isn’t as good here as its in Theros block, because it isn’t tantamount to removal, because there’s a lack of counters and auras.

[EDIT] Just noticed it says “creature you control”. Based on that, don’t choose blue. Its more of a constructed card (albeit not a very powerful one), because you have to build around it to abuse the power.

Black

indulgenttormentorpromo

Card draw? Yes, please. 5/3 flier for 5? Why not. Sadly, toughness of 3 is pretty poor, since there’s both Ulcerate and Lightning Strike. Ulcerate is uncommon, so it isn’t that big of a deal. The problem here is probably tokens. Your opponents might be able to pay for the ability pretty easily. Not sure though. Red’s dragon might be able to scare people away from playing too many tokens. Probably not, though, because people don’t generally think that far.

This is the most aggressively costed of the bunch, so that’s a plus. Probably enough of a plus to choose black. Or I just like black.

Red

siegedragonpromo

Generally, I’d think this is too expensive, but with all the (potential) tokens running around, the triggered ability from attacking is going to be good. 5/5 flier isn’t bad either. At least it trumps the similarly costed white angel.

However, otherwise red is (of course) about pushing damage through early. This card might be good, but it doesn’t fit the overall strategy of the color, making the color as a choice pretty bad.

Green

phytotitanpromo

The Titan (actually a Plant Elemental) is a pretty good creature. The kind of inevitability it provides is great in limited, even if it was too slow for other formats. The low toughness results easily in dying quickly and often, but that doesn’t matter as long as it can return. Only real problem is the dragon above. It can kill the Titan each turn.

However, there’s an answer: [scryfall]Plummet[/scryfall]. Probably the strongest card in the prerelease because it can kill those big bombs cheaply and efficiently. All in all, green has some pretty strange choices, such as [scryfall]Runeclaw Bear[/scryfall], which is still good, but just not good enough in the current environment, as white seems to be getting much better bears all the time, such as [scryfall]Kinsbaile Skirmisher[/scryfall]. Where’s green’s ability to have the most cost effective creatures?

Green is always strong in sealed. It doesn’t have good evasion, but generally the creatures are aggressively costed. Here I can’t find one that would be that great. No [scryfall]Nessian Asp[/scryfall]s here, although I guess [scryfall]Siege Wurm[/scryfall] can be as good.

All in All

I like black, as usual, but green is actually probably the strongest color, simply by the virtue of green usually been the strongest overall in sealed. However, its bomb is pretty easily managed despite it being very resilient. Each of the promocreatures is pretty good and are actually hard to evaluate against each other. I can’t even really rule out any ([EDIT] except blue, it pains me to say this, but don’t choose blue).

In this case, since I can’t really tell, I’ll go with black, because I won’t that card for my EDH demon tribal.

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