The Hobbit Prerelease

Today my sons and I played in our Local Game Store's The Hobbit prerelease event. This post recaps the experience. We played at Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie; you must sign up and pay in advance (they sell out)

I had never done a prerelease, so I didn't know what to expect. Before the game started:

- the event capped at 40 people

- most people were in their twenties to forties, with a few outliers on each end. My children (aged 10 and 14) and their friend were the youngest there.

- you can (but needn't) bring in bags, dice, card sleeves, playmats, tokens, lands, food and drink. I decided to buy deck sleeves there. I wish I had brought a bag and some bottled waters; carrying things around was fine but could have been easier.

- we did the noon event (they also had 8am and 4pm slots). We didn't get started until 1230 at the earliest, though, since the first event ran over

- you scan a QR code to sign in. That prompted me to download a Magic companion app on my phone, and sign in to that using my Wizards of the Coast account (which I had, but didn't remember the password . . . had to reset that). That took time, but we arrived 30 minutes early, so no worries.

- I had paid for three people, so they asked me (since my app has only my name) who my "+2s" were. I gave them the names, and since my boys didn't have phones or Wizards accounts, the event organizer manually entered them in the system (without issue).

We settled down to wait. Once everything was ready, we were assigned tables (via a common screen and our apps, if you had it). The organizers passed out prerelease decks and we were given 50 minutes to build a deck. You didn't have to stay at your table to build; some people moved around to be with friends.

A prerelease deck contains 6 The Hobbit play boosters (14 cards + a token in each), 1 foil rare or mythic card, four foil full-art plains, and a 20-sided spindown die. Using only these cards (plus basic lands, provided by you or the store if needed), you build a 40-card deck. Wizards has an official prerelease guide page that give you recommendations, including the mana curve. (Give that page a glance; there are some good things on it.) The general guidance is to have 24 non-land cards.

I built my deck, adhering closely to recommended practices. I settled on blue-green; a mixture of elves and big green creatures. Blue-green is one of the archetypes in this set (see the official page link above, or the graphic below, for the others).

Here is a picture of my deck:

And in decklist form:

Blue cards:

Elvenking's Harper

Enchanted River's Grasp

Gandalf, Wandering Wizard

Mirkwood Mediator

Plunder the Trollshaws

Riddles in the Dark

Sound the Trumpets

Green cards:

Bejeweled Warg

Beorn, Reluctant Host

Gigantic Big Bear

Mirkwood Pathmaker

Old Fat Spider

Ordinary Bear

Quarrel

Radagast of Rhosgobel

Warg Tactics (x2)

Wargling

Wood Elves

Multicolored:

Mirkwood Nurturer

Silvan Reveler

Thranduil, Sindarin Liege

Artifacts:

Giant's Boulder

Thror's Map

Lands:

Elvenking's Halls

Island (x6)

Forest (x9)

15 creatures, 16 lands, 9 other (a mixture of ramp, card draw, and removal). I felt reasonably good about this. Then the games began.

Prerelease events are three rounds. Each is a best-of-three match (so you will play three opponents and 6-9 games). You get 50 minutes for each round, but they will let you go over (once the clock hits zero, players are instreucted to play five more turns in the game before concluding). My record in a nutshell:

- Match 1: lost, 1-2 (against a black/red deck)

- Match 2: won, 2-1 (against a black/red deck)

- Match 3: won, 2-1 (against a black/green deck)

I finished 18th out of 40 with a win percentage of 55.6% and opponent win percentage of 40.2%. Anyone who won two matches got two Hobbit booster packs (yay!). If you won three, you got four packs. If you went 2-0-1 (tying instead of losing), you got three packs.

My sons finished 9th and 22nd, respectively. Their match records were 2-1 and 1-2, respectively, but the one was ranked much higher than I because of the strength of his opponents (their overall record was better than the ones I beat).

Reflections

- I was nervous for my kids, not knowing if they would encounter aggressive, creepy, or strange opponents. I was needlessly worried; everyone had a great attitude. If you forgot something, your opponent would generally point it out (nobody was cutthroat or annoying). 

- I felt safe leaving my stuff to go to the bathroom.

- I was surprised how varied the match length could be—some people could kick out three games against a given opponent in 20 minutes; others took the whole time. If you finished early, you were welcome to wander around and watch other games.

- It was tiring. Arriving early, we were there 5 hours. 

- It was a great time and a fun way to experience the new set.

This is a serious enough time commitment that I won't be doing this for each release, but I look forward to attending select events in the future.