For those of you not familiar with how the Prerelease system works online, it goes like this: You pay the entry fee, which in this case is five 8^th edition boosters and two tickets, and you play a certain amount of Swiss rounds. This eventually cuts to a top eight, where a draft will take place, and much fun will be had by all. Except for those who lose; then it just seems like a big waste of time.

On that subject for a moment, for those of you who do get knocked out early, do you and everyone else in your tournament a favor: Unless it was an obscenely lucky top deck, the one-in-a-million types, don't mouth off about it and bother the rest of the people in the tournament. I know it's happened to me more than once that I have lost unjustly, but I have taken my rage out on the wall next to me... Or something like that. For that matter, even if you do come across Larry McLucksack, and he draws Rorix when you're at six and just about to kill him, keep it to yourself. I understand how it feels, I really do - but you have to accept that this is part of the game, and that at one point or another, you have ruined someone else's night by doing the exact same thing. You are not stricken by some sort of unluckiness disease.

Enough with that rant, though; I believe that there is a prerelease to attend to. As always, I will supply you with my card pool first, then what I decided to play.

Black:
Nausea
Fear
Maggot Carrier
Plague Beetle
Vicious Hunger
Dark Banishing
Unholy Strength
Bog Wraith
Carrion Wall
Drudge Skeletons
Ravenous Rats
Serpent Warrior
Vampiric Spirit

Blue:
Flash Counter
Twiddle
Coral Eel
Sneaky Homunculus
Concentrate
Catalog
Inspiration
Treasure Trove
Aven Fisher
Coastal Hornclaw
Horned Turtle
Spiketail Hatchling
Temporal Adept
Wind Drake

Green:
Monstrous Growth
Rampant Growth
Revive
Giant Growth
Fertile Ground
Regeneration
Elvish Scrapper
Giant Badger
Lone Wolf
Moss Monster
Nantuko Disciple
Norwood Rangers
Primeval Force
Yavimaya Enchantress

Red:
Sizzle
Tremor
Cinder Wall
Dwarven Demolition Team
Goblin Chariot
Goblin Raider
Lightning Elemental
Orcish Spy
Raging Goblin
Sabertooth Tiger
Shock Troops
Wall Of Stone

White:
Blessed Reversal
Healing Salve
Holy Day
Redeem
Karma
Sanctimony
Pacifism
Aven Cloudchaser
Diving Griffin
Glory Seeker
Standing Troops
Tundra Wolves
Venerable Monk

Artifact:
Millstone
Star Compass
Patagia Golem

Land
Shivan Oasis

Not exactly the card pool I was looking for, but... I figured I would make do.

8^th Edition Prerelease decklist
Concentrate
Catalog
Inspiration
Treasure Trove
Aven Fisher
Coastal Hornclaw
Horned Turtle
Spiketail Hatchling
Temporal Adept
Wind Drake
Vicious Hunger
Dark Banishing
Unholy Strength
Bog Wraith
Carrion Wall
Drudge Skeletons
Ravenous Rats
Serpent Warrior
Vampiric Spirit
Millstone
Star Compass
Patagia Golem
9x Swamp
9x Island

I figured that I would sacrifice a splash of one of the other three colors and go for the consistency by playing a couple underpowered cards. It seemed that my plan would be to break through with some fliers, maybe a swampwalking Bog Wraith or two - and if I ever needed to, I could Mill them. I figured I would be able to find the necessary cards with lots of draw-power in Inspiration, Concentrate, and Treasure Trove. The following will be a semi-detailed description of my opponents, and the proceedings of our games.

Round 1: Wildjourne, Limited Rating 1512
He is playing green/red, and although the rating relaxed me a little, I was still wary, noting my bad luck in relatively easy Sealed deck tournaments. In game 1, he comes out fast with Elvish Scrapper, Canyon Wildcat, and some other early beats. I go down to six, and then two from my Vampiric Spirit. I Vicious Hunger one of his dudes to go up to four right before he draws Shock Troops. How lucky! Four turns later, Vampiric Spirit takes home the gold.

Game 2 was much of the same, with him laying the early beats and getting me low on life. This time, he has Scrapper, Goblin Chariot, and Emperor Crocodile. I bounce the Scrapper with Temporal Adept, Dark Banish the Goblin Chariot, and watch in horror as the game has a bug and there is no trigger to kill the Croc. The loss of resources is too much for me to overcome, and we are on to game 3.

Game 3 was a mishmash of me playing stuff, and him not playing stuff. My end of the mishmash seemed better.

1-0

Round 2: Twisedspine209, Limited Rating 1651
Game one was not exactly the thrashing I envisioned giving my helpless opponents. It was me who was helpless, watching Grizzly Bears and Lone Wolf go to town on me and my two islands. Land screw, while not fun, happens; I took my beatings in silence.

Game 2, I dropped Millstone on the second turn and went from there. I absorbed some beatings from Trained Armodon and Lone Wolf, before killing them both. At a crucial point in the game, I dropped Ravenous Rats to strip him of his only card, Lava Axe, with me sitting at six life. This prompted a"ur so lucky!" from my formidable opponent - and just to be mean, I milled him out.

Game 3 was a scary moment, as he mulliganed to five, but my seven-card hand was by no means better. Had he not tapped out turn 4 for Living Terrain on a forest, I would not have won. His tapping out, however, allowed me to drop Unholy Strength on Wind Drake and race with some key chumps here and there. More luck-related comments were made, I accepted the fact that my opponent was frustrated, and I went to go put some frozen pizza in the oven.

2-0

Round 3: Boomba, Limited Rating 1759
Game one was a very unusually good showing for my deck, as I curved out with turn 3 Temporal Adept, turn 4 Vampiric Spirit, turn 5 Dark Banishing plus Vicious Hunger on both of his blockers, and that was that. Game 2 seemed like the kind of victory that would be frustrating to be on the other side of: I dropped Temporal Adept with three Islands on turn 4, and went to work, bouncing his guys, and playing small spells in the interim. Eventually, Wind Drake and Unholy Strength was the game winner.

I felt strong enough at this point, since I needed just one win to be in top 8.

3-0

Round 4: Juseck, 1783 Limited Rating
Game one, I was land stalled for a couple turns, yet it was of no matter as I had a 3/2 regenerator in the form of Drudge Skeletons plus Unholy Strength. I beat him to eight with those, but then he stabilized, and eventually my mana problems were too much to handle as I succumbed to his fliers.

Game 2 was somewhat of a joke, as he dropped both Circle of Protection: Blue, and Circle of Protection: Black, with plenty of mana to back them. Then, just to make sure that my Patagia Golem wasn't going anywhere - or any other creature of mine, for that matter - he dropped Phyrexian Plaguelord and recurred it twice. I still could have won with Millstone, but it was my second-to-last card. Oh well; such is life.

3-1

Round 5: Wulgar5150, Limited Rating 1744
Now that I had lost my previous match, this became a do-or-die match, with a top 8 on the line. Game 1 quickly became a stalemate, as a I had very little defense save for a Drudge Skeleton. I kept his board relatively clean with some removal spells, and was constantly blocking Ogre Taskmaster and Trained Armodon. I dropped Bog Wraith, and we traded hits and spells until we were in topdeck mode. His burn spells proved to be superior to my lands, and it was on to game 2.

Game 2 was rather anticlimactic, as I had lots of double blue spells in my hand and, well, not double blue. Having only played a Wind Drake on turn 6, I conceded and went to pout. And by"pout," I mean"shell over three more packs and two more tickets to join a draft." An icky 4-3-2-2 draft, at that, seeing as no one wanted to draft 8^th in the 1800 room. I won't give you the details, but I will divulge my feelings on the state of my life and Magic, and Magic Online:

I am at a point right now, where I am just becoming close to doing a few things. They include qualifying for the Pro Tour on Limited rating, and based on my decent to good finishes in qualifiers, I think I have a rather good shot at qualifying via those, too. Being just fifteen, and not having quite the funds to travel across the world, this brings me to quite the dilemma: I was rather perplexed, seeing as I am going to qualify for Amsterdam off of my rating - and Amsterdam, if you don't know, is quite a long way away. If there is one thing I want though, it is to play on the Pro Tour for this fabulous game that I love so much....

And the two people that have hassled me the most about the time I spend on it stepped up and came through. My parents told me that were I to qualify (and it's looking pretty good, since I'm only fifteen points short), that they would fund my trip to Amsterdam. And although we are not always on level terms, I cannot thank them enough in speech, so I am thanking them in writing. Thanks, mom and dad!

Okay, enough sentimental stuff; I promised to talk about MODO.

I think that 2.0 was a good idea... But so was Communism. Magic Online version 2.0 has most of the things that people bitched for. It has 4-3-2-2 in all formats for the people who wanted to stay in a relaxed draft environment, it has the new 9-5 draft queues in the 1800 room for people that want more competitive drafting, and it has the same rooms for Constructed in both areas. However, therein lies the problem. If a player who does not have the required rating to go to a higher level, and wants to deviate from a raredrafting-based queue, he cannot. And if he is to get to that higher lever and raise his rating, he is going to have to defeat people. This includes almost every person that could play in the 1800 room, because last I checked, there have been four drafts launched in the 1800 room in the first week it was enabled. Not very good.

I think the correct thing for Wizards to do would be to go to the old rooms that they had - or if they really need to, they need to make the rooms into 1700 rooms. This is just turning into a rant though, so I think I'll leave you guys to ponder what I have said.

Have a great time, and feel free to message me on MODO!

Mike Linn, a.k.a. Captainwacky on MODO