Eastern New Mexico is, unfortunately, not the biggest Magic capital in the world. We have our single gaming store, and our smallish crowd of players... But no one can deny our spirit. Whenever a major tournament or prerelease rolls around, at least a few of us will take the time and money to attend.

In this case, the time had come for the Onslaught Prerelease, and we were ready. About six of us were leaving from Clovis, New Mexico for sunny Albuquerque. Unfortunately, it rained most of the time, so we had to settle for damp Albuquerque. The trip takes about three to three and a half hours to make, barring anyone stopping for food/gas/bathroom. We arrive, find a hotel, then set off to find the Albuquerque Garden Center ahead of time, so we'll be able to find it quickly the next morning. We pass it two or three times before one of us finally notices the sign at the entrance to the center.

We do our normal preparations for the night before: Get dinner, discuss the spoiler a little, and go to the casino to blow some money. Actually, I ended up sixty bucks up, so I was a happy camper. Finally, we head back to the hotel to catch a few hours sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and early, with the rain passing by for the time being. We arrive early, only to find that the tournament organizers are locked out of the building; apparently, the people who were supposed to bring the key had not yet arrived. A few other Magic players are waiting outside, and one of them breaks out a hacky-sack, and a small hack circle emerges. Between the hacking and a few rousing choruses of"The Song That Never Ends"*, we manage to kill some time until the keys arrive and the doors are opened.

By this time, my three traveling companions and myself are a tad bit loopy from our breakfast and our early morning sodas, and our alter-ego, Thor, has begun to emerge. Thor always speaks in third person, and is always out to have a good time, even when other stare at him in utter disbelief. The four Thors enter, register, and sit down to do a bit of trading before the first flight begins. Shortly thereafter, the seating arrangements are finalized and everyone takes their seats. Boosters and Tournament decks are passed out, and discussion becomes rampant.

For those who didn't make a prerelease, Wizards has changed the design on the booster packs and Tournament decks, and the new design is sweet. Seriously, the new design is grays and blacks, and looks very sharp.

Finally, I open my boosters and deck, and begin to examine the cards in detail. The artwork in the set is fantastic, and is worth taking a few extra seconds to view. I unfortunately don't have my card list, but I do have the decklist for the deck I registered:

Green cards:
2 Wirewood Herald
Naturalize
Tribal Unity
Bloodline Shaman
Wirewood Elf
Elvish Warrior
Chain of Acid (Shiny. Thor like shiny cards!)
Krosan Tusker
Words of Wilding

Red cards:
Words of War
Spurred Wolverine
Dwarven Blastminer
Sparksmith
Searing Flesh
Charging Slateback
2 Skirk Prospector
Goblin Taskmaster
Reckless One
Skirk Commando
Goblin Sledder
Crown of Fury
Embermage Goblin

Lands:
2 Tranquil Thicket
Goblin Burrows
5 Forest
8 Mountain

I do remember that my white was okay, my black was weak, and my blue was decent (and included a Quicksilver Dragon), but not strong enough to really play. I register the above deck and feel pretty good about it.

Round 1: Thor vs. Evil A.K.A. Justin Parrish
Justin was a good sport about the whole Thor thing, and had joined us in a chorus of the Song That Never Ends before, so I was looking forward to playing against him.

Game 1: Justin starts out a bit land-light, and I drop a quick horde of Goblins on him. He manages to pull off some damage to me, but I quickly begin dropping some fat and remove his blockers. He concedes at six life, looking at the ten points of damage coming across the next turn.

Game 2: The best game of the match. He gets his land this time, and we begin to both drop some creatures. He's playing W/B Cleric-type deck, and possesses more removal than I do. We trade back and forth, and he is able to Demystify both my Words. We enter into a stalemate for a long time, just staring each other down. Finally, I draw my Embermage Goblin and begin Timming him; however, it is too late in the game. I draw my Searing Flesh, dropping him to two life. He draws Cruel Revival and kills my Tim. I concede with me at six life and one card left in my deck.

Game 3: A hard-fought match. He draws a lot of his removal, but I keep topdecking creatures like a maniac. I manage to keep my Embermage on the board this time, and begin to drop him from twenty to twelve over a series of turns. However, he's swinging with some seriously nasty creatures, and my life is dropping quickly. I manage to stabilize, but a bird is pecking away at me for two a turn. Time is running short in the round, and I'm dropped to one life. Justin is at eight, and my only card in hand is Searing Flesh. I'm one mana short of casting it. I untap, pound my deck for good luck, and... Topdeck a forest! I toss it down triumphantly, Searing Flesh for seven, and Tim Justin for the final point of damage.

Thor love this deck.

Record: 1-0-0

Round 2: Thor vs. Nicholas (playing W/U/B)
Game 1: Nicholas quickly drops a Wellwisher on the second turn. Thor hate Wellwisher, but Thor didn't draw removal for it. Actually, Thor didn't draw much land, either. I concede a few turns later, with me at sixteen life and Nick at thirty-two.

Game 2: I elect to play first, draw a three-land hand, and keep. My opponent considers his hand, and elects to keep it as well. I drop a mountain, play a goblin. Normal fare. Nick draws, plays and Island, and ends his turn. I draw, play a forest, swing for one, and finish by playing another goblin. He plays Spy Network, looks at my hand, which contains three more goblins and a fat green creature, looks at the top four cards of his deck, sees no lands, and concedes.

Turns out he took a two-Island hand.

Game 3: I get color hosed pretty quickly. He drops fast beats, and beats me down.

Record: 1-1-0

Round 3: Thor vs. Marty Wilyer (playing G/B)
Game 1: I take a mulligan, and keep a godlike six card hand. He drops a quick creature and begins attacking me, but I quickly stabilize and quickly begin dropping big green creatures. His life goes from 20-13-6-0.

Game 2: A much longer game. I play a couple of elves, while he attacks with a morphed creature; I quickly use my Herald to get an Elvish Warrior so I can block the morph. I draw my Sparksmith and begin to kill his smaller creatures, as I have only two goblins in play.

He drops a Screaming Seahawk on me, and deals two damage to me with it before I'm able to topdeck another goblin to deal with it. I start swinging, and get him to fourteen before he's able to draw some blockers. I get my Embermage and start timming with it, bringing him draw to thirteen over a series of turns. I finally draw my Krosan Tusker, attacking the next turn with it. He looks at his couple of blockers, and lets it through, dropping him to six once I Tim. Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize I was holding my Searing Flesh, and I cast it to finish him off.

Record: 2-1-0

I have some time before the next round, so I find a couple of my friends and find out how they're doing. Turns out most of the Clovis crowd is doing fairly well. I comment, jokingly, that I wouldn't mind it if my opponent next round didn't show up, as another win would put me in prize contention.

Round 4: Thor vs. Frank Cozart
I sit down, and begin to wait. And wait. And wait. Frank never shows up, so I end up with a match win. Ironic, and pleasantly surprising.

My final record ends up being 3-1-0, so I end up 13th place out of 64 players, which nets me six booster packs. I'm very pleased, of course. I quickly join the third flight, and scrub out 0-2, though I did get to play against The Mad Hatter in one of the most enjoyable matches I have played in quite some time.

There are two more flights being held on Sunday, so we stick around. We all sign up for the fourth flight the next morning, which only gets a surprising thirty-one players. I crack open a powerhouse deck, with several green bombs. Unfortunately, Thor's deck doesn't like him, and he finds himself unable to draw creatures game after game. I drop out after a couple rounds of that and sign up for a draft.

The draft in itself was interesting: I start out drafting some white and black, but the black quickly dries up. When we start the second pack, though, I open an Oversold Cemetery and quickly draft it. Then I get passed a Catapult Master. White begins to flood in from my left, and I proceed to draft soldier after soldier, along with a couple clerics and some black removal. We begin drafting the third pack, and I open the Aven Brigadier; better still, I get passed a number of great white creatures from my right. I, unfortunately, don't have a decklist from it, but I remember ending up with an almost mono-white deck with splashed black removal and the Cemetery. I also end up with eleven soldiers to fuel my Catapult Master.

Round 1: Thor vs. Roberto Gonzales
I was both apprehensive and anxious about this match. I had faced Robert a year or two prior at a PT: Tokyo qualifier and had made a stupid play error which ended up costing me the match. Roberto had gone on to qualify at that tournament. I wanted to face him again to prove to myself that I could actually play Magic at a slightly higher level than scrubbish.

Game 1: I come out fast with four successive land drops, and begin playing Daru Cavaliers. Since I have drafted three of them, I'm able to keep pulling creatures out of my deck. He drops a Wellwisher (Thor hate Wellwisher!), and is able to gain three life off of it a turn. I have a larger army filled with first strike, so I continually attack, keeping the pressure on him. He's able to maintain an even life total with the Wellwisher, but he's running out of blockers.

Finally, he topdecks his Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, and plays it. I look at his side of the board: There's a 2/2 bear, a slightly fatter creature, Kamahl...

...and a Taunting Elf.

I begin to worry a bit, but then I realize I have the answer already in hand. Next turn, he swings with everything and activates Kamahl. I cast Unified Strike with five soldiers on his Taunting Elf, removing it from the game, and allowing me to throw three 2/2 first strikers against Kamahl, killing him. I take twelve, putting me down to eight. We both begin dropping creatures, but I'm able to pull mine from my deck faster than him. I begin chipping away at his life, bit by bit. I drop my Catapult Master, but he casts Cruel Revival to get rid of it. Thankfully, I draw my Oversold Cemetery a few turns later, and use it to get back my Master. This time it stays on the board, removing his 6/6 and other creatures. He concedes a couple turns later.

Game 2: He gets out his early creature rush and completely annihilates me, especially since I don't draw a fourth land until it was too late.

Game 3: He gets a little mana hosed, if my memory is correct, and I'm able to drop a creature horde on him. My notes show his life going from 20 to 18-16-12-6-2. He then casts a Wellwisher, but it's too late. The three life he has isn't enough to keep him alive.

Record: 1-0-0

Round 2: Thor vs. Nicholas
Game 1: This is the same Nicholas I had faced the day before. He had handed me my only loss of that flight, so I was eager for a little payback.

We both start out with decent draws, but he begins to drop flying creatures on me. I get him to seventeen with a Tim, but I quickly end up losing.

Game 2: A closer game. I drop early beats and begin pounding on him. It looks as though I am going to win, but he is able to stabilize and return fire, killing me first. Oh well, looks like payback will have to wait until another day.

Since it is a single-elimination draft, I'm out... But I'd gotten some good cards from the draft, so I was happy. Shortly thereafter, my traveling companions finished up with their respective matches, with William Richter making top 8 on the second day. We pile into the car and head back to Clovis, pleased with our achievements for the day.

Props:

• Wizards of the Coast for several things: First off, the new deck/booster design is excellent! Secondly, Morph is an incredibly fun ability to use. Lastly, great set. Keep up the good work.
• Active Imagination for hosting another great prerelease.
• My traveling companions, Trinidad Martinez (A.K.A. Thor IV) (also one of the owners of the Gamer's Refuge, the only gaming store in Clovis, NM), William Richter (A.K.A. Thor I), and Laz Mares (A.K.A. Thor II) for keeping me awake and wholly entertained throughout the weekend.
• Lastly, props to everyone who sang along with us when we sang The Song That Never Ends. We had half the convention center singing along at one point!

Slops:

• None. It was a great weekend.

See everyone at the next PTQ...

Steven"Thor III" Beres
thedragonlensman@yahoo.com

* - The song goes like this for those of you who don't know it:

Repeat Ad Nauseam.