With my local prerelease tournament came a long day of Magic the Gathering. Nearly a case of boosters were opened and, aside from a stack of twelve packs that weren’t opened at the store, no priceless treasures were found. What we did find was a very fun format. With participation growing, I was able to play in the main Sealed event and a draft side event. Woo hoo!

With my sealed pool, I managed to pull some good cards but had no real support in those colors. I was thoroughly excited to see Emeria, the Sky Ruin and World Queller, but my supporting cast was limited to a Journey To Nowhere and a Shepherd of the Lost. I pulled a Hideous End and a Malakir Bloodwitch in black, and a smattering of decent red and green cards. The deck I built was not the deck I should have played, but the enamor of playing Emeria, the Sky Ruin was too much and warped my deck accordingly.

After losing to the Hedron Crab deck, I moved on to the Draft side event, pulling a very awesome UR Tempo deck using a pair of Living Tsunamis and bounce spells on the blue side and burn on the Spire Barrage on the red side. After losing to Allies played by the same player who played Hedron Crabs in the sealed portion, I called it a night. No “Priceless Treasures” were pulled during the night, but Zendikar Limited was a blast.

My next foray into Zendikar began with FNM for the new art Browbeat. I wasn’t sure what to play in the new Standard but I knew I wanted to play with a lot of Zendikards, so I borrowed Dave Meeson’s Tribal Thriftiness list and came up with this:

"Mono-Black Control, inspired by Dave Meeson"

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Land (25) 25 Swamp Creatures (12) 2 Malakir Bloodwitch 2 Guul Draz Specter 4 Vampire Nighthawk 4 Gatekeeper of Malakir Other Spells (23) 4 Disfigure 4 Tendrils of Corruption 3 Doom Blade 3 Mind Sludge 1 Haunting Echoes 4 Sign In Blood 4 Quest for the Gravelord Sideboard (15) 4 Duress 4 Vampire Hexmage 1 Haunting Echoes 1 Guul Draz Specter 2 Consume Spirit 1 Doom Blade 2 Deathmark

I wanted to run four Mind Sludge main, but out of all my Zendikar, I only had one and couldn’t find three others at my local shop. So three is what I ran. The Guul Draz Specters were meant to be Malakir Bloodwitches, but same story; I had two, the shop had none. I wanted to run Black Knight in the sideboard, but decided to run Vampire Hexmage instead. I trounced through four rounds facing the creature decks I figured would be there, but lost finals to a Mono-White Enchantment deck running Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty Throne. Black Knights were looking much better. I think I would have won if I had more proc-white creatures and discard. Both games were very close until he got to six mana and could Martial Coup the board. I really miss Hymn to Tourach as I was tempted to run Mind Rot but just couldn’t do it. I may test around with a heavier discard sweet and possible a light splash to get some Enchantment and Artifact destruction, but I had a lot of fun and Mind Sludge is VERY powerful.