The Ixalan Prerelease is here!

Stevens and Lax dish new Standard while Handy delivers a Prerelease primer!

Newsletter Thursday, September 21st

With the Ixalan prerelease merely hours away, are you prepared to brave the unknown? Here at StarCityGames.com, we certainly are and we'll be doing so with The Jolly Rover by our side! But if you can't make it to your Ixalan prerelease, worry not! #SCGDFW is also right around the corner, where Magic's newest set will be under the microscope of the SCG Tour's finest! Speaking of which, Todd Stevens is already figuring out how to attack the new Standard metagame just in time for his trip back to The Big D, and Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir Champion Ari Lax has some words for those who are trying to work on tribal strategies for #SCGDFW. Emma Handy gives us the inside scoop of what to expect at your Ixalan Prerelease this weekend with a review of her time at the invitation-only Ixalan Pre-Prerelease hosted by LoadingReadyRun! The wait is finally over! Welcome to Ixalan! — Danny West, Content Coordinator Harlan Firer Modern  Open     Shaun Korb Standard  Classic     Raymond Perez Modern  Classic     How To Approach SCG Dallas   By Todd Stevens   If we're going through the trouble of playing more four-mana removal, something that can exile multiple creatures is exactly what I want. Affectionately known as "Wrath to Exile," Settle the Wreckage is an incredibly enticing card that we're going to want to have access to. There is obviously the drawback of allowing your opponent to search for basic lands from their deck and put them onto the battlefield, but the ability to exile cards like Hazoret the Fervent and Earthshaker Khenra at the same time with one card is perfect. It's possible that, against a deck like Temur Energy, when you cast the second Settle the Wreckage against them, they won't have any more basic lands in their deck to find between the first one and their Attune with Aethers, and therefore the downside of the card is lessened with each copy you cast.

Sep 30 - October 1 Standard     October 14-15 Modern     October 21-22 Modern     Ixalan Tribal: Who Needs It?   By Ari Lax     I am really unexcited by the idea of a true midrange Dinosaurs deck. I tried, but there are a lot of issues. Issue 1: You need a third color. There isn't a single card in green or red that faces down Hazoret the Fervent, The Scarab God, or even an opposing Ripjaw Raptor. I splashed white here, but there is way too much four-mana removal. Black isn't much better on that front, though I like Cut // Ribbons and green cards. Issue 2: The whole archetype folds to removal. Removal on your mana creatures is a Time Walk and you don't have a good three to bridge the gap. I almost think you need to play Temur if you are G/R to get to play Rogue Refiner, but blue doesn't pass the "killing stuff" test. Note that I've tried to preemptively solve this with maximum Carnage Tyrants and ways to haste them. It is possible I should even have a Samut, Voice of Dissent to hammer this home. Issue 3: Nice sideboard. I would probably say this about most decks without Duress, but it's especially bad here. My "sideboard cards" are already in the maindeck because they are the good ones! If you want to Dinosaurs people, I think there are two end-games. Find the right energy trio and play Ripjaw Raptor and Regisaur Alpha when they outclass Bristling Hydra and Glorybringer, or else play Hour of Promise and the Avatar cycle.

Lessons From The Ixalan Pre-Prerelease   By Emma Handy     One of the more important things to understand about a Limited format is the relevant sizing of creatures. This means understanding how much toughness is generally going to be enough for a creature to be a great blocker, and how much power a creature is going to need in order to break through most blockers. It can also be relevant when comparing the size of creatures versus the most common damage- and toughness-specific removal spells in the format. In this format, four toughness tends to be a fantastic stat to have. A fair chunk of the not-Dinosaur creatures have two or three power naturally, and that magic fourth point of toughness is going to translate to a larger number of muddied combat steps for the opponent. Seriously, there are 35 creatures with three power and only 10 non-Dinosaur creatures with exactly four. Dinosaurs are excluded as the archetype tends to go over the top of most creatures, and anything with more than four power is starting to get into "bomb" range.

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