A thread to discuss experience playing new cards in Ixalan Prerelease; its a sealed format, but that is no reason a card's impact on other formats are off topic. What did you learn about the new mechanics, a certain card, or archtype/tribe?
First thoughts:
Duress is terrible in a tribal limited format and that black discard enchantment is not worth playing
duress. The enchantment is ok on its own in a raid deck, but no reason to have
duress.
Tillonali's Skin Shifter is dope. Sure it is just 1 toughness outside of attacking so open to almost any removal, but the ability to mimic keywords and abilities, let alone P/T, is nice with haste.
Evasive aggro holds its own against dino, if both sides have equal pools. The tribes can blend easily if the colors are right.
Explore is very powerful. Ensuring land drops or getting some serious creature value is very welcome. I don't think I was ever bummed about exploring even if I didn't reveal a card I wanted. Whereas raid was definitely more hit and miss, sometimes feeling like value was lost on casting a creature without attacking 1st.
Grixis Pirates (with treasure tokens,
rootbound crag, and
unknown shores letting me splash Vraska) did very well with a
treasure map, lots of flyers, 2 2x
march of the drowned, and 2 pirates cutlass dug out by a Quartermaster Pirate guy. I faced Dinos all night and only one game did I get stomped, and even that was a blast!
EDIT:
Skymarch Bloodletter is crazy good for a common. 2B for a 2/2 flyer that drains etb. Bonus tribal vampire.
I'm expecting at least 2 new decks to take hold in standard, and the prerelease definitely helped me get a feel for what they might be; anyone else attend a prerelease and care to share what you saw / thought / surmised?