"Tams' Prerelease Report, Silumgar" - March 23, 2015

I have been looking forward to the Dragon's prerelease for a couple of reasons. First, I missed the last two prereleases due to ill timed sickness, and second, because Dragon's seems to be a really interesting set that will change the format.

When choosing which clan to play, I looked to black, one of my first loves, who is now paired with blue or red. My normal inclination would be to choose the generally more aggressive black/red combo over the more controly black/blue, but this time I decided to switch things up and go with Silumgar.

Dragonlord Silumgar is a nasty piece of work; a 3/5 flier with deathtouch for 4 blue black. That in and of itself is pretty sweet, but it also sports a cool ETB effect- 

“When Dragonlord Silumgar enters the battlefield, gain control of target creature or planeswalker for as long as you control Dragonlord Silumgar.”

Sign me up!

The core mechanic for the clan is a new one- exploit.

“Exploit (When this creature enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice a creature.)”

And if you DO sacrifice a creature you get a reward.

What I liked about this mechanic at first blush was the 'may' clause in the text. So if you have something on the battlefield that you don't mind sacking like this:

You get a reward, like this:

On the other side of the fence, if you have nothing on the field or you don't want to loose a creature, you don't have to, and are left with the creature itself.

I was lucky with my pool, in that I was able to run the colour combo that I signed up for. Frequently, you can sign up for one pairing and windup without enough strength in your colours or a lot of strength in another that pulls you out of your clan.

I only opened one dragon that I could run.

I never had him on the field when I was in a position to exploit a creature, so basically it was just a 4/4 for six, not great, but playable.

I also pulled an Ugin, which I loved playing in my legue deck, but never hit the field in any of my games. That didn't bother me much. I've always viewed Ugin as a 23^rd card, something to top my curve, but not something to pin the hopes and dreams of my deck on, at least not in limited/sealed. If I draw him and can cast him, fantastic, if not, my deck needs to be able to stand on it's own.

I'd like to talk about the cards that exceeded my expectations.

“Palace Familiar”

This is just a solid card. In an exploit deck, it's even better. Not only can I generally get in for a few points of damage early on, I can then use it to block a bigger flier and it replaces itself, or sacrifice it to exploit and get the exploit reward as well as a card. Pretty darn sweet.

“Ukud Cobra”

I put this guy into my deck because I needed another creature. I knew it would be 'ok', but it not only holds down the ground, as deathtouch tends to do, it works really well as a mind game. Players see a large deathtouch creature and they seem loathe to attack into it, to excess at times.

“Gravepurge”

I've never been a graveyard mechanic player so it was odd for me to play this card, but I figured I'd give it a whirl, given the deck I was building. It was amazing. I could sacrifice my creatures to exploit or blocks and get the ones back that I wanted. The best part was the 'draw a card”. That meant I could gravepurge at the beginning of my turn and potentially drop that creature back on the field that turn.

“Butcher's Glee”

I must admit that I'm a sucker for a good combat trick so I thought I'd throw this in and see how it fared. Turns out it's pretty much removal with an upside. Giving your creature another 3 power AND regenerating it, means you should win most battles. The lifelink is just the juicy cherry on this fudge Sunday of awesome.

Sidisi- Undead Vizier

When I noted that I opened her I wasn't stoked. She isn't a Dragon, and let's face it- isn't that what we all went to the prerelease for- Dragons? Once I began building my deck however, I really looked at her. 4/6 deathtouch for 3 black black. That is amazing, no matter how you look at it. But wait- there is more. Her exploit is a tutor. This card was just straight up value.

On the whole I wasn't as blown away by the exploit mechanic as I had thought I might be, as often times, there just wasn't the opportunity to us it. I think if you draft with an eye to build around it, it can but super powerful. For me, it just turned out to be an occasional bonus, not a game bending thing.

I can't wait to try drafting the set, that's when well all get a better feel on how Dragon's of Tarkir will fare.

~Tams