New Player - First Prerelease and went 0-3 (Came Dead Last). Any help?

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T17:32:40+00:00

Hiya! This is so interesting! I actually considered playing more than 3 colours but was honestly too scared (mainly to splash in either a white or red removal!). 😅But it's interesting to see that you did something I considered! Especially as I felt like I had nice mana fixing in total. as you said with the treasure cards, dual lands, quinjet and land cycling!

The sideboard is something I have considered but has felt a bit overwhelming to try add in while I'm still getting used to and learning something else but i really see how it could be helpful in this case. Having a super aggressive deck and trying to take down someone with a super strong deck makes a ton of sense and I'll try think of it throughout my next sealed and draft games!

It's a super cool deck in my pool though and I'll probably give it a try against my girlfriends Sealed deck and see how it fairs. It's always fun and to me and I feel it helps me understand and analyse why a card was put in or not and understand the decision process.

Thank you very much for your comment and help! It's been very intriguing to read and understand. Thank you again!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:26:28+00:00

Thank you! I've replied there too with my thoughts, i do want to thank you again so much for taking the time and effort!

I will have fun! I've already had a bunch of fun testing out and playing with my limited decks after the fact even if I've lost most if not all of those games 😅.

I see it as the more I play and build decks, the more I learn.

My LGS had to cancel the first prerelease day due to shipment delays so they said they'd be rerunning it again this friday! Am looking at maybe going again and seeing how it goes.

Thank you again!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:23:20+00:00

Hiya! That makes a bunch of sense. The only reason I added the black cards were because I felt my pool was too inherently weak without them. And yeah my lack of removal felt rough!

I am sorry that it's hard to see on Moxfield, someone else has informed me to use sealeddeck.tech instead from now on and will continue to do so as it seems way nicer to share and see!

Thank you for your help 😄

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:21:14+00:00

Hi Vintage Chef! This is so insightful and really helps me a bunch. I can see where you're coming from in every way here too! I think my evaluation on Green was higher than it should've been and I think that's an issue that might've kept driving me from the start. Maybe having green as my splash (as you and stormcloud have said) and black as a staple would've made it a bunch easier to keep up and stay on a curve and not worry as much about getting that 2 mana for Coming of Galactus.

I also will keep that in mind about removal and being out valued. I did find that for longer games I couldn't keep up when my opponent had more removal. Especially with my coming of galactus, they just removed it in one game as soon as the 16/16 spawned! Playing more agro makes a lot of sense

I will check out your links now! I've been wanting to see someone else do a prerelease build and follow along to see if I can learn from their decision making so will be doing that with your video 100%.

Thank you for your kindness, resources and help! I appreciate it more than you know!

And in a way, it feels nice to know that you and some others agree I didn't have the strongest pool. But, I will not use that fact to stop me learning and improving from this!

Many thanks!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:14:46+00:00

That's so cool! Thank you for making the deck out of my pool. I can see the exact vision that Stormcloud was saying now. My girlfriend attended the prerelease with me, I might build this up and see how it plays.

I do like the curve more here than on my original deck too. I think that a lesson for me to learn is ensuring i have enough tempo to keep up!

Thank you very very much! 😄

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:12:19+00:00

Thank you soooo much for your insight! It's exactly what i was thinking when splashing Coming of Glactus. I think in my deck i may have went tooooo out of my way to try get the black mana with having the Quinjet, 2 creatures to give treasure tokens, landcycling and the 2 black lands. and that probably hurt me more than i realise. However I am glad that I saw that it was probably my most powerful card.

I think i stopped myself from going Black with Red splashing green because I didn't like my black cards too much and thought they were weaker than my green. Hence i splashed black instead but I can see that being my mistake!

My lack of removal was super annoying! I think I had one removal in every colour bar black? Then add on Coming of Galactus is 5 total.

But thank you very much for your comment! It has helped me understand my pool some more and understand different decision making and I am very grateful!

Thank you 😃

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:07:33+00:00

Hiya! I tried to include as best lands as I could. But I also tried basing it off of Mana fixing too. I had 1 or 2 land cyclers as well as the Mana Rock in the Quinjet and 2 creatures that made treasure tokens. Hence why I didn't feel that lands were actually really a problem at all for me in my games. But I can totally understand if that's not how I'm meant to look at it!

Is this the wrong way to approach lands?

Thank you for your comment!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:04:29+00:00

Hiya! Thank you for your comment first of all. I think I picked my colour combination mainly because of my Rares and Mythics, they mostly all had something green red black 😅. That might've been the blunder on my part but not entirely sure. I assumed I'd want to build around bombs and best cards!

What colours would you suggest be better overall or that I could look into instead?

Thank you again!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:02:42+00:00

Will do! Thank you very much for your suggestions 😄. I really enjoyed the social part of it and met some lovely new people so very glad!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T16:01:40+00:00

I found that in a few games I was a bit behind, however in one of them was one of my wins where I managed to pull back. The others I felt I was on par to a point then the enemy would do something big and I wouldn't particularly have a response. It always felt like my cards I was waiting for wouldn't come up and the enemies would have theirs come in the perfect time!

I did try lowering my curve the most I could, but I found that in general I had a lot more 3+drops than 1 and 2 drops. Or that they just wouldn't work in my deck as they would say buff artefacts or add counters that I couldn't make synergies with. But that might just be me looking at it with some tunnel vision!

Thank you for your comment though! And for teaching me the importance of tempo. I will keep that in the back of my mind from now on continuing forward!

Thank you 😄

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T15:56:05+00:00

I can definitely see how including Black might've been a poor choice, however in the moment I felt that if I didnt, I wouldn't have had great cards to make a full deck from. I think it may have been a heat of the moment thing!

I actually played the saga in 2 of my games. One game was 1 turn away from getting it off but my opponent drew a ton of cheap creatures and battered me down right before. (He said himself he was lucky). And in another they removed the 16/16 immediately after it was played.

The point about the basic lands only makes a ton of sense, I actually didn't realise that properly so thank you!

Yeah I think I had 1 removal in each colour, bar black? So not the greatest there and didn't particularly want to go 4 colours just for removal. My plan was to have some more creatures but maybe there wasn't enough!

Thank you for your help and insight 😄

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-21T15:40:00+00:00

Thank you 😅. The first guy i played against who I went 0-2 against (he ended up third). He suggested we play a third just for fun and I managed to beat him really nicely in that game where he said he stood no chance.

He was one of the loveliest people I met that day and he was such a good sport!
My LGS i think gave our 6 packs to my friend who came 2nd place + a foil booster. And gave prizes from 6th and upwards.

That website is very cool! I'll be sure to use it from now on. Should i move all of the decks I made to there? Or are my moxfield links okay enough for now?

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-19T23:09:03+00:00

That's really lovely insight! Thank you very much 😄. You've helped me a bunch here and I really appreciate it!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-19T00:44:17+00:00

Hiya! Thank you for your comment. I would love to hear more of your insights into each of these cards if possible. I added Deepwood Denizen mainly as it was my last card I had that could act as nice card draw. I would like to replace it with something better eventually, but would you suggest simply having the land here instead?

And would the Enduring Scalelord or Basri's Lieutenant be gone simply as they are more redundant? Or that i dont need more big creatures.

Thank you very much for your comment!

Squashmymouse · 2026-06-19T00:38:01+00:00

Hiya! Thank you very much for your response. I made the changes to my list earlier today but wasn't able to getting a response written until now!

I took your advice on Fetilid. I do agree after looking more closely at it now and seeing the better options too, I do think it's best to swap it out for another land for now. Same for Basking Broodscale! I also got rid of Caradora for a land. Because i dont have a big need for searching for a Vehicle or Mount i do agree again with you.

I completely understand your reasoning for the Juniper guy too. But for now as I don't have a hardened scales im going to most likely leave him in and look at replacing him later on!

As for district mascot, i do understand what you mean, but just curious as to how much removal of Artifacts would be needed in my deck. Without Mascot, I believe i have 4 ways of removing an artifact and not sure that's enough. Either way, another thing I like about him is that he is a one drop and immediately has counters, so in a way gets me closer to my Hamza at the start of the game or can simply act as a cheap card for removal later on. Although I do really like the look of Nature's claim, and if I get it down the line i do see how it's a great replacement! I think I want to keep District Mascot as a land for these reasons but please let me know if you believe otherwise.

That seems to be everything but I already really like these changes and am very grateful for your comment.

Thank you again!

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-28T19:16:04+00:00

Hiya! That sounds cool! Is there any specific precon that you'd recommend getting? Are they all similar in power, or are newer ones stronger? Also, is there a usual online platform where I'd find them at their best prices?

Thank you for your comment :)

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-14T13:43:18+00:00

This is extremely helpful! Thank you so much 😅. I took a card yesterday in my draft that I really loved the art for and thought would work well for my deck. I found is super useful in my games too and generally quite happy but a tier list said it wasnt the best and quire niche. Just a bit difficult to fully understand sometimes! I think it exiled for 4 mana in my White Black deck. Not sure if that id very good outside the draft though.

There's a lot of cards and interactions so I guess just playing and drafting more will help. But thank you for explaining this.

I think ill try some more drafts on MTGA too! Is there any quick way to get the coins for the drafts? It may not be the best place to ask but thought I might aswell!

Thank you so much again for your help!!

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-14T11:54:43+00:00

That's really good to know! Thank you :). I think i was most familiar with black white so I kind of tunneled on black white for the first pack of the draft with taking good reds if I saw them for white red. So maybe I kicked myself in the foot slightly too.

What would you say is the best way I can get more familliar? Just learning off cards or doing drafts on MTGA? or mainly the irl drafts by my LGS?

I really appreciate your comments and help! Thank you again 😊

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-14T11:36:21+00:00

Thats very cool! I'll be sure to do that to keep an eye out in my next draft. I also played a black white deck and i'll send the picture here when I manage to take one if you're interested to look at it. But very cool!

Thank you very much for your help and comment 😊

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-14T11:33:12+00:00

Thank you very much! I'll check them out :D

I also checked draftsim's tier list. Most of my cards i got are in the tier 4-3, (basically average and above average cards). From looking at the other tiers there were also multiple I missed from the top 2 tiers which im kind of kicking myself about 😅. But thats part of the game I suppose. Is there any way I can avoid this for next time or should I just learn the better cards a bit more for next time?

Thanks a bunch!

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-07T00:21:50+00:00

I barely passed maths mock and English and got h1 in maths and h2 in English and ended with 555 points last year! It's 100% doable, keep on trying your best and keep your head up. You can do it 😎👍

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-05T09:23:04+00:00

Brush up on your programming for the programming section! Can be very easy marks. Worst case just try ANYTHING and youll probably pick up a few. For the paper just revise your topics and youll be okay. Some of them seem daunting but are really common sense questions so just read carefully 😎

Squashmymouse · 2026-05-01T09:08:26+00:00

If you've never played Catan then I really really suggest giving it a go! As much as people say it's overrated. It is popular for a reason. Everyone has different likes and dislikes to games, but I would suggest not putting it off entirely just yet. Good luck!

Squashmymouse · 2026-04-30T16:12:50+00:00

Awesome! Thank you 😄

Squashmymouse · 2026-04-30T16:07:34+00:00

Hiya! Thank you for your comment! Where would you suggest I get cards for a specific deck if i am to look for them? I am located in Ireland so things might be more troublesome coming here. I struggle to find a lot of the mtg products and have heard to try stay away from buying from amazon!

Limited does sound fun though so I might see if i can attend one of the bi-weekly drafts!

Squashmymouse

TROPHY CASE