Category Archives: magic

magic

Deck plans

magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

One of the things I love about MtG is the deck building and how expressive that deck building allows a player to be. Often decks (at a casual level anyway) reflect the person that built them in some way. God knows what my decks say about me.

This post is a housekeeping post for me. It’s my list of Commander decks that I would like to build. I know this is boring for those that read this blog. But I need to keep a record somewhere and this list and keeping it up to date is that.

Everyone knows I’m old and have a failing memory. So before old age catches up with me, and makes me forget I’m adding a new deck idea to the list.

With the recent reprinting of Crucible of Worlds that allows lands to be played from the graveyard, and Scapeshift that allows you to fetch lands after sacrificing lands, it got me thinking about a deck using the graveyard as an extension of your hand of cards. Yeah not a new idea, and a little late to the party since Muldrotha was printed in Dominaria. To some extent the Kess wizards deck is this idea but for instants and sorceries.

And I thought I have Muldrotha, and now have Crucible of Worlds and Scapeshift. I have Eternal Witness and The Gitrog Monster. So some “key” pieces that I’d require for a deck based on this idea. So like the Horror from the deep deck idea, I have some key cards, I just need to start assembling the initial deck. With Muldrotha I want to play cards from the graveyard irrespective of their card type. So this may even see Kess make an appearance as one of the 99.

Here is the new list of deck ideas.

  • Muldrotha, the gravetide
  • Infect/wither deck (Atraxa as the commander possibly)
  • Atraxa deck upgraded
  • Horror from the deep
  • Death and Taxes
  • Care bear
  • Abuse etb – Brago, King Eternal as the commander
  • Saproling and fungus (go wide or go home!) possible Commander Slimefoot, the Stowaway
  • Naturally part of this post is my ramblings and initial thoughts for the deck. They may not make sense or even be feasible, or the final decks might be totally trash. We will have to wait on see on those fronts. In the meantime I need to be playing more Commander and getting use out of my existing decks.
  • Which brings me to…

    • Spoiler season started Sunday for the Commander 2018 decks (which are due to be in our grubby hands on 10th August). Each day this week the official spoilers will be based around one of the decks.

    The 2018 Commander decks will see Planeswalkers returning as Commanders. All 4 have been spoiled (due to a leak). I’ve only come across one good image of the officially spoiled Commander, which is Saheeli, the gifted. So I’ll share those as good images come available.

    There were also other cards spoiled yesterday which were all related to the Saheeli deck. I’ve highlighted the 3 cards from those cards that I can see going into other decks of mine.

    I do have a complete set of the 4 decks on pre-order. The decision for me now is which ones to double down on to use the cards in other decks. Out of the 2017 decks I got 3 out of the 4 to use for deck building or upgrading.
    At the moment the Commanders aren’t jumping out to me. However the themes

    • Izzet (Blue-Red) Artifacts “Exquisite Invention”
    • Jund (Black-Red-Green) Lands “Nature’s Vengeance”
    • Bant (White-Blue-Green) Enchantments “Adaptive Enchantment”
    • Esper (White-Blue-Black) Top of Library Matters “Subjective Reality”
  • very well might. Which will be fun to play? That will decide which I will want to upgrade.
  • Anyway I’m looking forward to the next lot of spoilers, and the complete deck lists when they eventually go up.

    • Angel Tribal Commander Initial Version

    Commander, Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building


    Back to back deck techs, this time it’s my initial version of my Angel Tribal deck. This was a deck that I had been planning and thinking about on and off for few months before it actually became a reality.

    Can you guess the game plan for this deck? Yep death from above. The flying version of big stompy. But it has a plan B! Plan B just so happens to be Approach of the Second Sun. Not much of a back up plan I know.

    The hardest decision for this deck for me I think was who to have the Commander. I nearly went with a multi-coloured Commander. But it was hard enough being mono coloured and cutting cards. Add in cards from another colour, and mana fixing cards.

    I’m so happy with the theme in this deck. It really comes across in the card names or the art.

    I did surprise myself that I didn’t go bigger on the tribal cards. I suppose it helps that a few of the angels give others buffs of some kind when played. Whether that’s +1/+1 counters, lifelink, vigilance, etc all of a sudden my battlefield can become quite scary.

    So let’s look at the stats etc for this deck.

    The AMC doesn’t surprise me. And considering that angels are generally costly creatures to cast, the mana curve is not a surprise either. What was a surprise was the cost of building the deck if I was to buy it today. Bloody hell it’s expensive. For a deck that’s meant to be a fun casual thing to play. Wow!

    Commander: Lyra Dawnbringer

    Here is that all unimportant deck list.

    Creatures:29

    1 Angelic Wall
    1 Angel of Condemnation
    1 Archangel of Tithes
    1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
    1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
    1 Restoration Angel
    1 Angel of Invention
    1 Angel of Sanctions
    1 Archangel of Thune
    1 Baneslayer Angel
    1 Herald of the Host
    1 Lyra Dawnbringer
    1 Reaper of Flight Moonsilver
    1 Serra Angel
    1 Aegis Angel
    1 Angel of Renewal
    1 Angel of the God-Pharaoh
    1 Linvala, the Preserver
    1 Serra’s Guardian
    1 Subjugator Angel
    1 Sunblast Angel
    1 Winged Shepherd
    1 Angel of Retribution
    1 Bruna, the Fading Light
    1 Emeria Shepherd
    1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
    1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
    1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
    1 Reya Dawnbringer

    Spells:36

    1 Authority of the Consuls
    1 Glaring Spotlight
    1 Land Tax
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Sensei’s Divining Top
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Swords to Plowshares
    1 Ashes of the Abhorrent
    1 Helm of Awakening
    1 Lightning Greaves
    1 Pearl Medallion
    1 Rest in Peace
    1 Take Vengeance
    1 Thought Vessel
    1 Entreat the Angels
    1 Herald’s Horn
    1 Invoke the Divine
    1 Teferi’s Protection
    1 Urza’s Incubator
    1 Angelic Accord
    1 Cast Out
    1 Day of Judgment
    1 Helm of the Host
    1 Leyline of Sanctity
    1 Regna’s Sanction
    1 Settle the Wreckage
    1 Thran Temporal Gateway
    1 Wrath of God
    1 Fumigate
    1 Gilded Lotus
    1 Vanquisher’s Banner
    1 Austere Command
    1 Hour of Revelation
    1 The Immortal Sun
    1 Approach of the Second Sun
    1 Overwhelming Splendor

    Lands:35

    1 Arcane Lighthouse
    1 Field of Ruin
    33 Plains

    So that is my initial angel deck. What next? Well there are some new cards in Core set 2019 that I want to look at. Will they be good enough to force their way in?

    Big Green Stompy Commander Deck

    Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

    This is my initial big green stompy Commander deck. It’s a simple game plan, swing in with big stompy green beasts. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts there seems to be a theme/game plan I like. Unlike a couple of my decks I like playing this is not a Tribal deck.

    A disclaimer I don’t usually make but it holds true for all my decks, these Commander decks are not meant to be competitive, but fun casual decks. The inspiration for this deck was to play big stompy green creatures. So that was the criteria for selecting most of the creatures in the deck. Big stompy creatures aren’t cheap to cast so I’ve tried to make use of greens natural ability to ramp.

    Commander: either Yeva, Nature’s Herald or Melira, Sylvok Outcast.


    Most of the time the commander is going to be Yeva, giving flash to my green creatures. However if you know you are up against an infect/whither deck then Melira becomes the commander.

    The big elephant in the room as the stats for the deck below will show is that this deck is about 5 – 9 lands short from the number people would normally be comfortable with. So why am I not worried, and settling for 25 lands in total?

    Well for starters I have Leaf Gilder, Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic and Boreal Druid that tap for mana. Rishkar, Peema Renegade gives each creature with a counter on it the ability to tap for mana. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger adds an extra mana per land I tap (plus slows down opponents). I have 7 sorceries that allow me to go fetch at least one land if not more. 3 mana rocks in the form of artifacts. 3 artifacts that give me a discount on spells. 6 enchantments and an artifact that boost mana production.

    So even with a lowish number of lands I should be generating an awful lot of mana. Mana that will be sunk into the mana sinks I have in the deck. Which is basically the hydra. The more I can throw into these beasts when I cast them the better. Even funnier is if I have Doubling Season and/or Primal Vigor out at the time. Then these become scary big.

    This vanity casual deck isn’t cheap to build. According to the decked app and its link to CardKingdom its more expensive than I was expecting. I am taken aback little by the costing. Doubling Season alone shows why I proxy in the card, and produce it when it is needed. I think it’s in 3 decks at the moment.

    Ok here is the initial deck list.

    Creatures:34

    1 Boreal Druid
    1 Elvish Mystic
    1 Feral Hydra
    1 Hungering Hydra
    1 Llanowar Elves
    1 Mistcutter Hydra
    1 Hooded Hydra
    1 Leaf Gilder
    1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
    1 Primordial Hydra
    1 Deathgorge Scavenger
    1 Eternal Witness
    1 Lifeblood Hydra
    1 Managorger Hydra
    1 Rhonas the Indomitable
    1 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
    1 Steel Leaf Champion
    1 Thrashing Brontodon
    1 Elvish Piper
    1 Ivy Lane Denizen
    1 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
    1 Gigantosaurus
    1 Verdurous Gearhulk
    1 Aggressive Mammoth
    1 Carnage Tyrant
    1 Hydra Broodmaster
    1 Hydra Omnivore
    1 Oran-Rief Hydra
    1 Rampaging Baloths
    1 Greater Sandwurm
    1 Tornado Elemental
    1 Khalni Hydra
    1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
    1 Ghalta, Primal Hunger

    Spells:41

    1 Adventurous Impulse
    1 Attune with Aether
    1 Forced Adaptation
    1 Lay of the Land
    1 Sensei’s Divining Top
    1 Silent Gravestone
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Unbridled Growth
    1 Aim High
    1 Blackblade Reforged
    1 Bonds of Mortality
    1 Emerald Medallion
    1 Gaea’s Blessing
    1 Karametra’s Favor
    1 Land Grant
    1 Lightning Greaves
    1 Moss Diamond
    1 Song of Freyalise
    1 Thought Vessel
    1 Beastmaster Ascension
    1 Crushing Canopy
    1 Cultivate
    1 Gift of Paradise
    1 Growing Rites of Itlimoc
    1 Nissa’s Pilgrimage
    1 Retreat to Kazandu
    1 Rhonas’s Monument
    1 Helm of the Host
    1 Pir’s Whim
    1 Return to the Earth
    1 Whirlwind
    1 Doubling Season
    1 Overwhelming Stampede
    1 Primal Vigor
    1 The Mending of Dominaria
    1 Caged Sun
    1 The Immortal Sun
    1 Wave of Vitriol
    1 Zendikar Resurgent
    1 Praetor’s Counsel
    1 The Great Aurora

    Lands:25

    1 Arcane Lighthouse
    1 Detection Tower
    20 Forest
    1 Scavenger Grounds
    1 Temple of the False God
    1 Tranquil Thicket

    Naturally this isn’t the final deck list. Decks are living breathing things. New cards come out, you find an existing card that would work better. Who knows I may have to adjust the mana base up. I’ve only played this deck once. It seemed to work, and got to do its thing. But it needs more play.

    Core Set 2019 Magic League Alert

    magic, Magic League, MtG

    This coming Saturday sees the start of Core Set 2019 Magic League at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. To be fair it’s Magic League at every LGS and FLGS.

    For those wondering what Magic League is (apart from an excuse for WotC and the FLGS to get you to buy booster packs) it’s a fun league format aimed at allowing new and returning players to play with experienced players, without having to worry about the experienced players having a much larger card collection.

    Basically you buy 3 booster packs from the current set (usually) and build a 30 card deck from the cards you open up from those boosters. You also get when you sign up for the league a collection box (that you need to make – ie fold together, to store your cards in) and a score card to record your game results on.

    Then over a period of 4 weeks you play games of MtG using the deck you have just constructed against other players in the league.

    But what if my deck is no good? Well during the league period, you have a sideboard of the cards that you got in your initial 3 booster packs, however each week you are allowed to buy another booster pack to help strengthen your deck. Or after every 3 losses you are also allowed to buy a booster pack (see why I said it’s an excuse to sell booster packs?) to once again strengthen your deck.

    At the end of the 4 weeks if you have played 10 or more games in the league you get a promo card as your reward.

    This time it’s the rather spiffy land Reliquary Tower with alt art.

    I actually like this format, it’s my preferred in store way to play MtG. The Prerelease is similar in some respects because it’s building a deck from your Prerelease packs and then playing.

    See you at the league.

    Anyone seen a Nico Bolas?

    magic, MtG

    Yesterday I took a quick journey to pick up from my purveyor of fine cardboard products my order of products that became available this weekend.

    When I got there, there was an 8 person draft in full swing. After exchanging some pleasantries and other social interactions with the owner of the establishment, and a social participant of said event (who had already built their deck) I departed and headed off home. Not before stopping off at the local Aldi to pick up the milk I had been sent out for.

    Although there was only 8 at this Saturday daytime draft event (and they are much more serious than the fun loving pre-release crowd, look at those sourpuss faces concentrating). Rumour on the street was that the FNM draft was rather well attended.

    Once home having completed my mission and side quest, I set up and recorded some videos of me opening stuff. Yes you read that right there are more videos coming of me saying very little, and what I do say being boring as shite.

    One thing I didn’t video was this, the 30th anniversary edition of the Star Wars RPG. This has finally arrived on the shelves of your FLGS. It was due last September time, so just a tad late.


    I know FFG have their own Star Wars RPG series, but this is the original. I don’t remember playing it, I was more MERPs, Paranoia and a little D&D at Poly. But this is something we can look at for our new RPG group at Fenland Gamers at some point. We had our first game of that last Wednesday. I’m playing a halfling wizard (and I’ve found a miniature online of this combo,which just so happens to be on its way) called Dram. I’ve still to come up with a back story, and once I get my character sheet back I’ll introduce you to him. Just realised I’m going to have to paint my figure! A summer hols project.

    This also arrived yesterday. These art books are pretty cool, especially if you are a MtG fan. They also along with plane shift rules allow you to run a D&D 5e campaign on the covered planes. So a great way to combine RPG and MtG (possibly – I’ve not tried them yet). Sadly the Dominaria Plane Shift hasn’t been released yet.

    I have to admit I’d like to try this D&D and MtG mashup at least once. But I think I’d be more tempted to try and take this over to the FFG Genesys system. Although once again I’ve not played anything with this system yet. From my reading of the core rules I think it might be better suited. But the nice thing is these Plane Shift rules are free from WotC.

    I’m ending this post with evidence that Nico Bolas is indeed the most powerful Planeswalker there is, with him sitting in front of the defeated Nicol Bolas.

    Upgraded Wizards 2017 Commander Deck

    Deck tech, magic, MtG, MtG Deck Building

    “phew! 3 days of boring videos over” I hear you say. Sadly for you I’m following those videos up with some extra boring posts. Welcome to the first of those cures for insomnia.
    I do like playing this deck, the majority of it’s current state is based on the $20 Budget Upgrade for the Arcane Wizardry 2017 Commander deck on the MTGGoldfish web site. You may have noticed from one or two other decks I’ve used them as the starting point for taking a precon and making it my own more than once. The nice thing about this site and the articles is that these are budget upgrades that the majority of people can afford.

    I would not let a new player use this deck as their first deck to pilot. There needs to be a lot of attention paid to what is going on. And there is also a fair bit of decision making to make also on your turn. And it’s these two things that make this deck fun for me to play with.

    The Commander I went for with the 2017 precon was Kess, Dissident Mage. I liked the plan of attack for Kess over the one for Inalla. I went spell-slinger over wizards. Hey we are wizards we should be slinging spells. It’s thematic.


    Ok something I keep forgetting in this type of post, here is the mana curve for the deck as done by the Decked app.

    As an exercise I got the app to also price the deck up based on the CardKingdom prices at the time of writing, and it weighed in at a few cents shy $132. Sensei’s Divining Top and The Immortal Sun account for roughly $38 of this price. Which happen to be two of the cards I swapped in. That’s not bad if you are buying the singles. But I’m sure the original precon can be picked up for around the original price, so it should be possible to put this together for half that if you stick to the original posts budget upgrade list.

    Here is the all important deck list:

    Creatures:15

    1 Young Pyromancer
    1 Izzet Chemister
    1 Sea Gate Oracle
    1 Shadowmage Infiltrator
    1 Archaeomancer
    1 Kess, Dissident Mage (Commander)
    1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
    1 Bloodline Necromancer
    1 Body Double
    1 Izzet Chronarch
    1 Magus of the Future
    1 Mercurial Chemister
    1 Prognostic Sphinx
    1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
    1 Arcanis the Omnipotent

    Spells:47

    1 By Force
    1 Dark Ritual
    1 Faithless Looting
    1 Sensei’s Divining Top
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Spell Pierce
    1 Cabal Ritual
    1 Comet Storm
    1 Dimir Signet
    1 Fellwar Stone
    1 Go for the Throat
    1 Helm of Awakening
    1 Increasing Vengeance
    1 Into the Roil
    1 Izzet Signet
    1 Rakdos Charm
    1 Rakdos Signet
    1 Reality Shift
    1 Reverberate
    1 Terminate
    1 Burning Vengeance
    1 Commander’s Sphere
    1 Crosis’s Charm
    1 Darksteel Ingot
    1 Frantic Search
    1 Sage’s Dousing
    1 To the Slaughter
    1 Unstable Obelisk
    1 Worn Powerstone
    1 Diabolic Tutor
    1 Insidious Will
    1 Jace’s Sanctum
    1 Memory Plunder
    1 Primal Amulet
    1 Syphon Mind
    1 Dark Petition
    1 Increasing Ambition
    1 Mana Geyser
    1 Metallurgic Summonings
    1 Silumgar’s Command
    1 Mind’s Desire
    1 Opportunity
    1 Spelltwine
    1 The Immortal Sun
    1 Kindred Dominance
    1 Necromantic Selection
    1 Decree of Pain

    Lands:38

    1 Arcane Lighthouse
    1 Command Tower
    1 Crumbling Necropolis
    1 Dimir Aqueduct
    1 Dismal Backwater
    1 Evolving Wilds
    1 Grixis Panorama
    10 Island
    1 Izzet Boilerworks
    1 Jwar Isle Refuge
    4 Mountain
    1 Mystifying Maze
    1 Rakdos Carnarium
    1 Scavenger Grounds
    6 Swamp
    1 Swiftwater Cliffs
    1 Temple of the False God
    1 Terramorphic Expanse
    1 Vivid Crag
    1 Vivid Creek
    1 Vivid Marsh

    Now this post isn’t the end of me talking about this deck. The next post will be looking at whether I have new cards that should be in this deck, and if so what do they replace?

    Core set 2019 Cracking packs from a booster box

    magic, MtG

    We have reached the final video in this little mini series.

    That’s it for the week on the video front. There will be another at some point over the next weekend. Well maybe. I need to sort out the filming so I am not filming with the curtains closed and getting that awful red tint to everything. Another factor to take into account will be can I be bothered at the weekend to set up everything to film me opening a Core set 2019 Bundle? Plus I need to decide if this is worth doing. Is this of interest to people. Mind you considering how many people read this blog, and the number of views these videos have been getting, the ratio isn’t bad I suppose. Luckily I’m doing neither for fame, fortune and all those other reasons. We’ll see how bored I am, how hot it is, and any other factors that may influence my decision.

    That last panel may or may not be me when I am doing these videos.

    Core set 2019 Prerelease Event

    Game day, magic, MtG

    This weekend is Core 19 Prerelease weekend. That magical time for Magic players where they get to play with the cards from the newest set a week early. And thanks once more to the benevolence of our overlords WotC, store owners were also allowed to sell to eager players like myself a whole week early booster boxes (with while supplies lasted the second, more controversial buy-a-box promo).

    I think WotC must had arranged this Prerelease weekend specifically for me. That, or it’s just pure coincidence that it coincides with The Rose Fair. An annual event in my home town, that sees lorries driving really slowly round the town with their trailers poorly decorated around a theme, and occupied with people that have even less of a life than myself. I think the technical term for these is floats. It’s such a massive inconvenience, but it brings in trade to the town I suppose.

    Without the Prerelease I’d have been stuck at home, having to suffer The Rose Fair and hot weather. Instead I got to leave early so I wasn’t trapped in my idea of hell, and make my way to my FLGS ready to play some Magic.

    Naturally I was early, so the FLGS wasn’t open. While waiting for it to open some of my ex-students turned up. They too were there for the Prerelease and hopefully get a game of Commander in.

    While waiting for the Prerelease to start, I cracked open one of my booster boxes. As did one or two of my ex-students who had also bought a booster box. I won’t bore you here with what I pulled but there will be a short YouTube video up in the next couple of days with the highlights. But I will say this was super fun, cracking packs, seeing what others had got. I liked the social aspect of it.

    It was time to open our Prerelease kits and start building a deck. I got a blue life countdown die, my promo wasn’t great. I did get a second crucible of worlds, but more importantly for this sort of event I got cards I could build a deck with. Or I thought I had. I went black/red with a little bit of graveyard shenanigans. Found out a bit later that there was a foil Nicol Bolas pulled. Sweet.

    My first game was against a returning player to Magic Lauren. Her deck was good, which her final position of second, and zero losses proved. Losing 1-2 to her was not bad. I know one or two (which included an ex-student) got wiped out 2-0. So winning a game was an achievement. I was happy because I got to play crucible of worlds, played some lands from my graveyard, pulled some creatures back from the graveyard (well until Lauren kindly exiled my graveyard). It was doing its thing.

    My next game was against Grant. I’d played against Grant at a previous Prerelease. I won that match up. History was not to repeat itself. This time Grant won 1-2.
    I have to say I really enjoy playing against Grant. There is friendly banter, a laugh and joke. Actually it was the same with Lauren as well. Sometimes there are people you don’t like playing against because they are not fun. They take it way too serious, or lack that social interaction skill (who knew Magic players with poor social skills?) But Grant and Lauren I’d gladly play against any day.

    Lauren even joined in the banter against an ex-student, and totally crushed him in their game.

    My third match was against Charlie, who I beat 2-1. Our first game I won due to a massive misplay by Charlie that gave me the win. He then redeemed himself by taking the next game. I was able to take the tie breaker in a closely fought third game.

    Throughout the day between rounds, it was “how’d you do?”, or checking out how others were doing if they were still playing. And being the supportive friends encouraging their opponent to smash them.

    Before the final round an ex-student and I pitched our Prerelease decks against each other seeing as we hadn’t been drawn against each other. That ended in a win each.

    I didn’t get a fourth round game because some players had left without saying anything to the organisers to go watch I’m assuming the England match. So the person I was matched up with was awol for possibly the reason I’d given. Which meant I had a buy. I’ll take a win anyway I can.

    That meant I finished 12th out of 26. Which is respectable. But more importantly I finished above my ex-students.

    After opening our 2 participation packs, we sat down for a game of Commander.

    Charlie hadn’t played with us before, so wasn’t aware of our social contract. The social contract we came up with, and is one used also with the Fenland Gamers MtG group is in Commander, no mass land destruction, no going infinite. These two things are not fun. It’s why I have 2 versions of my mono red deck. The mass land destruction version doesn’t get played. Only time it has was when my ex-students allowed my to test playing the deck while I was building it. My mono red can do multiple combat phases, at most a couple, it can’t do them infinitely. I’ve deliberately not even looked into going infinite.

    Charlie had a couple of cards that destroyed all permanents. He had to fire one of them off to stop another player. It was basically a game restart. It wasn’t fun, and basically handed the game to the player who Charlie was trying to stop. But up until that point my big green stompy had been doing its thing. Building up a threat, being annoying.

    Game 2 was a rushed affair really. Which saw me lose the game in a game of rock, paper, scissors that we used to decide the winner between the final 2 of us left in the game.

    Thanks to John the owner of my FLGS The Hobbit Hole you get the chance (some may even call it lucky) to see me in action as third Magic player at the back!

    It really was a great Prerelease. Everyone was having fun, lots of smiles on people’s faces as they played. I played Magic with some fun people. It was really cool meeting up with my ex-students, and getting to the chance to play some Magic with some of them. Yeah this was probably my best Prerelease to-date. An amazing day.