Saturday was the Rivals of Ixalan Store Championship for my FLGS. In my previous post I wrote how I’d been tempted to enter because of the promo full art Steel Leaf Champion for participating. I’d also said I was going to use the tournament to test the new Challenger decks from WotC.

For the tournament I went with the Vehicle Rush deck, which after some very quick research in the morning was meant to be the stronger, more rounded of the four decks. Ok so I’ll go with that. Not played an artifact heavy deck before. So this was going to be a bit of a learning curve for me. Should I have stayed with a deck type I’m used to playing? Only time would tell.

Round 1 and I was up against the fabled Merfolk deck of Rob. John had spoken of this deck in hushed tones on Friday. Game 1 and I nearly took a win. Rob was down to 4 health, before his Ghalti and Merfolk did their job and steam rolled me. Our game 2 and once more Ghalti and those Merfolk just road all over me with me doing hardly if any damage.

I did get Rob to take a look at my mono black aggro deck, that is one card away from being standard legal. Swapping the 2 duress out to the sideboard and putting 2 Vraska’s contempt from the sideboard into the main deck was his main bit of advice. Rob also suggested looking at Kitesail Freebooter. Which I have considered in the past for this deck. I might put it in the sideboard to replace the non-standard legal cards. Otherwise he thought it wasn’t bad. I’ll take that from a much more experienced player.

Round 2 for me was a buy! So I was able to chill, take some photos for this post, watch a game or two.

Round 3 I was up against a player called Ben. In our first game, I did some damage, but he was beefing up creatures with cartouches left right and centre and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I was soon killed off. Our second game for me was a total train wreck. I was totally mana flooded. I had an initial had of one artifact creature and 6 lands, which I should have mulliganed. But I thought I’d risk it, surely I’d hit none lands for a few turns. But no it was land after land. Nothing I could do but lose.

The fourth and final round of the tournament had me up against a player called Dean. He was playing a dinosaur deck. I was a turn away from grabbing a win, when he played Ghalti, gave it haste and stole the victory. Not a great start. But then I bounced back and took our next game. It was down to the third and final game as the decider. Dean was getting land, but was not able to play much! I’d love to know what he had in his hand. But it meant I was able to do the unthinkable and win again and get a legit victory for the tournament.

At the end of the day my record for the tournament was 2-2, putting me in 6th place out of 9. Which meant I got a Top 8 deck box, the full art Steel Leaf Champion, and a participation booster pack of my choice (although Iconic Masters and Masters 25 were not included). I went with an Oath of the Gatewatch booster, but there was nothing in it of interest so like another player I gave those cards to a young lad who had taken part.

Why is Steel Leaf Champion my main prize and the reason I attended? A 3 cost, 5/4 elf that can’t be blocked by creatures with a power of 2 or less. That’s a powerful card. Which with the reprinted Llanowar Elf could be a turn 2 play. So you are hitting your opponent turn 3 for 5 damage. It can’t be easily taken out with lightning strikes or abrades. I’d have to look at other cards in Dominaria, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few decks built around this. I’m certainly going to be doing that. It’s something to look for in sealed events.

Ok let’s talk about these Challenger decks then. So I’ve played them against each other, and in a tournament that wouldn’t be too dissimilar to a FNM.

So Challenger decks are in WotC’s own words “intended to be playable and competitive right out of the box”.

In the rather attractive cardboard boxes you get standard legal 60 card deck, with a 15 card sideboard, plus a countdown life counter die.

So who is the target audience for these decks? I’d say new and returning players that want a deck that they can buy and play straight away at a FNM, and overtime up grade and make their own. And as WotC have said maybe win a game or two.

I know that at current card prices certain Challenger decks will sell a lot faster than others. That’s going to be mainly because for experienced players those decks represent a cheaper way to get their hands on copies of certain cards. So I’m hoping that WotC are doing a massive print run to keep these decks in stock for the intended audience to buy and play with.

I have to say playing these decks against each other was fun. In our limited number of games they seemed fairly balanced against each other. So I can see these being great for casual play also.

After the store championship today against competitive Magic players, I think the deck did as intended. For a precon it held it’s own. I won some games, lost more, but some of those games were fairly close also.

There is one fault with these decks. If the intended audience is the new and returning players, where are the tokens to go with these decks? This Vehicle Rush deck generates energy and 1/1 thopter tokens. So why weren’t these included? WotC give you the tokens needed with Commander decks. I’d argue that new players wouldn’t have the necessary tokens, and very likely nor would the returning player.

I’d definitely recommend these decks. They are fun to play, and give a solid basis to make the deck yours.