For the first A.W.O.L. tournament after the release of Trial by Frost, I brought the tempo Gulrang list I’d been tweaking since the previous set, updated with some of her new goodies. The deck ended up going 4-2 on the day for 30th of 113. Changes The last time I played Gulrang during Beyond the Gates. Geyser (F) is the biggest upgrade that tempo Gulrang received in Trial by Frost. The defender line on her hero ability is a serious downside, so turning it off a whole turn earlier is massive....

I opened a case of Trial by Frost and wanted to share the uniques I pulled, as well as some of the stats about the case. If you can afford to, make sure to buy locally to support the game stores that are running Altered events! Overview Unique count Total uniques: 29 Uniques per box: 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 5 Missing rares Six boxes left me just 9 rares short of a complete Trial by Frost playset (3x of each rare)....

This is the sealed deck from my third and final Trial by Frost pre-release. I finally managed to open a unique! The pool First impressions: My pool doesn’t have any of the top-tier Trial by Frost heroes: Sigismar & Wingspan, Kojo & Booda, or Fen & Crowbar I briefly considered Gulrang & Tocsin. Two copies of Flutter of Moths (C) and a Moth to a Flame (C) would be strong finishers, and two Sunisa, Dedicated Ensigns might be able to turn off defender if things line up right....

This was the sealed deck I played at the second Trial by Frost pre-release I attended. The pool First impressions: Kojo & Booda and Fen & Crowbar are two very strong options for heroes, which is fortunate because Bravos and Lyra are also my strongest factions. Bravos is very deep and offers a great aggressive curve with four copies of Fire Rabbit. Lyra is not as deep, but it has two copies each of three excellent characters: Snowball Commando (C), Nisse (C), and Nyala, Gifted Conjurer (C)....

This was the sealed deck I built for my first Trial by Frost pre-release. The pool First impressions: Fen & Crowbar are the generically strongest hero in my pool. Lyra is very light on playable characters, however, so I would need to support her with two other deep factions. Axiom is very deep. The quantity of strong 2 and 3-drops mean this is a faction I’m always including. The pool has four copies of The Nilam, Withered Tree across Axiom and Yzmir, and they synergize with each other....

The deck When I last played Auraq, I thought of the deck as an aggro deck that could sometimes finish the game with Hydracaena (F). This iteration doubles down on winning with Hydracaena by making it easier to play from hand thanks to ramp and cost-reduction support abilities. The aggro gameplan ensures you get as many uses of your hero ability as possible. You want to be able to close out the game before your opponent is able to find removal for your Hydracaenas....

Today’s weekly event at my LGS ended up being just me and one other person, so we decided to crack open some packs and play a few games of sealed as a send-off to Beyond the Gates. The pool Here are the first things I noticed about the pool I opened: Kojo & Booda are the strongest hero I have access to. Bravos offers a ton of strong 2 and 3-drops....

I brought a mostly unchanged version of my Fen spells list to the A.W.O.L. Season 1 Invitational. It’s my favorite deck to play and the one I’m most comfortable with, but I also think it’s well-suited against most of the decks I expected to see: Treyst & Rossum: An early A Cappella Training (C) can grind scrap counter progress to a halt, and Cloth Cocoon (C) can shut down the late-game Haven plan....

The deck Putting this deck together was an exercise in reverse-engineering. To start, Sierra needs three copies of Brassbug Hive (R) as her win-condition. She wants to run three copies of Mechanical Training (C) to close out the game with Brassbug Hive, but they also need to not be dead cards before a Brassbug Hive is online. This means including some combination of Armored Jammer, Haven, Bravos Bastion (R), The Foundry, Axiom Bastion (R), Axiom Reprocessor (R), and The Ouroboros, Lyra Bastion (F)....

This week, I brought Atsadi & Surge to the ACE Week 5 tournament, where the deck went 4-1 in single-elimination for 2nd place out of 22. The deck The last time I played this deck. The deck has the same philosophy as last time: you can afford to play fast and loose with your resources since Atsadi’s hero ability will help you recoup the cards and then some. If you’re able to ramp enough, you can use your mana advantage to pass priority and play your large characters once your opponent is unable to react....