My Kaladesh prerelase experience

I played the Kaladesh prerelease. Overall I was very impressed by the format. It seemed like tons of fun. I was poorly prepared and it felt almost like back in the day when I had to read all of the cards.

The new league structure is fantastic. No longer did I need to book six consecutive hours to my wife's despair - no, now I could just play the matches at my convenience. Very neat.

This is the pool I was presented with and the deck building decisions I made. What deck would you have built?



Red Green was very strong. In all the matches I played except the last one, a RG deck won the match. Sadly, however, that deck was not always one.

The first match clearly showed me the power of my deck as I crushed my opponent with RG violence.



In the second match I once again applied brute force and beat my UG Energy opponent to a pulp.




So much violence!

After that it did not go too well. You can see the rest of the matches in the playlist provided below:

Tales from the Magic 2015 Prerelease

When I am writing this I just finished my 5th M15 Prerelease Sealed (its good to have bots).

My first impression
* The sealed format is faster than the M14 draft format, but not by much. 7-drops are playable.
* The blue and the green prerelease cards are reasons not to choose those colors.
* The white and the red prerelease cards are good but expensive. Siege Dragon is a nuisance for many decks.
* Indulgent Tormentor is broken and by far the best card. I have taken black every time and never looked back.
* Red seems like the best color if you ignore the prerelease cards.

A sample tournament

In this (my 5th event, #3 on the my Youtube Channel) I once again selected Black but ended up with two of the white prerelease card as well - Resolute Archangel.

This was my deck

1 Evolving Wilds
8 Plains
9 Swamps

1 Typhoid Rats
1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
1 Oreskor Swiftclaw
1 Bronze Sable
1 Carrion Crow
1 Witch's Familiar
1 Gargoyle Sentinel
1 Razorfoot Griffin
1 Gravedigger
1 Rotfeaster Maggot
2 Shadowcloak Vampire
1 Indulgent Tormentor
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
2 Resolute Archangel

1 Ulcerate
1 Sign in Blood
1 Pillar of Light
1 Solemn Offering
1 Stab Wound
1 Triplicate Spirits


I had seen so many artifacts in the format that I decided to maindeck one Solemn Offering. I am not sure that was correct.

I go through my decisions when building the deck in this video.



These are the first three rounds, all of them wins. Some easy, some very hard.



In the fourth round I faced a really good Simic deck in the final. He had great synergies with bouncing guys and ETB creatures (such as the Hydra). Could my broken prerelease cards win the day?

Me and my buddies will play more M15 prerelease events. You can follow it all in the below playlist



I hope you enjoy this new core set as much as I do.

ML Bot for Mtgo v4 switchover

Hello botters,

As you probably already know, mtgo v3 will be retired soon and mtgo v4 will be the only official mtgo client. The announcement from Chris Kiritz can be found here and gives July as a date, right before the release of M15.

Our plan is to release the ML Bot client for mtgo v4 two weeks before the switchover so everyone will have the time to update their bots. This will not be a "beta", testing is no more required - this will be the official "first version" of the bot for mtgo v4.

In order to make the transaction smooth, we will be online 24/7 on LiveChat and on Skype (our account is "mtgolibrary.support"). You will probably need to add more ram to your virtual machines because Mtgo v4 needs more ram than v3 (2gb per machine are recommended). We will provide some virtual machines in case you need a good starting point. Please make sure you can install and launch Mtgo v4 on your machines and that it runs without crashes - we are in fact aware of some users unable to load Mtgo v4 properly.

We will run some v4 bots next week (we'll give the names), feel free to trade with them and write us the feedback.

Spotlight Beta testing

Hello Botters,

V4 Beta testing has resumed! 

With the Mtgo v4 spotlight coming up May 7th -10th we have decided to run a private ML bot v4 beta testing to qualified customers. If you would like to apply please write to staff@mtgolibrary.com a brief email how you could be a beneficial tester for ML Bot.

Applicants must meet the follow criteria:

- Have the ability to watch for error/bugs and report them
- Must run more than 8 bots.
- Have been using ML Bot for more than 24 months.
- Not hold ML Bot accountable for any bugs or losses.


The new bot software will have all same great features as the old software, auto-transfers are improved and will have few new secret features.

All applicants will be picked based on availability and longevity of botting. One benefit is that you will be one of the few bots online during the Spotlight.


Happy Botting!

Jason - Teamsotge.

Two videos from the Born of the Gods prerelease

The first two players on the MagicGatheringStrat team have played the Prerelease.

Brennon takes on this Prerelease Event



Julien crushes this Prerelease draft and has some great insights into the format:





You will find more Born of the Gods videos on Youtube.com/MagicGatheringStrat

The details of the Born of the Gods Prerelease and Release Events can be found here: https://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/01132014