Back in the day when we were updating our local Magic: the Gathering Iloilo tournaments via the previously-known social media platform, Friendster, we posted the coverage via snapshots of the players and their matches. It was so popular that we always make sure to upload our weekly events there but the sad thing is I wasn’t able to back up all of those pictures and a few videos of the games and other happenings of the community.
For today’s Thursday Throwback post, we have one relevant event that has become part of the special events of MTG Iloilo and that is the Magic: the Gathering Prerelease tournaments. Every time a new set is out, these events are sort of a first-hand experience of the new cards, mechanics, lore, and gameplay of the set. There is this hype and excitement of opening these booster packs, smelling the new cards, and building a deck out of your card pool. Before the existence of Prerelease kits, there were just six booster packs to compose the card components of your deck.
The Rise of the Eldrazi, the last set of the first Zendikar block, Iloilo Prerelease took place last April 17, 2010 and the venue was our local gamestore Rei’s Place in Solis Street, City Proper. There were about 14 to 16 players that time, ready to try the new set’s gameplay.
I think I got to build a Boros Level Up deck out of my card pool and I forgot what my record was. The prize structure was one booster pack per Round won and the top player I think got an extra pack and a Prerelease T-shirt. Set t-shirts were to most common prizes at that time. I also forgot who was the top finisher with a 4-0 record but it was between Oliver and Ericson in the final round.
While I longed that local Prerelease events will resume, the threat of the pandemic still would not allow this type of gathering. I do hope that the cases will lie low with the vast of people here who were already vaccinated. You can check more of the Rise of the Eldrazi Prerelease pics below, and a link to the FB album.
