I am writing and presenting today the report on the Magic Core Set 2020 Prerelease held at Robinsons Jaro and promoted by Pro Reis place local game store. To begin with, we started our pre-registration of the event at our MTG Iloilo Facebook group with 36 slots available. It was a somewhat late announcement but the players deliberately commented to reserve their slots. By one week before the event, it was already close to 30 player reservations.

The next concern was if we will be expecting a delay in the products. We had continuously experienced it since the Guilds of Ravnica prerelease and every time it happens, there is a valid reason. No major weather disturbances were experienced in the weeks prior so I am hopeful that our PR kits will arrive on time. Indeed, it was. Rei contacted me Thursday that the kits have already arrived at his store. It was good news which I immediately announced to the group.

Our venue was at Robinson’s place Jaro activity area and it was confirmed by Rino to the Robinsons Administration a week before the event. The only concern was that the tables to use and we only had limited tables at Reis. We arranged with Part Lee of Nth Dimension if we can borrow his foldable tables after his Friday night Prerelease. He agreed to lend them and to deliver the tables early Saturday morning. I was ready on that Friday night in case we needed to ingress the tables but Rino informed us that we will be doing it on Saturday morning. It gave me sufficient time to prepare my sleeves, dices, and basic lands for deck building. 

Come Saturday morning, Rino updated us again that Robinsons was able to provide the tables and that we don’t need to bring ours. It was another good news so I catch more sleep that morning until 11 am. I then prepared to go to Robinsons Jaro as it was two rides from my bhaus. I arrived at the venue at past noon and found one person guarding Rei’s package. He said other players who arrived earlier took their lunch at the nearby fast foods. I then decided to also grab a cheeseburger at Jollibee for my fill.

More of the registered players arrived and we were able to start the event at 1:15 pm. We sat down and Rei distributed the products (PR kits) according to the reservation list. We started opening the packs and deck build right after that.

My PR foil card was the Green Legendary Hydra and I hoped for that color-based deck to build. After opening all of the booster packs, most of the cards were leaned towards Red and fortunately Green with a Rare and Mythic card opened. I looked at the other colors but they seemed to lack strategy and synergy. I then sorted the Red and Green pile according to playable spells and creatures.

Here is a preview of what deck I built for the Prerelease.

Coreset 2020 Prerelease Tournament Report

The two Green rares were Gargos, Vicious Watcher and Wakeroot Elemental. This was supported by a few Green pump spells, a Rabid Bite, and some mana dudes to ramp them early into the battlefield. It accidentally turned into a Red-Green Elementals deck because of the creatures I’ve included and there is Chandra, Novice Pyromancer for the tribal support.

Here below is a recap of my Swiss rounds matchup and results.

Rd 1 vs Red-Green (Doni): Won 2-1
Rd 2 vs Green-White-Black (Erl): Won 2-0
Rd 3 vs Red-Green (Cheljohn): Won 2-1
Rd 4 vs Blue-White (Oliver): Conceded to opponent

As we are teammates facing in the final round of Swiss, I decided to just let Oliver take the win as the prize booster pack will still be shared to the card pool. There aren’t any what-a-move play in the games as it was purely ramped into your big guys and win. I’d mention though Chandra’s relevance in almost all of the matchups as I benefited most in all her 3 abilities i.e. getting through the damage with the +2/+0 on all your Elementals and Shocking the opponent for final two points of damage.

Overall, the Coreset 2020 is a much enjoyable set in Limited and I can’t wait to play in another Sealed or Draft event provided that the local players would want to schedule one.

Lastly here are some of the other pics I took during the PR event.

That is wrap for this Coreset 2020 Prerelease recap report. Until the next blog post.