It was freezing outside yesterday, but I did gather my bag, dice, counters and headed off to the Philadelphia Convention Center to attend the regional Worldwake prerelease. I had hoped to be in the first flight but missed it by about 15 minutes. I arrived before 8am, signed up and realized that it was going to be a strange day: It was abnormally cold in the center. It appears that the far wing of the convention center was undergoing construction and there appeared to be no heat. Inside the room, it was warmer, but my hands were cold and I kept sitting on them to stay warm. Unlike most prereleases at the center, there were two rooms. Because the Philadelphia car show was yesterday also, I suspect that Gray Matter had a difficult time obtaining space.

After I registered, I sat down, chatted a bit and in about 15 mins. or so our pod started. I received 3 Zendikar and 3 Worldwake packs and built this deck:

Green

1 Canopy Cover
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Mold Shambler
1 Snapping Creeper
1 Leatherback Baloth
1 Baloth Woodcrasher
1 Grazing Gladehart
1 Gnarlid Pack
2 Bestial Menace
1 Groundswell

Black

1 Heartstabber Mosquito
1 Ruthless Cullblade
1 Blood Seeker
1 Pulse Tracker
1 Jagswasp Swarm
1 Tomb Hex
2 Guul Draz Vampire
1 Crypt Ripper
1 Malakir Bloodwitch

Artifact

2 Blazing Torch

Land

1 Piranha Marsh
7 Swamps
8 Forests

Pretty crappy deck, huh? I agree. I did pull a Creeping Tar Pit but as my blue cards were horrible, I couldn't justify splashing in blue. And I liked Chain Reaction in Red, but the rest of my red was horrible. White was a strong contender as I had an Emeria Angel, but I opted on going with the Malakir Bloodwitch as her being a 4/4, gaining me life and hurting my opponent (as I had a good many vampires) seemed like the best approach.

So, how did I do? Well, I'll say this upfront: I was so unimpressed with my card pool that I made a decision to stay for only 1 round as I had so many other things I had wanted to get done. Honestly, the cold temperatures in the center pretty much helped me make up my mind as I had been sick last weekend and didn't want to push it by sticking around for nothing. That might sound lame that I bailed so early, but with a family and lots of responsibilities on the weekend, I thought this would work best: I got some cards, tried them out and went home.

My first match up with against a red/black deck. We both needed to mulligan to 6. He had lots of land, not enough creatures and I won easily. What I noticed right off is the power of Groundswell. As I had 16 land in my deck, being able to hold one and drop it out before my attack phase really made a big different. At one point in the game, I had two Groundswell in my hand and was able to do 10 points of damage from one 2/2 creature. In Game 2, I was being beat down by the 3/3 Black Ooze land enchantment as I couldn't draw a creature to save me. My opening hand was 6 lands and the Bloodwitch. I hung in there, got down to 1 and, presto, the Bloodwitch, a well-timed Bestial Manance (this card rocks in sealed) and a Groundswell won me the game.

Green is a powerhouse in this sealed format. I'm glad I opted to play it and Black wasn't half bad itself. All in all, not the greatest of days as I didn't stay past one round, but I didn't want to get crushed by a bomb rare and have nothing (literally) to stop it.