Good morning, loyal readers! Today’s Tournament Tuesday Tip will be covering this weekend’s Prerelease for Journey into Nyx, the last set of the Theros block! Whether it’s your very first prerelease, or the newest conquest in your storied Magical history, we hope these tips are useful to you!

First, we’ll go over the basic format of the event. This prerelease, like the rest of the Theros Block, will be a “Seeded Deck” event. That’s a lot like SEALED, but a little different. Instead of just being given your packs, you’ll be asked to choose a color, and be given a prerelease pack corresponding to that color. Inside will be 2 packs of Journey into Nyx, 1 pack of Born of the Gods, 2 packs of Theros, your prerelease promo card (different one for each color!), and your “Seeded” pack.  That “seeded” pack is different from a normal booster, though – it’ll contain ONLY cards from Journey into Nyx, and they’ll mostly be in your chosen color! The pack is also guaranteed to have a rare card in your chosen color, or a Mythic Rare GOD card that shares your color (but ONLY a God – it won’t hold any other mythic!). So for example, if you choose the “Forged in Tyranny” (black) prerelease pack, your Seeded Pack would have mostly black cards, and it could possibly have either Athreos or Pharika as the mythic gods in the rare slot. It will also have, guaranteed, a Doomwake Giant promo.

Now, onto the actual construction! Here’s the fun part. From those 6 booster packs, plus your promo (yes, you CAN play your promo in the prerelease!), you’ll build a deck. It must be at least 40 cards, but there’s no maximum – you’ll generally want to stick as close to 40 as you can for consistency, though. Your tournament organizer should provide you with the basic lands you need to finish your deck (it’s always nice for you to give that land back at the end of the tournament, too). You’ll have an announced time limit to open your packs, look over your awesome new cards, and put together your deck. Then, it’s on to the playing! How many rounds it’ll be is up  to the people running the tournament, mostly, so be sure to ask if they don’t tell you. Prereleases are also a rather ‘laid back’ environment, rules-wise; think of it as a step up from your kitchen table. One of the cool things about prereleases being casual is that (with rare exceptions) you don’t use decklists for your sealed decks – you can completely change them between games and matches and not have to change them back! You can also 100% legally get help from friends as far as deckbuilding goes – once you sit for your match, they can’t help you out, but if your opponent offers to give you advice after your match, you can take it! We want everyone to have fun, and we want a real sense of community and education – what better way to foster that than to allow more skilled players to help the newer ones build stronger decks? So feel free to brag about the foil Mythic you pulled, or ask your buddy between rounds if he thinks you should splash blue.

The last couple of things are just quick little bullet points – please don’t trade your cards during the event! We need you to play the whole event (or however long you’ll play that event) with the cards you opened, so if your friend wants to trade you for that sick foil Godsend you opened, wait until the event is done! And lastly, if you have a question, ask a judge. I’ll cover that more on Friday, but for right now, be aware that “Ask A Judge” should be your default solution to any question you might not know the answer to!

Today’s Prerelease Tournament Tip was written by Trevor Nuñez