Prerelease events for Magic: The Gathering's Final Fantasy set start this Friday and continue through next week. This is your first chance to get your hands on the new set and compete in a casual tournament against other local Magic players for prizes like extra booster packs. While these events are pretty common, and most Magic: The Gathering players are likely familiar with how they work, any Final Fantasy fans checking out the game for the first time might be a little lost.

Final Fantasy will be the first sets like Magic's Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender crossovers are also likely to attract new fans to the game who have never attended a Prerelease before. Although these vents aren't overly competitive, it still helps to know what to expect from them.

What To Expect From A Magic: The Gathering Prerelease Event

Prerelease Events Are Casual Tournaments Where Players Build Decks From Sealed Booster Packs

Magic: The Gathering Prerelease events all follow the same basic structure: you are given a Prerelease Pack that contains six sealed booster packs and a random promotional card from the new set. Then, using only the contents of your Prerelease Pack, you are given about an hour to construct a 40-card deck. Following deck construction, you will play three Swiss rounds against the other attendees. Matches are determined based on wins, so even if you get stomped the first time, you may end up facing an opponent at a more comparable skill level in subsequent rounds.

Everything you need to construct a deck is in your Prerelease Pack, except for Basic Lands, which stores provide. If you want to protect your new cards, you may want to pick up a pack of card sleeves, which are likely available at any store that hosts a Prerelease event. You'll also want to have the Magic: The Gathering Companion app ed onto your phone before you go. This app is used to participants, track life during games, and log wins or losses after each match.

As far as prize goes, this can vary from store to store. That said, the typical numbers I see at my local stores are one additional booster pack for participating, and one extra booster on top of that for each best-of-three match that you win. Some stores also throw in extra prizes for players who go undefeated, though this isn't always the case.

How To Build A Prerelease Deck

Prerelease Decks Should Focus On Consistency

When building a deck for a Final Fantasy Prerelease event, you can use anything in your Prerelease Pack. This includes cards from your six sealed boosters and your promotional card. Every so often, Magic: The Gathering will mix things up, but this is typically the rules for deck construction at a Prerelease event.

Although decks need a minimum number of 40 cards, it's recommended that 17 of these are land cards, so you only need to find at least 33 cards. You can have a larger deck if you want, though it becomes less likely that you'll draw any given card the bigger your deck is. Your deck will be most consistent if you stick closer to 40.

You'll also want to make sure you aren't filling your deck with too many cards that are hard to play. You'll want the bulk of your cards to fall in the two-to-four range for mana cost, with only a few cards above or below this range. Above is a helpful image of the graph that Wizards of the Coast has on its website showing the ideal mana curve. While you can play around with this if you want, if you're new, you may want to use it as a relatively strict guide.

You'll also want to prioritize a consistent deck over one with a single good card. It may be exciting if you draw a rare card like Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, but if it's your only good card that uses black mana, you may not want to build a deck around it. It's typically better to look for repeat cards within one or two colors that you can use to create a consistent strategy. The exception here is that your one or two high-mana cards can be unique rares, since you don't want to run too many high-cost cards anyway.

That said, Magic: The Gathering Prerelease events tend to be a bit more casual. Players are looking to have fun and check out the new set, and there isn't anything on the line except for a few extra packs. If you want to throw together a suboptimal deck just so you can cram all your favorite Final Fantasy characters into it, then nobody is stopping you.

Source: Wizards of the Coast