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As mentioned back in my December(!) post, I returned to the game of Magic The Gathering recently. Actually, it's already been 2 years since I busted out my cards on my birthday in 2010 after some harassing by one Mr. Bernardo. I started off slow, but ramped up after my first few months, attending many Friday Night Magic events in the following months. I'll expand on my return to the game in another post, as I want to touch on my experience with the Avacyn Restored pre-release events that I attended.

I have attended multiple pre-release events since my return to the game, including M11, Mirrodin Beseiged, New Phyrexia, M12, and all of the Innistrad block, including the massively hyped Avacyn Restored pre-release. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with pre-release events. I love them because it is the first time you get to lay hands on the cards that you have been scouring over on-line during spoiler season. The pre-releases also bring out an entirely different crowd than your typical FNM/GP/PTQ events. The casual players seem to come out of the wood work, excited to crack the biggest creatures and latest planeswalkers. This increased visibility into the local MTG community puts to ease my fears of the size of player base that this game has. My hate for pre-releases comes from the fact that I never seem to open much of a pool. This was the case with both of my sealed pools this last weekend. Or was it. I tend to think that I have decent card evaluation skills, as I consistently do well in draft events both at FNM and on MTGO. Maybe my sealed deck skills just need some tweaking. Looks like I have some studying of the card image gallery to do before this week's release events.

Now, on to the main reason I decided to post today.

The Helvault.

No, not the Mythic Rare 3 drop artifact from Dark Ascension. I'm talking about the 2 foot tall, cardboard box of wonder that was distributed to many stores as a bonus feature for pre-release events.

Wizards of the Coast hyped the opening of the Helvault beyond any other pre-release event in my memory. Talk of the Helvault not being availalble at all pre-release events, the contents being a secret even to WoTC staff, etc. It was all hype. Well, that is until the contents were spoiled and we found out what was in the Helvault (Oversized mythic cards, Angel/Demon tokens and AVR spin-down dice). Meh. Nothing playable. Spin-downs are OK, but I prefer to use pen and paper to keep track of life totals. Tokens, schmokens.

Wait, what? There were 30 "premium" Helvaults? With foil oversized cards, foil tokens, and spin-downs? Still nothing playable. Oh, they had foil promo cards as well? Judge Demonic Tutor? WTF mate?

This subject has been beaten into the ground over the past week, so I'm keeping my part short. IMO, Wizards should have presented all attendees with some sort of playable card inside the Helvault; didn't even have to be foil. Then a few foil Helvaults spread around would be a bonus. Leave the judge promos for the judges. They earned them.

I'll be missing out on the release events this weekend, but sealed has never been my friend and I can always trade for or buy the promo I'm missing out on.