Magic: The Gathering’s latest set, Wilds of Eldraine, is set to arrive for tabletop this Friday on 8 September. Ahead of the expansion’s official release, Wizards of the Coast sent us a few products ahead of time, including a couple of prerelease packs.

Of course, we had to give the Wilds of Eldraine prerelease packs a go with a few rounds of Sealed Deck games, which proved to be quite fun with all of the set’s mechanics and special cards. These include Adventure cards, powerful Enchanting Tales cards, and of course, the much sought-after anime-themed cards.

Let’s start with what you get in a Wilds of Eldraine prerelease pack. The main contents include six Draft Boosters, a foil-stamped Wilds of Eldraine rare or mythic rare promo, a spindown life counter in a random colour, and a deck box.

For our Wilds of Eldraine prerelease pack, we got a Restless Vinestalk for the promo card, and a number of sweet cards in the Draft Boosters. Our (only) mythic rare is Agatha of the Vile Cauldron, while our rare cards include Scalding Viper – which we used for our final deck – and a sweet Karmic Justice in the anime borderless treatment!

However, as Karmic Justice is an Enchanting Tales card, it is not Standard legal. But in a limited format, as long as you got it from your opened packs, it can be used to build your deck. Not that we did, as we opted for a red/blue deck instead.

We like going with a more aggressive strategy in limited formats, which is partly the reason why we went with a combination of red and blue cards; an Izzet deck, basically. Well, that, and the fact that we got a Scalding Viper. Dealing one damage for every spell cast by our opponent with mana value of 3 or less? Yes, please.

Scalding Viper is also quite a good interaction tool. It’s an Adventure card, so we can actually cast the spell portion of the card first – Steam Clean, in this instance – exile the card, and then cast it back as a creature when it’s possible to do so.

In our first game, we managed to get Scalding Viper in our opening hand, which quickly overwhelmed my opponent. Talion’s Messenger helped a ton as well, as it can get a +1/+1 counter whenever I’m attacking with one or more Faeries. The fact that Talion’s Messenger has Flying makes it more difficult to be blocked too.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t repeat my success in the second game. I wasn’t drawing as many creatures as I would’ve hoped, and I drew my Scalding Viper a tad too late. On the bright side, at least it was a relatively close game; my opponent’s life total was quite low by the end of the second game.

And that is our prelease experience with Magic: The Gathering’s newest set, Wilds of Eldraine. Aside from the prerelease packs, we also got a Starter Kit and a box of Set Boosters from the expansion; we will unbox both of them very, very soon.

To recap, Wilds of Eldraine is set to be available for tabletop on 8 September this Friday. To celebrate the arrival of the new fairy tale-like set, Wizards of the Coast will also be holding an Open House, which is essentially a Launch Party.

You can also pre-order Wilds of Eldraine from your favourite game store now ahead of its release. The expansion is offered in Draft Boosters, Set Boosters, Collector Boosters, Commander Decks, Prerelease Packs, Bundles, and a Starter Kit.