So, Dragon's Maze prerelease is today. I've just gotten back from the midnight one here. After two rounds, I decided that since a payout was mathematically impossible unless people who'd won 2 games dropped, I'd benefit more from the extra sleep than the experience. That was incredibly depressing. Rakdos, got Boros as an ally, built a reasonably solid deck. Highlights include a Boros Reckoner, 2 Blood Scriveners, a Dreadbore, a Warleader's Helix, and a Boros Charm. First game, mulligan to 5 cards, then still only have 1 land for 5 turns. Second game, death by stupid mistake (I held a burn card too long, he couldn't have done anything about it anyway). Third game, get locked down and don't pull enough creatures to overwhelm it. Fourth game, removal on every creature not hit by One Thousand Lashes. Never actually drew the Reckoner, for whatever that's worth. Happy to have the cards, but the games were awful, save for the second which was actually a really close race once he started dropping blockers.
I already paid for two events, so I'm heading back later, but I'm bummed enough that I wouldn't bother if I hadn't already paid, even though I know that I've just played through a statistical aberration and the format is actually fine. Anyone have better experiences?
EDIT: Glad I went. Chose Gruul, got Izzet as an ally. Largely abandoned Gruul after finding that Slaughterhorn was the best green card I had. Won half my matches, and at least one game in every match I lost. I credit Niv-Mizzet for much of this, although Aetherling was also incredibly valuable. Some miscellaneous Azorius lockdown, and a couple monored Bloodrushers were good ways of rounding it out.