by Michael Sacco

Last night marked the first time players could get their hands on cards from our upcoming Crown of the Heavens set as part of the Sneak Preview. Players shared cards from Crown boosters and worked in teams of three to create three cohesive 30-card decks from the cards they cracked. Since most of these cards have never been seen before, even in official previews, it made for some crazy, frantic deck-building.

I asked some of the top players in the event, as well as Cryptozoic employees, to name their favorite cards seen at the sneak preview:

Jim Fleckenstein: “Mine is definitely Rage of the Elements. It's an awesome buff for 1 cost and even better with a Monster.”

Phil Cape (Game Designer, Cryptozoic): “I love Rage of the Elements. Very powerful, low price.”

Matthew Hawkins: “I cleaned up with Dark Transformation. Put a Ghoul out the turn before you play it, pump it up, and you do a ton of damage plus force the other guy to discard a card.”

Tim Rivera: “Yertle. He pretty much has it all.”

Noah Woo: “I love the new Sylvanas. Really powerful card.”

Alex Gellerman: “I love the Tiny Voodoo Mask. Great for countering cards.”

Jaron Tomsky: "I don't know why you're asking me; you know I'm just going to say Vylokx!"

Drew Walker (Game Designer, Cryptozoic): “I like Sulfuras, the Extinguished Hand, because I love big beefy weapons. I also like Dragonwrath because it has 'dragon' in the name and makes dragons.”

Ben Stoll (Game Designer, Cryptozoic): “Oh man, I have so many favorites. Sniper Training is awesome, Keeper Sharus is a nice, cheap Harmonize card, King Bagurgle is obviously awesome for Murloc decks, and I love High Warlord Zogar because he's ridiculously strong.”