OK, so you were opening your packs at the Conflux prerelease, and staring you in the face was the bomb of all bombs.

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

His cost: 4UBBR.  You thought: isn’t that really expensive?  Of course, he’s a really big dragon.  Ten thousand years old or something, right?  Then you noticed his abilities:

“+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.”  Destroy target noncreature permanent?  That’s huge!  Land destruction on a stick, or blow up Bitterblossom, or anything else that isn’t a creature.  Only problem is that it doesn’t touch creatures.

“-2: Gain control of target creature.”  Not until EOT, just “gain control.”  It sticks!  That’s even, well, huger!  So this dragon dude can mess with everything.  On the board at least.

“-9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player.  That player discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.”  Whoa!

Not only did we have an awesome turn out for our first pre-release of Magic the Gatherings latest release,

but, the new planeswalker described above was pulled by Matt P.

Matt P. is also the same person here too.