Nothing teaches humility like the guy across the table flipping over a dragon on turn six while you are still setting up your mana. A prerelease is where you learn to live with that.
Six packs land in front of you. You build from what you open, nobody has a tuned deck, and the cards are new enough that everyone is reading them for the first time — which is the great equalizer, and the reason this is the friendliest door into Magic that exists. Middle-earth is the setting this time: Bilbo, Gandalf, the One Ring, and Smaug sitting in somebody's pool waiting to ruin your afternoon in the best possible way.
You will show up alone and leave having argued about a rules interaction with three people whose names you now know.
Come lose to a dragon. It is a good story either way.