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Limited Resources: MSS #1
Posted on March 14, 2011 by Limited Resources
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Limited Resources Limited Resources podcast co-host Marshall Sutcliffe provides coverage on North American Magic events and writes for DailyMTG. He educates listeners about limited and heads the highest-prizing clan on MTGO.
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At 11:56, couldn’t you have taken the replica? It keeps your options open, keeps him off metalcraft, and lets you bounce later… Just thinking
Sorry, that last comment was directed at the second round.
I love the podcast and videos, but you punted round 2, game 1, beyond the sac-for-lifegain play. You had three on-board wins with Myr Welder on your final turn: Imprinting Neurok Replica, Sylvok Replica or Flight Spellbomb (with an untap from Mirran Spy) would have let you evade / bounce / kill his Mortarpod blocker and get Blightwidow in for 3 poison and the win.
Agree with Brian that Corrupted Conscience on Replica when he was tapped out was the play. Replica countered everything you had (Perilous Myr, Corrupted Conscience) and let him save his only threat.
Again, always love hearing you guys, but just had to comment since you’re normally flawless!
The mysteries of Mirran Spy
As Tim says, Match 2 Game 1 you don’t even need Mirran Spy to win the game. Sylvok Replica‘s ability is activated but does not require a tap to activate. At 23:50 you tap the Myr, exile Sylvok and then sacrifice the Myr to destroy the Mortar Pod which also removes the blocker – then you swing with Blight Widow and win.
*sigh* At the end of match 2 game 1, you could have imprinted the sylvok replica on the welder, then sacced it to kill the mortar and then win (or, alternatively, used it on the flight spellbomb).
*sigh* indeed. While we didn’t go back and review the game itself after recording, Marsh and I both felt sure we had left a win on the table in R2G1, and we figured you all would point it out for us.
It was an extremely frustrating loss for us both. I sincerely believe that had either of us been playing that game alone and without recording, we would have not been in a time panic, and we wouldn’t have missed the win. As it is, recording, talking and debating a complex game led to a sudden awareness of a dwindling clock. We hastened up our play in response, and unsurprisingly, the mistakes began.
Sorry we denied you the entertainment of at least a R2G3. We’ll certainly be more clock-aware in the future, and try to avoid and further time-panic punting. Super frustrating for us, but hey, now we are right there with players such as LSV in the “missed on-board wins in a draft video” club, and have certainly answered any questions that might linger about whether or not we post everything we record. If we cherry-picked our video content to make us look better than we actually are, this one would surely have gone to the recycle bin…
Lost in the pointing out of the missed on-board win is the Sunblast Angel pick; what do you all think? Are you taking the angel in that spot, or playing it safe? Would you have built the deck differently from the cards we ended up with? I think that ended up being the most interesting thing about this draft.
Hm, I do think that my preference P1P1 would have been the Mortarpod. I usually try to stay flexible during the first few picks and Mortarpod is actually close to the power level of the card you took.
Regarding the Sunblast pick I would probably taken it too in that particular situation.
I generally don’t like Blue/Green because of the lack of removal.
My sequence of drafting the first pack would probably have been:
Mortarpod -> Marauder -> Juggernaut -> Husk -> Blightwidow -> Emissary -> Wellspring -> Welder ->
Skyhunter -> Crush -> Courier and then going from there I would wait for pack two to show me the way for the second color. Most likely I would have ended up in Green/White, while not a favorite color combination of mine either, with two white bombs from pack 2 and 3 you would have ended up with a solid deck and a nice curve.
Also another thought, can’t you play the corrupted conscience on your own sky eel school to give you a flying infect creature? it didn’t seem like he had really any outs to that. Sure you don’t get as much value out of the Conscience as you’d like, but hey, why not if it’ll win ya the game?
Thanks guys but I found myself yelling at the screen “You got the win!!! Use the Welder!!”
I like Corrupted Conscience just a little more than Mortapod just because it’s more swingy. Mortapod is amazing and would def had been my pick if not for the Conscience, it’s just that outside of an infect deck, it’s truly “amazing” in some sort of aggro Wx deck with a bunch of 1/1 tokens. After that, it’s only “good” in every other deck. It’s a very close call.
As for the Sunblast pick, in that spot with the fixing you had, sure, I would go for it.
Thanks again and looking forward to more.
Ryan/Marshall,
Was there no thought about taking true conviction p2p1? Given that you weren’t really in green fully at that time (and the fact that fangren maurader and blightwidow are ‘splashable’) and that True Conviction is a 6 mana ‘bomb’ i was surprised you guys didn’t give it more thought than you did.
As Ryan has noted, we were both pretty frustrated after that game. We have been pretty good about clock management lately when we do these videos (I never ever fall behind at all on clock when I record alone, and it’s not an issue for Ryan either), but we faced some complicated boardstates that game.
We won’t let that be a factor in our videos again. Thanks for the feedback on the games guys, we do apologize that we couldn’t bring more content on this one, we simply punted it in the end.
We both feel though that it’s really important to put games like these up, for obvious reasons. Thanks for watching as always!
- Marshall
Coven.
Does not have an “l” in it.
Cuv-in.
Not cloven. Totally different word.
Other than that, solid videos. Thanks for all of your hard work.
@James, ha, thought it was cloven apparently. Won’t happen again.
Why no corrupted conscience invisimancer
I’m glad you guys put this up, because it shows the sort of trainwreck that we all experience at one time or another. I love the Sunblast Angel pick and the choice to play it. Greed is good, and that pick was correct. Obviously you have to pass True Conviction, but you recognized just how close the Angel pick was. When in doubt it’s best to go for the power when you have fixing and filtering, and plenty of cards to come. I would have also started Acid Web without hesitation. But I think you have to play 18 lands there because you have filtering with the Sky Eel and you want to hit your big spells more quickly,while leaving up utility/emergency mana for things like double Disperse and double Sylvok Replica. You had a deceptively intense curve.
I really like the videos on this site. They are not only entertaining to watch but while sometimes loading a bit slow for me, have the best resolution I have found so far on any site.
Keep posting!
Game one, you bring in the Darksteel Myr. He basically has no way to deal with that, and you want to get into the late game.
Also, Myr Welder!!!! Oh, I couldn’t help but yell at my screen, hoping you guys could hear me through the space time continuum.
The deck construction:
Id play Acid Web-Spider over Core Prowler. Just saying =).
Should be even more vital now with living weapons.
I am really enjoying this format, but as I draft it more, I find myself only liking infect for defense purposes or on flyers. Core Prowler feels soooo bad every time I’ve played it.
I think it’s the pack with True Conviction where you take a Perilous Myr over Tumble Magnet. I think Magnet is one of the best cards in the format. How good is the Myr in comparison? That being said, I think I would have also taken the 2nd Magnet over Sunblast Angel- I don’t like double-colored splashes at all.
I still haven’t re-watched the games, but some other responses:
@Mat: my recollection was that any time CC on the invisimancer was a tempting option, he had the blue replica that would just bounce it back to his hand. Might be missing something but that’s what I remember about all the various CC options.
@Dylan: 17 vs. 18 was a close call, and I started out thinking 18 was correct, but with two mana mana myr, the emissary, and the green spellbomb, 18 felt like too much. The eels support both approaches, looting is just good for your mana. On the one hand, playing 18 makes you hit five mana for the loot effect more consistently, but on the other hand, I would rather have the problem of deciding between two spells than two lands after I’d hit 5 mana, which makes me lean 17.
@oraymw: that pesky ds myr is easy to overlook during sideboarding.
@Scandinavia (and others): in retrospect, I agree with maindeck spider over the Core Prowler. By leaving out the GG spell our mana was a little better, but GG was going to be fairly easy to come by with the base we submitted, and the prowler was not a good enough replacement for those few times when we’d be able to cast the prowler but not the spider, and it won us the game.
@ChrisKool: I stand by Perilous Myr > Tumble Magnet in this deck. More and more I’ve only been liking the magnet in aggro decks where it can create alpha strikes, especially in infect, decks that can reset it, and in decks that are going to reliably proliferate, which are fairly rare. In a control deck, too often it is just a three-mana life gain spell.
I had the the same pick between Motorpod and Conscience yesterday and I went for the Conscience because I had yet to case one and I admit, it was rather disappointing. In all the 3 games I cast it, I wished it was a Mind Control. Damage over Posion was rather relevant.
If I played with Conscience before I definitely woulda taken the Pod. I think I would take it above almost all cards except Flesh Eater Imp P1P1.
I probably would have taken Sunblast also. I also would have taken Perilous Myr over Magnet since you already have a Vivisection.
Time management is a problem for me when I play in multiple events. Although playing against only 2 decks in Standard isnt that bad anymore since its typically T2 Stoneforge into Sword or T1 Guide into more Gobos.
I agree with the Perilous Myr over the Tumble Magnet. Magnet is awesome, and it would have been good in your deck, but Perilous Myr is usually going to be better in control decks anyways, and it is even better with Vivisection in the deck.
Yeah, I /facepalm-ed at the end of R2G1 like others because I thought “Oh, they will just imprint the Replica, blow the mortar pod EOT, and be out of range.”
Awesome time always guys; keep it up!
Dont know why Im particularly writing this here =), but just saying:
PV da Rosa (ChFiBall) AND some other article by some high-lvl-established pro say in articles published within last week:
I/we dont STILL get this format (well enough). As in: at this stage – (idk how many weeks inside mbs/som/som we are, cant bother look up now) – Im normally pounding my local shop players in the 8-1 ratio. But instead its like 6-3 which is a very disappointing win ratio for the best players out there when not facing equals at PTs/etc. An english player at Blackborder.com – Matteso or what his name is, 1970 RL-rating – is hammered with “accusations” about not being better than 1740 or so Online atm. (didnt like his writing about stealing breakfast in some article btw =)=)=)).
I think many ppl feel more disappointed with their Spike-Magic world atm, more than usual at this stage.
Interesting – I agree on nearly all picks (at least in their context) and I definitely think the greedy build was the way to go, though I would have gone 4 plains with one more forest. Magnet is awfully close, at some point if a “life gain” spell gain you 10-15 life for three mana that is fairly powerful regardless of the added utility if you don’t need to fully utilize its “life gain” function.
Re: the controversial R2G1 – Yep. Lots of kills there. Funny, because when you were discussing it in draft and basically passed it off as a 1/4 for 3 (since it did almost nothing in triple besieged) I wondered when that would come back to bite you.
R2G2 – You guys seemed really flustered. Dispersing the Demon at the end seemed much worse than playing the replica and getting back your School – it seemed like Ryan almost said something about this (“once it is on the board counterspell doesn’t stop it”), but pulled back because of time. Locking into plans in advance cost you, but as you mentioned the root cause was being under time pressure.
R2G1 I was face palming most of the match. Watch it again guys, lots of stuff you missed during the live commentary that I don’t feel like repeating again here.
I agree 100% with the Perilous Myr Pick and with the Sunblast Angel pick. Both were solid in my books. Your small infect subtheme was fine cause often guys like Blightwidow shut down entire decks.
Oh yeah Corrupted Conscience over Mortarpod every time for me. Conscious is insanely powerful if you end up U/G or U/B and those are typically where you want to go with blue anyways. You can have a minor infect theme in a deck and consious is a valuable 2:1 that deals with almost all bombs. Mortor Pod deals with 0 bombs really. Pod can’t kill Dragons/Battlespheres/Geth/Thopter Foundary/Sunblast or etc etc etc. Conscious deals with most of those (Foundary a little less so) and can often allow you to steal games. Stealing a Fangren Maurader with Consious is pretty insane (5/5 infecter that gains a million life… sign me up). Also of note Consious deals with both Hero’s and both Crusaders.
Overall I enjoy the videos. Just maybe stick to more solo shoots and then do dual review commentary (like you have done on some of Ryans videos) as I think those videos tend to lead to less slop plays.
In match two game at about 13:00 I think a fair play would have been corrupted conscience on the Neurok Replica because your opponent’s mana is tapped out then on the next turn play phyrexian juggernaut. Also it seems like the problem with using Sunblast Angel in the deck as you guys did means you have to use mana fixing to be able to pay the double white when you could have been getting more apropriate land for the double blue that kept getting stuck in hand.
Really interesting and difficult draft. I think I would’ve gone with the Mortarpod at the beginning and stayed out of blue, or any non-green color as long as possible, but I can definitely see how the power level of CC is attractive. Honestly, it’s more my preference than anything, but it would’ve set me up for two lucky white bombs in the two Scars packs.
The thing I’m most interested to dispute, though, is the high valuation of Phyrexian Juggernaut. Everyone seems to love this card (you guys, LSV, Steve Sadin, etc.). I hear the logic of including it in non-infect, but it just doesn’t seem threatening enough to me as an attacker. I guess in my experience, having villain chump with a crap guy each turn after the turn AFTER the 6-drop hits the battlefield doesn’t seem all that great. I might even rather play the 4/4 battlecry R4 guy in its place, if I could.
white was by far the best color in triple scars, but I believe it to be the by far worse color in MSS, much less value on every card in MBS. Black has rager, plunder, nested ghoul and spread which are all about 2 for 1′s…Red has into the core, flamefiend, burn the impure and blisterstick which against are nearly 2 for 1′s… Blue has vivisection, oculus, geyser and anatomist which are all at least 2 for 1′s… Green has maurader, blightwidow, emissary, and corrupter which are all 2 for 1′s usually… White has….. Master’s call? Divine Offering? Terrible. I just avoid white all together unless im going mono skyhunters dot deck or get a bomb rare.
I don’t think it is that bad to commit to a color early. You pick corrupted conscience, then you know it would make sense to pick proliferate, then you will pick tumble magnets, and so on.
I like you that kept the Show Match 3 link up, giving the viewer hope you might pull something out and get a quick surprise victory.
Great series!