Simon Says #78: Color Commitment and Magic 2015 Draft #4

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Simon Goertzen

Signaling in Draft is one of the most difficult concepts in Limited Magic. In this episode’s opening discussion, I explain my philosophy of when and how to commit to one or more colors.

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  1. Thanks for the content, Simon. One specific question on the draft:

    P2P2, you took a Lurker over a Frost Lynx. Given that the Lurker is only reasonably good with a Swamp and that is seemed very unlikely that there is another Black-Blue Drafter, what was your reason not to take the 2nd Frost Lynx, which was most likely not to wheel as it is good for all other blue decks, hoping that the Lurker would return and then have your deck significantly imroved? The potential downside was to have a Lynx for a Lorker, which is lower in power level but still good in the BB deck…

  2. Thanks for the content, Simon. Sigh, the last match. I have only beaten that card (trying to avoid spoilers for other viewers) 3 times – once with an Oppressive Rays, once with an Encrust, and once by outracing (that creature was the only creature on my opponents side). All 3 times I had a lot of creatures to keep up the pressure. Anytime that Soul came to the party with any type of board presence on my opponents side, its nigh unbeatable.

  3. Really great content and I really enjoyed the opening discussion!

    To the Lurker vs. Frost Lynx pick: Simon did explain it (the power level is greater so he didn’t want to gamble it), and I personally would have made the same pick. Yes the Lurker could wheel, but still the risk is imo too great that the Lynx pick would be the better (especially considering that the pack wasn’t really that strong, so the Lurker might get well be hated before it arrives back at Simon).

  4. @ pokopkov

    Because Lurker is too powerful to risk not having in a Blue/Black deck, in that it does something entirely different from Frost Lynx.

    The Life gain from it will win you games no other card in the format can. It can pull you from behind, save you on the last turn you had to live, or dominate a board in an aggressive start.

    Frost Lynx is only good in aggression, or to buy time. It cannot alter a race situation for turns on end.

    I disagree with playing Sacred Armory + Murk Lurker + Dissipate, though. I don’t like that he sided the Dissipate in.

  5. @rite @ Christian

    I sure know that Lurker is a higher power Level in a BU deck than Lynx is. The only question is: with a Lurker AND a secon Lynx, the – otherwise OK deck as Simon evaluated it himself – would tmo have been on a considerably higher power Level…while the draw back on having a second Lynx (and the deck was somewhat aggessive) wasn’t too bad… Again, just being interested if that line was sthg to think about in Simon’s view.

    Thx for the Feedback and thoughts anyway!

  6. Just wondering if you considered this during when you saw the Soul, this you consider the second part of Encrust? The clause that stops activated activity. I found that those tend to be a good solution for the soul cycle, since killing them didn’t always work

  7. @Anonymous I agree with @Christian. It was mostly to do with the fact that it was a weaker pack otherwise, and thus far less of a chance to make it back around than if the pack was strong.