Limited Resources: RTR Draft #3

Posted on November 9, 2012 by Limited Resources

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  1. In round 3 game one you elect not to block his stealer with your guildmage. I think this was a mistake and you were putting too value on inevitability when you are already at a low life total and he has the unblockable land. I just don’t see that game ever going long.

  3. Sweet deck!

    describing the Selesnya Guildmage as a “mythic uncommon” is very accurate. Iv’e had entire games stolen away by this card – this and Pack Rat are two very oppresive bombs, I think. It’s just unfairly hard to recover from not have a removal to kill them immidatley.

    There’s a chance that splashing the Azorius Guildmage would have been wise. He may be a bit hard to cast, but his abilities are really strong and work well in a deck that has a huge amount of dorky 3/3 dudes just waiting for someone to throw them up to the air to get damage in. However I can see your more conservative line of not playing him as being wiser.

  5. R2M2 You did the same mistake as you had done in your last draft. When you have opportunity to get someone to 1 for cost of trading your 2/2 for his 2/2, please, PLEASE, do it. It usually wins games…

  8. I stopped watching after the first video to comment — I think it’s amusing that people sometimes take the time to comment that they stopped watching the video without giving an explination as to why they commented… *Squirell!*

  9. Thanks for the nice draft, Marshall – Love that people post stuff like ‘stopped watching after pack 1′ when you a) picked with a strategy, b) had a pretty fine deck and c) won the draft… I guess you will never please some!

  11. First off, great games and draft! I too have found Selesnia to be a great draft choice. It is pretty consistent. That and Azorius(sp) work out quite well, though Azorius decks need more pieces to be highly effective.

    Second, I see no point in those posts that are “I stopped watching after *some insignificant event*. That kind of thought process just boggles my mind

  12. It’s one of those words where gamers all have their way of saying it. I have always said “Sen-Tar”. I see it kind of like Lich or Drow.

  13. @Carrot
    I too have been on both ends of the population explosion from that guildmage. If allowed, that will become an unrecoverable board-state. The packrat is one of those two drops that, if you don’t have an immediate answer, you may as well scoop right away. They get out of hand fast! (2/2, 3/3 3/3, 4/4 4/4 4/4, and so on) They dont even need to play any other creatures until you solve that issue.

  14. Mikey76… I may be wrong, but i think you’re doing papuer vids on youtube, don’t you? Becouse i am huge fan of that channel.

  16. To clarify, my ‘I stopped watching’ post was to be thinly veileed mimicry with an aim to reinforce the pointlessness of such posts. Duuuh!! Because all posts should have points, but then again a post with a point is a pike, so we should be making pikes. What I mean to say is Goblin Piker will always find a home in some deck somewhere. RIght then, on with the show.

  17. I’m pretty sure I know why sweat_hax stopped watching. Pick #4 should have been Security Blockade over the Centaur Healer.

    I paused it immediately after pick #4 to see the comments and I’m surprised no one else noticed. Unless sweat_hax wants to stake a claim on it of course. Obviously the deck, aka other 3 cards, needed token makers over a non-token 3/3.

  18. The fact that these draft videos can draw so many negative comments baffles me. Marshall drafts a killer deck here and is full of tons of great information and people are so quick to dismiss him and what he’s doing here over (maybe) a blunder? Some people are so stuck on themselves – it’s annoying. Keep it up Marshall! Limited Resources is awesome and I enjoy watching your draft vids. Enjoy that iPhone 5! If you haven’t already man, you HAVE to check out Punch Quest!

  19. Very entertaining draft :D Thanks for consistently posting them!

    And as for the “I quit after…” posts: There are many times when I question someone picking something over something else. Then they often continue to draft a sweet ass deck and win with it, once again showing why they’re the ones that put their drafts online and lots of people watch it and not me (or the person complaining “OMG Y U PIK DAT?!”

  20. sweet deck so far, in pack 1 you argued that transguild enables your blue splash more than selesnya guildgate and I gotta disagree slighty. the seles. guildgate would help you play less forests and thus more islands/azorius guildgates

  21. Hey marshal,

    During your deckbuilding did you consider avenging arrow(2) over indrik for curve purposes?

    Or Perhaps a 18th land due to the mana intensivness of your deck?

  22. Also the 18th land because your deck is so good that the only way you can lose(besides losing to bombs) is mana screw?

  24. In R1G2, I feel like it would have been better to chump his 4/5 with your 1/2 the turn you cast avenging arrow. You let him do 8 damage with that thing, 4 of which was completely unnecessary. It’s not like you were going to get in more than once w/your 1/2 against a golgari deck, so gaining 4 life is about as much value as you can ask for. Would have bought you two more draw steps and it’s conceivable you could have won that game.

    I made a similar mistake in a recent draft: I had an outclassed creature that I could only use to chump, and instead of doing so when I could gain 5 life with it, I decided to wait to see if I could gain more life with it, or maybe smash back. Unfortunately, I ended up losing when he had the removal spell for my blocker, letting him win the game that turn. I would have won if I got to untap (had the explosive impact + land drop for the kill), so not “gaining” that life when I had the chance was a huge blunder.

  25. @sweat_hax & chippi:

    It’s not that clear-cut of a pick. Even with the guildmage and growing ranks, an argument could be made for the healer. It does a better job of slowing aggressive starts, and the life-gain can be crucial against cards like stab wound in racing situations where the blockade is useless. To simply stop watching because of that pick is absurd. He’s only going to draw growing ranks <50% of games, and in those games the healer is going to be much, much better than the blockade. Even in games where he does draw growing ranks, one would hope he's populating centaur tokens. Consider this curve:

    T2: Guildmage
    T3: Blockage
    T4: Populate

    It's actually pretty unimpressive. If your opponents deck is any good, chances are he'll have something better than 3 2/2's. Something like:

    T2: Guildmage
    T3: Healer
    T4: Towering Indrik

    Is arguably quite a bit better for Marshall's deck because it sets up for the late game, where he can simply pay 6 mana to make a centaur and start populating from there. Once you get to the late game, a single guildmage is all you need, so a good argument can be made for Centaur Healer over a mediocre token producer. I'm not sure it's what I would have picked, but it's not near as clear-cut as you seem to think it is.

  26. There is a chance that chippy’s comment was not meant seriously. Even with Growing Ranks and Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (which can produce tokens if necessary), Centaur Healer is far superior to Security Blockade. I would pick almost any good Selesnya common over a 2/2 token for 2W. It would have been a mistake to pass on a card like Centaur’s Herald, however, because the board impact of a 3/3 (token or not) is just so much higher. It is difficult enough to push through with a board full of 3/3s, but I have never seen an army of Knights and other 2/2s accomplish anything in this format.

  27. Agree with Brian on the R1G2 decision to let the 4/5 through. Avenging arrow does not need combat damage to a player, it needs damage. Chump it with a 1/2 then kill it with arrow.

  29. @Simon I think he was quite serious, security blockade is a card that I’ve gained a greater appreciation for after drafting selesnya literally dozens of times. An army of knights may not win you the game outright, but they do an excellent job of stalling and providing 2 for 1′s until you can get to the late-game, since they can double-block 3/3′s or in combination with rootborn defenses provide some blowouts.

    The damage prevention also tends to be more relevant than I initially thought it would be. Board stalls are fairly common, so stuff like Lobber Crew can slowly ping you to death and win a game. In those situations, security blockade will generally gain you much more than 3 life, and the token would be more useful than the 3/3 body if you drew populate cards w/o token makers. The fact that it sets you back a mana isn’t generally relevant at the stages of the game where that ability is most welcome.

    So I agree with Healer being a much better card all-around, I understand the argument for both. While the healer does a better job of getting you [b]to[/b] the late-game, blockade does a better job of enduring it. After further thought, I do think Healer is the correct pick. It’s early in the draft so he has plenty of time to pick up token producers, as you ideally want to be populating 3/3′s anyway. I could see myself taking the blockade midway through pack 2 or early pack 3 if I didn’t have many token producers though.

  31. Did anyone else notice MTGO suggesting 0 islands at first, but when Marshall added the fountain it suggested 1?

    Also, liked the deck. That guildmage can can some serious damage.