Limited Resources: SOM 8-4 #4

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Limited Resources

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  1. I’m just starting out watchin match 1 game 1 but on turn 4 when you cast Vulshok i’d have held the spell bomb so that if you draw the plains on turn 5 you can cast the smith and get a token immediately. You can turn the current spellbomb into a chump blocker if he gets metalcraft vrs having to potentially block with vulshock replica. With the replica out you have metalcraft without the in play spellbomb and really putting a second one in play doesn’t do a whole lot for you at the current game state.

  2. That was probably the most eventful SOM draft I’ve ever seen. What time of day do you guys do it to get all the weirdos in your pod?

  3. Match 1 Game 1 on the final attack you should have just attack with 1 myr token, replica, and relic. If he has soul parry you still have the ability to drop plains and arrest a guy (probably hawk as its the only threat) and you have 2 blockers left – 1 myr token and 1 silver myr. You’d still be able to activate the replica if needed as well. His best block at that point if he has no removal/trick would be chump the Relic which means 3 from vulshock and 1 from the token. You can do the final 3 with vulshock = 7. Soul parry was the only possible out he could have and the way you played around it nets 0 damage and keeping the myr token back just essentially loses 1 damage.

    Match 1 Game 2 – Definately double block the Replica. Clears the way if you draw a bomb and he can only 1:1 you. His best options are all bad. If he is holding 1 drops they will quickly become irrelevant as the game is in stage 2 and will be stage 3 for you as soon as you hit a real spell. Worst case senarior is you draw a bomb next turn like tempered steel and can’t cast it EVER because he holds the Sylvok Replica in play. Also allows your arrest which was in hand to be a live play.. turns out that would have been useful for sure. Obviously the flood out cost ya the match more than the missed opportunity to trade Embersmith for Replica. One key is Embersmith has no activations in hand and you don’t know he has a 1 toughness guy to kill in hand. …. you still lose to slice in twain as it kills your arrest anyways. Tempered Steel is one of my favorite cards to pick in the first few picks of SOM. It’s BONKERS.

  4. Match Three – I utterly hate when people double que me. What I do is set every possible stop on them to eat their clock. It’s a douche move but wasting my time is pretty much a douche move too. Not much you could have done different, there were a few plays but over all he just out drew ya each game. Your openers were pretty abysmal each game.

  5. Not really wasting your time. Blame Wotc for making people able to Queue Multiple events. I use to hate it but Ive got other things to do while I wait so I dont care like double queueing myself.

    Nice vids. Especially your Stnd portion.

  6. Match 3, game 3, not attacking with both your creatures on turn 4 was a mistake. You have 7 power of creatures on the board (a 3 turn clock if he doesn’t block, and good for you if he does block, since you eliminate his options) and have a Golem Artisan to return your clock to one additional turn the next turn. This may have also meant that your opponent may not have had the Volition Reins on the critical turn to take your Artisan before you threatened to kill them!

    By trying to sit back on defense, you just allowed yourself to get into an ever-larger hole to the opponent’s Invisimancer and occasional artifact. By going on the defensive, when you were incapable of being interactive on the axis that the game was hinging upon, you lost every chance of doing anything relevant in that game.

    I also think you should have attacked with the Hellkite in game 1. This would have given you one more draw, even though you would still probably have died.

    Additionally, you could have slow-rolled some of your threats (particularly the Battlesphere) in game 2 in order to get your opponent to use more of their clock, as that was your game plan.

    Above all, I believe leaving the Auriok Sunchaser in the deck, repeatedly, was a huge mistake throughout almost your entire draft. Your Rusted Relic would have been much better in the third match.

  7. I was really jonesing for a Magic vid today and you guys popped up in the RSS, sweet. Too bad it was such an uneventful draft and you really had such a sweet deck. I’ve enjoyed the Architect.dec intermission though.

    Please, could you cut out more of the dead time next time? Round 3 was really tough to watch – not that your commentary isn’t interesting or anything – it’s just as frustrating for us as it is for you, but you have the option to spare us. I can’t believe he got you on 3 minutes. Bad beats.

    ACP: If they F6, it doesn’t really matter what stops you’ve set.

  8. PS: can’t believe you kept that hand in Round 3 Game 3 on THE DRAW!!! That was a snap mulligan.

  9. PPS: Also, you should have probably slow-rolled him with your bombs game 2, shave off some time.

    Man, I really wish there was an edit button.

  10. @acp I’ll have to check back at those spots, and yes I hate it when people multi-table vs me too. :(

    @that70ssnidd We did this draft fairly late at night IIRC. At least the draft had a whole lot going on :)

    @moerutora Ya I could blame wotc or the guy but I guess at the end of the day it’s his clock and he gets to use it how he wishes. Still annoying though. Thanks for the feeback on the standard stuff, we did it just for fun, but maybe we will do more?

    @starwarer Are you familiar with the term ROTTY? It’s pretty funny that most of your suggestions are directly related to us losing. I doubt you would have written these suggestions had we won. Also, I definitely disagree about attacking Match 3 Game 3 like you suggest. Here is why:

    If we play Artisan and attack he blocks the token with his Perilous Myr, and takes 4 in the air. We go to 8. On his turn he draws a card to go to 3 in hand, uses the spellbomb on his Painsmith and draws another card leaving him with 4 cards in hand. If he casts any artifact at this point, we are taking 6 damage and going to 2… with his Invisimancer still alive. Even if he misses casting an artifact, we still go to 4 leaving us super vulnerable to any artifact the next turn FTL. With villain at ~2:00 on the clock, I think playing the Golem’s Heart and passing the turn is correct.

    Why do you think that Rusted Relic was better in the 3rd game of the 3rd match? We are trying for a long game, not trying to race him. Rusted Relic is very strong with the right draw but if he has any trick to take us off of metalcraft on his turn it makes Rusted Relic a literal blank on the board and that just wasn’t acceptable given the clock situation.

    @Lunco Thanks for the feedback, we will cut some of the time next time. It’s just hard to keep pausing because it sort of breaks up the continuity of the whole thing. Regarding your suggestions: I don’t think that hand is a snap mull, but like we described on the video, it was an uncomfortable keep. I’m not sure what your logic is regarding the “on THE DRAW!!!” comment. I am guessing that you mean that we are punished less for going to 6 on the draw? I mean by that logic though we also have an extra rip at more action anyway. Plus we are cycling our spellbomb to help us further reach into our deck. That being said, I would have been fine mulliganing that hand as well. I do think that looking further into keeping is merited though as it’s not a snap mull in any case. Regarding slow rolling the bombs, sure, looking back it would have been better to not play the Battlesphere and tempt him to use up some more clock.

    Thanks as always for the feedback and comments guys!

    - Marshall

  11. That was very enjoyable guys, thanks. Losing to that guy with 26 sec on his clock is super frustrating but like you guys said, as long as you feel you did everything right, you can’t be too mad that he had the Flight Spellbomb to jump and block your Hellkite. :/ Happens. If you sac out and draw Arrest/Blast you probably win with him going to time. I’m glad I’m not the only guy that loses like that. ;)

    Keep it up and as always, looking forward to your next vid.

  12. @Limited Resources: I actually was typing my response up after your first lack of attack. It’s possible that I wouldn’t have posted it had you won, but my observation and reaction (similar to watching a football game where the QB throws a bad pass, exclamations and all) happened regardless.

    You also seem to have ignored the bulk of my post, that you couldn’t do anything to stop him, except entice him into blocking with his Painsmith. In fact, you were still at 12 life at the point I initially thought you should have attacked (turn 4). This was also before you had drawn the Golem’s Heart. The amount of damage you could have presented was immense. re-watching this part of the draft (after I already disagreed about your line of play), you even recognized that you got into the mentality of ‘playing not to lose’.

    Additionally, you would, eventually, be taking at least one damage from the Perilous Myr (or more) when you are unable/unwilling to block it. Besides, the opponent may have used the Myr’s damage to take out your 3/3 myr token in order to reduce the clock YOU would have been presenting.

    In regards to recommending the Relic, what do you consider the Sunchaser? The Sunchaser is less likely to have metalcraft (and simply be a poor chump blocker), than the Relic, since it is not an artifact itself. You qualify the Relic as a racing card, yet somehow don’t count the Sunchaser in that category? Besides, if you want to actually be results-oriented, the Sunchaser wouldn’t have been relevant in that last game anyway. It seems you decided that the Sunchaser was going to be good in your deck, and that blinded you to its deficiencies in your deck (you even made a comment akin to ‘it’s finally good somewhere’ during deck construction).

    Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy and appreciate the content that you produce. I have gotten to the point that I ignore most draft videos. I respect you guys, and what you think, well enough to have taken the time to watch/listen to it.

  13. Anyone whining about opponents taking time off the clock(double q’ing) is pretty dumb. By that logic we should never have people record videos and actually talk about the options they have cause all they are doing is wasting time. The clock is there for a reason and if your opponent beats you while staying in the time then that means he beats you regardless of clock…

    As far as the draft went I think you guys did a pretty good job building the deck around an archetype that was pretty open after the first couple picks. I have seen quiet a few of your drafts before and this was pretty good overall, even if gifted the finals.

    On another note I think it might be a neat idea for you two to do a NIXTIX or a throwback draft in every once in awhile.

  14. I feel like mulligan decisions are a weak point of my limited game. I’m not awful, but they are certainly an aspect of my game where I find myself falling prey to results oriented thinking more often than I should. In particular I find myself too enticed by by 4 (and sometimes 5) land hands without early action. These hands are easi(er) to toss back on the draw but I really struggle with them on the play, as the results tend to be pretty swingy (hence the ROTty thinking).

  16. In round 3 at 32:53, I am surprised you did not consider giving Hellkite trample to clear the trigon, saving the Golem. Sure Battlesphere is a fine play and probably the correct one, but the trample still feels like it deserves consideration.

  18. Rough last round. I agree that if you were going to play “not to lose” you should have really gone all the way with it rather than splashing it conceptually. Playing to win, and not lose at the same time is kind of like the half-infect strategy. It just waters down both motives. You had three Soul Parry’s sitting in the sideboard. When I watched you sideboard I was thinking you should have given up on the metal-love and gone all-in on life, chump blockers, and stall. But then I’m not nearly as good a player as you two, so it could be I have no idea what I’m talking about.