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Simon Says #14: Good, Better, Lingering Souls
Posted on March 29, 2012 by Simon Goertzen
Simon Goertzen Simon Goertzen is a pro Magic player whose prominent tournament successes include winning Pro Tour San Diego in 2010. In 2012 Simon began providing coverage of European MtG events, including Grands Prix.
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Well done!
Glad that you didn’t shy away from Red-White like the folks over at Channel Fireball seem to.
Always look forward to your drafts!
I noticed at the end that this was an 8-4 draft instead of the 4-3-2-2 drafts and was wondering if you always play 8-4 for the potential of better pay outs or if it’s because there is a skill difference in the player base. Which do you think is the better draft or are they comparable skill wise?
When I have the option, I always chose to play 8-4 drafts, whether I’m recording or not. The main reason is that I like to play for higher stakes and enjoy the sense of accomplishment of making/winning the finals of an 8-4. I also assume this gives me the highest competition, which I enjoy, is good practice and makes for much better content in my opinion. Not that I want to brag, but 8-4 queues should also simply give me the best expected value given my overall match win percentage. I also see no reason to support a draft queue which has a payout that is strictly worse than the alternatives.
I suggest trying out swiss queues if you do not feel comfortable with the opponents in 8-4, want to play three rounds, or do not have the amount of product to carry you through losing streaks (just like bankroll management in poker). Trust me, you still meet quite a high number of unexperienced opponents in 8-4 drafts as well — some weeks ago I split the finals with an opponent who had never done a split on MTGO before!
If I ever deviate from playing 8-4s, I play a temporary promotional queue or a wacky format like 4-pack 30-card sealed. If you have the choice between 8-4, 4-3-2-2, and swiss, 4-3-2-2 is the worst you can do.
A video of the 4-pack sealed queues would be great! I’ve played it several times, and it’s certainly different than regular 6-pack sealed…
Unruly mob seems like it might be very good in your deck considering the abundance of removal. I think i would have considered it over dead weight especially considering black is your splash color.
I fully agree with Beardo. 4-pack Sealed would be awesome to see.
Well done sir! I probably would have built the deck to be aggressive because of all the removal and I likely would have left the Dead Weight on the bench because you had so much already. But I guess that’s why I don’t have a show called OMA Says!
Agree completely with you evaluation of Lingering Souls. I 1st picked it last night and never looked back. Nearly mono white with 5 or 6 black cards. 4-0 and never dropped a game. Souls is just such a beating.
From my experience, decks with a lot of removal are difficult to build aggressively simply because you need a lot of creatures and a good curve to be aggressive. With such a high card quality and staying power thanks to flashback, I see no reason to dilute my control deck with aggressive creatures. My low creature count is also the reason why I don’t like to play Unruly Mob in such a deck. Will, I don’t get how the abundance of removal is supposed to make Unruly Mob better, as it only triggers when my creatures die.
Other than waiting to see what your opponent’s Delver of Secrets might reveal before playing Geistflame, that was all masterfully executed. Thanks for the video, Simon.
If you let the Delver trigger resolve, it is already a 3/2. But I’ll take the “masterfully executed” anytime, thanks!
I’d vote for a normal sealed video (6 packs) if only because its the GP format. If anyone has been following the sealed pool competitions on CF you can see how complex this block’s pools can be to construct.
Thank you for the excellent videos, Simon. In my opinion you make the most informative draft videos and I like the way you break down the combat options. Looking forward to your next video.
My mistake, I misread Unruly Mob.
Thanks for another great set of videos. Your level of detail in explaining not only what you like about your picks but the other options, and walking through the play decisions each round make for a very informative and educational series.
Really helps fair players (like me) improve!
Who can we talk to/bribe to get Simon Says to become weekly? =}
More videos with 8-4 drafts. I vote NO for 4-booster seal. Too much luck based, and too many “Curse of the Bloody Tome” played. It’s a common and forces you to play more cards with your limited pool.
You are doing a great job, Simon. It’s truly a pleasure to watch a professional go through the motions of an entire draft. The analysis is spot-on, in my opinion, and it’s always great to see an archetype many others have dismissed go the whole nine. The I don’t think I’ve missed a single second of your material, and I must say that I must wholeheartedly agree with MMogg. Thank you Simon!
Weekly draft videos from you would help restore my sanity which I lose from watching CFB players passing Lingering Souls as they tell you completely wrong information.
Your logic is sound and your dialogue is succinct!
Thank you for truly providing quality content.
I just tried to find the ‘like’ button on the above comment, but alas…
I agree these are some of the best draft videos available, I’m always excited to see a new one, and personally think R/W is a fine archetype. With burning oil, powerful creatures, and good removal, as well as the possibility to go aggressive or control, I really like it.
One question, I’m curious why you didn’t think you would get white cards during P1P4, when you could have chosen an Elguad Inquisitor or Niblus. Those seem like fine white cards to me and seeing both of them fourth pick is a symbol that white may be available to go with your lingering souls.
@ Joshua & Mike CFB is obviously a great resource, but there is some serious hive mind stuff going on over there. It seems like they found RW problematic in early play testing for DKA, because they avoid it like the plague. The more versatile drafters on that site still play mountains with plains, but only in four and five color burning vengeance monstrosities. The less versatile drafters (I’m looking at you Ochoa, though Conley is in a creative rut) don’t even give RW a consideration.
@ Sylvan I agree with you whole heartedly. I do learn some valuable strategies from CFB, however, I have had to unlearn some information as well.
@PlanetWalls I thoroughly enjoy your content when you are playing limited ( sorry my love for constructed is limited ) and if you would care to like my comments I would be thrilled.
https://www.facebook.com/Nuckleheadninja
Really like your deck. You ended up making interesting decisions that i would not make.
By explaining exactly why you were cutting cards like Niblis it helps understand your process.
Your logic makes sense, even if the deck appears weaker on paper, it is stronger during play
Great content, commentary, and production.
Interesting to read your thoughts on the 4-3-2-2′s, as that’s where I tend to play. I know the E.V. is low, but Swiss can take forever, and I worry about the skill discrepancy in the 8-4′s.
What video program do you use for making your draft videos? I want to start recording my drafts so I can see where I made play mistakes and what I could have drafted instead to fix these mistakes. After trying an 8-4 the other day I realized I had missed a couple key plays and rewatching the videos would help me learn from the past. Yes I know you can rewatch games in mtgo but I would like to put it in a format I can take with me.
Posterchild: I don’t know if Simon will answer, but to let you know, most people who make videos use Camtasia.
Wasn’t sure he would either but didn’t want to wait a week to ask and figured someone might know. Thanks for the answer!
Camstudio is a freeware alternative to camtasia. I am pretty sure Simon uses Camstudio. You might need to download codecs to get good output from it (IIRC).
@Posterchild: If you are on twitter, you can just send me a message and get an answer immediately. I don’t regularly check my videos for comments after they have disappeared from the front page.
As Chris noted I do in fact use Camstudio, which is an open source alternative to Camtasia. You can easily find both on the web. For streaming I have xsplit, which can also be used for local recordings. The licensed version gives you a better audio/voice codec but that should not matter for your purpose. As long as you don’t plan to publish your videos, you don’t really have to worry about video quality and codecs. If you want to analyze your drafting in particular, you should have draft recording turned on in-client, and there are quite a few places to publish and discuss drafts with other players. For the games and sideboarding, recording might be a good way to analyze your decisions, as MTGO replay functionality is severely lacking. However, you should get a media player with adjustable playback speed. This is not only good for your own videos, but also a way to watch (downloadable) video content or listen to podcasts without using a lot of spare time.
I am really confused about why Spidery Grasp did not work as his opponent expected near the end of game 2 of round 1. See video “DII Draft, Round 1″ about the 19:30 minute mark. How was Simon able to activate the ability for Burden of Guilt *after* the stack resolved with Spidery Grasp?
@Tarpshack : Spidery grasp resolves, untaps the wolf. Then Simon pays 1 to tap it again using burden of guilt activated ability. Letting one spell resolves doesn’t necessary mean you give up doing anything until the next step/phase, if that’s what confuses you (or maybe I didn’t get what you were asking…)