Simon Says #16: Color Uncertainty

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Simon Goertzen

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  1. I know a lot of serious players try to play around tricks and such, but I laughed out loud when you thought for a second that he might alter’s reap the doomed traveler m1g1. I’m just glad you didn’t take that seriously.

  3. Hiho, u talked about color uncertainty and how it decreases during the drafting process. U described the problem with drafting cards in diffrent colors.
    Here is my problem: I often (,about 10-20% of the drafts,) have the problem that i draft cards in a single color to stay most open to every spoiler that might be passed. And finaly i end up in a close to monocolored deck. This sounds good in the first place i guess but these decks have rarely a fine manabase to support multiple-color casting cost cards of the splash color. So i got to decide if i cut some of my best cards or playing with a manabase that doesnt really fits to my deck.
    So i feel like there is a point in time where u would definitly pick up a second color, but i never solved that riddle. Do u got some advice?

  4. About surfing: I usually get my second colors p2p1 or in the middle of p2.
    In some formats, you can stay open to the very end, but I do not like this style. First of all, you don’t send any signals by staying open, except for when you cut the one color you already have – and even then the guys who pass you will take the bombs in YOUR color, since they might find a way to play them. So expect high quality in your color if you cut hard, but never bombs. And don’t expect passed spoilers except for packs with DFC or foils. Or in those that you open. But that doesn’t happen often.
    Second, I have seen players in (artifact and nonartifact) sets “stay open” for a bomb, then passing multiple bombs for the sake of staying open. I don’t know what those guys expect to get, but when Elspeth, Skittles or Geth don’t count as a bomb the time of the wolf is near. Yeah, I’m looking at Ochoa here. He scrubbed out round 1, like he does often, because he had a deck full of Myrs and Snapsail Gliders. You get the idea, watch some Ochoa drafts and learn when to pick good cards over cards in your color or your favorite color. He does it wrong almost all the time.

    Then, you need to find out if it’s a synergy set or if it’s based on pure powerlevel of single cards. This is where I come to speak of “color uncertainty”. Take travel prep. You are drafting DII and p1p1 you take Briarpack Alpha. 4 picks in you’re solid green. Then you have the choice between a really bad green card, a good white creature and a good black removal. Which one do you take? If it weren’t for DII, you’d probably go for removal. But you know that if you cut white a bit now and then go to 2 packs of Innistrad with GW Travel Prep at common, you will need creatures. And that this one is good.
    This is why I don’t agree on color uncertainty to a degree. You WILL be more likely in a 2nd color depending on which cards you picked in ANOTHER color. It isn’t as easy as depicted, but I’m sure Simon knows that.

    Here’s what I have to say: You can be solid 2 colors p1p2. You can change colors p3 if you open Olivia. It depends on what kind of a drafter you are and WHY you draft. If you do 5 drafts a day, learn how to methodically get the best deck possibly, even force it, and disregard that Olivia. If you’re drafting for fun, take it. If you’re in the finals of a pro tour… take it.

    DII is synergy based. This color uncertainty works because of that to some degree. Your job is to figure out in what circumstances (pick, pack, signal, other cards you picked, opponents, round, price money) a card is so powerful it breaks that synergy. Chose your colors and the timing you pick them on that basis.

  5. Disciple of Griselbrand would have been good to sub in for match 1, game 2 considering the colors you saw him playing. As he is predominately blue and white he is likely to have removal that doesn’t kill the creature, such as Bonds of Faith, Claustrophobia, Burden of Guilt, Chant of the Skifsang, Sensory Deprivation. Creatures affected by these auras would be ideal fodder for his morbid-on-demand ability.

  6. Why did you not take advantage of Geist’s undying in match 3 to activate morbid on either the bear or Spider?

  7. IMO you’re undervaluing Chant. I can see why you picked Tragic Slip over it but with no black cards flowing up to that point and blue looking to be pretty open I would take the save route.

  8. Agree with Steve. There may be arguments for not swinging with the geist, but you barely discussed it and I think not trying to push your advantage and activate morbid ultimately cost you the game because you lost out on quite a bit of potentially “free” power and toughness.

  9. @JLo86: This is a difficult problem, and probably not one I can solve for you, especially from this comment box. 10-20% sounds far too high, however. Have you tried to show other players your drafts where things go as you describe? To me, it sounds like you are 1) putting to much emphasis on your first pick 2) not basing your 2nd-4th pick on powerlevel and 3) putting too much faith in “bombs” that might never come.
    In general, every pick you make has to have the resulting deck in mind, not only 23 cards but the whole 40. By that I mean that you always draft a manabase simultaneously to picking up the cards for your maindeck. This means that if you are mono-colored far into the second pick, you are committed to a 10-7 or 11-6 manabase simply due to quantity. This turns good cards with double casting cost in another color into a liability. Don’t worry too much about the fuutre lying ahead, but about the first picks, as they are most crucial for your color positioning. The longer you stay in one color, the weaker your signals are and the less likely you are to successfully find a strong and sufficiently supported second color.
    In order to get out of your habits, I suggest to try a drastic shift in your drafting behavior. Force yourself to surf pick 1-4 only based on single-card power. The more you work out the extreme ways the more comfortable you should become with finding a solid/good/successfull middle ground. Hope that helps!

    @MonKei: I agree with your analysis. In my experience, all modern limited format are at the core synergy-based, the only question is where the synergy lies.

    @Tokamak: Correct, I believe I decided against it because I did not want to draw a 1-power creature in a potentially tight race where I couldn’t spare creatures to sac.

    @Steve & Robin: The reasoning for not swinging with Strangleroot Geist is that his correct line is to take two Damage, leaving me without Morbid and much weaker defenses. When I attack into his 3/3 when he is at 20 or 18 life he only needs to take a second to figure that out.

    @Mr: I think that Chant of the Skifsang is pretty underwhelming, if I take it it’s usually pick 8 or later, and even then I rarely maindeck it.

    Thanks a lot for all your comments! It’s great to hear your thoughts and interact with you, here and on twitter!

  10. Personally, I like the introductions and admittedly watch them only after I have watched the draft. I wouldn’t mind seeing more depth in the introduction. For example, in this one, I was left wonder when is the best time to eliminate uncertainty vs. staying open. I wondered if you had any relatively universal rules for that tension between staying open (and reading signals) vs. aggressively cutting off a colour. Maybe I’m too old, but when I learned to draft, people always talked about cutting off colours and nowadays I never hear any pros talk about that. I wonder (so much wonder for me) if that is anachronistic drafting theory. =/

    As always, Simon, keep up the great work. These are the best drafts on the internet (sorry, I say that too often I know).