Simon Says #18: Limited Preparation

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Simon Goertzen

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(NOTE: For this week, LoadingReadyRun’s comedy draft will be posted Thursday at 12:01am US East. –MTGO Academy staff.)

 

  1. I’m glad that my bafflement as to what role black cards should play in AVR limited is one shared by more qualified players. :) I watched the draft portion but haven’t yet had a chance to watch the games- excited to see how things turn out!

  2. I think this proves that black is a better color in this Limited format than I gave it credit for… the undying shade looks like a lot of fun!

  3. Wow, that Haunted Guardian was an MVP. Of course, the Latch Seeker was the win condition, but Haunted really gums up the board and allows you do easily go on the offensive.

    I found it interesting you initially said that black was a question mark and you didn’t want to touch it at PT AVR, but then you drafted it here. Was that just circumstance (i.e. the best cards in the pack, a.k.a. signals) or were you purposefully trying it out? That Swampwalker was really a beating.

    One thing you didn’t mention in the introduction is WHY you avoided white at the PT. Was it that it was going to be over drafted by others and you didn’t want to fight for playables in an already limited pool, or was it just not your preferred personal play style?

    Thanks for the awesome content as always and for the introduction. :D

  4. In R2G2 you probably should sacrifice Crypt Creeper to remove Seraph from graveyard in response to the Angel Reanimation spell

  5. Match 2, Game 2. Shouldn’t you have sac’d Crypt Keeper to fizzle his Defy Death, or am I missing something?

  6. In M2G2, letting Defy Death resolve was an oversight. It’s weird because I was aware of the interaction with Crypt Creeper the whole time, as you can see in game 3 and you won’t often see me slip up like that. I didn’t even F6, but somehow too caught up in how the race against his evasive creatures and equipments was shaping up. What is also interesting is that my opponent chose to cast Defy Death despite my Crypt Creeper, but he got his angel anyway :).
    I also found that the first recording in a new format always takes some more concentration than usual. Probably because I am trying extra hard to not make too many pronunciation mistakes when a new set releases :).
    I really like this draft as a starting point to Avacyn Restored, because it showed a lot of the non-trivial stuff that is going on. At the beginning I drafted just like you would an arbitrary limited set, but only after focusing heavily on my curve my results started to improve.
    Regarding the question of drafting black, I started experimenting with black decks at the Sunday of PT Barcelona. I have had varying success with different black builds and several 2-1 and 3-0 decks. Now I am much more open to drafting black. It’s always going to be OK as a support color in any controlling deck, but for it to be a main color you need to get some key cards and draft a combo deck of sorts. I hope to explore the mystery that is AR black during the upcoming episodes.

  7. Hello,

    I liked the new video alot, I thought you were very descriptive into the insight of the plays and it gives a good look at AVR Limited and the challenging new set.

    I particularly liked the introduction. It helped me think about attacking the limited environment in a different way. I am a newer move competitive player and new sets seem pretty daunting. It would be neat if you could incorporate maybe an article that deals with breaking down commons and pick orders along with evaluating the uncommons against them. Give a bit more insight into the digesting of a new set to give a few more things for us newbies to think about.

    Great work as always, thank you for the time taken to give great content :)

  8. Excellent job. Its nice to hear a pro-level player keep an open mind when discussing this format. I’ve said this elsewhere but I also feel like the games in this format are pretty interesting, interactive, and skill intensive. Small mistakes have real consequences, but tight play also seem to yield good results.

    Keep up the good work.

  9. @Matt: Currently, I don’t have the time to write articles in addition to the content I already produce. If you want to get better at Limited and have trouble with new sets, take a list of all commons, sorted by color, and try to identify the five best ones and put them into order. Discuss the lists with your peers, the other players at FNM, or in online forums with Limited discussions. Try not to be overly influenced by early set reviews, as these only reflect a first reaction by guys who have a lot of experience but, just like anybody else, won’t be able to tell a format just from looking at the spoiler. Make changes to your list as you realize mistakes, learn new things and your view of the format shifts. Including cards of higher rarities and including advanced differentiation apart from color (i.e., incorporating potential archetypes, and the aggro/control spectrum) is a natural extension which you would want to work on as soon as you feel comfortable. In fact, if you have the common lists fleshed out, the questions of uncommon vs common will regularly pop up whenever you open a booster pack.

    A note regarding black in this format, overheard on Mark Rosewater’s tumblr: “Black does not suck in Avacyn Restored. It is harder to play corrrectly than the other colors though.”

  10. Thanks for the vids, they are very good and very informative! I cant wait to draft this FNM :D

  11. Re: Black

    Black does not seem “harder to play correctly” – but it is probably harder to draft. I feel like the number one problem card is Butcher Ghoul. Black (especially as a core color, rather than as support) really wants almost as many of them as it can get since he enables the rest of black syngergies so well, but you can’t take him over death winds, barters, blood artists etc. If you are able to snag powerful black cards early and commit you can usually limit the number of black drafters pretty easily, but so far I’ve found it much more difficult to move into black because I feel like at this early point the signals for “black is open” aren’t very clear: is that late butcher ghoul, ghoul flesh, ghoul flesh picks 11, 12, 13 in pack 1 a signal, or do people just not know what they are doing? Maybe things will get better once real drafts are out.

  12. I do believe that Mark means not only the games, but also the drafting portion when he talks about playing black in Avacyn Restored. I agree on the importance of Butcher Ghoul, but I really do not see the same problem as you. The Uncommons give you the build-around cards and the best signals for black being open, Death Wind is a great first-pickable Common, and the rest of the black cards make up your combo deck, with Bone Splinters, Undead Executioner and Butcher Ghoul supporting black’s strategy the best.

  13. Maybe my packs have been weird – I’ve only drafted black twice. I agree that theoretically you want the engine cards first, and thats what I’ve done: going after the uncommons/rares to build around. But in this small sample of two black drafts I have simply never seen the zombie fodder needed to really bring the engine to life despite black flowing pretty well otherwise (4 death winds in one of these drafts, 3 in the other I think).

    Regardless, black’s place in the draft meta is one of the main plots I’ll be watching as this format matures.

  14. At the very end of drafting, I have no clue why you didn’t cut the Diregraf Escort, given you have 3 or more zombies in your deck… since you picked the worthless shield over it too seems loose.

  15. @khgkshsk: Diregraf Escort is usually not a card that I want to cut from my neighbors. Even with a couple of zombies in my UB control deck, I might even want my opponents to play those instead of cards with more impact. Diregraf Escort is ok in an aggressive deck with human synergies (RG for example), and can be important to a deck with a lot of Flowering Lumberknots, but all of those reasons are not sufficient to take it away from somebody. While the Shield is generally not a card I want to play, there might actually be matchups where it helps my controlling deck quite a bit.

  16. I like the precision you play with. Your videos are probably the most educational of all the major draft vids out there, alongside lsv and brad N.

  17. WARNING: I watched this video and immediately drafted UB control TWICE! It wasn’t intentional and the decks were horrible. This episode of Simon Says is quite clearly cursed.