Simon Says #20: Looking Ahead

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Simon Goertzen

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  1. During the draft, I was frustrated when you said Killing Wave is unplayable. It is a great card. It is a very versatile card. If you have them low enough and you can afford to keep a powerful creature, it can just end the game. It’s pretty much a wrath with an upside of letting you choose to keep a creature if you choose. I don’t see how the card is bad. That being said, you lost me when you said Archangel was a bad card. How is a 5/5 flying vigilance bad? It’s expensive, but it can end games like any huge angel. Anyways, both of those cards are cards that have won me many games, so saying they are bad is kind of misleading.

  2. This is probably the most entertaining AVR draft video I’ve seen. Good drafting, close matches, and a really interesting final opponent.

    But I have to put in a good word for Killing Wave as well. I’ve had a chance to play with it and against it, and it has performed way above expectations. While at first, it might look like a card that requires careful board engineering, in practice, Killing Wave simply lets you play much more aggressively than you could otherwise.

    The most common blowout play is to make a reckless-looking alpha strike, leaving your opponent at a low enough life total that Killing Wave just wipes his board. But if you have any of the usual black cards, it’s going to be a non-symmetrical spell in any situation. Undying creatures, Blood Artist, Homicidal Seclusion, the Twins, etc. I don’t think it’s a spell that you usually splash for, but it’s a bomb in any black deck.

  3. Good vid, as usual.

    Good cards are good because they are good most of the time.

    Killing wave is far to situational. It can be good in a homocydal seclusion deck, or a deck with lots of undying creatures.

    And Archangel is also not the greatest, because it is expensive and so you need to build a specific deck to get that far… and even in a deck geared to pump out big angels, you’d probably rather have any of the other big angels (except the Voice..).

  4. I don’t know if it’s my PC, but i can only watch the draftvid itself. The other vids are giving an error.

  5. Regarding M1G1, you wondered if you could have won the damage race. You lost it with your gambling on the 6/4 wurm, when you had no need to improve your board position. Directly before, you said, you could go on offense, if you stabilize on 10 life.

    Directly afterwards you attack and put the Wurm down. There are several ways for the RGu deck to wreck you there and your opp did. With both tricks in hand, it gets much harder for your opp to wreck you and also to develop his board, since you can blink *and* unsummon your flying Manowars.

    So, I’d not have played the wurm, which is also good later.

    Anyways: schöne Drafts.

  6. Thanks for another great entry, Simon!
    Your analysis during deckbuilding was excellent. For those of us trying to improve our game, the peek into the ‘WHY’ of each of your decisions is invaluable. Some of the most difficult parts of Limited Magic are deciding on which cards to put into those last couple of slots.

  8. Killing Wave is generally terrible in draft. Maybe you could craft a home in a “loner” deck or a RB aggro deck of some kind. But it is not a wrath at all. Even real wraths are often pretty mediocre and difficult to get much value out of in a limited environment. But killing wave also gives your opponents the option to keep their best creature(s). For it to be good you have to be both behind on the board *and* well ahead on life.. that situation just doesn’t come up often. In std it takes a deck full of undying guys (both literally an figuratively) to make it playable. As Simon stated: it is basically unplayable in draft.

    Regarding Archangel: 7 mana is a lot more than 6. If you hit 7 mana in a timely fashion in this format you are probably flooding out and taking a soulbound fueled beating in the process. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “bad” though (Killing Wave is BAD). Archangel has a home in the UW defensive decks in the environment, if you are playing angelic walls and whatnot to stall to 6 mana because you got some of the top end angels then (depending on how many 6s you are playing) an Archangel could find a slot. But thats a pretty narrow role in a draft environment.

  10. Great draft, thanks for posting it! I have to agree with Phil though. You had the perfect cards in hand to keep playing tempo instead of taking a risk by playing the wurm.

  11. Never seen killing wave played but seems like it could be ok if you get the deck for it. Butcher ghouls, shades, maybe a blood artist or a bloodflow connoisuer, etc, etc. In general though yeah, if you’re just jamming it into your deck it will probably be bad.

    Also, P3P6 was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in an AVR draft. Sixth pick Mist Ravens and Into the Voids do not happen and you got your choice of the two.

  12. I really felt that you drafted and played well this week Simon. Keep up the good work. :)

  14. After GP Vancouver this weekend, this format is no longer relevant for major tournament play (the next major Limited event will be M13), so will you continue making AVR or branch off into other formats, like this week they are running Invasion block drafts. If I may, I would love to vote for Invasion block. =)

    That said, great videos as usual. Awesome analysis and tight play. These videos display that the format is really skill-intensive, from drafting to playing and it can really brutally punish mistakes.

  15. M2 G1 on the last turn if you play Pathbreaker Wurm instead of Revenge you also beat Terrifying Presence. You lose to Wolfir Avenger in that case though.

    Both plays lose to Death Wind, Wurm is worse against Sheltering Word or a pumpspell because it lets him topdeck something. Close Call in my opinion. But the fact that you didn’t even mention playing wurm kind of surprised me there.

    Anyway great videos as always.

  16. Thank you for all the comments!

    When I do the draft commentary, each pack forces me to decide on the fly how to manage both the depth and length of the discussion. As a result, some of my comments are going to be a little more short and provocative, especially when I am simply mentioning a card to give a quick reason why it is *not* an option. I still try to talk about as much as possible, because the decision which card to pick is naturally also a decision on which cards to pass.
    I stand on my comments regarding Killing Wave and Archangel, and TVDB and Robin did a good job explaining the reasons in more detail. If you have been following my series for a while, especially the intros I did on topics of situational cards and streamlined archetypical drafting, you should be familiar with my philosophy regarding cards like Killing Wave. I called Archangel “not a very good card”, which I believe to be true in this format considering how difficult it is to reach 7 mana. Archangel does shine in a few archetypes, but even then it is probably one of the lesser options you can pick up for 6-7 mana.

    @beardo: Thank you for the feedback, great to hear that you enjoy my style!

    @Undersol: To be completely honest, I wasn’t too happy with my play in this episode. I recorded this draft after work and wasn’t feeling well overall. As a result it took me a longer time to decide on a line of play and I had a harder time thinking through and sticking to it. I was afraid that the commentating also suffered because of that, but it can’t have been to bad from what I hear in the comments. I do set myself some pretty high standards, though.

    @MMogg: I’m afraid that for every viewer that enjoys a throwback-draft, there are probably 10 that have never seen these sets in limited before and could not care less. With the delay of recorded drafts, Invasion block limited would probably not even be available on MTGO anymore when the episode goes up. Add in that personally, I am not the biggest fan of Invasion limited, I would not count on it. Right now I am enjoying AVR limited not because it is relevant for high-level play, but because it is a very demanding format that is suffering from somewhat of a bad reputation. Continuing with AVR videos, I hope to disprove the “I am not winning as much, this format sucks”-mindset which seems to be prevalent. What I am looking forward to, though, is the return of Cube Drafts!

    @Phil and Torpesh: Your make a good point about not dropping the Wurm at this point. However, I am not so sure if your argumentation holds or if you are being too results-oriented. It is very easy to be influenced by the outcome of the game and the cards our opponent turned out to hold, but is not dropping the Wurm really the best play overall?
    It’s my main phase, opponent has 20 life, 5R, G, U (splash color), 2 unknown cards, Borderland Ranger and tapped down to RU for Wildwood Geist. I am on 10 life with 3U 3G, Gryff Vanguard, Mist Raven and my hand is Pathbreaker Wurm, U, Ghostly Flicker and Peel from Reality.

    I don’t want to discuss this in full detail but I want to make a couple of points here: My only way to get rid of his Wildwood Geist for good is trading with Pathbreaker Wurm. If he declines the trade the Wurm goes on the offensive and my defensive tricks gain value while I advance in the damage race. Furthermore, there are only a handful of cards out of a RGu-Deck that deal with Pathbreaker Wurm. Ignoring Rares and Mythics, I believe that Thunderous Wrath is the only card that downright kills my Wurm. Peel from Reality, Vanishment and Fervent Cathar are problematic as well but in all cases I do not outright risk to lose the game.
    I agree that playing Pathbreaker Wurm hurt me because he had two very powerful plays that played into the windows I gave him, but even then I was quite close to winning the damage race. With my last drawstep I was one point of damage short of winning, so one less land would have probably been enough.
    From looking at the board position, it is still not clear to me how to progress the game without dropping the Wurm. My only line at this point is to block Borderland Ranger and use Ghostly Flicker to bounce his Geist and draw an additional Card. He then replays his Geist and probably drops another cheap drop. I can then use Peel from Reality to reuse my Mist Raven but at the same time I am not progressing my board or advancing in the damage race against a red-green deck that has already brought me down to 10. If Thunderous Wrath is the reason why I should not drop the Wurm, I feel like this defensive style is even more likely to lose me the race in the end!

    @Van Phanel: Yes, I should have considered that.

  17. My very first AVR draft killing wave won me 3 games, every time similar situation : oponent with 3-4 creatures and on 6 or 7 life, I with 2 creatures and 15 life : played killing wave for 7, oponent had to sac all his creatures and I could do lethal damage being on 1 life… felt great !

  18. @Simon: I can still say with confidence that Killing Wave is not unplayable. It is a powerful, scalable effect that always allows you to play more aggressively, and often wins the game outright. It is a mistake to describe the card as “situational” and merely dismiss it.

    All cards are situational to some degree. There are situations where an obviously good card like Mist Raven is a bad draw. The question is how often a given card helps you win, and in my experience it is easy to create situations where Killing Wave does that.

    Any time you are outnumbered on the board OR you have a life advantage OR you control at least one undying creature (or any other card with a death trigger) OR you are playing a loner strategy OR you have burn in hand OR you want to advance the clock for your evasion creature, then casting Killing Wave gives you an advantage. That’s a lot of situations, and they don’t include the times where your opponent can’t pay for any of his creatures and you just win on the spot.

    Robin’s analysis of the card is simply inaccurate. Killing Wave isn’t a situational wrath. It’s a situational discounted Plague Wind. Think of it as a tempo card, not a control card.

    I do understand that a card like Killing Wave doesn’t fit into a conservative drafting philosophy, but I like to experiment with powerful, versatile cards that don’t fit into established card archetypes. That way, I discover hidden gems that give me an edge over the conservative drafters, who can be tough to beat at their own game. If I draft 100% conservatively, my odds are always 50/50, but since I still get free 5th-pick Killing Waves, my odds are a lot better.

  19. Just so I don’t seem to be contrary for the sake of contrariness, I’ll weigh in on Archangel. I don’t think it’s a very good card either. I like it as a finisher for a Wx control deck, but large fliers are not hard to find in white, and the other angels are usually stronger picks.

    Lingering Archangels at the table are an indication that the angel deck might be open, however, and that can give me a direction if my draft hasn’t found its footing yet. It’s nice being able to put to work all those late Angelic Walls, Cathedral Sanctifiers and Defangs.

  20. I think it is highly accurate to call Killing Wave unplayable. It is a card that is virtually guaranteed to make your deck worse than your 24th card would.

    Describing it as versatile is absurd. Killing Wave is one of the biggest traps in the format because it is only good in some situations — when you are ahead in life total and your opponent does not have one creature that holds back your team and you can afford to keep enough creatures around to win. Yes, when you cast it you often win the game, but this is true of many bad and mediocre cards. The thing that makes this card bad is the times that your Killing Wave is dead in your hand while you lose the game.

    The “OR”s in your post are misleading. For Killing Wave to be good, it is not enough for you to have a life advantage OR to be behind on the board. If you have 15 life and your opponent has 10 and you have 3 creatures to his 1, you can burn him for a little bit, but you will have to sacrifice part of your team and take a huge hit in terms of damage in order to do it, so in this situation Killing Wave is significantly worse than Lava Axe. Furthermore, you are already well ahead in this situation — a 4th dude is likely to be better than Killing Wave. On the other hand, if you have 10 life and your opponent has 15, and you have 1 creature to his 3, he can afford to take a significant amount of damage and then proceed to win with his superior board position.

    The times when Killing Wave is good are when your opponent is low on life AND you are behind on the board. But how often do these situations come up? This means your opponent was originally losing but has killed a bunch of your creatures and stabilized. This happens sometimes in formats where control decks exist, but AVR is not really one of those formats.

    I will say this: If Killing Wave forced your opponent to make his choices first, it would be much more playable.

  21. You’re making the assumption that we’re just playing the Killing Wave all willy-nilly when it won’t be advantageous. I think it’s a good idea to get more specific.

    Let’s look at your first example. Opponent is on 10 life, with a single creature that is holding back our team of 3 creatures. We have 15 life and Killing Wave in hand.

    Let’s say the opposing creature is a Geist Trappers, and we have 2 Crypt Creepers and a Bloodflow Connoisseur, because our deck is garbage and I want to make conservative assumptions here. The correct play is to attack with all 3 creatures. Opponent probably blocks the vampire, takes 4, and goes to 6 life.

    Let’s assume we have the mana to play Killing Wave for 4, because again, that’s conservative. The correct play is to keep it in hand. Opponent thinks he’s stabilized, and since we’re making conservative assumptions, let’s say he draws another large creature, perhaps a Nettle Swine, and plays it. For our turn, it doesn’t matter what we draw. Killing Wave for 4 plus attack is lethal damage.

    Now let’s say we have another creature in hand instead of Killing Wave, because we followed consensus drafting theory and left the powerful situational card in our sideboard. In that case, we are screwed, unless the creature is something really special. If it’s just a Renegade Demon or whatever, we have no good attacks and we have to hope to topdeck better than the opposing green deck, which on a one-to-one card basis, is not likely.

    Now, this is all assuming that we don’t have any undying creatures or Soulcage Fiends or undrawn Homicidal Seclusions or any of the other cards that make Killing Wave even better, the kind of cards that make black decks playable in the first place. We are also assuming that we draw poorly, while our opponent draws well. Yet this is actually a situation where Killing Wave is better than a creature.

    Killing Wave is not better than a Lava Axe here, true, but there is no common Lava Axe in the format, so the question of whether to cut Killing Wave for a 23rd-card Lava Axe is irrelevant.

    —–

    We can do this with the second example, too, where we are behind both on board and life total, although you don’t necessarily get to win that game, and there aren’t many cards that would fix that. I won’t take the time right this second (hint: first, you attack with your creature), but it still works out that Killing Wave is more valuable than a random creature (barring stuff like Mist Raven and Seraph of Dawn, but nobody here is talking about cutting Mist Raven for Killing Wave, I hope).

    I feel like most of the dissenting voices here have done a good job of analyzing Killing Wave on a theoretical basis, but haven’t played with the card, and haven’t understood how these theoretical examples would play out. The power of Killing Wave isn’t just in its immediate effect on the board, but in the tactics it lets you employ when you have it in hand.

  22. Ugh. People. Killing wave is not unplayable because there are no situations where it is good. There certainly are some.

    Killing Wave is “unplayable” because situations are very difficult to craft (much more so then with actual wraths, which can be tough at time in limited themselves) and arise organically relatively rarely so there are going to be fairly few times when killing wave is going to be a great top deck.

    TBH this is probably a relatively “high value” format for killing wave to exist in because soul bond can create dramatic board swings, but if you must draft it don’t draft it high.

  23. It’s probably not fair to aim that at “people”. It’s really just me at this point.

    I disagree that it’s difficult to craft positive situations for Killing Wave, at least not in this format, and I don’t think it’s sensible to compare it directly to wrath, but I don’t think anybody’s seriously hurting their game by avoiding it. Especially if the consensus among good players is that a late Killing Wave isn’t a black signal.

    I’m just trying to make the point that it’s a good tool if you know how to use it. Classifying a card like Killing Wave as “unplayable” doesn’t ruin your limited game or anything. It just cuts down your arsenal of weapons by one.

  24. I just wanted to chime in to say that I really enjoy the Killing Wave discussion, even though we probably all agree that it’s a pain to have an argument in written form on the internet. Let me stress that I agree with basically all of the points that Psychotronic makes, it’s only that my conclusions differ.

    I will play Killing Wave if my deck needs a high-variance card to improve its chances of winning. I have played with this card before (I understand this is misleading, but I regularly do play cards I call unplayable) and seen others play it during testing, store drafts and on MTGO. This card is highly situational. Do I want this card in my opening hand? Most of the time, no. Does my deck get better if I could draft multiple Killing Waves, let’s say 2 or 3? Probably not.

    Avacyn Restored Limited is a format in which board presence dictates almost every game. If you manage to continuously have an advantaged board, there aren’t many cards your opponent could even draw let alone play out, especially considering the amount of cheap offensive tricks and tempo plays available.

    I want to differentiate two cases here: In the first case, you have Killing Wave in your hand for multiple turns and have a chance to engineer its effectiveness and maybe, success. Of course, there is a hidden cost to that. If Killing Wave would have been an efficient creature, it might have filled a hole in your curve, put additional pressure on your opponent, or, in the case of black, helped you stabilize.
    In the second case, you draw Killing Wave off the top. Because of the nature of AVR limited, there is almost never a situation of board parity — somebody is currently winning the race. This is the case where Killing Wave does not give you the luxury of carefully planning everything out, but you have to take things as they are. Of course, you might be able to swing with everything and fire off a lethal wave, but did this imply that you were on the offensive anyway? The more I think about situations involving Killing Wave, the more it appears to be a win-more card.

    The Killing Wave argument ties in directly to the position of Black in Avacyn Restored. A defensive, card advantage oriented color with a powerful loner strategy is very diffcult to steer through a metagame of synergistic aggressive decks that can easily have you dead on turn 5. I admit that Killing Wave is probably a lot better in somewhat aggressive black decks, but up to now I have not seen a successful build of that. Or to put it differently, I have not seen a black deck make good use of Soulcage Fiend.

  25. @Psychotronic Discussing the validity of the label “unplayable” is a separate matter. I’ll agree that most of the time calling something “unplayable” is hyperbolic, and as a community we tend to use it much more frequently than is warranted by a strict interpretation of its meaning.

  26. I don’t think it’s fair to call it unplayable. If any situational card were unplayable then Thatcher’s Revolt would be unplayable, but it’s not. I wouldn’t take it as a first pick P1P1, but it combos very nicely with Blood Artist and multiple Soulcage Fiends in an aggressive, creature-heavy black deck. So I’d certainly take it early pack 2 or 3 if my deck was something like BR, with good aggressive 2 and 3 drops, burn, and/or 1 or more Blood Artists. Most of the time I’d pass it early, even if I was in black, and possibly pick it up on a wheel. That’s far from unplayable, though.

  28. Great draft and great commentary. I look forward to viewing your draft videos, probably more than any other pro out there. In fact, I enjoy mtgoacademy drafts in general. LimitedResources also provides great drafts and commentary while LoadingReadyRun provides some light entertainment. Keep up the great job guys!