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Simon Says #48: Which side are you on? (DGR 8-4)
Posted on June 27, 2013 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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Wow, your second opponent’s deck was… ambitious. I think occasional losses against way too greedy mana bases are something you need to accept as part of the format. This doesn’t make DGR bad or anything but is just the nature of a multicolored limited environment.
Neither side. Choice is stumble on mana or have a very mediocre deck.
“Neither side. Choice is stumble on mana or have a very mediocre deck.”
That has some truth to it but it only highlights the negative. The many difficult draft decisions in this format should reward skill.
It’s funny how the Ben Stark namebrand influenced drafting so quickly in this format. I don’t believe that he nailed the optimal strategy this time, or if he did, some people attached themselves to his strategy too much. I aim for 3 colors in the beginning to pick up powerful cards, and try to cut one of the colors down to a splash in pack 3. Maybe I’m just not a good enough drafter to do it his way though.
Looking at your final choices, I would probably play the Wurm and board the Spike Jester, playing one less black mana source main. But maybe having the two-drop was right with your bloodrush cards and great removal. Thanks for the interesting games and the insightful draft comments. I love that players can draft 5 color monstrosities like your second opponent, and still win once in a while.
@Disco: I think the Stark-Strategie works sometimes, but sometimes not, if not you are forced to draft a three color deck.
I also like the Wurm more than Spike Jester, because you play 17 Land plus Keyruine plus Mana-Druid.
Sure, Putrefy is the best card p1p1 but I don’t like first picking it because its almost impossible to end up straight golgari and I want to put myself in a position to draft a 2 color deck if possible. I would have taken Lawmage p1p1 and probally have ended up in a uwr deck after seeing the late fluxcharger and nivix cyclops on the wheel. I could also see an argument for the 7 mana uncommon, but I just can’t get behind first picking a 7 mana card out of a strong pack. All in all an intresting pack.
Any thoughts on taking the gate p1p3 and and positioning yourself for 4/5 color control or a junk deck with good mana?
P3p1, I think it was wrong to take the creature over the gate. You ended up wheeling the gate an getting another in the pack but I think its too important for your deck to have good mana to risk getting no black gates to splash those putrefies. Splatter thug is good but its no bomb and ultimately easier to replace than an on color gate for a 3 color deck.
Great draft video as always. I think once you understood your second round opponent was likely not high caliber player you should have welcomed the board stall instead of pushing the aggression into a superior board. Less experienced players fear board stalls and make horrid mis plays once the ground get cluttered. Armed and Dangerous is the premier board stall win condition. Once he passes a few good attacks i would have banked om him continuing to be timid and hoped for the late game win.
In your first game against the second opponent, you could have won if you waited for enough mana to cast armed and dangerous and bloodrush the scorchwalker. I found that line of play reasonable regarding that your opponent was giving you time to do so with his hesitant play,
I was wondering why you didn’t play the Wurm. Is it that bad? It seems much better than it was in gatecrash. In this matchup, it could hold off a Trostani’s Summoner team.
Personally, I like to draft 5 colors all the time. So I prioritize gates more than anything else. You want 7+ gates in your deck. In DGM I would still pick cards like maze glider and maze abomination over gates in addition to bomb rares and putrefy. A Maze glider on your side suddenly makes mediocre cards like: Feral Animist, Bronzebeak Moa, Fortress Cyclops, Ruination Wurm become insane. Maze abomination has a similar effect with weak multi-color creatures like Judge’s Familiar or Goblin Electromancer etc… Without Maze Glider the 5 color deck is hard to work with.
The green (7 life is a huge deal, especially against extort decks that completely destroy slow control decks) and white (having 2 bodies is good, especially when you can populate the token) gatekeepers are also very high picks. The black gatekeeper can be a little bit underwhelming. The blue one is just OK. The red one is trash. Overall, don’t go crazy on the gatekeepers.Then I like to pick up 1~3 cluestones/keyrunes. Mana fixing like Verdant Haven or Prophetic Prism help with mana immensely. Then I like to pick a ton of creatures with toughness 3+ for defense, flyers, removal and BOMBS…by bombs I mean some of the split cards like give//take which are tricky to cast in 2 color decks but shine in 5 color decks and also fatties of course. After pack 1, you should have 4+ gates and some sweet cards. In gatecrash, pick: Hold the Gates, Crackling Perimeter and Guardian of the Gateless over anything.
Sorry for the long double post, but I would like to add that guild mages are absolutely insane in 5 color decks. Especially the Boros Guildmage which can produce multicolor tokens (hello Maze Glider). On a side note, don’t be worried about having few playables after pack 1 if you have a large number of gates (5+). You will more than make up for it with packs 2 and 3. In addition, it’s a mistake to get more than 9 gates after the draft, because it shows that you neglected powerful cards for gates.
Great draft, thanks for the video! However I cringed when you played armed on that swine during that board stall…. That was brutal.
In the last game of match 1 (19:35), i would’ve played Armed/Dangerous when you knew his hand to wipe most of his board. This way you don’t risk loosing to a topdecked trick.
Thank’s for all the laughs I got out of hearing “Pootrify” a hundred times!
“Poot”! HAH! XD