Simon Says #51: Something Old, Something New (M14 8-4)

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Simon Goertzen

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  1. I’ve realized recently that the commentary and personality is more important to me than the content. I’d rather watch you play Cube than core set, but watching you play core set is so much better than watching most anyone else play cube.
    Thank you for making videos. You’re one of the best.

  2. Thanks for the videos! First of all, the recap video is a great idea, at the very least a good alternative to opening discussion. As a side benefit, it answers some comments before people even make them. =)

    In match 3 game 1, do you think it was correct to play Act+Barrage even after using Chandra’s +0 ability? Trading an awesome creature (which in that situation the Raider was as you mentioned several times) for a Condor just seems underwhelming, even if the alternative is wasting Chandra’s ability.

    I personally would not have played the Witch in that deck, but after seeing people slam removal on it ASAP, I can certainly see the reasons. As you very well put it “they dont know it does nothing”.

  3. Great to see another one of your videos.

    Something both you and your opponent in match 3 missed: at 25.40 in the video, when you Act his Cancrix and kill his Condor he can activate the platemail. It would then fall off and be able to eat the academy raiders. He takes 6 and goes to 5 so he’s very likely still dead to your Rebirth, fivedrops and Barrage, but considering his carddraw and Elixir of Immortality he might still have been in the game.

  5. Thanks for your comments, I hope that this is just the start :).

    @Horse: No, thank you!
    @Noobeman: It’s a difficult situation which I shouldn’t have let come up. I still think that it’s correct to cast the exiled card rather than just letting it go to waste.
    @Simon Ritzka: Awesome, great catch! Thanks for pointing this out. A great example of card interactions that are so counterintuitive that they are easily missed by both players.
    @Tim Ralphs: Good to hear! If there is interest, I’ll try to keep doing (and improving) these for as long as M14 is around.

  7. Oops, I completely missed the fact that Chandra’s +0 exiles the card rather than just letting you look. Wasting the ability would mean you never got the raider anyway, and makes the line of play you took better than using Act to kill Cancrix, which would only have played around very few things.

  8. Love the idea of a recap video. Allows you to mull situations over in your head a little bit more before commenting on them.
    So what is the best line to take in the Chandra +0 situation where you ended up losing her? I guess I would have taken the super-defensive route of using the Chandra +1, then threaten the cancrix and saccing it. Chrandra surviving should have first priority on that board.

  9. Haven’t watched the recap video yet, so maybe you’ll mention it there. In M1G2 your opponent could have gone for the slow card advantage engine of Bubbling Cauldron and Trading Post (sac the Cauldron, draw a card, make and sac a goat, get back the cauldron). Do you think that would have been better for him than the lifegain route he took? It seemed like a pretty grindy game, especially after your cat fell from the skies (and didn’t land on its feet).

  10. @Joncek: In retrospect, I don’t think the +0 was horrible. However, I didn’t think about what I would do if I hit a red card. I’m currently favoring to just +1 Chandra, killing the Condor and passing the turn. Opponent can still kill Chandra with +2 damage but I’m representing all kinds of cards.
    @Nuegun: It depends on what is left in my opponent’s deck, but I can’t see him durdling around with Cauldron and Post for such a long time. Gaining effectively 8 life per turn has to be better than drawing an extra card every few turns.

  11. Great videos – I personally like the re-cap video, although you will see a drop off in views on it – how much of a drop off will be up to you to decide if they are worth doing. Again I like the re-cap because you can point out some of the key points in the drafts and the games – highlighting your own and even opponent’s mistakes can help us all become better at the game – like when your opponent equipped the platemail on his canctrix so he could block but then cast a condor that you could easily kill unless he put the platemail on it after casting it.

    I also appreciate your candor over the Chandra play. So far I have been unimpressed by her in games – she doesn’t not rule the board the way other plainswalkers an. Her +0 ability really only shines when you have a good line of creatures to protect her and lots of mana to cast whatever she reveals (otherwise knowing you are losing the card to exile can be tilting to most people mentally). And yet her +1 ability is only the best when they have lots of x/1 targets or you need to keep pushing damage through blockers. And yet so far I have seen everyone online turn down her gauntlets even though that is what she needs to be a great plainswalker. But I know the gauntlets is mostly a do-nothing card without her (like having a barrage of expendables in play (and one in hand) with no creatures out) – just teasing! I have many worse combos go wrong on me in my online play of magic!

    Again, thanks for the content – also really enjoyed seeing you on the GP coverage recently!

  13. ronchaw – troll much?

    Great videos man. I loved the synergy of the deck. Please do more, and include recaps. Very helpful!

  14. Hey, thank you for ur great commentarys, i really learned a lot, but what I dont understand is: why didnt you play the 5/3 sliver in game 2?
    To me it looked like a rly strong card in this situation, but u discarded it. Im a beginner, and cant figure out why you have done that.

  15. Uzaku- The predatory sliver cost too much to cast while leaving open barrage mana. If his opponent had activated mutavault and done some green trickery with it like giving it +x/+x and trample until end of turn, he could easily die being at only 3 life. He needed 4 open mana in order to shoot the vault before it got strapped up with any pumps.

    Also, the game was already in Simons favor since his opponent had 0 threats on board. He played it safe and was rewarded for it.

  18. It is difficult to say purely by the numbers whether or not the recap video is well received. Maybe compare the numbers to the intro videos of the past. The views of the videos consistently declines: draft (900+ views at this moment), round 1 (700+), round 2 (500+), round 3 (400+) and recap (200+). Personally, I find it refreshing to see a post-mortem, so to speak. So video drafters abruptly end with a “thanks for watching”, and there is so much more that can be said, in hindsight. Please, try it out for a while. Thanks for the consistently high quality with which you produce your videos.

  19. Hi Simon,
    Really love your videos!
    Your ROE Primer was excellent although I didn’t manage to find the time to draft it.
    On your 2nd Match, there was a play that you wanted to direct the Pitchburn Devils’s 3 damage to the Predator Sliver instead of Sliver Construct that was already a 4/4 from Hunt the Weak. Just wondering whether did I miss anything?

  20. Thank you for the recap video, it is my favorite part of the draft! I’ve thought of getting buying some video recording software for my own drafts because MTGO doesn’t record a lot of the games.
    Please keep this new feature even if it doesn’t get so many views. Another thing you could do in the recap is comment on your opponent’s good plays and mistakes or alternative lines of play they could have considered.

  22. I do not hate the recap video but It could be little shorter. It my opinion you should focus only on the key moments, especially on pick decisions. I do not think it is necessary to run through every single game.
    Despite what I just said, you are my favorite drafter, always like to watch your videos :)

  23. Your videos really help to keep me interested in magic. What I mean is that sometimes I really understand a draft format, and being pretty new, I’m not exactly sure why I do sometimes and don’t others.

    But watching your videos helps me understand how the cards in the format play together as a whole and really teach me something.

    I think your videos were’ great, I’ve seen a lot of your videos and most of them are pretty great.

    I liked the recap video, I think it will prove to be much more useful in future drafts and I look forward to seeing them.

  25. I love the recap video and hope you continue in that direction. My slight critique would be to avoid reviewing plays that you already explained “in the moment” during the draft. For example, you immediately commentated on not playing around Hunt the Weak in Match 2….no need to recap the play with more commentary since you already clearly pointed out the angles of play during the original recording.

    As always, love your drafts. Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into your work.

  26. Stopped watching after Corupped. The sliver’s are MUCH better, theoretically and practically speaking.

  27. Hi Simon,
    thank you for everything you’ve done on this site so far! You’ve been the best mtgo-draft-video provider around since I started following you during Gatecrash.
    Keep up your outstanding work!

  29. Thanks a lot Simon, for the insightful videos.

    I especially like the card synergy explanation and demo. The recaps are helpful as well. For those of us who aren’t magic “experts”, having key concepts pointed out is helpful.

    As one who enjoys drafting and is slowly improving, and only now realizing how truly different the different sets are to draft (I started late in 2014) — this is really eye-opening stuff. I love the synergies — it seems SO much less random than: try to get bigger/faster/better stuff than your opponent and hope you come out on top. This seems more like a strong chess or tennis player who wins by BOTH having a strategy, and executing it well, which seems far more deserved.