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Simon Says #62: Making a Splash (Theros 8-4)
Posted on January 9, 2014 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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I spoiled things for the other fans. I’m so sorry. Next time I will be a better person.
@William: Thank you for showing up just because you wanted to be a dick by spoiling the results and insulting Simon. Now go away and rethink why you decided to ruin people’s fun for no reason by posting a comment nobody cares about except for its negative effects on others.
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Anyway, I really liked your deck, Simon. It definitely felt like you just got unlucky there in the last couple of games. I really wanted to see you go off with extra turns at some point too. Oh well. I guess that’s a lesson in losing to chance sometimes.
Ugh… even if u mean well, thanks for the spoiler Daracex.
The opening discussion is kinda unneccesary, noone else who makes draftvideos does those. I think they should be boycotted.
Aw, Theros! Stopped playing it back at the beginning of December. Had fun with Cube and flashback drafts for a few weeks. Time to take give MTGO a break until Born of the Gods rolls around!
@kezzerdrix: I hope you’re trolling. If not: Why bother watching the opening discussion if you think it’s unnecessary (for whatever reason)? I found this one especially helpful for newer players although even for a long time player like myself it was still interesting.
After all, the videos are arranged in a way that lets you skip certain parts…
And lastly, thanks for the great content, keep it up!
The opening discussion is great Simon. At this point I assume no one on this site needs to be told to ignore kezzerdrix.
So, how long has kezzerdrix been doing self-parody?
Really great introduction — another nice way of thinking about splash math. This makes a fine companion piece to Marshall’s & Brian’s discussion of mana bases from a few months ago: http://lrcast.com/limited-resources-189-mana-bases/
Thanks as always for the thorough and thoughtful content, Simon!
SELF parody? Anyone can choose any name on this site. I assume the original kezzerdrix got tired of seeing people enjoy things he doesn’t and left a long time ago and now a loose confederation of other trolls are keeping the memory alive.
Now to be on topic, I especially liked this opening discussion. I’m always mindful of my manabase while drafting, but I’ve always played it more by feel and it’s nice to have the math to back it up.
None of the previous posts by ‘kezzerdrix’ were made by me. Opening discussions are fine, watch them or skip them, it’s up to you.
However THS and limited in general on MTGO should be boycotted due to its terrible prize structure. Some people never learn.
Always love the opening discussions and your deep outlining of your though process while drafting and sideboarding. Thinking about that, i’d love to see another opening discussion on sideboarding, I honestly think its your strongest selling point!
Also, are there any other draft vods out there that go into the matter on such a deep level? I dont want to put Simon on a tighter schedule as i can easily see losing quality when this would become a once a week series, but i’d love to watch something of a similar level on the other weeks!
R2G1: I think the best play would be to just discard 2 cards (probably returned phalanx + phalanx leader) after the Sea God’s Revenge instead of playing them. They had literally zero board impact, and with discarding it, it would be quite likely that your opponent still doesn’t attack. You are probably still losing anyway, but I think you kinda need to hope that your opponent makes the mistake to give you more time.
2g3 you basically traded your voyage’s end for a random card. Triton’s T4 or T6 was irrelevant and you left youself with no response to the Archon play.
Hey Simon, thanks for the content! You presented an interesting approach towards splashing. People often mention a rule of thumb – “play as many mana sources as the number of the spells on splash + 1″. You on the other hand seem to really increase your mana requirements once your splash is 3 or more spells. Especially in the last deck you showed where you play 4 swamps and only 6 mountains. I would play 3 swamps at maximum, maybe even 2..
Concerning the draft protion it little suprised me that you kinda voluntarily positioned yourself in WB which is probably the wotst archetype. You missed an interesting option to switch to WR when you passed 2 late Dragon Mantles and Akroan Hoplite over such speculative cards as Decorated Gryffin or Unknown Shores.
Hi Simon, thanks for the videos. Great intro discussion. I believe it could have been even better if you added some sort of summary at the end of what we learned from it, for example: “splashing more than 2 cards requires so many lands to be consistent that it becomes a primary color pretty much”. Discussion of probabilities is great, but you won’t do that in every game (or maybe you can, but most won’t) , you need to generate some rule of thumb out of all the thinking you did and follow that.
As for the games, I believe the Voyage’s End on the Triton was a fine play, but perhaps it should have been saved for later. Not sure if it would have helped in that particular game, but a card that can answer actual threats probably shouldn’t be used just to rob your opponent of 1 card draw (which may or may not change anything).