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Simon Says #9: Information Advantage
Posted on December 22, 2011 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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Your comment about the UG self mill strategy becoming annoying is interesting. I do not hold myself an expert over such matters, but isn’t drafting a self balancing enviroment? Meaning, if a strategy becomes dominant, people will try to draft it more often, making it harder to put together?
A further question would be, isn’t there always a “dominating” strategy? For example in Scars block draft, being able to be BU infect was considered the best and to my experience was indeed a very good way to go.
Innistrad is a very complicated draft format (when compared to other 200 and some cards sets, like M12) and I found that diffrent strategies can prove to be very deadly and not obviously preferable over the others. One of the most powerful decks I drafted was WB human sacrifice and it was loaded with things like Elder Cathars and Alter’s Reaps, and I actually got to beat a UG self mill strategy bloody with it.
If my point was lost in the paragraph above, I think that saying that a certain strategy is so powerful it is disruptive to the fun of drafting a set, it is not intirely accurate. Am I not correct in this?
P.S: All of your vids are great, and are very appreciated. Thank you for them and a happy New Year!
Hello Simon,
thanks for your continuous and valuable contribution to MTGO Academy. We greatly appreciate all the work you and our other contributors put into their content. Hopefully we will see many more videos from you in 2012. I wish you and your family a happy Christmas and a very good New Year 2012.
Happy holidays to everyone.
@Carrotus: Thank you for your comment. One of the great strength of Draft (and in fact most interactive games) is its self-balancing nature. As such, it is basically impossible for a dominating draft strategy to exist, as it would immediately collapse if everybody tried to force it. In this way it is different from constructed formats, where it is possible that certain combinations of cards simply dominate a whole metagame (as seen with Jace TMS and Stoneforge Mystic).
I can’t remember my exact choice of words when talking about the UG self-mill archetype, but what I mean by too dominant is that the risk-reward tradeoff of this (supposedly off-beat) strategy is out of balance (for example compared to Milldecks of past Limited formats like M12 or Kamigawa). In addition, a large share of viable decks in Innistrad Limited are missing angles of attack or cards to disrupt UG self-mill in a meaningful way. This leads to awkward situations during drafting and gameplay with a lot of high-variance scenarios and decisions, for example with regard to having to hatedraft cards like Memory’s Journey, for example.
I don’t want to claim the limited format is broken (far from it), but the strength and redundancy of UG self-mill is something I feel has a negative impact on the limited format from a strategic point of view, which is not something I can remember from the countless limited formats I have played before (although I found the Infect-gamble inherent to Scars-only limited appalling). What is absolutely accurate, however, is that I feel both playing UG self-mill and even more playing against it is detrimental to the fun I have playing Innistrad limited. Your mileage may vary.
@Plejades: Thanks a lot, happy holidays to everyone contributing to and visiting MTGO Academy!
the UGx self-mill archetype being exposed as the dominanting format has only the other videographer and podcasters to blame. for the last 3-4 weeks now, seemingly every resource outlet for draft strategy and discussion has highlighted this archetype, and now seemingly every draft from swiss, to 8-4 is nothing but competing for that archetype.
is it a fun deck to draft? yes, in my opinion. self milling and being able to interact with your graveyard and set up potential infinite combos in a draft setting is incredibly fun. is it fun to play against it? of course not… but neither is losing.
i guess i just see it as unfortunate that the community is now hurting itself in exposing this type of archetype and draft strategy. where as 3-4 weeks ago, you could get a spider spawning pick 6, and wheel those ruinic repititions and memory’s journey… you now have to almost first pick them when you see them if your strategy is either A) to draft that deck, or B) hate draft against that deck
i will continue to look for new archtypes to draft, or at the very least, established archtypes that aren’t popular. as you commented above, the limited environment fixes itself somewhat, and it might be beneficial (idea for your next video of the new year) to review the currently popular archetypes, and how the popularity of those decks affect both one another, and decks from earlier in the format.
for example, burning vengeance. i have neither seen it played against me, others, or even able to draft it myself. yet it was once a very strong and dominating deck. what has happened in the drafting meta that eliminated this from being draftable? or… does BR vamps have a shot? how about BW?
just thoughts and a little bit of venting. great videos and glad to see you come out with the win against that ISD-block constructed deck
@Simmon – thank you, the replay was very helpful.
@dasMetzger – do you really believe the community is “hurting itself”? by that I mean to ask, how does sharing information and helping other people to get better at playing hurting the community? I cam see how you would believe the entire thing hurts *you* – as you commented, the UG self mill is now harder for you to draft because people are aware of it. But the community is fine… a shift in the meta can never destroy, only change…
@Carrotus… maybe ‘hurting itself’ was a bit hyperbolic, rather the community ‘reaping what it sowed’. my point was that the “double-becker double-decker” deck wasn’t exactly a fully identified archetype from the get go. sure, Ux self-mill was obviously present, and spider spawning was picked as a tier 1 level card… but this particular strategy was an unknown for most of first two months of ISD drafts, and now this sudden surge in popularity has come from the countless videos and articles and podcasts all talking about the same thing. waaay more discussion now than any previous deck archetype strategy drafted before in ISD.
so now to read comments from Simon and others about the deck being ‘too strong’ is properly drafted is kind of alarming, than if we were talking about a broken card/deck in constructed. cos we’re stuck in limited. there’s no banned list in limited. there’s no additional sideboard cards than what was passed to you in limited. we just have to deal with it now.
also, i dont mean to play devil’s advocate… but just because multiple people are attempting to draft an archetype, wont necessarily mean that it will get over drafted, diluted, and weaker.
think about GW. how many players at any given table do you think are are all pulling GW aggro cards at the same time. my guess is 4 at a minimum. why? because they have so many great commons and uncommons. everything that makes those decks tick, are readily available. darkthicket wolf, ambush viper, travel preps, orchard spirit, villagers, pilgrim, voiceless spirit, chapel geist, prey upon, bonds, doomed traveler, selfless cathar, thraben sentry, etc…. all commons, all first pickable to some degree for that archetype. it’s such a deep strategy that half the table can attempt to draft it, and the deck can still win.
Nice win ! You really showed the power of Silent Departure and Thraben Sentry. It was interesting how you did so well without ever activating the Township. I was afraid for a few seconds when you said “This will be my last video …. ” and then paused a little before saying “of 2011.”
@DasMetzger: I think you can never condemn innovation in games or its public discussion. We just have to adjust to the consequences.
@Gunho: Gotcha! :p
In case the connection is a little too subtle, I picked this draft for my episode about information advantage exactly because it showed off the potential of having a better/deeper understanding how cards and pick orders work in a limited format, including not only Silent Departure but also Thraben Sentry (and more, even my comments regarding and sideboarding of Spare from Evil applies to this). Hope this carried over from the intro and gave you some food for thought.
In case you are wondering, the last comment is by me.
Self balancing:
The further you go up in the chain of Organized Play/better players this mechanic makes it not only become non-detrimental but also adds more depth/strategy and fun yes. But in addition you have the risk/reward thing Goertzen mentioned – too big of a factor and the good players will dislike it.
The detrimental thing about it has to do with those players who might not like it AND possibly quit magic – let me explain: Returning PTplayers from long ago (1994-1999) who have LOTS of more skills at magic than the examplewise the good(not best) PTQ-players will loose to those PTQ-players anyway, (untill those previous pros have enough drafts under their belt too see what the draft-format is about/or just read about it on the internet).
- its like; 80 percent a discovery thing, and only 20 percent a skill thing.
- players who straightout dont draft more than once or twice a week (or not even that much) will use far more time to discover it.
The less we can put in the discovery-factor the more relevant the skill-factor becomes.
My two cents…
I had 2 more cents =):
Its like a classic boxing fight. Only suddenly one of the boxers swap his hands(not arm) for the feet(not leg).
Now his hands hit harder because of the leg muscles driving the hands, and he can still block as normal.
And on top of this his attacks come from a totally different angle.
And he is still inside the rules of the game =).
My 4 cents…