New occasional MTGO Academy contributors Windmill Slam are Denis and Oisin, two Irish gents who love drafting with the goal to entertain! Check out the Swiss matches and let them know what you think in the comments!
You can find Windmill Slam
on Twitter @WindmillSlamMTG,
or on their Youtube Channel.
Yes! I love these guys. They were already my favorite draft channel, by far! Excellent job adding them to the site. Please make videos often.
Awesome deck. The pick was totally Wingsteed Rider, by the way, but a Phalanx Leader is still amazing.
Great video and great deck. Personally, I value dragon mantle and chosen by heliod a little higher, especially when you pick up phalanx leader. I also think that, since you went with a relatively higher creature count but had so few bestow guys, and didn’t take the cantrips, wingsteed rider would’ve been a better pick, but not by much.
Fantastic, hilarious, instructive, loved it! Some nailbiting moments, too!
This was surprisingly good! very nice addition to MTGOAcademy.
So far I liked the draft, and only watched the first match (will watch the rest in the evening), but I did notice a serious misplay – at the end of M1G2, the opponent blocked your 2/1 with his Centaur Battlemaster, and you chose to spend the turn killing the centaur with the magma jet. I’m pretty sure the correct thing to do was monstrous the cyclops, putting your opponent on 2 life, and then magma jet to the face in your next upkeep (upkeep to get the scry before you draw the cards, in case the opponent survives somehow – this has the added value of posponing your scry as much as possible in order to have better information about what you want to draw).
Also, on the Phalanx Leader VS Wingsteed Rider argument, I prefer the leader there, since you
a) have so many targeting effects already
b) already have plenty of very solid turn 3 plays in your deck, which reduces the wingsteed rider’s added value as “just a 2 power flyer for 3″
I do agree that the two are very very close and the pick order between the two of them relays heavily on the cards already in one’s pile. In this specific case, as I said, I believe the phalanx leader is better.
Great video guys! Welcome to MTGO Academy. I totally agree on taking Phalanx Leader over Wingsteed Rider there, [SPOILERS] although I’m disappointed it didn’t live up to its potential in R3. Poor Leader, just needed a bit of targeted encouragement …
I also quite like Springleaf Drum in some specific decks but definitely not in RW. I would never take it over Fearsome Temper. If you really want a way to enable inspired than I think that Ephara’s Warden is a way to go. I also think that you guys seriously undervaluate Dragon Mantle – it is IMO the second best red common in Theros and I would play four of them in any RW heroic deck if I could. At least you put Observant Alseid in. Leaving it in the sideboard would be terrible. Other than that, your pick choices were fine and the deck you drafted was sweet.
Oh and Phalanx Leader is obviously much better than Wingsteed Raider since he can make a better use of multiple Dragon Mantles
Hugely entertaining. Please make this a regular thing.
Love it. When the Whelming Whave Wheeled I thought I was watching Birgirpall for a second. Hilarious!
hi,
you guys are awesome. enjoyed it very much.
1 point of criticism would be that you took springleaf over fiersome temper (i think?) which would have been awesome in your deck.
regarding wingsteed/ phalanx: i think statistically/in a vacuum wingsteed rider ist just the better card for the format, the phalanx guy needs an even lover curve to be really good imo, or maybe that just means rider is just better
id love to see more content. this was A+
I’m with the other people on here saying Fearsome Temper should have been an easy pick over Springleaf Drum.
W/R is the most aggressive archetype in the format, and Drum would be used to tap one of your creatures for something other than attacking (despite what an aggressive deck wants to do) to provide a third colour (which an aggressive deck shouldn’t need) or ramp into something expensive (which an aggressive deck shouldn’t be doing).
Fearsome Temper provides power that potentially goes to your opponent’s face immediately, provides a heroic trigger (which W/R loves), lets you use spare mana to make combat miserable for your opponent, and ultimately just forces through the final damage for the win. T2 Skyguard, T3 Temper, T4 untap with a Fall of the Hammer in your hand is pretty goshdarn strong.
I laughed pretty hard at some moments on here, so very nice draft. But I have to agree leader has always been poor for me, because usually he goes in aggressive decks and they like to tap out for things a lot, sometimes you don’t get a lot of bestow and even if you do sometimes u don’t want to put it on leader. also if you aren’t tapping out it is probably a board stall now, and if it is the opp usually has bigger dudes that 1 set of counters won’t change much. Also if that happens and they have bigger dudes you might have to chump or trade ur dudes which then again makes him less valuable. I have been underwhelmed with him overall but I think some pros play him so what do I know.
You guys did a great job and I hope this becomes a regular feature. Try to aim for a consistent twice-a-week drafting video schedule (e.g. Tuesdays and Fridays), so you get people starting to look for you on a regular basis. These videos are very entertaining, and far more enjoyable than a lot of one-man commentaries where the person sounds bored and a bit arrogant. You guys sound like you’re having fun, and you’re confident but not arrogant (probably because you keep each other in check). Great work!
You guys slay me! Thanks for the fun.
I really enjoyed this set of videos! It’s always nice to see some more “fun” videos that sometimes take weirder cards and go deep. That being said, I don’t think that taking the phalanx leader over the wingsteed rider was a bad idea, I probably would have done it too, but I can see the argument that wingsteed rider is more solid. I think that, like Marshall says in his new article, wingsteed rider definitely asks less of you than phalanx leader, but the leader can just be unstoppable sometimes. Great job guys, I hope to see you guys on here regularly!
Hahaha, the second half of round 1 game 2 was hilariously tense
I mean. I mean! SURE SURE SURE. I MEAN SURE!
More please.
Awesomely entertaining! Would love to see more from you guys. My 2 cents, Wingsteed over Phalanx, but only by a small margin, especially since you don’t already have a Wingsteed at that point. It was at it’s most interesting when you didn’t stop to monster your Cyclops. Those are things I’m good at doing as well. Thanks guys!
Point of fact for Game 1 – you turned off your “Stop on My Block Phase” during the paused recording, so you could say it was the fault of the phone call that interrupted your game!
Welcome to MTGO academy guys!
John
Been a fan of mtgoacademy for quite some time now, but never felt the need to post a comment. Until now. These videos were fantastic! An excellent blend of entertainment and strategic breakdown/commentary. Having y’all as regular contributors would would be great for my drunken weekend entertainment…AND for my limited play! A 2-for-1!
Great draft! And even better play. Laughed, cried, moaned, and thoroughly enjoyed the content. My vote: Phalanx Leader all day every day.
Great commentary as always. Looking forward to the next draft.
Hilarious! Looking forward to many more drafts from you gents. Cheers!
Great addition to the team. I could certainly stand to watch a few more videos from those guys. Actually, I already went to their channel to catch a couple more.
The tone is a bit more relaxed, but that’s fine. I like that different drafters have their own style.
Good fun and educating too. I giggled.
Great stuff guys. I look forward to seeing more content.
How not to start off your video series: Making dated, crappy Family Guy references.
Otherwise fairly entertaining.
real fun. MORE!
Phalanx Leader over Wingsteed. Fearsome Temper over the Springleaf drum in an aggressive W/R build, although I haven’t watched any of the matches yet.