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Limited Resources: SOM 8-4 #2
Posted on November 12, 2010 by Limited Resources
Limited Resources Limited Resources podcast co-host Marshall Sutcliffe provides coverage on North American Magic events and writes for DailyMTG. He educates listeners about limited and heads the highest-prizing clan on MTGO.
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Ok, Mister backseat, Please get behind the wheel
100% Agree with Hovertical, Mister Backseat is constantly the voice of reason in these videos and appears to have a much better understanding of the format!
great job as always guys… personally i like the duel commentary. I think you guys balance each other out pretty good. I would have to say it might be nice to see Mr. Backseat drive. Either way, i love the vids and keep them coming pls
You know what probably would have been a total blowout? Casting that contagion engine on M1G1, letting your opponent sac his replica to destroy it killing the Juggernaut and then get the engine back next turn with the Hippogriff gaining 6 life in the meantime.
Oops, my old habit of pausing and commenting so I don’t get influenced by hindsight backfired because Ryan just said my comment out loud
Sorry guys…
Thanks for the vids guys. However, you’re overvaluing Skygaurd. It’s quickly outclassed in this format and much like the Shakiri, are best with equipment. And the 3 land round 2 was a total keep. Honestly I saw no advatage to going to 6. You either draw a 4th land and start playing great cards or you draw an early play…
As always, looking forward to more vids!
Would you guys consider taking a Snapsail glider as apposed to a skygaurd or myr?
I’d like to see a draft where Ryan is driving… can you do one of those?
Love the videos; I definitely think that the dual-commentary during the draft portion is great and something worth sticking with. Not sure if this was just me or not, but for round two the audio seemed to be about a second or so out of sync with the video.
Thanks for the feedback guys.
Ryan currently doesn’t have the computer/software to record so I have to “drive” on all of our videos at the moment. We are working on getting him set up to record though, so at some point we should be able to accomplish it
Ryan and I have different drafting styles and are constantly unsure whether it’s best to have both of us commenting or just have one of us draft at a time. As we expressed on the video, we have some concern that the “backseat” nature of the 2nd person in the draft is negatively effecting the drivers drafting/play. Combine that with trying to converse and play at the same time, and it can be tough.
Based on the feedback here though, I think we will continue our in-draft debates and you guys just have to put up with whomever is driving and whomever is backseat
@zac thanks for the feedback, and see above regarding getting Ryan (he does have a name) into the drivers seat
@Thisismuch Ha, good call though, glad you saw it even before it was mentioned!
@oma – Maybe I do overvalue Skyguard, but I think most people undervalue it. What outclasses it quickly in this format? There aren’t that many flyers and only a couple that can block it profitably at common/uncommon. And most people won’t even play blue which has 2 of them.. I would run as many Skyguards as I can, and have had a lot of success with them. I agree he is better with equipment, but that’s hardly a stretch
re: the mulligan decision. Ya that was a really tough spot. I still think mulliganing was correct, and it’s easy to say now that it wasn’t. Are you just being ROTty or do you routinely keep hands like that? Was it an “easy keep” in your mind or just a necessary one?
@limtedmtgo I think Snapsail Glider is pretty unexciting at the end of the day. He does have his place in a deck but I would like either of the other two cards over the glider normally.
@cameron – thanks for the feedback, we will stick with our “discussive drafting” for now
There was an issue with the video transfer over to MTGOA that we are looking into which caused an audio delay. They fixed it on their end but it’s not perfect, so you probably heard the residual effect of that. Insert standard “We are working on it” message here 
Marshall
Please don’t change anything these videos are the best !
I usually don’t watch all the matches on other videos but you two are so funny !
Keep being on the back seat please !
Still think you guys are playing too many lands in these decks. The curve of this deck looks like about a 17-lander if the format was more traditional. But with 3 mana myr and 3 spellbombs, you effectively have a lot more mana sources. Only going down to 16 lands is overly cautious, I think – and you’re really risking being flooded often. This seemed like a 15-lander to me at most, and I’d consider 14 lands if the cards I was adding were low CMC.
Think about it this way. You really only have 18 “business” cards in your deck. You can’t really count the myr and spellbombs because, as you guys have pointed out yourselves on numerous occasions, 1/1s just don’t have enough of an effect on the board to be playable under normal circumstances.
@Eric: You’re fooling yourself if you think you can go down to 15 lands. Mana bases are the most important part of magic, and shorting yourself on your lands is not worth it. You might convince yourself that it is fine because most of the time you won’t have mana problems, but if you cannot play your spells, then you will lose. Always.
Winning decks in SoM play 16 or 17 lands.
@Eric: I disagree. This is a deck with four five drops and a bomb six drop that needs at least one four-mana follow-up activation to be a true bomb. Going to 16 is a concession to the three myrs, but when you start going to 15 or lower in a deck like this, I feel you are setting yourself up for greedy disaster. It’s tempting to cut lots of land for myr, but if it’s turn five and you have three land, two mana myr and expensive spells in hand, that’s a pretty awkward way to “hit your land drops.”
I think of mana myrs as acceleration, metalcraft enabling, fixing, a 1/1 body, and land replacement–roughly in that order. Myr are great when they represent metalcraft-enabling acceleration, but if you scale too far back on land because of them, they go from acceleration with benefits to bad land replacement: two mana moxen that you can’t use for a turn and are vulnerable to creature and artifact removal.
You have to consider your spellbombs here as well. Their effects (a 1/1 token for the white one and a falter effect for the red one) are not worth a card. Yes, they replace themselves, but ~40% of the time they replace themselves with a land. This means they can’t really be counted totally as “business.”
Together with the myr, that’s 6 cards that you have in this deck that you cannot expect to give you a full card’s worth of “business” – but also 6 cards that contribute, directly or indirectly, to your manabase. I’m not saying you can take 6 lands out of your deck, but removing 2-3 (from 1a 17-18 lander down to a 15-lander or so) is a very reasonable proplosition.
Pro-level limited decks in the original Mirrodin set – even ones without a significant affinity emphasis – routinely played fewer than 16 lands. It wasn’t unheard-of to play as few as 12 lands! Though 13-15 was a lot more typical. And 2 of the primary conditions that made those manabases make sense – mana myrs and spellbombs – are present in this format as well.
you guys forgot about the proliferation on engine in m1g1?
The 3 land, no early play hand wasn’t a snap keep but my thinking is that it’s better than a new random 6. And if I remember right, even if you didn’t make a play till t4, your cards were good enough to keep the hand. My thinking for mullies is “obv” 0-1 land hand, the 2 land with 5cc drops hand and the 3 land of one color and all spells of another color hand. Your hand hand lands of both (I think) and good spells starting at 4cc.
As far as the Skygaurd goes, my experience with it has been that if you’re not ahead, the metalcraft deck will start dealing a lot more damage to you pretty quick. And they just can’t race the Infect deck at all. The WW in the casting cost is a pain and I find that I want more arty critters if I’m playing WR Metalcraft and the flying cats just take up too many spots. I mean, I’d play 2 but 3 starts taking up too many arty spots. But I understand that UW flyers is quickly becoming very good in draft so 3+could be really good in a deck that doesn’t care about metalcraft. BTW, I’m a big fan of the 2/2 metalcraft flyer. But I like Metalcraft.
I really feel this format is a 16 land min format. I was at the PTQ yesterday in Rockland Md and I played a terrible UB deck with 2xSilver, 1xIron, 1xGold Myr and I still played 16 lands. 2 of my 3 match losses (3-3 drop) was 1 land mullies, keep 2 land 1+myr hands, don’t draw anymore lands. However, I did have one game where I kept 2xSilver Myr, Grasp, 4 lands and drew 7 in a row…so…yea.
Great vid guys !
I know this would be more work for you guys, but I’d love to see one person do the draft/matches, and have the other person evaluate decisions from their perspective. Kind of like how Ryan’s articles at puremtgo were.
@Eric: if you want to post/link some pro-level-winning, low-land decklists from the Mirrodin era (or the Scars of Mirrodin era for that matter), it would be interesting to explore why the low land count worked for those specific decks.
I would bet that none of them were running four five drops, a six drop with a four-mana activation cost, an equipment with a four-mana equip cost that needs to be activated once a turn to not be awful, and a couple two drops that require a mana free beyond whatever artifact you are casting to be anything more than Goblin Pikers.
Beyond the curve issues, there is also the replacement issue. What card are you running over that 16th land? A warden? Seems awful to cut back to 15 lands so you can add another non-artifact metalcraft four drop. One of the suspect two drops in acolyte or sunchaser? a 1/5 for three? A Furnace Celebration that further wants you to have mana available?
Between the high curve, mana demands, and quality of the replacement options, 15 land (much less the 14 you also hinted at) just seems bad for this deck specifically, regardless of what you can say generally about mana bases in old or new Mirrodin.
Finally, I would note that in round 1, there was a point where we had five land and a myr, and I was *still* calling for an additional land because we needed it to be able to do everything we wanted to do. I recognize that it was “just one game,” but if your deck has six mana sources and you find yourself hoping to topdeck a seventh, it sure casts some doubt on the idea that cutting a land for a marginal spell is the right play.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and offer your perspective.
@fan: I don’t remember forgetting about proliferation, but it’s far from impossible, especially if we felt like we had the game in the bag. Would have to re-watch. What point in the video?
@thaen: We actually conceived of doing that initially with this series, but then fell back on the more traditional walkthrough approach. Stay tuned; we may be trying the “review” approach for one of our upcoming vids.
Hey Marshall + Ryan, big fan of your show, too. You guys have to keep doing the videos together, Cameron is right. You guys do something that no one else does. When my group talk about cards, we disagree, we have different evaluations, you guys capture that brilliantly. Its great to see two top level players can disagree, be civil, and both make valid arguments. If I wanted to hear single commentary I could listen to the other 10 guys out there that do that (and I do), but I think it’s both of your opinions that make Limited Resources special. Sure, it would be cool to see a draft with Ryan in the drivers seat, but I want Marshall there along for the ride too!
One comment on the draft section:
in Pack3 Pick 1, did you not see the Barrage Oger, or did you for some reason just discard it as an option?
Because the way I followed your drafting, it would have seemed to me that in that specific spot it would have been the decision point you needed for your deck: Right at the end of Pack 2 you were still discussing whether you wanted to be red or black, and then you get this guy. Having two would give your deck a consistent strategy, which you could build upon with the rest of your picks (i.e. picking spellbombs even higher etc.).
Whereas the Kemba Skyguard, at least in my limited opinion ™ (ha, should make that a podcast :-P) is not at all thaaat impressive, and more importantly, can easily be replaced with Glint Hawks and Glint Hawk Idols which can be picked up later.
So between an “engine” card that can really give your deck some late game power and just some evasive dude, I think I’d take the Barrage Oger.
What’s your stance on that?
Anyway, I’ll watch the rest of the video now, maybe you explain that later
I just watched the deck build and draft, but haven’t gotten to watch the matches yet. I’m surprised no one mentioned it, but I would have played Furnace Celebration over probably dispense justice. Seems like 3 spellbomb and 2 barrage ogre make it playable. Also, you could have easily made more picks to support it instead of hiding it and forgetting about it.