LoadingReadyRun Draft #32: Mono Masters
Posted on July 3, 2013 by LoadingReadyRun
LoadingReadyRun LoadingReadyRun is a comedy troupe and video production studio who's work has appeared across various websites including The Escapist, Penny Arcade, and even DailyMTG. Check out some of their other work at LoadingReadyRun.com and Youtube.
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I LOVE watching you guys draft. I have to tell you though, it’s like pulling teeth to watch the deckbuilding and the games play out.
Much love. Keep doing what you’re doing. Please do forgive me if i have to bow out in round 2, though. =)
Round 2 was hilarious though!
(we thought)
To us, half the entertainment is us flailing around wildly with A Deck That Ought Not Be™, but to each their own
Re the Murderous Redcap question in R1G2: the first Redcap trigger would have dealt 2 damage. There is a Redcap on the battlefield that’s a 1/1, but it’s a “new” creature, because it had gone to the graveyard and persisted… same as how enchantments and targets and such fall off a Persist or Undying creature when it leaves and comes back. So the original ETB trigger would be looking at the power of the original Redcap, which left the battlefield as a 2/2, and that’s what matters.
I got angry by watching this. I think the idea was good, but it felt like you were trolling us when you pick a Thundercloud Shaman and then pick random red cards over actual good giants like the changling. Further, you give up a solid chance of winning by killing his 10 turn clock instead of doming him with the Grapeshots round 1 game 1. You then got lucky by topdecking the redcap, but the other line would ensure that you didn’t need to get lucky.
Chill out limboll. Referencing G1R1 as being that bad a situation is getting aneurism for nothing. Opponent was at virtual 2 and they were at 14. At that point most of their deck could be considered lucky topdeck. There were plenty of relevant errors to choose from.
sadly i stopped watching when you took a useless ritual over a good giant, and also passed the changeling for sudden shock (which isnt that amazing)
Also, in Round 3, the three “lol”s in the chat, based on the timestamps, are probably in reference to: (1) Casting Crush Underfoot in response to Test of Faith, (2) Casting Fiery Fall in response to Otherworldly Journey, and (3) Casting Glacial Ray to kill a guy he’d tried to save with Fury Charm’s +1/+1.
R3G2, I think I would have used the double-Glacial Ray (ie splice it then cast it) to kill the Cloudgoat Ranger, rather than taking out one of the kithkin and keeping the ray… sure, it’s a 2-for-1, but it would take out the more threatening thing (especially since you know he was running Otherworldly Journey) and you had enough blockers for the 1/1s. Though I can certainly understand not thinking of that in the moment.
I wish you guys had forced Storm.
Perhaps unrelated, if you had drawn Grapeshot G2R2 off the spellbomb you actually would have won.
The jellyfish on stingscourgers staff is a man-o’-war.
I was so sad that you didnt pick storm cards while there were only mediocre picks instead of them. The “return-generate-mana” guy and the additional desperate rituals wouldve given some possible turn 5 kills. Consider a turn 3 where you play the mana guy and Combine this with all the lava spikes in the world, a couple of suspended rift bolts and some spliced desperate rituals. A hand with lava spike, desperate ritual, empty the warrens and the mana guy + 4 lands = turn 4 bounce the guy, 3 mana in pool one tapped land, play lava spike splicing desperate ritual 3 mana still in pool. play guy and bounce him = 2 lands tapped and 3 in pool. Play desperate ritual 4 in pool 2 lands tapped. Play mana guy and bounce twice = 12 goblins and -3 damage on opponent assuming you did nothing at all up to this point and did not draw anything relevant on your 4th turn. With all the burn in the deck you have so much reach. Also like a turn 6 win is very likely. Consider a hand with pure burn, a spellbomb in play and a suspended riftbolt from turn 5. That’s easily 4-5 spells before casting a empty, or better yet a double grapeshot?
Stingscourger does have a jellyfish on his club, specifically he has Man-o’-War on the end of his club – the 2U jellyfish from Visions that unsummons when it comes into play.
I can’t watch the punts. Love the drafts though.
This was entertaining….
But could have been so much better with better picks.
This is honestly the first time I’ve had to stop watching one of your videos because the play was so bad. I can get behind doing something like forcing mono-red in an environment that isn’t meant to support it. But then you didn’t draft enough creatures, cut a creature and then said “we need to play all of our creatures” and didn’t put it back (despite the fact that it was a mana cheat and lowered your deck’s curve), and then you didn’t build or play the deck like a mono red deck.
Normally I like what you guys do, but you didn’t do it well here.
Format: Completely Shattered
also, happy belated Canada Day.
p.s. Anyone who complains about the punts in this video you’re missing the point. You’re not watching LSV you’re watching LRR.
as opposed to the previous guy, I believe you should have cut more creatures as you had a sweet burn deck, just always go to the dome, 4 lavablasts + glacial ray just kills people (rituals are arcane too), with spellbombs, grapeshot, and shrapnel to back it up, would have been great.
I think you guys shot yourself in the foot by not being creative enough. You could have drafted Terramorphic Expanses and played those with one of each other basic land to power up Tribal Flames up to a playable-to-great status. In addition to that you could have taken any Vivid lands you get for relatively cheap and picked up some Skyreach Mantas for some extra creatures.
Also spewing off Lava Spikes when you have Splice spells in your deck was just terrible. *There is no rule that you have to use all your mana and cards as soon as you can!* Especially when the things you are doing for no real reason do not affect the board.
Without having seen the games yet, I have to say the Shrapnel Blast seems like the most dubious include ever.
Since your only artifacts are Pyrites, you’re giving up the 2 damage they already represent to do 5.
Which means that your Blast is doing an effective 3 damage, not 5.
And you already have a spell that does 3 to the face, and lets you splice on your Glacial Rays, and you weren’t even running all 4 of those.
What the hell?
Guys, you definitely need to do another story time draft soon. Those were some of the most entertaining games I have seen.
Can’t remember the last time MTG made me laugh as much as when I was listening to Graham and Kathleen’s the erotically charged sexventure between Fern, Iris and Cedric.
If I can just give a little constructive criticism without being a troll:
Drafts like these are funny, and they’re fun to watch. But I think what makes drafts like this really entertaining is if you take a wacky idea, and actually try to make it work.
Even if something is “just for fun”, when you do things that are considered outright bad, it’s frustrating to watch. It was hilarious to see you winning in R1G1 for example, but when you decided to kill two 1 power creatures (when you’re on 11 life!) instead of just putting him dead on board, I wanted to pull my hair out.
I think people, in general, can accept a restriction such as “only drafting monored” and go with the fun aspect of that, but people also want to see that strategy be the best it can be, to see it work. If you draft a pile of crap and lose every game, that’s not entertaining to watch, neither is bad play mistakes.
Just something to think about in future drafts – keep the fun tone, keep the fun restrictions, but also try and win, because that’s what makes these kinds of things really entertaining
Apologies to a couple of you, usually I love your comments but this week I had to stop reading after the phrase, “I had to stop watching after…”
I guess I’ll never know how entertaining the rest of your comment could have been.
BananaSub, thank you for the feedback.
We, uh… well we were trying to win. One does not always see the game perfectly as one is playing. I catch people making play mistakes in videos all the time, it’s different when you’re in the moment. Sorry we’re not that good, I guess
I’d love to see a game where you draft each pack mono-color… but switch colors between packs. (For example, P1 Red, P2 Blue, P3 Green.)
Play two colors per round, and swap one out every sideboard to confuse the opponent.
Watching Graham try to figure out Arcane play orders is the only time I’ve yelled at my screen while watching these.
Love the videos guys, hoping to see more Return To Ravnica next month, maybe? I’ll try to think of fun stuff to do there between now and next fortnight, which I’m assuming will be M14.