Comments on: Simon Says #16: Color Uncertainty

By: Zero

Zero — Tue, 01 May 2012 22:33:08 +0000

Thanks for this Simon, very deep insight in this draft.

By: MMogg

MMogg — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 01:01:45 +0000

Personally, I like the introductions and admittedly watch them only after I have watched the draft. I wouldn’t mind seeing more depth in the introduction. For example, in this one, I was left wonder when is the best time to eliminate uncertainty vs. staying open. I wondered if you had any relatively universal rules for that tension between staying open (and reading signals) vs. aggressively cutting off a colour. Maybe I’m too old, but when I learned to draft, people always talked about cutting off colours and nowadays I never hear any pros talk about that. I wonder (so much wonder for me) if that is anachronistic drafting theory. =/

As always, Simon, keep up the great work. These are the best drafts on the internet (sorry, I say that too often I know).

By: Simon Goertzen

Simon Goertzen — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:30:22 +0000

@JLo86: This is a difficult problem, and probably not one I can solve for you, especially from this comment box. 10-20% sounds far too high, however. Have you tried to show other players your drafts where things go as you describe? To me, it sounds like you are 1) putting to much emphasis on your first pick 2) not basing your 2nd-4th pick on powerlevel and 3) putting too much faith in “bombs” that might never come.
In general, every pick you make has to have the resulting deck in mind, not only 23 cards but the whole 40. By that I mean that you always draft a manabase simultaneously to picking up the cards for your maindeck. This means that if you are mono-colored far into the second pick, you are committed to a 10-7 or 11-6 manabase simply due to quantity. This turns good cards with double casting cost in another color into a liability. Don’t worry too much about the fuutre lying ahead, but about the first picks, as they are most crucial for your color positioning. The longer you stay in one color, the weaker your signals are and the less likely you are to successfully find a strong and sufficiently supported second color.
In order to get out of your habits, I suggest to try a drastic shift in your drafting behavior. Force yourself to surf pick 1-4 only based on single-card power. The more you work out the extreme ways the more comfortable you should become with finding a solid/good/successfull middle ground. Hope that helps!

@MonKei: I agree with your analysis. In my experience, all modern limited format are at the core synergy-based, the only question is where the synergy lies.

@Tokamak: Correct, I believe I decided against it because I did not want to draw a 1-power creature in a potentially tight race where I couldn’t spare creatures to sac.

@Steve & Robin: The reasoning for not swinging with Strangleroot Geist is that his correct line is to take two Damage, leaving me without Morbid and much weaker defenses. When I attack into his 3/3 when he is at 20 or 18 life he only needs to take a second to figure that out.

@Mr: I think that Chant of the Skifsang is pretty underwhelming, if I take it it’s usually pick 8 or later, and even then I rarely maindeck it.

Thanks a lot for all your comments! It’s great to hear your thoughts and interact with you, here and on twitter!

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 00:09:54 +0000

Agree with Steve. There may be arguments for not swinging with the geist, but you barely discussed it and I think not trying to push your advantage and activate morbid ultimately cost you the game because you lost out on quite a bit of potentially “free” power and toughness.

By: Mr

Mr — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 22:54:30 +0000

IMO you’re undervaluing Chant. I can see why you picked Tragic Slip over it but with no black cards flowing up to that point and blue looking to be pretty open I would take the save route.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:10:16 +0000

Why did you not take advantage of Geist’s undying in match 3 to activate morbid on either the bear or Spider?

By: Tokamak

Tokamak — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:21:08 +0000

Disciple of Griselbrand would have been good to sub in for match 1, game 2 considering the colors you saw him playing. As he is predominately blue and white he is likely to have removal that doesn’t kill the creature, such as Bonds of Faith, Claustrophobia, Burden of Guilt, Chant of the Skifsang, Sensory Deprivation. Creatures affected by these auras would be ideal fodder for his morbid-on-demand ability.