Comments on: Simon Says #18: Limited Preparation

By: David

David — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:05:30 +0000

…of course it is also excellent and very educational as always.

By: David

David — Tue, 29 May 2012 13:00:32 +0000

WARNING: I watched this video and immediately drafted UB control TWICE! It wasn’t intentional and the decks were horrible. This episode of Simon Says is quite clearly cursed.

By: dave

dave — Sat, 26 May 2012 05:13:41 +0000

I like the precision you play with. Your videos are probably the most educational of all the major draft vids out there, alongside lsv and brad N.

By: Simon Goertzen

Simon Goertzen — Fri, 25 May 2012 12:34:55 +0000

@khgkshsk: Diregraf Escort is usually not a card that I want to cut from my neighbors. Even with a couple of zombies in my UB control deck, I might even want my opponents to play those instead of cards with more impact. Diregraf Escort is ok in an aggressive deck with human synergies (RG for example), and can be important to a deck with a lot of Flowering Lumberknots, but all of those reasons are not sufficient to take it away from somebody. While the Shield is generally not a card I want to play, there might actually be matchups where it helps my controlling deck quite a bit.

By: khgkshsk

khgkshsk — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:23:13 +0000

At the very end of drafting, I have no clue why you didn’t cut the Diregraf Escort, given you have 3 or more zombies in your deck… since you picked the worthless shield over it too seems loose.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:29:44 +0000

Maybe my packs have been weird – I’ve only drafted black twice. I agree that theoretically you want the engine cards first, and thats what I’ve done: going after the uncommons/rares to build around. But in this small sample of two black drafts I have simply never seen the zombie fodder needed to really bring the engine to life despite black flowing pretty well otherwise (4 death winds in one of these drafts, 3 in the other I think).

Regardless, black’s place in the draft meta is one of the main plots I’ll be watching as this format matures.

By: Simon Goertzen

Simon Goertzen — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:57:42 +0000

I do believe that Mark means not only the games, but also the drafting portion when he talks about playing black in Avacyn Restored. I agree on the importance of Butcher Ghoul, but I really do not see the same problem as you. The Uncommons give you the build-around cards and the best signals for black being open, Death Wind is a great first-pickable Common, and the rest of the black cards make up your combo deck, with Bone Splinters, Undead Executioner and Butcher Ghoul supporting black’s strategy the best.