Comments on: Simon Says #34: Return to Ravnica and You (RTR 8-4)

By: sokolva

sokolva — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 03:22:41 +0000

Btw, when you go to draft, do u generally have an idea in your head about what colors you want to draft or do you usually decide based purely on the first few picks?

By: sokolva

sokolva — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 03:20:40 +0000

I really enjoyed watching these matches. Nice work and good playing, tho I have to say my fav RTR draft of urs I’ve seen is the Golgari deck u drafted after this one.

By: Mike76

Mike76 — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:25:16 +0000

I would guess that it was to bait out a block for that Corpejack. That card can make the board state get way out of hand. Also. a 5/5 on the ground it much more of a threat than a 3/3 in the air. That 2/4 reach creature nullifies that pretty quick if he dropped it, as does an Arial Predation. 5/5′s give the opponent less options that don’t involve losing a guy or two.

By: Simon Goertzen

Simon Goertzen — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 07:26:37 +0000

As always, thanks for your comments!
@Tim H: I was reasonably certain that my opponent wouldn’t surprise me with a card like Psychic Spiral. Neither of us went into this match with the goal of decking our opponent :).
@Maarten: Inspiration wouldn’t have killed me. When my opponent drew his last card I still had 3 in my library. I think that Arrest is in a great color and one of the best removal spells in the format due to its unconditionality. Also, Archon is among the weaker rarebombs in this format. I don’t think it’s a close decision. Sadly, taking the rare is correct more often than not nowadays, but there are still exceptions. I haven’t had the best experience with 6- and 7-drops in this format and draft accordingly.
@Max M: I was facing Corpsejack Menace and Deathrite Shaman with the Healer and two Birds. The Birds were free to attack but the Healer was not and it wasn’t large enough to block the Menace. By casting Valor on the Healer I make a dominated 3/3 into a 5/5 that blocks his Menace and deals 5 every turn (compared to an additional 2 when I target a bird). Furthermore, I might entice my opponent to double block and play into the Swift Justice I am holding. I did talk about the timing of the Knightly Valor, but given that my opponent didn’t use his mana on turn 5 (only casting Deathrite Shaman) I concluded he didn’t have an instant way to deal with my Healer. Note that my opponent was holding Aerial Predation and how important the extra pressure by the 5/5 was to win the game (including the all-out attack which allowed me to use Swift Justice profitably later). I don’t mean to brag, but after reviewing M2G2 (to answer your question) I really like how my lines of play worked out. Thank you for your question.
Happy holidays!

By: Max M

Max M — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 23:08:03 +0000

Simon, great draft as always. M2G2 you put Knightly Valor on the Centaur Healer without much explanation, can you go into why you did that? A bird could be a viable creature to enchant because he couldn’t currently block it, but I am unsure why either would be better. Some insight into your thought process would be much appreciated. Thank you!

By: Lantis

Lantis — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 19:39:40 +0000

I used to use Internet Explorer to see this page…

By: ChrisKool

ChrisKool — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:07:06 +0000

Lantis- it’d still be nice to know which browser so we can troubleshoot the issue