YES! More of this! "What's The Play?" vids are perhaps some of the best "bang for your buck" learning as far as gameplay goes. Obviously, nearly all boardstates in MtG are 1 of 1 unique, but this one little nugget of a video is CLOSE ENOUGH to many boardstates that its lesson can easily be internalized and applied to many games, both in PIO and beyond. The primer of "What is the story my opponent is telling me?" is a perfect way to frame a situation like this. Loved the GateSoup.deck you had brewed up there. Triple Dinrova Horror...hahaha
good video, I think this ties into your vid from a couple days ago where you mentioned playing slower. priming yourself to pay attention to a game that's already happened knowing you're going to be "quizzed" on what line to take can help you really evaluate every turn as it goes by to be prepared for taking the best option when the question comes up. feels like good practice for doing the same thing in real games
I liked this video. It made us pay attention to your opponents' behavior, and it summarized it with a little quiz at the end. I also liked that I got the answer right because that shows I'm learning from watching your videos, particularly the ones with the other content creator.
I think this is incredible content, thank you Alex! Earlier in the game you actually had a lot of challenging decisions about how to deal with the small black creatures your opponent was playing: the skeleton, butler, and then the husks. There’s a lot of math going on there: how much damage can I afford to be nickel and dimed before I set up blockers? How can I prevent a husk from getting one big hit in? I think I would have been tempted to save my removal and hope there was a point when the board could be more efficiently stabilized without spending removal on the skeleton and butler, but as we see in the game if you were to take much more chip damage things would be far more dire. I know there’s no easy answer on how to make those decisions but do you have a heuristic to follow? Maybe it’s just a vibe you get that life total matters more here than cards & maximizing value? Thanks again!
Glad you liked it! Yeah the best way I can describe is something related to your comment at the end about the vibe of life mattering more than cards. Generally as the control deck, I’m more willing to make less than great card exchanges in order to stay alive. My deck out values them as the game goes on, so you can make up for the loss of card advantage later (through virtual or real card advantage)
I had them on a) rescue from the underworld (another good reason to discard the first dreadhound) thus u should play the burn spell or b) your aforementioned secure the waste, thus u should not cast the burn spell. I was stuck.
Another notable detail is that this game happened during the spells bonus sheet. Previously, when they had the planeswalker sheet live, they could have had an expensive planeswalker in hand rather than a creature- at least that’s what I would be concerned of in the moment. But most of the bonus sheet spells are cheaper or kind of unplayable/constructed plants. So that kinda pushes towards holding the counter. EDIT: I just checked, Elspeth, Suns Champion was indeed on the planeswalker bonus sheet and not in the main set. The only other 6ish mana threat they could have in BW is triplicate spirits, which they might have been able to cast earlier with Convoke (kinda unsure). Triplicate spirits would be bad but I think the expensive creature read makes sense
If you have the time or the editor, I would suggest listing out the relevant context clues on one side of the video. This could be helpful practice for people who want practice with keeping this info in their mental stack, as well as informing viewers about what you are specifically watching for and then deducing from that info.
I'm in bronze to platinum and would probably sequence the burn and the counter spell in the same sequence as you. You know you'll get the 2/2 if it's alone on the board with the burn and counter whatever they play big or small to try to control the game with your more (hopefully) value oriented deck.
Cool video, but I'm not sure what you meant by they "probably don't have another removal spell because they would have cast it the turn before". There was no previous turn where it would have made sense to cast, other than the one where they sac'ed the oligarch instead. And they did not have another draw step since then, so they had it during that turn already and chose not to use it. My read was either another 5-6 mana creature (a second dread hound or angler) OR rescue from the underworld, which would really punish your line. Maybe even dictate of heliod but that's a rare so I'd rather play around uncommons. I also could see someone keeping the doomblade that only kills mono colored creatures and was dead against your horrors over dreadhound while ahead on board but stuck on 2 mana. Even if they didn't have a big creature in hand, could always topdeck one and then your deal 3 removal is useless, so holding up scatter makes sense from that perspective as well and is ultimately what I'd like to think I would have done.
Yeah the “turn before” thing I was talking about was an imprecise way to talk about it. Really what I meant was “It seems unlikely that they have another removal spell based on the previous turns” (though it’s not something I could have ruled out for certain)
Love this style of content! idk if its particularly close as a decision though, just because of the specific details, primarily that theres nothing that can kill us via Husk that we cant counter. Disdainful stroke would be a much better spell to have for the puzzle, because with scatter we dont have to worry about them casting a 2nd skeleton or BW afterlife guy. I wasnt even thinking "They could have an expensive creature", I just thought "Ill take 2 and never have scatter down the rest of the game", and theres no way to punish us for it (except 2nd skeleton, but I rarely if ever play 2 skeletons in that deck, so its not super likely).
I think you keep up scatter in all cases here, you can take up 2 damages to keep it up. Killing the husk and having them play any creature next turn puts you in a pretty bad spot where you can die with a scatter in hand
You putting them on another dreadhound looks cool, but I think the decision is the same no matter what creature they could have. I don't really know the cards in this set because I only did a couple drafts and really didn't enjoy it, but combat trick seems unlikely in that style of deck, re-animate spell for dreadhound probably kills you even if you kill husk, and you can counter any creature spell they cast besides another skeleton type and still deal with the husk next turn (allowing you to use both your cards instead of leaving essence scatter stranded if they play a creature). As another commenter said, if they don't cast creature spell that turn you can kill husk the next turn and hold up scatter the rest of the game
I'm actually more interested in the play a couple turns later (14:33), where you play undead butler, than radiant flames to kill everything and get back dinrova horror (but can't play that turn). This seems pretty aggressive to me. I think I would have played the butler and the zendikar incarnate, maybe not even attacking with the angel. Then the opponent has no good attacks next turn, you can swing in with zendikar incarnate and sacrifice the angel if you want to get out from under stab wound. Opponent can either chump with oligarch or take damage, but they can't really attack back without a removal spell and then you still have radiant flames to kill whatever they play and butler to get back whatever the best card is at the time. Having option to get horror, incarnate, or archway angel (or something else) later seems better to me than locking into one of them that turn. Giving opponent information that you have dinrova horror in hand also allows them to keep an extra junky card to discard after playing a more impactful creature (reasonable that they would do this anyway, but I like to give my opponents as little information as possible). Edit: didn't realize dinrova horror hit any permanent so you could hit the stasis snare. Your play makes more sense, but I'm still not sure it isn't better to wait.
i definitely didnt read they had another big creature in hand. i would have poped off the removal there. but yeah, that was a reasonable call i think regardless of outcome. them discarding 2 big creatures says they could have something thats either expensive. or more removal. but not likely, cuz you dont have that much removal very often. think its possible they could have sandbaged the snare. but i dont think that effects the choice here. overall, i dont think this is necessarily a huge "big brain" read. they could have very well just had another 3 mana creature. but this is still a good play, cuz what 3mana creature are they gonna want to sac anyway. you can take the hit so yeah. and you cant really get punished for this play, as you can just counter whatever creature they play, and kill the husk next turn. they would need to top deck another sac creature, as if they had a cheep creature to play along side a big one,, they would have just played it here. so yeah, no need to pop off oath. this was just the safer play i think. good call
If you have a 3 mana creature there while trying to close out the game vs a control deck I'm pretty sure you just run it out instead of holding up the flash removal spell and slowing down your clock. They obviously could topdeck anything, but what they had in hand being a cheap creature seemed unlikely.
@@DieEnteable thats a fair point. it was a pretty complicated sequence of turns, so hard to get a feel. my point was mostly that they probably have at least a creature in hand. and even if they dont, its not that bad. so it was a good call
Love this type of scenarios with their reasoning, more like this!
Love this. As a learning tool, I liked the preamble in terms of priming us on what to look for.
YES! More of this! "What's The Play?" vids are perhaps some of the best "bang for your buck" learning as far as gameplay goes. Obviously, nearly all boardstates in MtG are 1 of 1 unique, but this one little nugget of a video is CLOSE ENOUGH to many boardstates that its lesson can easily be internalized and applied to many games, both in PIO and beyond.
The primer of "What is the story my opponent is telling me?" is a perfect way to frame a situation like this.
Loved the GateSoup.deck you had brewed up there. Triple Dinrova Horror...hahaha
Your commentary during games is my favorite part of this channel. Would love to see more gameplay in general posted here.
This video style was great. Hope to see you do more like it
Great video, I learned a ton from this. Love the way that you explain your thought process
good video, I think this ties into your vid from a couple days ago where you mentioned playing slower. priming yourself to pay attention to a game that's already happened knowing you're going to be "quizzed" on what line to take can help you really evaluate every turn as it goes by to be prepared for taking the best option when the question comes up. feels like good practice for doing the same thing in real games
I liked this video. It made us pay attention to your opponents' behavior, and it summarized it with a little quiz at the end. I also liked that I got the answer right because that shows I'm learning from watching your videos, particularly the ones with the other content creator.
This was so cool. Would love more of these quizzes
Great video! Love this type of what's the play content.
I think this is incredible content, thank you Alex!
Earlier in the game you actually had a lot of challenging decisions about how to deal with the small black creatures your opponent was playing: the skeleton, butler, and then the husks. There’s a lot of math going on there: how much damage can I afford to be nickel and dimed before I set up blockers? How can I prevent a husk from getting one big hit in? I think I would have been tempted to save my removal and hope there was a point when the board could be more efficiently stabilized without spending removal on the skeleton and butler, but as we see in the game if you were to take much more chip damage things would be far more dire.
I know there’s no easy answer on how to make those decisions but do you have a heuristic to follow? Maybe it’s just a vibe you get that life total matters more here than cards & maximizing value? Thanks again!
Glad you liked it! Yeah the best way I can describe is something related to your comment at the end about the vibe of life mattering more than cards.
Generally as the control deck, I’m more willing to make less than great card exchanges in order to stay alive. My deck out values them as the game goes on, so you can make up for the loss of card advantage later (through virtual or real card advantage)
Great video!
I love this so much! Thank you!
12:57 feels good man :)
I had them on a) rescue from the underworld (another good reason to discard the first dreadhound) thus u should play the burn spell or b) your aforementioned secure the waste, thus u should not cast the burn spell. I was stuck.
Another notable detail is that this game happened during the spells bonus sheet. Previously, when they had the planeswalker sheet live, they could have had an expensive planeswalker in hand rather than a creature- at least that’s what I would be concerned of in the moment. But most of the bonus sheet spells are cheaper or kind of unplayable/constructed plants. So that kinda pushes towards holding the counter.
EDIT: I just checked, Elspeth, Suns Champion was indeed on the planeswalker bonus sheet and not in the main set. The only other 6ish mana threat they could have in BW is triplicate spirits, which they might have been able to cast earlier with Convoke (kinda unsure). Triplicate spirits would be bad but I think the expensive creature read makes sense
Could also have been something like dictate of heliod.
If you have the time or the editor, I would suggest listing out the relevant context clues on one side of the video. This could be helpful practice for people who want practice with keeping this info in their mental stack, as well as informing viewers about what you are specifically watching for and then deducing from that info.
I'm in bronze to platinum and would probably sequence the burn and the counter spell in the same sequence as you. You know you'll get the 2/2 if it's alone on the board with the burn and counter whatever they play big or small to try to control the game with your more (hopefully) value oriented deck.
Yeah that was nasty.
Cool video, but I'm not sure what you meant by they "probably don't have another removal spell because they would have cast it the turn before".
There was no previous turn where it would have made sense to cast, other than the one where they sac'ed the oligarch instead. And they did not have another draw step since then, so they had it during that turn already and chose not to use it.
My read was either another 5-6 mana creature (a second dread hound or angler) OR rescue from the underworld, which would really punish your line. Maybe even dictate of heliod but that's a rare so I'd rather play around uncommons.
I also could see someone keeping the doomblade that only kills mono colored creatures and was dead against your horrors over dreadhound while ahead on board but stuck on 2 mana.
Even if they didn't have a big creature in hand, could always topdeck one and then your deal 3 removal is useless, so holding up scatter makes sense from that perspective as well and is ultimately what I'd like to think I would have done.
Yeah the “turn before” thing I was talking about was an imprecise way to talk about it. Really what I meant was “It seems unlikely that they have another removal spell based on the previous turns” (though it’s not something I could have ruled out for certain)
Love this style of content! idk if its particularly close as a decision though, just because of the specific details, primarily that theres nothing that can kill us via Husk that we cant counter. Disdainful stroke would be a much better spell to have for the puzzle, because with scatter we dont have to worry about them casting a 2nd skeleton or BW afterlife guy. I wasnt even thinking "They could have an expensive creature", I just thought "Ill take 2 and never have scatter down the rest of the game", and theres no way to punish us for it (except 2nd skeleton, but I rarely if ever play 2 skeletons in that deck, so its not super likely).
Glad you liked it! Was going through the card list to see what non creature might kill us, Triplicate spirits or secure the wastes could do it
I think you keep up scatter in all cases here, you can take up 2 damages to keep it up. Killing the husk and having them play any creature next turn puts you in a pretty bad spot where you can die with a scatter in hand
You putting them on another dreadhound looks cool, but I think the decision is the same no matter what creature they could have. I don't really know the cards in this set because I only did a couple drafts and really didn't enjoy it, but combat trick seems unlikely in that style of deck, re-animate spell for dreadhound probably kills you even if you kill husk, and you can counter any creature spell they cast besides another skeleton type and still deal with the husk next turn (allowing you to use both your cards instead of leaving essence scatter stranded if they play a creature). As another commenter said, if they don't cast creature spell that turn you can kill husk the next turn and hold up scatter the rest of the game
I'm actually more interested in the play a couple turns later (14:33), where you play undead butler, than radiant flames to kill everything and get back dinrova horror (but can't play that turn). This seems pretty aggressive to me. I think I would have played the butler and the zendikar incarnate, maybe not even attacking with the angel. Then the opponent has no good attacks next turn, you can swing in with zendikar incarnate and sacrifice the angel if you want to get out from under stab wound. Opponent can either chump with oligarch or take damage, but they can't really attack back without a removal spell and then you still have radiant flames to kill whatever they play and butler to get back whatever the best card is at the time. Having option to get horror, incarnate, or archway angel (or something else) later seems better to me than locking into one of them that turn. Giving opponent information that you have dinrova horror in hand also allows them to keep an extra junky card to discard after playing a more impactful creature (reasonable that they would do this anyway, but I like to give my opponents as little information as possible). Edit: didn't realize dinrova horror hit any permanent so you could hit the stasis snare. Your play makes more sense, but I'm still not sure it isn't better to wait.
i definitely didnt read they had another big creature in hand. i would have poped off the removal there. but yeah, that was a reasonable call i think regardless of outcome. them discarding 2 big creatures says they could have something thats either expensive. or more removal. but not likely, cuz you dont have that much removal very often. think its possible they could have sandbaged the snare. but i dont think that effects the choice here.
overall, i dont think this is necessarily a huge "big brain" read. they could have very well just had another 3 mana creature. but this is still a good play, cuz what 3mana creature are they gonna want to sac anyway. you can take the hit so yeah. and you cant really get punished for this play, as you can just counter whatever creature they play, and kill the husk next turn. they would need to top deck another sac creature, as if they had a cheep creature to play along side a big one,, they would have just played it here.
so yeah, no need to pop off oath. this was just the safer play i think. good call
If you have a 3 mana creature there while trying to close out the game vs a control deck I'm pretty sure you just run it out instead of holding up the flash removal spell and slowing down your clock. They obviously could topdeck anything, but what they had in hand being a cheap creature seemed unlikely.
@@DieEnteable thats a fair point. it was a pretty complicated sequence of turns, so hard to get a feel. my point was mostly that they probably have at least a creature in hand. and even if they dont, its not that bad. so it was a good call