Really love this stuff. One advantage of doing this live (as opposed to a review after the fact) is that there is a lot of iterating and back-and-forth on different lines. When Alex is streaming, he makes it all seem so intuitive (even as talented at explaining as he is), and in coaching he slows down just a touch to engage with Brian's natural impulses as a player. When done in real time it's such a powerful check. Love Alex's stuff, I always learn a lot from him.
@half_pump Right, you've been having to incorporate feedback that challenges your past experience and natural inclinations and process all of that in real time, especially when Alex calls out something that seems really innocuous at face value. You've been doing great at processing it all quickly. It really just underlines how much of our gameplay intuitions are almost subconscious.
It's interesting that Brian mentioned that his well intended "constructed mindset" made him lean towards playing around potential combat tricks that the opponent did not have. Good point to be aware of the format we are in and playing according to those percentages. Thank you for this educational content Alex. It really helps to understand the reasons behind good decisions and game actions. I love the thinking out loud and the cooperative approach to these videos, nice work!
This has been one of the hardest things to break. I am always CERTAIN they have the answer in hand but I have to remember even though they built the deck they had limited choice in their options in doing so.
Really enjoying this series, something about seeing the real time thought process of someone who's like clearly very smart and wants to look at things from different angles but then also is maybe a little newer to Limited than lots of people I normally watch (and then obv coaching from Alex) makes for some really cool lessons to take from each video
This series is so entertaining and engaging. I have been pausing it fairly often to see how my assessments line up with you two. Like when you asked how he sees the deck playing out. I came up with a similar, but different analysis than Alex. I thought we’d gum up the ground and trade/chump while we race, mostly attacking in the air. I expected our earlier creatures will be smaller than average, but life gain helps us win races. I liked having the second fleeting flight to make Elenda better and to help deal with ground creatures too big to trade with. Fleeting flight also helps us finish a race by giving unexpected flying to something. I don’t see it being super grindy where we will want a second rallier generally. I’m game 1 your plays favored a grindy game, but I would try to set up aggressive starts that win races as fast as possible. You wanted to go turn 3 Arena, I was on Dazzling Angel. Turn 4 if we had land I’d play the other Angel. Obviously with no land Arena was the only option turn 4, but turn 5 I’d still play Angel and you went with squad rallier. Angel, into Angel, into Felidar would have been 7 flying damage turn 6, and they go to 7! Game 2 as others have mentioned we don’t need to use baked into a pie to save Elenda, since we will gain 5, going to 21. She becomes a 6/5 with 4 damage and survives.
Love the content, Alex. These coaching videos always give me something - no matter the skill-level of the person being coached. Do you know the name of the apps used by Brian? They look quite nifty.
This has been a ton of fun to make and super helpful for me in my journey. Our goal has been to lower the barrier of entry into drafting and competitive play in general. But, it seems to also be helping the experienced in evaluating how they think about there game too which is cool!
Love this content! Don’t stop! Keep em coming please! 🫶 One thing, second Squad rallier over Make your move in this deck is so hard for me to buy into. I’d love to be persuaded into thinking otherwise.
Thanks! Will keep it coming :) I put a lot of value on “this card will be always be castable when I draw it” so I trend to prefer a card thats always a 6/10 rather than one that is either a 0/10 or an 8/10
1:25:57, probably should have moved the axe to the 2/3 angel so it could block the 4/3 flyer. i also like just blocking the 3/2 on the ground with the 2/3 angel. claws out makes you want to keep it for attacks but 11 damage is lot. i think it just gives you more breathing room. slows the game down a tic, doesnt seem like we are gonna win the race when they have a flying chump blocker (and they are going to 10, so we are one point off lethal next turn with an all out attack claws out). also makes use of a blocker that we other wise have no use for this turn. i could be wrong but it just seems like the better play to my mtg intuition
1:40:02 is there merit to a race here? Attack with both. If they don't block (pretty likely cause animist is so good), they go to 14. Deploy 3/3 angel, 4/1 lifelink. With claws out, you have 4/1, 6/4, 5/3, 6/1. Forcing chumps by them which holds back attacks. If they sink mana to kellan, thats also good. You're at 21 life with a lifelinker, max kellan can double strike is 3/2+4, possibly +5 or +6 with a pump spell, but that must be declare prebblock. 9 power doublestrike preblock +6 from animist is lethal but kellan can be chumped. Even animist can be chumped by lifelinker leaving at 1. If they block 2/1 with animist on the attack, you can rebuy gaining 3 life. 2/1, 2/1, 4/4, 4/1 is 12 dmg + potentially 8 more from claws, they are at 16, if they attack both and pump its still lethal crackback. But you do lose to kellan activate, AND pump spell on animist because you can't chump and lethal crackback. Or if they block 2/1 with animist -- claws out? Stems the bleeding and lets kellan attack, but you have some good follow ups
Using Bake to save Elenda in Game 2 vs the 4-power double-block while we were at 16 life was unnecessary. Elenda was a 5/4 because of Banner so we clear 20 life during combat. Wouldn’t mention it but using Bake to remove their flying blocker the turn after wins the game like 5 turns earlier.
@@limitedlevel-ups Banner pump making the difference there was a hard spot. Was good foreshadowing from Brian when he forgot why he was getting +1/+0 on the team earlier in the game. Those minor static effects are easy to overlook!
Even when using bake there, it would be better to target the hawk so they don't get one life. That would have given lethal two turns earlier in the game.
@@NateSnyder-nw4rc i think its more the eldna getting the extra toughness at the same time as damage happens, is the easer thing to miss. it doesn't come up that often as the card tends to just win games very quickly
1:17:00 - I would have swapped the pick onto the Savoir and attacked (You mention attacking the Savior but not the pick switch). That way they can't even trade unless they use a trick (Which they might have in stab but thats fine since its a 2 for 1 rather then a 1 for 1) and you gain an extra life for Elenda. Given that your then going to play Angel number 2 and Elenda into them having no board state and a maximum of 4 mana avaliable, your still presenting a lethal swing the following turn unless they can either get two blockers, or one blocker and kill a creature.
im a little higher on make your move than alex. but he is right, it has a tendency to get stuck in your hand. i just don't think it happens quite as much as he says it does. and 2 removals spell is just a little bit light. so i think id cut the second squad rallier for it, second one is not great. card is already kind of weak, and drawing the second one doesn't do much. plus the 4 mana slot is a bit congested. but just not playing "move" is reasonable. its a risky card.
In game 7, should we have passed the turn and killed the Kellen on their turn in order to tempt them into paying the mana to make it double strike? We get got by Snakeskin Veil, but it's worth it maybe?
Interesting. Definitely needs more consideration of nuances like proper equipping and reequiping. Game five was very winnable if pick was equipped for better blocking
im a little bit higher on make your move than alex is but prideful parent is pretty good in this deck. its also just a fine card on its own. not exciting but 2 bodies for 1 card is generally pretty decent in limited. id give it like a C maybe C+. but we also have a banner with only white creatures in the deck, plus claws out which cares about cats ands going wide.
This has been super helpful in reducing the learning curve that is why I highly recommend people get coaching personally, professionally or in their passions if they can. It really helps you progress faster and break bad habits before they become engrained.
Beyond just "affect the board first" for Phyrexian Arena in that first game, there's also the consideration of how many cards could you actually cast? Turn 3 with multiple 4 drops in hand, you just won't actually be able to play the extra cards for a few turns unless it draws you exclusively 1 and 2 drops. Granted ya'll missed the turn 4 land drop where it might've actually helped, but on average I look at that scenario and think I'm at real risk of clogging my hand/forcing myself to discard in a few turns.
Yeah, I'm not sure I like the way that first loss was played. Maybe you couldn't win anyway, but I also don't like the "well we probably got unlucky/they had good cards" line either haha, I mean, they did have good cards, but I feel there were gameplay decisions that maybe could have gotten a win. Things I probably do differently: -I actually think I would play the Helpful Hunter first on the turn you play Dazzling Angel into Helpful Hunter because what you draw from HH might influence your play right? I'm not sure, maybe the 1 life from playing first the Dazzling Angel is more important than the information, not sure. But regardless, either attack first if you're planning to attack, or play HH to see what you draw and then attack, don't tap out and then attack, you just give them perfect information that way. -Dont block the Helpful Hunter on their 3/2 with the intent to use Fake Your Own Death, this is asking to get blown out when they have so much mana up. While I guess losing Helpful Hunter for nothing is not the woorrrrssst thing, it's also unideal. In general you should aim to make using combat tricks on defence your last resort in my opinion. -i might not have attacked as aggressively as you, but I think your play was maybe correct... But obviously risky since it was pretty likely they had something that could block or interact with you. But I would have at least equipped the valkyrie so you have a 3/4 blocker which also blocks decently... I don't like taking 11 damage when they have so much mana and 3 cards. I think Brian did that twice actually... -I would have played the Dazzling Angel instead of the Angel of Finality as Alex suggested. It's just the most mana efficient play. So yeah, not sure it would have changed anything or not, but a bit sloppy play, might be the difference in other games if they didn't have some of the spells they ended up having. Note about blocking: I saw Brian snap blocked his 4/5 onto their 1/1, and then Alex calmed him a bit and then you guys considered options a bit more and decided to block anyway. I'd recommend reading Jim Davis' article on blocking. I'd say Brian is thinking with level 1 blocking-thinking according to that article (i.e. "omg they're attacking their small creature into my big creature, they're an idiot!") whereas we want to get him up to level 3 (i.e. "I assume they have a trick here to kill my larger creature... What could they have? and am I fine with them using it now to kill my creature?"). So even though the end result was the same, it's good to go through the scenarios first.
Good thoughts! I think the risk taken on the hunter is a very acceptable one to take, at worst we get 1 for 1’d and they’re forced to use an interaction spell. You’re right about best practices here but I think this is an exception
MTGA is not setup for anyone to go infinite. Averaging 5 wins is not enough unless you literally go 5-3 EVERY time. Going 0-3, 7-0, 2-3 is just about 2500 GEMS, but going 3-3, 3-3, 3-3 is 3000 GEMS. The win ratio in the first example is significantly higher, but the reward is significantly lower. I was at one point the highest rated limited player in the world (all the way back in OTJ) and was infinite on MTGO forever, but with MTGA i can only go infinite drafting if I only play while my daily gold reward is active. It actually best if i just draft once every 3 days for max gold. If i just want to draft as much as i want I have to pay and I'm usually top 100 Mythic. WOTC is out of their minds and drafting on arena is such bad value, i dont recommend that anyone bothers with it outside of using their gold.
Nah, I love mtga rewards. I draft into diamond or mythic every month and I’ve never lacked for resources. I do agree the quests make a big difference in going infinite. I guess if you drafted multiple times per day and hit a bad losing streak you would need to buy gems. Or if you play the expensive tournaments.
I was agreeing with you initially about how it's better to go 3-3 every draft than to go 7-0 sometimes and 0-3 other times, but to say it's bad value overall is a bit crazy. It's great value, you draft, get all the cards from the draft and get the cards you win. So if you draft a bunch you can build your whole constructed set. Obviously if you don't play Standard/Constructed that doesn't matter much I guess, but for me who plays both they both allow me to play the other mode for free essentially haha.
Its definitely tough. I usually have to refresh my gems at the beginning of the month but manage to usually play a draft per day for $50/month. The other thing to keep in mind is with a set like Foundations that will be live for 5 years it will be a great place to complete the set and future rewards in the set often turn into Gems as well. I am not saying that it is free but you can really reduce the cost and get good draft practice.
Really love this stuff. One advantage of doing this live (as opposed to a review after the fact) is that there is a lot of iterating and back-and-forth on different lines. When Alex is streaming, he makes it all seem so intuitive (even as talented at explaining as he is), and in coaching he slows down just a touch to engage with Brian's natural impulses as a player. When done in real time it's such a powerful check. Love Alex's stuff, I always learn a lot from him.
It has been great having someone challenge my mindset and break me of bad habits or incorrent lines of thinking in real time.
@half_pump Right, you've been having to incorporate feedback that challenges your past experience and natural inclinations and process all of that in real time, especially when Alex calls out something that seems really innocuous at face value. You've been doing great at processing it all quickly. It really just underlines how much of our gameplay intuitions are almost subconscious.
I think the content is awesome, it’s so interesting and informative
Glad you are enjoying it!
It's interesting that Brian mentioned that his well intended "constructed mindset" made him lean towards playing around potential combat tricks that the opponent did not have. Good point to be aware of the format we are in and playing according to those percentages. Thank you for this educational content Alex. It really helps to understand the reasons behind good decisions and game actions. I love the thinking out loud and the cooperative approach to these videos, nice work!
This has been one of the hardest things to break. I am always CERTAIN they have the answer in hand but I have to remember even though they built the deck they had limited choice in their options in doing so.
Love this coaching content. I hope you keep doing it!
More to come!
@@half_pump sweet!
Really enjoying this series, something about seeing the real time thought process of someone who's like clearly very smart and wants to look at things from different angles but then also is maybe a little newer to Limited than lots of people I normally watch (and then obv coaching from Alex) makes for some really cool lessons to take from each video
This series is so entertaining and engaging. I have been pausing it fairly often to see how my assessments line up with you two. Like when you asked how he sees the deck playing out. I came up with a similar, but different analysis than Alex. I thought we’d gum up the ground and trade/chump while we race, mostly attacking in the air. I expected our earlier creatures will be smaller than average, but life gain helps us win races. I liked having the second fleeting flight to make Elenda better and to help deal with ground creatures too big to trade with. Fleeting flight also helps us finish a race by giving unexpected flying to something. I don’t see it being super grindy where we will want a second rallier generally.
I’m game 1 your plays favored a grindy game, but I would try to set up aggressive starts that win races as fast as possible. You wanted to go turn 3 Arena, I was on Dazzling Angel. Turn 4 if we had land I’d play the other Angel. Obviously with no land Arena was the only option turn 4, but turn 5 I’d still play Angel and you went with squad rallier. Angel, into Angel, into Felidar would have been 7 flying damage turn 6, and they go to 7!
Game 2 as others have mentioned we don’t need to use baked into a pie to save Elenda, since we will gain 5, going to 21. She becomes a 6/5 with 4 damage and survives.
Glad you are enjoying it! I am learning so much and having fun making this series with Alex.
Love the content, Alex. These coaching videos always give me something - no matter the skill-level of the person being coached. Do you know the name of the apps used by Brian? They look quite nifty.
Brian is using Untappped.gg, there's a link in the video description if you want to check it out
What Alex said.
Love these coaching videos
Same.
Alright, that was pretty good!
Glad you liked it!
Been looking forward to this one :)
Hope it lived up to the hype!
great content. I know it's not for everyone but I would love to see more of this
This has been a ton of fun to make and super helpful for me in my journey. Our goal has been to lower the barrier of entry into drafting and competitive play in general. But, it seems to also be helping the experienced in evaluating how they think about there game too which is cool!
@half_pump I think we're about the same skill level in draft, so it's been exactly what I need. Very helpful and it's fun seeing somebody improve
Love this content! Don’t stop! Keep em coming please! 🫶 One thing, second Squad rallier over Make your move in this deck is so hard for me to buy into. I’d love to be persuaded into thinking otherwise.
Thanks! Will keep it coming :)
I put a lot of value on “this card will be always be castable when I draw it” so I trend to prefer a card thats always a 6/10 rather than one that is either a 0/10 or an 8/10
This has been amazing to make as well! Huge shout out to Alex!
1:25:57, probably should have moved the axe to the 2/3 angel so it could block the 4/3 flyer. i also like just blocking the 3/2 on the ground with the 2/3 angel. claws out makes you want to keep it for attacks but 11 damage is lot. i think it just gives you more breathing room. slows the game down a tic, doesnt seem like we are gonna win the race when they have a flying chump blocker (and they are going to 10, so we are one point off lethal next turn with an all out attack claws out). also makes use of a blocker that we other wise have no use for this turn. i could be wrong but it just seems like the better play to my mtg intuition
1:40:02 is there merit to a race here?
Attack with both. If they don't block (pretty likely cause animist is so good), they go to 14. Deploy 3/3 angel, 4/1 lifelink. With claws out, you have 4/1, 6/4, 5/3, 6/1. Forcing chumps by them which holds back attacks. If they sink mana to kellan, thats also good. You're at 21 life with a lifelinker, max kellan can double strike is 3/2+4, possibly +5 or +6 with a pump spell, but that must be declare prebblock. 9 power doublestrike preblock +6 from animist is lethal but kellan can be chumped. Even animist can be chumped by lifelinker leaving at 1.
If they block 2/1 with animist on the attack, you can rebuy gaining 3 life. 2/1, 2/1, 4/4, 4/1 is 12 dmg + potentially 8 more from claws, they are at 16, if they attack both and pump its still lethal crackback. But you do lose to kellan activate, AND pump spell on animist because you can't chump and lethal crackback.
Or if they block 2/1 with animist -- claws out? Stems the bleeding and lets kellan attack, but you have some good follow ups
Using Bake to save Elenda in Game 2 vs the 4-power double-block while we were at 16 life was unnecessary. Elenda was a 5/4 because of Banner so we clear 20 life during combat. Wouldn’t mention it but using Bake to remove their flying blocker the turn after wins the game like 5 turns earlier.
Yep! Exactly right. Noticed this in editing. Was thinking about that turn wrong
@@limitedlevel-ups Banner pump making the difference there was a hard spot. Was good foreshadowing from Brian when he forgot why he was getting +1/+0 on the team earlier in the game. Those minor static effects are easy to overlook!
Even when using bake there, it would be better to target the hawk so they don't get one life. That would have given lethal two turns earlier in the game.
@@NateSnyder-nw4rc i think its more the eldna getting the extra toughness at the same time as damage happens, is the easer thing to miss. it doesn't come up that often as the card tends to just win games very quickly
1:17:00 - I would have swapped the pick onto the Savoir and attacked (You mention attacking the Savior but not the pick switch). That way they can't even trade unless they use a trick (Which they might have in stab but thats fine since its a 2 for 1 rather then a 1 for 1) and you gain an extra life for Elenda. Given that your then going to play Angel number 2 and Elenda into them having no board state and a maximum of 4 mana avaliable, your still presenting a lethal swing the following turn unless they can either get two blockers, or one blocker and kill a creature.
that game two was crazy
im a little higher on make your move than alex. but he is right, it has a tendency to get stuck in your hand. i just don't think it happens quite as much as he says it does. and 2 removals spell is just a little bit light. so i think id cut the second squad rallier for it, second one is not great. card is already kind of weak, and drawing the second one doesn't do much. plus the 4 mana slot is a bit congested. but just not playing "move" is reasonable. its a risky card.
9:24 Blight Priest has won me a lot in Black-White lifegain. Easily the best pick there.
In game 7, should we have passed the turn and killed the Kellen on their turn in order to tempt them into paying the mana to make it double strike? We get got by Snakeskin Veil, but it's worth it maybe?
I think since we pretty much auto lose if Kellen survives, it’s better just to cast it when we did!
Interesting. Definitely needs more consideration of nuances like proper equipping and reequiping. Game five was very winnable if pick was equipped for better blocking
what is this points app you are using?
Brian is using Untappped.gg, there's a link in the video description if you want to check it out
What Alex said.
At 52:33 Elenda would’ve survived anyways
Nice learing curve with the back and forth
im a little bit higher on make your move than alex is but prideful parent is pretty good in this deck. its also just a fine card on its own. not exciting but 2 bodies for 1 card is generally pretty decent in limited. id give it like a C maybe C+. but we also have a banner with only white creatures in the deck, plus claws out which cares about cats ands going wide.
This has been super helpful in reducing the learning curve that is why I highly recommend people get coaching personally, professionally or in their passions if they can. It really helps you progress faster and break bad habits before they become engrained.
Beyond just "affect the board first" for Phyrexian Arena in that first game, there's also the consideration of how many cards could you actually cast? Turn 3 with multiple 4 drops in hand, you just won't actually be able to play the extra cards for a few turns unless it draws you exclusively 1 and 2 drops. Granted ya'll missed the turn 4 land drop where it might've actually helped, but on average I look at that scenario and think I'm at real risk of clogging my hand/forcing myself to discard in a few turns.
HamTV has said a couple times, he would rather run 1 Hare Apparent than 4 of them. And he would rather run zero than 1 lol
Lmao, I totally buy that this is the right take
Yeah, I'm not sure I like the way that first loss was played. Maybe you couldn't win anyway, but I also don't like the "well we probably got unlucky/they had good cards" line either haha, I mean, they did have good cards, but I feel there were gameplay decisions that maybe could have gotten a win.
Things I probably do differently:
-I actually think I would play the Helpful Hunter first on the turn you play Dazzling Angel into Helpful Hunter because what you draw from HH might influence your play right? I'm not sure, maybe the 1 life from playing first the Dazzling Angel is more important than the information, not sure. But regardless, either attack first if you're planning to attack, or play HH to see what you draw and then attack, don't tap out and then attack, you just give them perfect information that way.
-Dont block the Helpful Hunter on their 3/2 with the intent to use Fake Your Own Death, this is asking to get blown out when they have so much mana up. While I guess losing Helpful Hunter for nothing is not the woorrrrssst thing, it's also unideal. In general you should aim to make using combat tricks on defence your last resort in my opinion.
-i might not have attacked as aggressively as you, but I think your play was maybe correct... But obviously risky since it was pretty likely they had something that could block or interact with you. But I would have at least equipped the valkyrie so you have a 3/4 blocker which also blocks decently... I don't like taking 11 damage when they have so much mana and 3 cards. I think Brian did that twice actually...
-I would have played the Dazzling Angel instead of the Angel of Finality as Alex suggested. It's just the most mana efficient play.
So yeah, not sure it would have changed anything or not, but a bit sloppy play, might be the difference in other games if they didn't have some of the spells they ended up having.
Note about blocking: I saw Brian snap blocked his 4/5 onto their 1/1, and then Alex calmed him a bit and then you guys considered options a bit more and decided to block anyway. I'd recommend reading Jim Davis' article on blocking. I'd say Brian is thinking with level 1 blocking-thinking according to that article (i.e. "omg they're attacking their small creature into my big creature, they're an idiot!") whereas we want to get him up to level 3 (i.e. "I assume they have a trick here to kill my larger creature... What could they have? and am I fine with them using it now to kill my creature?"). So even though the end result was the same, it's good to go through the scenarios first.
Good thoughts! I think the risk taken on the hunter is a very acceptable one to take, at worst we get 1 for 1’d and they’re forced to use an interaction spell. You’re right about best practices here but I think this is an exception
I will definitely have to read that article! I am building a list of articles that I need to get to so suggestions are always welcome!
MTGA is not setup for anyone to go infinite. Averaging 5 wins is not enough unless you literally go 5-3 EVERY time. Going 0-3, 7-0, 2-3 is just about 2500 GEMS, but going 3-3, 3-3, 3-3 is 3000 GEMS. The win ratio in the first example is significantly higher, but the reward is significantly lower. I was at one point the highest rated limited player in the world (all the way back in OTJ) and was infinite on MTGO forever, but with MTGA i can only go infinite drafting if I only play while my daily gold reward is active. It actually best if i just draft once every 3 days for max gold. If i just want to draft as much as i want I have to pay and I'm usually top 100 Mythic. WOTC is out of their minds and drafting on arena is such bad value, i dont recommend that anyone bothers with it outside of using their gold.
Nah, I love mtga rewards. I draft into diamond or mythic every month and I’ve never lacked for resources. I do agree the quests make a big difference in going infinite. I guess if you drafted multiple times per day and hit a bad losing streak you would need to buy gems. Or if you play the expensive tournaments.
I was agreeing with you initially about how it's better to go 3-3 every draft than to go 7-0 sometimes and 0-3 other times, but to say it's bad value overall is a bit crazy. It's great value, you draft, get all the cards from the draft and get the cards you win. So if you draft a bunch you can build your whole constructed set. Obviously if you don't play Standard/Constructed that doesn't matter much I guess, but for me who plays both they both allow me to play the other mode for free essentially haha.
Its definitely tough. I usually have to refresh my gems at the beginning of the month but manage to usually play a draft per day for $50/month. The other thing to keep in mind is with a set like Foundations that will be live for 5 years it will be a great place to complete the set and future rewards in the set often turn into Gems as well. I am not saying that it is free but you can really reduce the cost and get good draft practice.
Wow this guy plays about 50% wrong moves, but hey, magic is very hard.
At 51% I am making progress! Only 1% more to go!!
@ hey im at 60 25 years of playing 🥲