This whole series was great. Thanks for putting it together, Alex and Brian. Even as someone who plays only Limited, I still got a lot out of it. I've spent lots of positive words on Alex both here and elsewhere, but this time, big props to you, Brian. It's not easy to be under the microscope four episodes in a row, all while staying upbeat and taking things constructively. And just, in general, I appreciate seeing creators modeling learning and engaging with good-faith feedback--it's extra hard given how much scrutiny you're already under, but it's such a tonic to the overconfidence and infallibility out here on the interwebs. Looking forward to the next series!
I had a blast doing this! Accepting feedback is an important skill to get better and improve. I also really want to put out into the Magic world what I want to get back. It is possible to be competitive, be a good spirit and have fun. After all it is a game.
Loving this content, thank you! I've yet to hit Mythic and also hit that Plat wall often. Waiting to push for a set that grabs me, and videos like these help a ton. I've admitted to myself that Magic is hard and there's no shortcut to putting in the reps and finding those nuances, and for your brain to put everything together.
Well done Brian, you're learning really quickly, i can already hear that you're taking on some good practices. Keep up the good work and you'll be improving your win rate soon enough!
Around 58:30 (last turn of that game), I think there is some reason to play uprising before combat. Opponent is dead on board but passed turn, so they likely have removal, flash creature, or faebloom trick. Removal in response to uprising vs during combat denies is a card but you can still push a lot of damage and play needle tooth next turn if needed, and uprising pre-combat. plays better against either a flash creature or faebloom trick. You were in a very strong position, which is when it's particularly good to put yourself in your opponent's seat and ask how they could possibly win/survive. On a closely related note, at 1:13 the blasphemous edict is fairly telegraphed. Opponent chumps with dazzling angel at a life total where it doesn't help to block when it's their only chance to close out game (on board). That block would set off alarm bells, plus you're so far ahead at that point that a wrath is pretty much the only thing you can lose to. But Alex covered that after pretty well, just wanted to point out the strange play by opponent in addition to thinking about possible outs in a more general sense
I know y'all said this was a gameplay episode and there were a lot of good ganeplay lessons, in general slowing down and playing to the board as default will probably spike Brian's win rate. I did find it interesting though listening to Brian's thoughts during the draft, he had decent evaluation of the cards he was seeing but never seemed to acknowledge he was at a [virtual] table. Alex called out "oh that card wheeled" but Brian kinda acted like it was fresh cards every pack. It's juat a mindset thing, but dor instance, in pack 2 when y'all took Garruk's Uprising, green had generally been wheeling. Since it's a super green focused build around, I might have looked at that pack and said "Uprising will wheel" and took something else. Uprising is probs still the move, and gameplay is the king of knobs to turn to improve. But I think it's good to look at the packs as packs, being passed to other people, and try to read signals, etc. Just my two cents, I apprecaite the content y'all!
Recognizing the wheel game of draft is definitely something I am just starting to get into. I understand it is super important but you are right, I kind of see it as fresh cards each time rather than the packs coming back around and having a second stab at a card. Adding it to the list of things to work on for sure!
Untapped gg overlay is good to get a feeling of cards in beginning of set but it really weighs your first picks heavily and skews to match color. It will definitely make you miss out on staying open to splashing and picking up random dual lands if you stick to closely to the recommendations.
yeah, thats why i think its best to just look at the untapped gg rating at the top of the card (gives the generally rating of the card regardless of your picks) the draftsmith numbers at the bottom are not that helpful. as the ai leans too much into forcing the colors you already have
It was mentioned in another comment but as you improve in drafting the overlay can sometimes be more harm than good. It is great to lower the barrier of entry into drafting.
Enjoying these episodes :) Turning off the auto-tapper would be doubly useful I think - prevents the autotapping mistakes, and helps with slowing down a little.
I think Brian sadly has maybe the most common issue as a novice magic player of just playing waaay too fast. While it's totally understandable, I think it's entirely possible that he doesn't lose that third game (? the blasphemous edict game) if he just goes a bit slower through his steps. In general his game actions seem to be "how can I get to my turn and my play cards" instead of thinking about the overall game itself and how his opponent is playing and how that might impact him.
Great observation! It is one of my biggest issues I am working on. I have the same problem in paper. In the last RCQ if I had just slowed down a little I would have likely won 2 of the games I lost and qualified for the top 8.
Really appreciate these coaching sessions. I credit my teacher Jake Browne with helping me plug some leaks in my game. Since our session I've righted my ship and won three Arena Direct trophies.
p1p2 i think rebuke is also a worthy mention. very strong pack. lots of good choices p1p4 i kinda like spinner more personally. also deathtouch makes it nice with green's removal spells. i like golem too, but i find 7 mana is a bit much for what you get. its an ok card, nice two for one. rating does seem a little low, but i think you want to ask a bit more from your 7 drops in modern limited, just my opinion. p2p1, i think the wardens of the cycle would also be reasonable, but with 2 red cards already, id lean towards berserker as well. 26:50 "i dont value the combat tricks" i mean combat tricks are usually not needed in most decks. "overprotect" from bloomburrow was a really strong card, but most of the time, combat tricks are fairly replaceable cards. so i wouldn't worry about it. its just in this case, as Alex said, RG can use them well. its the one deck that actually wants them. (RW as well, to a lesser extent, I suppose) ---- perfect build, deck should do very well. i smell a trophy ---- Game 3: 55:16 little arena thing, you don't need to put a stop at their end step. if you have something you can do, the game will stop before your turn, and you have to press the orange button to go to your turn. arena will only pass through steps and turns if you have no plays. maybe your settings are different but that's how it normally works. only reason to put a stop at their end step is if they had some trigger at end step, and you want to make a play before the trigger 59:41 correct me if im wrong, but i don't think ruby will even get a trigger. as ruby has the text "whenever ruby attacks, WHILE, controlling a power 4 creature" you dont get the trigger unless you meet the conditions when you attack with it. therefor you don't get the chance to have a delayed "check" from a ability on the stack. berserker will trigger as always, then you can get him to 4 power, but then ruby has already "attacked" and so will not get the trigger. if ruby said "when ruby attack, IF, you control a power 4 of greater" the ability would trigger every combat, then you could stack the triggers so you will have a power 4 creature when the ability "checks" on resolution. (would need full control mode though). ------ 1:31:01 i think ive been making this mistake to some degree as well. "playing removal later, as it makes your creature's attacks better" good stuff. ive never heard anyone put this into words before.
@@half_pump i mean the piloting was good with alex in the back seat. that being said, the games you lost were somewhat close. i think if it was played slightly differently you might have won all 3 of your losses. but its really hard to say. 49:00 i think killing the angel was more important. so i would have use growth with indrik here. i think your more likely to die to angel, than win with growth on attacks. IMO 1:12:57 as alex said later, you dont need to play the 2/2 here. you will win with this board anyway. then you would have had some spells in hand to use. 1:51:24 as timloesch said, you lose if you fight the 2/1. (i didn't even notice that was gonna happens though) game might have been winnable. situation were you just needed to count the mana i dont think your personal small errors (like with the auto tapping with ooze) hurt the winrate with this one. but if these plays were different, it might have made lead to a trophy. but again, super hard to say what would have happened
Interesting how a lot of Brian's comments in drafts are about how x card "Is really good if you're doing this synergy". Totally constructed mindset where every card is working around a similar plan. But in draft you may not know that plan until very late.
I think it's still important to know, because a card might be great in a particular archtype but bad in another one, and synergy is very important in draft. So I think those are good observations by Brian; if anything i think one potential gap of his is he knows what untapped tells him on the screen about a card's power but but he doesn't necessarily know what the stats are for each card in each archtype, which a good player would have a better understanding of.
I do have a question. When Quick Draft is availability, i move there for the sake of cheaper drafts. Is there a view on how to draft them differently than live drafts? Do we know if cpu stick to colors? Are reads not even a thing? Thanks
Good Question! There's a "bot meta" that I certainly consider if I ever quick draft. In DSK for example, I quick drafted quite a bit since I was traveling and always biased towards U control because the bots left that pretty open. To figure out what to bias towards, check out GIH win rate data for quick draft specifically on 17lands. For FDN, black cards are winning in QD even more than in premier, which leads me do believe the bots undervalue the black cards to some degree.
from what ive been told (based on info from a wotc employee interview on LRR )the bots are trained to pick cards based off what performs well (at least initially, could be wrong i dont think they ever get retrained as the meta advances. leading to some weird biases. in BLB for example. everyone avoided UR like the plague, so QD UR was always stupid open) basically the bots take what are the ""best cards"" for the first few picks, then just hard force their colors. so expect that if a color is open, it will stay that way, almost every time
final play shoulda been: 1. Indrik fight a 1/1, then 2. felling blow indrik to kill Nettletooth. that leaves you with 3 creatures (2 untapped) to block to their 2 creatures and a decent chance to win. you (Alex) did them a favor transforming their 2/1 and basically wasted the fight great content - thank you
Yep! Great call, I think the misstep here was not thinking about what combat looks like. I wanted to kill the 2/1 so they didn’t have an easy morbid trigger on their turn, not realizing that we just die if we take that line
I just don't understand. I know he keep saying that he lack experience in limited. But his mistakes are kinda basic stuff. Like, in constructed is even more important to know when to cast spell and to do not give information to the opponent since you probably know all the cards of the opponent deck. Also, if he plays constructed in Arena he should be used to avoid being caught by the autotapper, and to play around sweeper wich are way more common in constructed and to not tappout without a reason... I also don't understand his obssession with joust through. If the opponent kill your 2 drop, he killed it. You can't not attack with your creatures just because he got 1 white mana open with your aggressive decks. Anyways, keep the hard work and be patient, the results will come
Its definitely a different mindset. Some of it is basic Magic that I was just punting on because of rushing, thinking too far ahead or not reading the board correctly. My comments on constructed is meant to be more that I am better at constructed than I am limited. I am definitely not saying I am pro level or even that great at constructed just that I have had more success there and it is where most of my experience is. I did only start playing competitive Magic this summer so I am relatively new to it all and definitely still make basic errors. I'll stay patient and keep grinding!
I do laugh every time he says "Joust Through!" Is that even a good card? 17 lands says it's like 56% but I try to never have it in my deck. Maybe I switch to PIO too soon or it's not played in Diamond where I tend to hangout, but I feel like if my opponent played it, I would be happy they don't have better cards.
Pack 3, Pick 3.... WHAT IS THAT WHITE! I still think that boards wipes are just... they are what they are. Sometimes its obvious your opponent has them, but in that situation is really wasn't obvious. Its a fine balance between losing because you got wiped by a board wiped, and then losing because you didn't go aggressive enough because "maybe they picked up a random rare/mythic board wipe."
yeah, can be a tough call sometimes. though in this case. there were soo stupidly far ahead, the only way they lose that game, is to a board wipe. so i think alex was right about playing around it.
Yeah it’s not a perfect tool by any means, though I think it’s a good tool for less experienced players to point them right direction while they build their card eval skills. If you’re a mid level player or above, it’ll probably hurt you more than it helps
As Alex said, it is great when starting out in a set. As you get more comfortable with a set it can sometimes be distracting. Overall, I think it lowers the curve and helps folks get into drafting when it can seem really overwhelming.
This whole series was great. Thanks for putting it together, Alex and Brian. Even as someone who plays only Limited, I still got a lot out of it. I've spent lots of positive words on Alex both here and elsewhere, but this time, big props to you, Brian. It's not easy to be under the microscope four episodes in a row, all while staying upbeat and taking things constructively. And just, in general, I appreciate seeing creators modeling learning and engaging with good-faith feedback--it's extra hard given how much scrutiny you're already under, but it's such a tonic to the overconfidence and infallibility out here on the interwebs.
Looking forward to the next series!
I had a blast doing this! Accepting feedback is an important skill to get better and improve. I also really want to put out into the Magic world what I want to get back. It is possible to be competitive, be a good spirit and have fun. After all it is a game.
Loving this content, thank you! I've yet to hit Mythic and also hit that Plat wall often. Waiting to push for a set that grabs me, and videos like these help a ton. I've admitted to myself that Magic is hard and there's no shortcut to putting in the reps and finding those nuances, and for your brain to put everything together.
Glad you enjoyed it! We really enjoyed making it!
Well done Brian, you're learning really quickly, i can already hear that you're taking on some good practices. Keep up the good work and you'll be improving your win rate soon enough!
Thank you! Your comments have been super helpful along the way!
Around 58:30 (last turn of that game), I think there is some reason to play uprising before combat. Opponent is dead on board but passed turn, so they likely have removal, flash creature, or faebloom trick. Removal in response to uprising vs during combat denies is a card but you can still push a lot of damage and play needle tooth next turn if needed, and uprising pre-combat. plays better against either a flash creature or faebloom trick. You were in a very strong position, which is when it's particularly good to put yourself in your opponent's seat and ask how they could possibly win/survive. On a closely related note, at 1:13 the blasphemous edict is fairly telegraphed. Opponent chumps with dazzling angel at a life total where it doesn't help to block when it's their only chance to close out game (on board). That block would set off alarm bells, plus you're so far ahead at that point that a wrath is pretty much the only thing you can lose to. But Alex covered that after pretty well, just wanted to point out the strange play by opponent in addition to thinking about possible outs in a more general sense
I know y'all said this was a gameplay episode and there were a lot of good ganeplay lessons, in general slowing down and playing to the board as default will probably spike Brian's win rate.
I did find it interesting though listening to Brian's thoughts during the draft, he had decent evaluation of the cards he was seeing but never seemed to acknowledge he was at a [virtual] table. Alex called out "oh that card wheeled" but Brian kinda acted like it was fresh cards every pack. It's juat a mindset thing, but dor instance, in pack 2 when y'all took Garruk's Uprising, green had generally been wheeling. Since it's a super green focused build around, I might have looked at that pack and said "Uprising will wheel" and took something else. Uprising is probs still the move, and gameplay is the king of knobs to turn to improve. But I think it's good to look at the packs as packs, being passed to other people, and try to read signals, etc. Just my two cents, I apprecaite the content y'all!
Recognizing the wheel game of draft is definitely something I am just starting to get into. I understand it is super important but you are right, I kind of see it as fresh cards each time rather than the packs coming back around and having a second stab at a card. Adding it to the list of things to work on for sure!
Untapped gg overlay is good to get a feeling of cards in beginning of set but it really weighs your first picks heavily and skews to match color.
It will definitely make you miss out on staying open to splashing and picking up random dual lands if you stick to closely to the recommendations.
yeah, thats why i think its best to just look at the untapped gg rating at the top of the card (gives the generally rating of the card regardless of your picks) the draftsmith numbers at the bottom are not that helpful. as the ai leans too much into forcing the colors you already have
It was mentioned in another comment but as you improve in drafting the overlay can sometimes be more harm than good. It is great to lower the barrier of entry into drafting.
@@half_pump yah it’s definitely good starting out or learning a set but it’s a tool not the boss
Thanks for the great videos guys!
Glad you enjoyed it! We enjoyed making it!
Lets go. These are the best.
I'm right where your guest is as well, Platinum surfing. So this all hits great.
Glad you enjoyed it! We had a blast making it!
@@half_pump yeah eas great man. Gl on the climb
great game coaching. Tips for building board is really good
Alex is a fantastic teacher!
Enjoying these episodes :)
Turning off the auto-tapper would be doubly useful I think - prevents the autotapping mistakes, and helps with slowing down a little.
I think Brian sadly has maybe the most common issue as a novice magic player of just playing waaay too fast. While it's totally understandable, I think it's entirely possible that he doesn't lose that third game (? the blasphemous edict game) if he just goes a bit slower through his steps. In general his game actions seem to be "how can I get to my turn and my play cards" instead of thinking about the overall game itself and how his opponent is playing and how that might impact him.
Great observation! It is one of my biggest issues I am working on. I have the same problem in paper. In the last RCQ if I had just slowed down a little I would have likely won 2 of the games I lost and qualified for the top 8.
Really appreciate these coaching sessions. I credit my teacher Jake Browne with helping me plug some leaks in my game. Since our session I've righted my ship and won three Arena Direct trophies.
Nice! Jake is great
p1p2 i think rebuke is also a worthy mention. very strong pack. lots of good choices
p1p4 i kinda like spinner more personally. also deathtouch makes it nice with green's removal spells. i like golem too, but i find 7 mana is a bit much for what you get. its an ok card, nice two for one. rating does seem a little low, but i think you want to ask a bit more from your 7 drops in modern limited, just my opinion.
p2p1, i think the wardens of the cycle would also be reasonable, but with 2 red cards already, id lean towards berserker as well.
26:50 "i dont value the combat tricks" i mean combat tricks are usually not needed in most decks. "overprotect" from bloomburrow was a really strong card, but most of the time, combat tricks are fairly replaceable cards. so i wouldn't worry about it. its just in this case, as Alex said, RG can use them well. its the one deck that actually wants them. (RW as well, to a lesser extent, I suppose)
----
perfect build, deck should do very well. i smell a trophy
----
Game 3:
55:16 little arena thing, you don't need to put a stop at their end step. if you have something you can do, the game will stop before your turn, and you have to press the orange button to go to your turn. arena will only pass through steps and turns if you have no plays. maybe your settings are different but that's how it normally works.
only reason to put a stop at their end step is if they had some trigger at end step, and you want to make a play before the trigger
59:41 correct me if im wrong, but i don't think ruby will even get a trigger. as ruby has the text "whenever ruby attacks, WHILE, controlling a power 4 creature" you dont get the trigger unless you meet the conditions when you attack with it. therefor you don't get the chance to have a delayed "check" from a ability on the stack. berserker will trigger as always, then you can get him to 4 power, but then ruby has already "attacked" and so will not get the trigger. if ruby said "when ruby attack, IF, you control a power 4 of greater" the ability would trigger every combat, then you could stack the triggers so you will have a power 4 creature when the ability "checks" on resolution. (would need full control mode though).
------
1:31:01 i think ive been making this mistake to some degree as well. "playing removal later, as it makes your creature's attacks better" good stuff. ive never heard anyone put this into words before.
Good call, I think you’re right about the ruby thing!
Deck felt good but the pilot could use some work, haha
@@half_pump i mean the piloting was good with alex in the back seat. that being said, the games you lost were somewhat close. i think if it was played slightly differently you might have won all 3 of your losses. but its really hard to say.
49:00 i think killing the angel was more important. so i would have use growth with indrik here. i think your more likely to die to angel, than win with growth on attacks. IMO
1:12:57 as alex said later, you dont need to play the 2/2 here. you will win with this board anyway. then you would have had some spells in hand to use.
1:51:24 as timloesch said, you lose if you fight the 2/1. (i didn't even notice that was gonna happens though) game might have been winnable. situation were you just needed to count the mana
i dont think your personal small errors (like with the auto tapping with ooze) hurt the winrate with this one. but if these plays were different, it might have made lead to a trophy. but again, super hard to say what would have happened
I think the Meter Gollum is ranked low because it's such a slow card in the format.
Interesting how a lot of Brian's comments in drafts are about how x card "Is really good if you're doing this synergy". Totally constructed mindset where every card is working around a similar plan. But in draft you may not know that plan until very late.
I think it's still important to know, because a card might be great in a particular archtype but bad in another one, and synergy is very important in draft. So I think those are good observations by Brian; if anything i think one potential gap of his is he knows what untapped tells him on the screen about a card's power but but he doesn't necessarily know what the stats are for each card in each archtype, which a good player would have a better understanding of.
I like these
They were a blast to do!
If you had Indrik fight the token or rat then fought the 4/5 you would’ve had 2 blockers vs 2 attackers, no?
Indeed! There’s a comment below that mentions the same and I wrote some thoughts on that turn if you’re interested
rather than providing my email for no reason, does anyone know what Alex typically charges for coaching sessions?
$50 for an hour. It's about equivalent the the top patreon tier per month which comes with attached coaching
I do have a question. When Quick Draft is availability, i move there for the sake of cheaper drafts.
Is there a view on how to draft them differently than live drafts? Do we know if cpu stick to colors? Are reads not even a thing?
Thanks
Good Question! There's a "bot meta" that I certainly consider if I ever quick draft. In DSK for example, I quick drafted quite a bit since I was traveling and always biased towards U control because the bots left that pretty open.
To figure out what to bias towards, check out GIH win rate data for quick draft specifically on 17lands. For FDN, black cards are winning in QD even more than in premier, which leads me do believe the bots undervalue the black cards to some degree.
@limitedlevel-ups Yes, good call! I will check 17lands. Forgot you could filter by Quick Draft.
Cheers
from what ive been told (based on info from a wotc employee interview on LRR )the bots are trained to pick cards based off what performs well (at least initially, could be wrong i dont think they ever get retrained as the meta advances. leading to some weird biases. in BLB for example. everyone avoided UR like the plague, so QD UR was always stupid open) basically the bots take what are the ""best cards"" for the first few picks, then just hard force their colors. so expect that if a color is open, it will stay that way, almost every time
@thelifedragon2156 great ty. Probably means Green is quite open in QD
final play shoulda been: 1. Indrik fight a 1/1, then 2. felling blow indrik to kill Nettletooth.
that leaves you with 3 creatures (2 untapped) to block to their 2 creatures and a decent chance to win.
you (Alex) did them a favor transforming their 2/1 and basically wasted the fight
great content - thank you
Yep! Great call, I think the misstep here was not thinking about what combat looks like.
I wanted to kill the 2/1 so they didn’t have an easy morbid trigger on their turn, not realizing that we just die if we take that line
This was a pleasure to do!
Last game, couldnt you have killed the last attacker by tapping the ruby for the last mana?
I just don't understand. I know he keep saying that he lack experience in limited. But his mistakes are kinda basic stuff. Like, in constructed is even more important to know when to cast spell and to do not give information to the opponent since you probably know all the cards of the opponent deck. Also, if he plays constructed in Arena he should be used to avoid being caught by the autotapper, and to play around sweeper wich are way more common in constructed and to not tappout without a reason... I also don't understand his obssession with joust through. If the opponent kill your 2 drop, he killed it. You can't not attack with your creatures just because he got 1 white mana open with your aggressive decks. Anyways, keep the hard work and be patient, the results will come
Its definitely a different mindset. Some of it is basic Magic that I was just punting on because of rushing, thinking too far ahead or not reading the board correctly. My comments on constructed is meant to be more that I am better at constructed than I am limited. I am definitely not saying I am pro level or even that great at constructed just that I have had more success there and it is where most of my experience is. I did only start playing competitive Magic this summer so I am relatively new to it all and definitely still make basic errors.
I'll stay patient and keep grinding!
I do laugh every time he says "Joust Through!" Is that even a good card? 17 lands says it's like 56% but I try to never have it in my deck. Maybe I switch to PIO too soon or it's not played in Diamond where I tend to hangout, but I feel like if my opponent played it, I would be happy they don't have better cards.
Pack 3, Pick 3.... WHAT IS THAT WHITE!
I still think that boards wipes are just... they are what they are. Sometimes its obvious your opponent has them, but in that situation is really wasn't obvious. Its a fine balance between losing because you got wiped by a board wiped, and then losing because you didn't go aggressive enough because "maybe they picked up a random rare/mythic board wipe."
yeah, can be a tough call sometimes. though in this case. there were soo stupidly far ahead, the only way they lose that game, is to a board wipe. so i think alex was right about playing around it.
p3p3: Huge signal!
That board wipe was really unfortunate but it happens.
Go to options and tur off auto tap
what irritates me is the overlay. do most players use this? and it is misleading sometimes imo.
Yeah it’s not a perfect tool by any means, though I think it’s a good tool for less experienced players to point them right direction while they build their card eval skills. If you’re a mid level player or above, it’ll probably hurt you more than it helps
As Alex said, it is great when starting out in a set. As you get more comfortable with a set it can sometimes be distracting. Overall, I think it lowers the curve and helps folks get into drafting when it can seem really overwhelming.