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GP Valencia and Simon Says #59

I did video coverage of GP Valencia last weekend, working together with Matej Zatlkaj, Rich Hagon, and Steven Leeming. If you haven't had the chance to check out the live coverage, the videos are still available in the twitch.tv/magic archive. The Top 8 matches are also on youtube.com/wizardsmtg . Apart from showing matches from round 4 to the finals, we prepared and recorded a lot of features pertaining Theros limited. As always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts on our GP coverage (@simongoertzen).

Austrian Valentin Mackl made the Top4 after beating Dmitriy Butakov, but ultimately lost to eventual winner Samuel Marti. Valentin's draft was covered live by us, which leads me to Simon Says #59: Black Valentin, in which I go through the decisions that Valentin faced in the final draft of the GP. As always, the opening discussion is followed by me doing a Theros 8-4 draft.

Enjoy!

Exploring Theros

Sorry for not posting in a long time - I was in Australia for a while :). I've been drafting a lot of Theros after my vacation, and you can see my progress in my Simon Says series at MTGOAcademy.com:

Simon Says #55: Theros Mechanics (THS 8-4)

Simon Says #56: To Surf or Not To Surf (THS 8-4)

Simon Says #57: Theros Draft Dynamics (THS 8-4)

Simon Says #58: Theros Theories (THS 8-4)

You might notice that those four episodes were on a weekly schedule, which means more Theros and more Simon Says for everybody. I'll be back to a biweekly rhythm with #59, but was happy to get some extra content out there early in the format's development.

The opening discussions I prepare for (most of) my episodes are one thing in which Simon Says differs from your regular draft videos. I put quite a lot of effort into those intros, and people seem to like them. Check them out if you haven't already! I'm always happy to hear your feedback, so let me know what you think.

Make sure to check out the other content at MTGO Academy and/or subscribe to their YouTube channel to make sure you don't miss an episode!

Winning at M14

I won Germany's first M14 limited PTQ of the season last weekend! 182 players gathered in Cologne and after a 7-1 in the swiss I drafted the following deck:

(Click here for the version in full resolution.)

Three matches (2-1, 2-0, 2-0) later I had won the PTQ, putting me back on tour close to two years after my times as a pro player came to an end.

I think that M14 and core set limited in general is underrated. There is a lot to do once you accept that not every card is super complex on its own. If you are interested in my approach on M14, follow me on twitter or watch my draft videos:

Simon Says #51 - Something Old, Something New

Simon Says #52 - Opportunities Arise (new!)

Görtzen & Görtzen #36 (this one is in German)

I'm looking forward to GP Oakland this weekend, in which we get to see M14 in action again. How deep will players be willing to go? How do you distribute blue at your table, and who gets stuck with white?

Have a great week!

The Core Set is back and this episode covers my very first Magic 2014 draft on Magic Online. It also premieres a bonus video in which I go over key decisions...

Cumulative Tiebreakers at the 2013 Magic World Championship

The 2013 Magic World Championship debuted a novel way to solve tiebreaks. Rather than the opponents' match win percentage, a cumulative tiebreaker measure was introduced. Check out the Standings from Round 6 as an example. I had no idea what those numbers meant when looking at them. The tiebreaker values are a little higher than the match points of the players, but that's about it. After some investigation, I can tell you how the numbers are calculated, what they were designed to do, and why they work as intended. Doing so results in some alternative ways to show the cumulative tiebreaker without resorting to numbers with a huge amount of (significant) digits.

This post only includes a short look at the math behind it, and only from one perspective. If you have further questions about cumulative tiebreakers, let me know.

Calculation The official explanation was made available as the swiss rounds of the World Championship came to a conclusion. There you can see that your previous cumulative tiebreaker points are multiplied by 1/4, and added to your match point total. Design The cumulative tiebreaker system is designed to reward earlier wins. If two players have the same number of match points, you go back to the latest point in time in which their points differed. The player who has had more points for a longer period of time has the better tiebreaker. If you list the match points awarded per round, the easiest way to check which record is better is to compare the resulting numbers in size, but in the reverse order (this is called reverse lexicographical ordering) and with smaller being better. Check out these two 12-point records after Round 6: Ben Stark: 3 3 3 0 0 3 Craig Wescoe: 3 0 3 0 3 3 Reading these numbers from right to left, Ben Stark has the lower value and the better tiebreaker. Yes, it's that simple. If you have draws, there are one ore more 1's in the above terms but the same principle holds. In fact, with the choice of factor 4, the cumulative tiebreaker system has been specifically designed to handle draws. Explanation The cumulative tiebreaker formulate maps the reverse lexicographical order above to a single point value which compares different records. Effectively, the repeated multiplication by 1/4 results in a very similar effect to what we did by reading the above numbers from right to left, pretending that they are numbers in the decimal system. In a nutshell, the cumulative tiebreaker system interprets them the same way, just in the quaternary numeral system. In a tournament without draws, it would actually be sufficent to use only 0's and 1's and the binary system, which you might be more familiar with. In the quaternary system, Starks record equals a value of 3*1045, Wescoe gets 3*1297. Remember that lower is better, so we again see that Stark has the better breaker. In the end we have Stark = 333003 -> 300333 -> 3 * 1045 = 3 * 1024 * 1.0205078 The last number is what is missing from Stark's cumulative tiebreaker to hit 16: 16 - 14.979492 = 1.0205078. We can repeat the same magic for Wescoe: Wescoe = 303033 -> 330303 -> 3 * 1297 = 3 * 1024 * 1.26660... with 16 - 14.733398 = 1.266602. You don't have to follow all the steps in this section to "get" cumulative tiebreakers. This was just an excourse for those interested in some of the math behind them.

High-res version of the deck in my last post.

Magic 2014 Draft

Today's limited format at the 2013 Magic World Championships is Magic 2014 draft. I had wanted to share this deck since I drafted it on Tuesday, so today seems like a good opportunity.

(Edit: I added a high-res version in the next post. Sorry about that.)

My draft started with me picking Enlarge over Tenacious Dead and Xathrid Necromancer. I really wanted to go into the black-red sacrifice archetype, considering Tenacious Dead the stronger and more important card. However, I was worried about the consequences of passing a Xathrid Necromancer to my left neighbor. One of the key aspects of Core Set draft is color positioning, so I took the Enlarge.

Next I picked Giant Spider and Howl of the Night pack, passing mostly blue and black cards. However, a 4th pick Deathgaze Cockatrice convinced me to move into black. In the end, I got green cards from the left, and black cards from the right, so everything worked out.

I'm quite happy with my draft except for two things. Firstly, I realized too late that I would not be able to/shouldn't play the Enlarges, the second of which I firstpicked out of pack 3. It took some restraint to leave 2 Enlarge and a Mutavault in the sideboard but I'm happy with that decision.

The second mistake of the draft was me wheeling and picking up 2 Minotaur Abominations. While a fine card, I was under the assumption that I had picked up 2 Undead Minotaurs, 2/3s for 2B. This oversight led to me having to play Brindle Boar and neglecting my curve a little too much.

From my coverage work at Rimini and previous experiences with Core Set drafting, I knew that a lot of time the winning decks are able to get the most utility out of mediocre or situational cards. By careful play, I was able to get the most out of my 1-mana tricks and efficient creatures.

The most confusing part about the above decklist have to be the 2 Bubbling Cauldrons. My idea was that I wanted a GB control deck with a comboesque finish. This is where Tenacious Dead, Bubbling Cauldron and Ring of Three Wishes work together quite nicely to make me close to invincible in the late game. Howl of the Night pack isn't usually amazing, but it gave me two more cards to justify playing 2 Cauldrons. Finally, Into the Wilds is a card I'll always play, but which worked especially nicely in this deck because I could make great use of any extra mana.

And with that, live coverage of Day 2 of the 2013 Magic World Championship is about to start with two M14 drafts -- enjoy the show!

2013 Magic World Championship Expectations

The 2013 Magic World Championship is about to start in little more than an hour (dailymtg.com and twitch.tv/magic). My favorites to win are Eric Froehlich, Tom Martell, Shuhei Nakamura and Yuuya Watanabe.

I have been impressed by Martell's combination of strategic intuition and methodical technical play. If he manages not to overthink and second-guess himself, I could easily see him winning the title.

Check out AJ Sacher's blog post about the competitors and his expectations for the MWC. I agree that the big question is how these players stack up at the highest of levels, which is the main reasoning behind my Top 4.

This is the fantasy MWC draft of Sperling, Rietzl, LSV and Cedric. Wrapter (Utter-Leyton) was close to making my Top 4 and would probably have demoted Shuhei. I need to see more of the POY in action to be certain.

Enjoy the show!

#mtgchamp

Probabilities are based on the possible outcomes of 8-round swiss. This assumes zero draws, X-1 players always beating X-2's, and X-0 players beating X-1's with a chance of 50:50 and 75:25, respectively. In Plot 2 and 4, the remaining X-0 scoops to an X-1 in the last round.

Rise of the Eldrazi

I wrote Rise of the Eldrazi: A Draft Primer last week. For this week, I recorded

Simon Says #50: Going Deep (ROE 4-3-2-2)

The majority of comments on my ROE episode are about a potential misplay I make in the last game of the final match. I just posted a lengthy answer that certainly qualifies as a "strategic thought" (or more) :).

This article marks the first of a set of comprehensive primers for out-of-print draft formats, composed by players with expert-level knowledge of the format...

GP Vegas Math

There will be 4500 players at GP Vegas. Of those, ~14% have 1 bye, ~7% have 2 byes, and ~10% have 3 byes. Source:

@simongoertzen @grandprixvegas Did you ever get the numbers? ~14% have 1 bye, ~7% have 2, ~10% have 3.

— nfang's Judge Stuff (@mtgjudge) June 21, 2013

Usually I run these numbers with Matlab, but this time I only had google calculator and 10 minutes. I apologize for any mistakes, but wanted to get this out there. Here are my results (not taking draws into account):

Standings after Day 1:

18 players at 9-0

134 players at 8-1

444 players at 7-2

596 players in Day 2

Standings after Day 2:

0.28 players at 15-0

3.78 players at 14-1

23.70 players at 13-2

78.62 players at 12-3

Day 2 Cuts:

4 out of 24 players at 13-2 make Top 8

GP Vegas gives out 28 PT qualifications

42 players at 12-3, more than half of them, miss Top 64

Gatecrash Limited: Draft Videos and GP Utrecht

Enjoyment, education, oder both? Let's just say there is a lot of new Gatecrash Limited content by yours truly.

Up already: Simon Says #41: Madness? This is Gatecrash!

This might be one of the deepest episodes I've done. Not in the sense of abstract strategy, but because I showcase exactly what my unique strategy to drafting Gatecrash is. I liked this episode so much that it inspired me to post a small self-promoting text on reddit's /r/magicTCG. You can find it here. The positive comments I have been getting ever since I started Simon Says (or Modern Magic in the early days) are a great motivation and reinforcement that my efforts aren't wasted.

Almost up: Görtzen & Görtzen #30

The German episode with my brother Dominik hasn't been released on planetmtg.de yet, but you can already find it on YouTube :). The link leads you to the draft portion, and you can find the other videos at youtube.com/planetmtg.

Coming up: GP Utrecht (Gatecrash Team Limited) Video Coverage

Starting this Saturday, Matej Zatlkaj and I will bring you the coverage of GP Utrecht. I'm very excited for this great Limited format to be explored in team play. Let's hope that Day 1 runs smoothly and everyone gets enough sleep this weekend.

Continuing my two-decks-a-post picture series, here are my decks of this morning. I hope somebody finds these posts enlightening -- let me know! :)

The first draft started off as a regular Boros deck but I couldn't resist the Clan Defiance that I opened in pack 2. Getting passed a second one was pretty absurd. I lost to Simic in the finals because of some mana issues and Hellraiser Goblin being dominated by Frilled Oculus and friends.

For the second draft, I firstpicked Basilica Screecher. The second pack was missing a rare and offered the decision between Smite and Zameck Guildmage. Smite is one of the best Orzhov commons in my opinion, and deals with a lot of the powerful mechanics in this format. However, it is strictly an Orzhov card (discounting 5-color-control decks for the moment). I think it's absolutely crucial to find a guild that is open at the table. Even if there hadn't been a rare missing, I couldn't be sure at all if Orzhov was open. That and my newfound love for 2-drops lead me to pick Zameck Guildmage. It became clear pretty quickly that Orzhov was in fact open, so I missed out on a Smite but would have been better off in the other case. As it turned out, I would have liked a Smite but was able to beat a powerful Boros deck in the finals nonetheless.

This is the 6th draft after some discussion with my brother and the "tempo revelation" I had about the format. As you can see I focus heavily on 2-drops and play most of my 1-drops as well. Before, my win percentage was about 50% as I tried to figure out the format, with my limited rating dropping down to 1800 (from above 1900). After the 16-2 of the last three posts, I'm back on track :).

I drafted Simic again after firstpicking Experiment One over Ogre Slumlord. The deck was very good but would have liked some more spells (more than one, that is). I lost in the finals against two Homing Lightnings both games.

The second deck was a trainwreck that started off with me picking Simic Charm, followed by Breeding Pool and Killing Glare. I had a feeling that the 5-color control deck might be open and decided to go for it. No idea if this is how this deck is supposed to look, but I managed to beat even the Gideon & Firemane Avenger Boros deck in the finals.

Tonight's draft decks are two nice examples of Hands of Binding decks. Went 3-0 with both Dimir and Simic in respective 8-4 queues. Curve and tempo is so important in Gatecrash!

During the holidays, I played some powered cube drafts and watched quite a bit more -- mostly on Jan van der Vegt's stream. Then, just before the unpowered cube returned on Magic Online, I had the pleasure of joining the local cube group in Aachen for a draft. I failed pretty miserably, but learned a few things on the way. One of those things was that being the aggressive creature deck is often where you want to be in cube. This is especially true for unpowered cubes (which I prefer by a wide margin).

One of the local players firstpicked a Dark Confidant, which I hadn't considered a particularly good card in cube simply because I wasn't drafting the decks that Dark Confidant shines in (not Emrakul-levels of bad though). On the next day, I was looking at the first pack of an MTGO cube draft, and there it was: Dark Confidant. I moved in, drafted an uncontested mono-black aggro deck with a heavy Equipment subtheme, and 3-0'd the draft. Let me know if you are interested in the decklist, and I'll dig it out.

This episode of Simon Says is inspired by the above learning experience and a more general thought: After being exposed to the powered cube in which combo and artifact ramp strategies push creature decks into tier 2 range, how quick is the Magic Online cube metagame to adapt? Could aggro decks be even better now that drafters have been tainted by power?

This weekend I'll be following the live coverage of PT Gatecrash, and then I'll be recording Gatecrash drafts of my own - both for MTGOAcademy.com and planetmtg.de. Hopefully I'll have time to do some streaming in the near future as well!

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