This Week’s Videos
Editor’s Note – There was an echo for the first three minutes of the video due to having multiple recording sources plugged into the stream. Sorry!
Punts of the Week
While there are certainly a wide array of misplays to choose from there are two instances that really stick out to me.
(4:50-6:53)
What happened here is that I went into auto-pilot. I purposely cast Search for Tomorrow before Scapeshifting because I knew my opponent could play Lightning Helix and survive had I only sacrificed six lands. So I got another land to sacrifice and then just flat out forgot to sacrifice the 7th land when resolving Scapeshift. As soon as I finished resolving the spell I saw the error of my ways. Whoops.
(12:41-13:50)
Where my first punt was an issue of auto-piloting, this misplay came about when I made an unintuitive play of fetching a basic Forest instead of an untapped Stomping Ground, which would have allowed me to cast Lightning Bolt the following turn. I don’t think I would regularly make a mistake like this but I was feeling the pressure and really wanted to put up a 4-1 performance in the league. I tanked on a relatively easy decision and convinced myself that saving the two damage off not shocking made sense. It didn’t. If I just went to 17 and cast Lightning Bolt on Signal Pest I would have saved myself from taking 8 damage and two poison over the course of the game. I’m almost entirely sure I would have won this game and just decided not to. This is the kind of misplay that I have nightmares about.
Final Record and Closing Thoughts
Round One – Burn (2-0)
Round Two – UW Control (1-2)
Round Three – Living End (2-1)
Round Four – Affinity (2-1)
Round Five – Affinity (1-2)
I am really not proud of my performance this week. I got lucky against Burn, had some serious misplays against UW Control, just flat out miscounted my searchable Mountains against Living End, and noticeably decided to lose against Affinity when I didn’t have to. Having said that, my plan next week is to switch over to Breach Titan which I am certainly more familiar with and feel better about piloting. I’ll do my best to shake off the dust for next week. Thanks for tuning in.
Next Week
I am planning on streaming Monday night at 7PM on twitch.tv/hipsterstv.
In terms of Magic, Shawn Massak is a Modern enthusiast, with a penchant for tier two decks, counterspells, and pre Eighth Edition frames. In terms of life, Shawn lives in Brighton, MA where he works as an employment director for people with disabilities, plays guitar in an indie-pop band, and spends his free time reading comics, cursing capitalism, complaining about pro-wrestling, and wishing his apartment allowed dogs as pets.