Quick Hit: Levels of Limited Information

Where you're at in your limited journey should dictate the information you seek.

The most valuable skill you can have is knowing how much skill you have.

Tonight, I was illegally streaming the Celtics game after happy hour and figured I could double screen some Twitch. I rarely do this, and by this, I mean watch Twitch. It feels like it’s very For Young People. I fire it up a few times a month, give away my Prime sub if it’s live, and slink off into the night. It’s a living.

The vaunted Paul Cheon was streaming Draft Practice prior to tomorrow’s (now, this morning/afternoon/March 1st’s) Arena Open. The deck? Izzet Monument Discard.

I do not think this is a good deck, but I’m open to Paul’s thoughts. I plugged a couple questions into chat after buying someone a gift sub.

Crickets. Paul has never drafted UR before.

To be clear, I learned quite a bit watching Paul play. Also, none of this had to do with Izzet. Also, Paul being on an Izzet deck was somewhat ironic considering we’ve talked about Cheon’s issues with the archetype a couple times in this space.

I promise I didn’t cherry-pick this stream. This actually happened.

The problem wasn’t that Paul hadn’t drafted UR before. I assume he’s probably been drafting less with PT coverage last weekend demanding prep not dedicated to limited. Or maybe he has. I’m not sure.

It doesn’t matter because Paul Cheon doesn’t have the draft advice I need. I’m in the swimming in the wrong part of the Magic content pool right now.

There is a broad hierarchy of limited information that exists for free. Podcasts. Streams. This Substack as long as you don’t need to go back too far.

Knowing which information works for you is the key.

Someone in Paul’s chat (the royal chat) lamented how Marshal’s Pathcruiser has now become the best colorless uncommon or common and made a Sutcliffe joke. I disagreed: I’d rather have Night Market in almost every deck. They said that the win rate was the highest and they misspoke. I prepared my elbow and jumped from the top rope.

The problem with Pathcruiser is that good players use it well and bad players lose a lot when they think it’ll solve all of their problems. As a Mana Base Truther, it was a super on topic conversation for Paul. Chat was lauding a card they would probably lose with because they didn’t know how to apply the data they were looking at. They were blindly following numbers without understanding where they were on their journey.

Zooming out, it shows how information and specifically what information you consume matters so much.

We cannot write like Neruda before we understand love. We can’t be Bukowski without a drink.

If you want to get better at limited, there’s a non-zero chance my articles have set you back. I’m not a great draft mind by any stretch of the imagination, but you might be over your skis a little. Drafting well isn’t just about knowing which cards are good, it’s about knowing what cards are good for you. So here’s my quick, half-bottle-of-wine pyramid of Magic limited advice based on where you’re at.

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Level 1: Draft for Babies

Content: Limited Resources, the card insert in a booster box

Listen! Babies need to draft! This isn’t a slight on what Marshall has been doing for the better part of… I don’t know, two decades? LR was a really valuable show for me when I was getting back in. I also learned how to avoid wetting my own pants pretty quickly because I was highly invested, so the show lacked staying power for me. It’s honestly whatever’s between a diaper and actual underwear.

If you’re someone who goes to a prerelease every set and doesn’t want to listen while a judge limply explains what “exhaust” or “tapping” is, this is the show for you. They do a great job of breaking down the mechanics, giving safe card grades, and basically running it back.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. I know Marshall and [Insert Cohost Here] give a shit. But I also think that this is the baseline for “Hey, I want to understand draft/sealed/the packs I’m opening” and that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I think a big problem in Magic is the lack of resources for exactly this type of player.

Pros: This is a show that will hold your hand, avoid sharp corners (you have a little, soft head), and take the time to really spell it all out.

Cons: The hosts tend to rely on heuristics that can feel outdated and play less limited than most people who are very passionate about limited, so the outdated part becomes more exacerbated as time goes on.

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Level 2: I’M NOT A BABY DON’T CALL ME A BABY

Content: Lords of Limited, Limited Level-Ups

Well, well, well, look who stopped crapping their pants. These shows are led by dudes that draft daily and their opinions reflect that. Sure, it’s super catered to Arena, but where are you playing? Magic Online, where this code¹ gets you a free draft?

Oh, cool.

I like Alex and Ben and Ethan but I also find their content a mild bummer because it’s kind of the enshittification of draft. That everything is Best of 1 with a Hand Smoother and a very specific meta that is people who don’t know what they’re doing. I don’t begrudge them for catering to an obviously large audience as someone who understands how hard it is as a limited creator. They provide a ton of real value to their fans.

If you play a lot of Arena and want to improve week-over-week, I don’t think there’s a better place to be for the midlevel drafter.

Pros: Information adapts quickly, hosts aren’t beholden to bad takes, and the hosts are pretty entertaining.

Cons: Takes are insular to Arena, geared towards midlevel drafters, and don’t focus on how to advance to the next level.

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Level 3: Me lmao

Content: Mana Club

Okay, I understand how insane this sounds so I won’t spend a ton of time here, but I truly do focus on trying to find outside the meta edges, decklists, and strategies that aren’t contested. I’ve written about RG in WOE and how to beat your Quick Drafts and spent an entire column pre-Chicago on what is good in Jeskai while everyone was still telling you to draft green.

I think there’s value there.

Pros: Actionable advice that can run counter to what other people think is “good”, aka the Kansas City Shuffle

Cons: me lmao

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Actual Level 3: Data Guys

Content: Magic Numbers, Walaoumpa, Magic Data Science

Sure, I’m biased, but when it comes down to it, I think that rational people with decent brains can look at actionable data and make strong decisions.

I also live in America so who the fuck knows.

Sierko does a solid job of presenting facts-based evidence but also tempers expectations, breaking down where data might be missing part of the story. He’s a great data scientist who can do data vis pretty well. I haven’t heard from him in a week which is usually a good sign.

He has no hubris in his work and a razor sharp wit, both things which I fail at consistently.

Eduardo is a controversial figure. I don’t know him personally, but he comes off as a very smart guy who made a bad decision once. As someone who makes bad decisions all the time, I can empathize.

His latest stream on the Worldly Counsel PT prep is incredible, even if I insists multiple times that no one is doing what he’s doing—I definitely am—or that no one, for example, cracked Boros. I gave you an almost identical breakdown before the PT.

Maybe that’s why I like his stuff so much: it’s right.

Pros: A fact checker rather than a vibes-based creator, Sierko can help you immediately identify gaps in your evaluation skills and set you on the correct path for any archetype.

Cons: Kind of rambles? If there’s one thing I’ve told my buddy time and time again, it’s that he doesn’t have to justify how he arrives at conclusions. The man is an academic at heart and can spend way too much time trying to convince you his methodology is sound when none of us knows what a methodology is.

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Level 4: #1 Mythic Guy

Content: DaFore, Ham

And it’s always some guy.

The colors everyone hates? He’s 7-0ing with. The unplayable rare? His bread and butter. It’s frankly infuriating for most people.

The problem is that you can’t replicate it. You don’t have the vision, the curve, the deck construction skills to do what he does. That’s why your Pathcruiser is a dead card, a bad 3 mana rock that doesn’t even put your land into play, and why it’s his finisher. You ask the wrong questions.

This is the drafting we aspire to when we start, crafting beauty from turds. If you’re far along in your limited journey, you might draw inspiration from their fresh takes on a format. They’re usually exploiting what everyone else is doing.

Pros: Can get you out of a rut if you’re struggling to adapt in the middle of a format as an advanced grinder.

Cons: You are not them.

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Level 5: MTGO Trophy Leaders

Content: ???

In an ever-shifting landscape of, “Who needs to test limited well right now?” the MTGO leaderboard shifts. Amaz had a hell of a pre-Chicago run.

These are the decks that aren’t clobbering the soft BO3 competition Arena Grinders rely on to keep their digital wallets overflowing with non-Costanza balances. They’re battling in the MTGO pits, playing single elim pod drafts, and actually subsidizing their whole damn lives in some cases. I’m looking at you, LATAM homies.

I don’t know who to watch for this stuff. I suspect they don’t want us to find them.

Pros: Top of the top level of draft.

Cons: They live in the shadows.

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There are a lot of metaphors here. You can’t build a house without the foundations etc. I grew up a Unitarian Universalist, so I think about this as the interdependent web that connects us all.

We need the base of that pyramid to establish us as drafters, to hold our hands, as we’re babies figuring out how to walk. We need those #1 Mythic guys to inspire us when we’re 30 drafts into a new format. Once we’ve advanced past a certain stage, going back and listening to basic level content hurts us more than helps. No matter what you’re doing, it’s important to know which of the lessons to apply, though.

The most valuable skill you can have is knowing how much skill you have.

Zhuangzi and his friend Hui Shi were walking by a river when Zhuangzi remarked:

"Look at those fish swimming so freely. How happy they must be!"

Hui Shi responded:

"You are not a fish, so how do you know what makes them happy?"

Zhuangzi replied:

"You are not me, so how do you know that I do not know?"

From Zhuangzi

1. CCGW-EBFH-HCSD-EP4Z-NUN7