I'm not going to sit here and make all sorts of arguments, but I'd pick Soaring Seacliff .

Ruinous Minotaur

interesting. card:Summoner's Bane is okay, so is Ruinous Minotaur , but I'd almost go for Ior Ruin Expedition ... card advantage that works on landfall, in blue/red with two living-tsunamis? sounds like a pretty sure thing... if we didn't have so much removal, Vampire Lacerator would be a little scary, but it doesn't seem scary enough to hate on at this point.

If we're going to take a counterspell, I'd recommend Cancel . But overall I think Ruinous Minotaur is best, with Ior Ruin Expedition a decent second.

-C

Matt, lacerators aren't really much to worry about. Basically if you're in a war of attrition with your 2/1 versus a lacerator, you're winning. Ior ruin Gets written off; it is too slow, too unreliable and too unagressive for our deck.

Minotaur basically always gets blocked. No one wants to get smacked for 1/4th their life total. The sad news is that he dies to EVERY 2/x in the format. Summoners bane can give you twoofers. Screw it though, I'm still voting for the 5/2.

for me its the Soaring Seacliff or the Ior Ruin Expedition

And im probably more inclined to go with the Soaring Seacliff because i still think that the ior ruin expedition is just too slow.

Might as well snap up a second Minotaur. Could be a nightmare for someone that isn't sitting on a lot of removal like us.

I'm pretty sure savvy draft players are NOT going to block a minotaur if they are at 12 or more life. Why? because you automatically 2 for 1 them if NEXT turn you have an answer for Minotaur, and it's SO EASY to have an answer to Minotaur. Grappler Spider is an answer to Minotaur. Here's the kicker- what are they going to do once you've shut down their minotaur, play a bigger threat? You took them down a land! Turn 3 minotaur means let that bad boy smack you as much as you can handle. It's called using you're life as a resource, and it's why I will never be happy if I sleeve up a Ruinous Minotaur, and especially not 2.

I guess the point to that rant is Ruinous Minotaur is not a good "Curve" choice in your basic 'race' ZZW deck. It does have it's warrants as a utility wall/removal that can serve as a finisher, but that's just not what you usually need in this format.

Well, we don't have to attack with the Minotaur if we can't spare the land, we can have him head-butt a Leatherback Baloth instead.

He'd a bit like a walking Magma Rift .

I choose you, Ruinous Minotaur !

I think we're doing pretty well on the short end of the curve. We can take apart most speedy decks with our full playset of Burst Lightning; I think we need to ensure late-game beats if possible.

wow, is Ior Ruin Expedition really that slow? in constructed, maybe, but in draft?

Due to our aggressive dudes already drafted, I am going with the Ruinous Minotaur .

Ior Ruin Expedition

Ruinous Minotaur is a nice pick, and I think it would work well in our deck, but I think we need some more control in the deck so i am voting Cancel .

Ior Ruin Expedition.

I understand your points, kabrazell, but I think what the Bull-man brings to our table is still worth it: -He's a finisher/late-game beater, which we need to think a little more about now -He's a good, cheap blocker & pseudo-removal that can take out cards more expensive than him (Though, we have plenty of ACTUAL removal) -He's consistency, since we already have another Minotaur. I'll be the FIRST to say that I'm newish to drafting and still learning a lot of the ropes, so I don't know how much this really affects things, but at least as a personal opinion I enjoy having consistency in a deck, since it helps me better know what I have and what might be coming. So, my vote is for Ruinous Minotaur . Ior Ruin is the runner up; I like it, but I don't think I like it better than Minotaur for our deck.

Its getting to the point where we have our removal and we have some decent creatures. With the tsunamis I could see us getting locked at 4 mana once and a while with resources we will hold back. I think its a pretty safe time to take the Cancel because we could pull it mid-game, leave our mana open for lack of a better play, and have a pretty good chance of countering a threat. I'm not a fan of too much counter in draft because you can rarely get enough control to justify it, but as another trick up our sleeve its not a bad idea right now.

Ruinous Minotaur

Ior Ruin Expedition

Minotaur