I think Grotag Thrasher is easily the best choice.

-C

umm i would personally take the Lodestone Golem over him, 1 less mana for 2 more power. and plus it's stall the opponent a little while our 5/3 does some facesmashing :P

but yeah i dont think that i'd ignore the Ricochet Trap just to throw a spanner into the works

But Its a Lodestone Golem for me

Toss-up between Ricochet Trap and Grotag Thrasher....I think the Thrasher is going to be more applicable in the deck. The Golem, Loam Lion and Join the ranks are all prime hate targets though, if we think we have a solid deck already.

Grotag Thrasher because I can't pick what to hate out.

Lodestone Golem .

Grotag Thrasher , card:Cosi's Ravager, Quicksand , and Surrakar Banisher are all decent choices for us. Grotag Thrasher is my pick because it will allow one of our beaters to get through.

Lodestone Golem He is a sexy beast and one of my favorite cards to play.

If we would of played r/w we'd have a Journey to Nowhere , Kazandu Blademaster , Hada Freeblade , Shepherd of the Lost , and now a Join the Ranks :P And all our great red.

But... given we're going r/u, I'd say Lodestone Golem. Don't overlook the Cosi's Ravager though, goes well with our Tsunamis and will hopefully come back around.

Lodestone Golem is a beast. I made the mistake of drafting him and not playing him once, and it was a horrible mistake. People need to overlook the fact that he has an artifact-related ability, and realize he's a 4 to cast 5/3 which is easy to cast (all colorless) and stalls the game if they can't remove him. Great card. Ricochet Trap , Grotag Thrasher , and Surrakar Banisher are the other, less desirable options.

lodestone golem

Lodestone Golem , for the reasons listed above.

Lodestone is great, basically a juggernaut with a really encumbering ability. It's going to suck paying one extra for our burst lightnings though. However, it delays cards like shepherd of the lost, caravan hurda and (in the rare occasion) terastodon, all of which are terrible nuicances to our deck.

Grotag Thrasher wins games. But I don't run many per deck... I don't think there is a draft where I wouldn't take the golem. Where are the searing blazes??????!!!!

Lodestone Golem

Like tapanmeister, I'm really wondering where the searing blazes are...I'm guessing they're getting hated or drafted by our friend to the right who we think might be taking red.

Or, you know, by anyone who's playing red at all, or anyone who doesn't want to play AGAINST red. Because Searing Blaze is an awesome card.

Anyhow...Lodestone's great, Grotag's good, the Ravager is a personal favorite of mine; not because he's necessarily the better choice, but I have a fondness for ways to deal damage other than combat. Pinging has won me games.

I think I'll join the crowd and vote Lodestone Golem . We have a better chance of seeing the other cards again in other packs, his disruption potential is great, and that nice 5 power is always welcome.

I guess fetchlands aren't gonna be coming in future packs, so card:Cosi's Ravager isn't effective enough, sadly. Too expensive without ramp or fetchlands to be worth the landfall effect.

Grotag Thrasher is overpriced for the deck you guys have built so far.

I'd worry about Lodestone Golem backfiring if anyone else were gonna draft any artifacts of worth in these packs. As it is, since they won't, I'll have to add my support for it.

I have to go with the Lodestone Golem it's pretty money on the lockdown and it is a big 5/3 body to play around.

sure, let's do the Lodestone Golem . I've never tried playing with him before, but I've had bad luck with card:Cosi's Ravager. Grotag Thrasher could be fun, but it'd be nice to pick up something that's a little easier to cast - my guess is our opponent will scramble to find a way to remove it before we start to get annoyed by our own creature's ability.

no clear cut winners in any of this for me I think we have to at least consider cosi's-thrasher for the way it fits into our deck, with the whole landfall thing we have going on and creatures specifically designed to move land into play, and land back to our hand.

I do agree that the Lodestone Golem should also be considered just because of its power, another 5 beater on our side is always a good thing...

Between the 2 5 drop cards thrasher and banisher, I believe one is superior, and that is the Thrasher. They both cost the same and we can only get 1 and they are both 3/3's so the only difference is their abilities. The Thrasher, helps us every turn to make some creature unblockable when he attacks, the banisher only helps the turn he shows up and is otherwise just a very expensive 3/3. Thus i believe the Grotag Thrasher is the superior choice between the two, for the deck we have built.

As to which of the 3 i choose for this round... i am still contemplating... but cosi, thrasher, and golem are the cards I feel like I am choosing from. I like the idea of the tougher creatures though, as we are pretty short on creatures with toughness over 2 so I am disqualifying the cosi's, even though i like our combo chances. Which leaves me choosing between thrash and golem.

This is where it gets hard....I am going with Grotag Thrasher He doesn't hose our mana curve,which is heavily slanted to the heavier spells, and he still gets through regularly even though he costs more to play initially, and isn't as beefy power wise.

Grotag Thrasher

For reasons already stated.

Defense of Thrasher-

We don't really NEED to stall the board with this deck. This is probably going to be the fastest, most aggro deck of all of them. We need to push damage through more than we need to clog up a board. Thrasher works better than Golem for this purpose.

The thrasher seems like the best choice to me.

KrazyCaley: It really doesn't. Golem is faster in terms of mana and damage. The stalling is a minor, helpful side effect. Golem will kill blockers that Thrasher can't, too.

Golem lets us hit for 5 damage, while the thrasher let's us hit for 3 - but that's three that's unable to be blocked by a creature of our choice.

mattlhokamp: If they don't have creatures, it costs 1 more mana for 2 less damage per turn and comes out a turn later, and if they do have creatures, Golem is going to be much more likely to kill them permanently as opposed to the Thrasher which only stops 'em for as long as it isn't Bolted.

There is no Lightning Bolt in a ZZW draft...

The point is that the Lodestone Golem hits a turn earlier and always hits for 2 more. The Grotag Thrasher being unblockable by 1 creature hardly matters, since if they only have 1 creature the golem is almost certainly going to swing through/past it anyway. Plus, think about how many decks this is useless against. Calcite Snapper stops it cold. When it comes to turn 5, Grotag Thrasher has to be on par with giants like Vastwood Zendikon . It's just not, and except very situationally, it's not a good card. Also, if they kill the golem, chances are their creatures took a beating also. This one isn't even a question in my opinion, since no logical argument can show that the Grotag Thrasher is faster than the Lodestone Golem .

I'm gonna go with Merub on this one. Lodestone Golem gets my vote. He's gonna attract a lot of the creature hate in their deck, and he swings for a mighty 5. Besides, the thrasher and the ravager are more likely to come 'round than the golem.

plus he is a valid hate draft

i like the synergy of the ravager, but i doubt he'll prove to be as useful as the golem. so

Lodestone Golem

Oh god no, hate drafting Join the Ranks . Nothing else is so good that it needs to be in our deck, but JtR is absolutely devastating and I don't want it making it over to that goon who's been scooping up all the Allies.

Lodestone Golem because he is a cheeky scamp.

next...

I really like the Ricochet Trap best here - at the very least it can sideboard vs blue.