We already have 9 playable artifacts in Iron Myr , Leaden Myr , 2x Perilous Myr , 2x Glint Hawk Idol , 2x Trigon of Corruption , and Bladed Pinions , so the embersmith looks like a good pickup here. We may not play the pinions but even without it we still have enough artifacts to get some work done with the smith.

Embersmith is the pick~

Also - this late embersmith is further evidence that red is open for us.

agreed.

Embersmith or Silver Myr . I'm scared of what was in this pack... pretty good cards for pick 7.

I vote Embersmith.

Embersmith is good and all. I won't complain if we take it. However, we have ping tools already.

My vote is Strider Harness . On it's own, the harness is meh. Combine it with our Sunspear Shikari s (Shikarians?) and it gets a whole lot more interesting. Whacking someone for 3, gaining 3 life, and ruining an infect player's day doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. Even without a Shikari, the Harness is useful because it gets our Myr and Auriok Sunchaser out of ping range.

Guys we gotta go with the equipment. We have drafted a bunch of small creatures that we plan to pump by attaching equipment to. It makes sense at this point to pick up the Strider Harness . I think it is folly to pass up the very playable equipment, especially equipment that for 1 mana can pump +1/+1 and give our creature haste so it can attack the turn it comes into play. Embersmith is just another low level creature badly in need of pump. Plus good metalcrafting decks typically rely on 15 or so playable artifacts. For these reasons i vote Strider Harness

Though Strider Harness fits our deck perfectly I vote for Embersmith . Embersmith wins games.

The only time I've played against an Embersmith in draft, I fragged it with a -1/-1 counter before the end of the turn. Therefore, I don't have significant experience playing against it. I can see big potential if we also have cards like Ornithopter , Memnite , and Glint Hawk . Otherwise, I don't see how it wins games. Help me out here.

Kitty Shikari wants a Strider Harness .

I understand why people want to get equipment, and I agree we do need to grab some, but we will still see Sylvok Lifestaff s and Strider Harness es in later picks. We likely won't see another Embersmith .

Additionally, since we are in pack 2 we absolutely must send proper signaling to our right at present. Passing an Embersmith sends the signal that red is open and when we hit pack 3, going back to the left, the very people who we would be passing the embersmith to will be getting first crack at all but the pack we open. Anything we can do now to get them to pass the quality red cards to us in pack 3, even if we plan on only taking a choice few of them, is more important than picking up a common equipment that we will have several additional opportunities to grab.

PS - We aren't a metalcraft deck right now, though we certainly have the option to move that way if the picks come. Because we're white Glint Hawk Idol doesn't absolutely require artifacts to function and the only metalcraft card we have is the Auriok Sunchaser which is only saved from being our worst creature atm because we picked up a Dross Hopper as our 13th pick in pack 1.

@Eyehate i think your talk of clearly signaling red at this point is way off base. I believe some one to our right is already committed to red (based on a lack of red in round one). Also we are 1/2 way through the second round and it is way too late to just begin red signaling, we aren't going to be scaring anyone on or off a color at this point. Additionally after the red cards we have already passed in this round there is no way to "clearly signal red". Now that we are in the middle of the 7th pack of the second round it would be virtually impossible to cut red hard enough to "signal" and thereby claim it and some how hope to get it back again in the next round.

Thus the cut red reasoning for the Embersmith doesn't seem to stand up very well.

However I think his point about not likely seeing another Embersmith, but VERY likely seeing another Harness or Lifestaff or Pinions, is a solid one. Those are both more common by rarity and they're not likely to picked up until either the end of the round or by someone drafting heavy equip (like we might be). So we'll almost certainly see more of them.

This isn't a vote one way or the other, I'm still on the fence. I'm just pointing out I think his reasoning has merit.

I'm with MagnorCriol however I am leaning SLIGHTLY towards Embersmith because I agree with eyehate about not seeing another.

@Deckbuilder345,

Signaling isn't an all or nothing prospect, a solid color (like red in SOM) can support multiple drafters. If you think signals are to get a color to yourself then you're probably expecting way too much.

As an example watch the ChannelFireball All Stars draft #2 (Nelson, Finkel, PV, LSV, etc...) and note that of B/U/G/R/W the drafter breakdown is 4/2/3/4/3. These are pretty common numbers as the best colors in a set can typically support 4 drafters, the worst can typically support 2, and the others are usually around 3. Obviously this changes depending on what is opened and which seat it is opened in but you get the idea. Red is capable of supporting ~4 drafters on average and there is simply no way 4 red drafters passed an embersmith AND a scrapmelter.

What we are hoping to do with a signal here is stop that 3rd or 4th player from going into red. What we aren't trying to do (or delude ourselves into thinking we could do) is stop the 1st or 2nd guy from staying in red. We already know we are too late for that, but they, like us, have other considerations to attend to in pack 2 and 3.

Just to back up that point a little more, I'll add that the red drafter positions in that all stars draft was as follows (tourny stats):

Seat #2 - LSV - Deck = R/W - Stats(1 PT Win, 3 GP Wins, 1 Natl's)

Seat #3 - Finkel - Deck = B/R - Stats(3 PT Wins, 3 GP Wins)

Seat #4 - Tom Martel - Deck = B/R - Stats(don't know his stats)

Seat #6 - Jamie Park - Deck = R/U - Stats(1 PT Win, 1 GP Win)

*Note the proximity the red drafters have is far less than ideal and constrains them even more.

They haven't released the second round of the draft videos yet but the only player who drafted red and lost in the first round lost to another red drafter =P

Multiple people can get into the same color, it's not an issue if the color is solid, and red definitely is.

@Eyehate Look i am not saying that red can't support more than 1 drafter, or that we shouldn't splash red at all, but the idea that we are going to signal to the group that we are going red seems like a strategy that is far too late to try and implement successfully. We already passed on too many good red cards this round, to have effectively made the deterrent you are now suggesting.

All that said i don't think i would be super disappointed to grab the smith, i just don't want the reason that we pick the smith to be due to some imo misguided attempt to cut red at this late stage. Other reasons still remain perfectly valid. Yes it is more likely we will see more equipment rather than more Embersmith s, and yes the smith has some slight synergy with our deck.

My arguments remain, that the equipment is a better fit for our deck that we have already drafted. We are a weenie agro deck, with slight metalcraft overtones in dire need of some beefing effects, and rightly or wrongly we have somewhat committed to depending on our Sunspear Shikari to help us carry the game. In order to facilitate that strategy we need to have more equipment, especially equipment that pumps. Which is why my vote remains for the Strider Harness .

@Deckbuilder345,

I do see what you're getting at I just think you're making the mistake of assessing SOM from the stance that you would a typical draft environment and it just isn't normal.

Anyways, we've passed on exactly 3 good red cards in this pack and they were all Turn to Slag .

In the first pack the only good red card we passed was Furnace Celebration and it tabled.

Both are double red and bad splashes and the furnace celebration in addition to tabling is a whole other archtype.

There were a coupel Vulshok Replica's (2 iirc, I'd have to check) and I didn't track the golems since they're easy to pick up.

And I actually had all this in mind before I even suggested the scrapmelter last pick (which was the pack with the 3rd TTS this pack).

both the harness and the embersmith will be good for us. ( @SupremeAlliesCommander: embersmith helps win games 'cause there's so much stuff in this set -- myr and infect creatures and other smiths -- that are important to the early and mid-game and have 1 toughness. Early pinging is super-useful in this set. )

I don't think we can count on seeing another strider harness, but I still think that Embersmith is the right pick. I'm happy with either one, though. count me as a mild vote for the smith.

i say either silver myr or the smith and seeing as silver myr probs wont make the grade with the direction of this discussion i will have to go the smith. mostly because i dont want to be on the wrong end of a bunch of 1/1 infects and an Untamed Might

Okay, so I'm not missing any secret combinations, here. Embersmith is simple x/1 removal.

Please pardon the wall of text. I'm walking through my thoughts for my own good as much as anyone else.

First question: do we NEED more pingers?

I'd argue we do not. It is fair to say "you can never have too much removal", but I think we are doing well in that category. We already have a pair of Perilous Myr and a pair of Trigon of Corruption . We also have Arrest to deal with creatures and both Oxidda Scrapmelter and Revoke Existence to deal with artifacts or constructs. Plus, we have Glimmerpoint Stag to reset our Trigons, replay the Smelter, or to move Arrest from a minor threat to a major threat later in the game.

Second question: do we need equipment?

Only if we're going to use the Shikari. Our removal will keep the board clear so we can deal with the 1/1s and 2/1s of the set. The thing that presents a problem for us is fatties. We do not have many ways to deal with something as simple as an Alpha Tyrranax . The way our deck is shaping up, we want to deliver a beating before they can get these fatties on the table. I think that means we need the Shikari. Therefore, we need equipment.

Third: can we get 5-6 pieces of equipment in later packs?

Answering this required some digging. Looking back at previous packs, this is what I found. In the first round, we saw exactly one piece of equipment. It was the Bladed Pinions and we took it. We did not see any other equipment in those packs. None. It's possible there simply wasn't much. It's possible someone else is drafting equipment - perhaps along with Goblin Gaveleer . In this this round, we've seen three pieces of equipment and passed on every one of them. There are two more in this pack, though it looks like we'll pass on these, too. The rest of our packs this round will be dregs or near dregs. Looking at the packs with the equipment, the only equip card I expect to see table is the Sylvok Lifestaff . (Which is not the sort of thing we need.) That means round 3 will be our best hope for drafting equipment. It could be a good round for us. Or we could end up with something like our first round. I'd guess there will be 7-8 equipment cards in the next round. We'll get to see 5-6 of those. 3-4 of them will be worth taking, though there may be better cards in those same packs.

I understand where people are coming from. Embersmith is good. I'm just not willing to risk letting go of something it looks like we'll need, only so we can pick up something we already have.

Everyone's making good arguments, can't deny that. I voted Smith b/c yes, we don't have equipment, but this is shaping up to be a metalcraft deck... for which we've picked 10 (of 20 total picks) very useful artifacts. I don't think we need to panic and taken a common equipment over an extremely useful uncommon Embersmith .

@supremeallies

The last pack notwithstanding, I will eat my hat if we don't get at least 3 more chances to pick up common equipment and we probably won't want to run more than 2 of the common equipment.

Really I would love for us to open a Darksteel Axe , although in my experience the axe loves to crop up with other playable bombs just to mess with your head =P

@discussion in general,

As a side note I looked at the packs a bit closer since we had the time and I'm wondering if these packs were randomly generated or were actually cracked and noted down?

The print runs don't seem to match up with known print runs is why I ask.