Armory Guard

We will have gates and we need all the decent blockers we can get. 5 toughness is a magic number and it'll be able to take a wallop.

Also, thank you Caley for not taking Downsize . What a terrible card.

I try to be as ruthlessly B.R.E.A.D.y as possible when breaking ties, and Rites of Reaping is predictable removal.

Armory Guard ... As much as I'd like the combat trick Swift Justice I believe the Guard's fat-bottom fits our build better...

Remember, if I'm counting right, our next pack will be the first pack we opened.

Armory Guard

Supersun actually this looks like the first pack we opened. No basic land included.

Not the first pack yet...

http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2013/apr/30/dgm-draft-debate-pack-1-pick-1/

Vote: Armory Guard , to put us back toward a BW stall deck.

We will likely be 3-color, so I don't think we can make room for a colorless land.

It looks similar because of the Death's Presence , but some of the other cards aren't the same unless someone's cheating and swapping cards lol

It might be worth considering the Death's Presence since we can probably grab 2, one from this pack and another from our first pack. It's not my vote, but just curious what other people may think of it since the chance of being able to grab 2x is certainly better then just 1x because of the added consistency.

I'm pretty sure Armory Guard is the way to go here. Swift Justice is one of my favorite cards in limited, but that doesn't make it the correct choice here; the Guard survives virtually all removal and as often as not attacks and blocks in the same turn.

I like the Rogue's Passage , but if we include it it would probably have to be in a spell slot and not a land slot due to needing coloured mana, and I don't think it's worth a spell slot.

So I will vote Armory Guard

Rogue's Passage has won me too many games to pass up. We can pick up high-toughness creatures in our DGM pack if need be, and there's nothing that special about the guard. I can see the argument that mana will be stretched if the deck ends up 3-color, but the chance to break a stall is quite powerful.

Vote: Rogue's Passage

Armory Guard is my pick. I feel it has a very nice bottom with so many 2-4 power/toughness creatures it will be able to block effectively and is almost always going to have vigilance with so many guildgates in DGM.

@Supersun if we take the Death's Presence twice yes it adds to consistency but having a better chance to draw into a 6 mana enchantment that is useless without creatures in play is very bad when we don't have a lot of creatures to currently choose from.

I also wanted to say I like this order of drafting more because when DGM packs start you have an idea of the colors your running so your not just taking all the guildgates guessing what you might run.

I vote for Armory Guard too.

Also, forgive my ignorance, but who's Elaine? Many people here seem to know her...

@Absinthman - "Elaine," a pseudonym, is often an opponent in the Daily Draft Debate. She has frequently outperformed the competition, so I brought her in to commentate on this one.

@KrazyCaley: I actually thought her name was Elaine. :o

Meh, doesn't matter, she's a good player and I appreciate her insights on par with yours.

Oh right and my vote goes to Armory Guard , Rogue's Passage is great and all, but I feel we'd be better of with more stalling at the moment.

Nah, she's a DDD drafter. She's back from whatever draft where all the new people got pseudonyms from characters in old Lucasarts adventure games.

Kickin' it old school.

Just put Armory Guard in!

Armory Guard , no question.

armory guard

I've seen Rogue's Passage break so many stalemates in mid-late game that I would hesitate picking anything else, even though the format often tends towards 3, 4 or 5 colour decks.
Repeatable unblockable on fatties is very harsh. Even though Armory Guard is a great blocker and handy once he has vigilance, I'm not generally impressed by the card and don't feel like we can fall back on our (current) flyers to win out a stalling match. I feel we will inevitably get better creatures than this one and can let him fall by the wayside.

My vote is for the passage

After reading Grotskis post, I have decided to change my vote to Rogue's Passage .

I'm considering changing mine, too. I've never seen a Rogue's Passage in action. I'd like to hear from some more people who have.

It seems to me that there was another Armory Guard in a previous pack that looked likely to wheel, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

Selesnya Sentry is being viciously undervalued.

I just checked. Pack 4 had both of these cards. But I don't think either will come back.

Yeah, there's (or at least was) another Armory Guard AND another Rogue's Passage in pack #4

http://tappedout.net/mtg-articles/2013/may/2/dgm-draft-debate-pack-1-pick-4/

However we may also want to consider Selesnya Sentry . A 3/2 for 3 is playable, and if we get to the point where we have open mana to regenerate, that's just icing on the cake.

Second choice is Armory Guard . A 2/5 Vigilance for 4 isn't bad either.

Armory Guard

Honestly I think getting two Death's Presence is worth a risk. It's a very good card and when it comes down can really break a stalemate. And if this one made it this far, there IS a fair chance the other is right behind it. At 6 mana it's easy to splash for, too. I think we should grab Death's Presence . I'm willing enough to take green a little more seriously if we get two of these, or even just to splash for it with a guildgate or two. It is easily early enough in the draft for us to concentrate on a strategy of creature spam if we get two, and that gives us a viable strategy to win games.

If nobody joins me on this crusade, then it's Armory Guard for me. With stab wounds we can reduce a powerhouse creasure and then block with a fat ass.

We would need a boatload more creatures if we're going to make deaths presence work. That's not likely the way we've drafted so far. I'd rather not put us in a position where we are forced to take creatures later on.

Armory Guard is a solid, risk-free pick.

Rogue's Passage

The reason I still say Rogue's Passage is that we don't want our opponent to be able to chump block with creatures we have Stab Wound ed. They will likely be attacking each turn as well trying to get us to block it and kill it ourselves hence we need a way to race them. Rogue's Passage lets us consistently get in. There will be more creature fillers in the next 2 packs, one specifically Orzhov related with Extorts which seems to be where we're going.

I'm going to go with Ermery Gerrrd. Passage is quite tempting, but at the end of the day, I'd rather go with a solid creature who's almost never going to be bad (even if he's not ever likely to shine, either) than a land that's expensive and swingy. The Guard helps us stabilize if we're behind as well as being able to attack when we're ahead. He's not bad at breaking stalls, himself, since it takes so much to bring him down.

I think Rogue's Passage . Unblockable is just so useful.

I recognize the power of Rogue's Passage . Though in my opinion, as much as you could afford to play it in the RTR draft, it is not so in this format. We will be playing three colors at least and I think that in the end, we won't be able to sacrifice one colored land slot in our deck for a colorless land (even one with a great secondary ability). I'm afraid that the potential cost of such inclusion is far greater than the potential benefit it can bring us.

Armory Guard fat bottom with vigilance. but Swift Justice is a close second

Thus far we are 5 out of 7 cards White/Black. We have one card that includes green and a gate for it if we need to go that way. I know this format is meant to have 3 colors but if we can (and it seems likely at this point since we have planned for the Gatecrash pack) that we can just go White/Black. I like Rogue's Passage but picking up more White/Black while in Ravnica is still good with me. I would prefer not to draft blue/green at all.

Armory Guard

Come on, why doesn't anyone like Selesnya Sentry ? It's a 3/2 for 3, which is reasonable. Armory Guard would be my second choice.

Swift Justice

I'll change my vote for Rogue's Passage thinking about it for a moment, i don't think I could ever really pass up unblockable, or even the possibility of unblockable. Cipher cards should be coming around in the next 2 packs, and we need the insurance to keep them consistent.

We would probably be hurting ourselves by limiting the drafting WB only. Too bad there's no useful black in this pack, I really hope we get some bombs soon.

Everyone's talking about what a slow format this will be. If that's true, then many other drafters will also be going for the slow stalemate kind of game, which means we need to have something to give us the edge over that kind of matchup.

Rogue's Passage helps in that sense by giving us inevitability. Something else that we might be able to get is Maze's End which would be pretty awesome. I'm going to vote for Rogue's Passage , but I'm okay if Armory Guard gets picked.

Armory Guard , decent body for it's cost, even if it's only for blocking.

If not him, I would go for Swift Justice , it's a very nice combat trick for limited, and often a life-saver.

There are 3 viable picks and I think we need to choose based on what we want our deck to look like.

Selesnya Sentry would be great in a more aggro/tempo deck where we know we're in green splash. I like the card, but I think it fits us the least of the 3.

Rogue's Passage is really tempting. I've used it in limited and it can definitely do work. But, it's much more useful in a deck looking to get the last bit of damage through, a stalled board, or a cipher deck. We may end up in cipher, but we haven't started in it yet. And most likely we're going to go Orzhov, and extort is pretty good at breaking stalemates.

The fact that we look to be shaping an Orzhov deck makes me want to take the Armory Guard . That's my vote, but I'd be fine with Rogue's Passage .

I just feel like we'll be facing more than one deck that will have the same idea as us, especially with extort.

The extort-on-extort matchup is won by saving every point of damage possible, and then finding an opportunity to break through. While Rogues will help us with the second bit in the late game, it is horrendous at helping with the first bit. If we get Rogues in our opening hand, then we are likely off to a much slower start than we'll need. Any damage we take in the first few turns will come back to haunt us in that matchup.

landgrafb said: "If we get Rogues in our opening hand, then we are likely off to a much slower start than we'll need."

I'll go even further: If we get Rogue's Passage in our opening hand, it's almost always a mulligan in three-color format.

I would agree with that. If we're not mull'ing, then we have some sort of a god hand, and the Rogue's Passage isn't the reason we kept it.

Fine I'll swich my vote. I'm sure we'll find more evasion/removal/lockdown later on.

Switching to armory guard

Armory Guard hands down.

Rogues passage is nice, but it's not the kind of card that we want in the deck we've been drafting. Ideally, once we stab wound something, it sits on the field for 10 turns and kills the opponent. If the one from pack 4 wheels to us we can take it then. Otherwise, just leave it out.

Vote: Armory Guard

Armory Guard is the best choice, I think.

Armory Guard really is a no brainer here. a 2/5 blocks a lot of the relevent creatures in this format (<4 power runs rampant).

I'm inclined to vote for Rogue's Passage . A majority of games that I've played and seen in the current block have been won because of evasion abilities. Usually paired with cipher, it is frequently devastating to an opponent.

Also a little trivia, when a cipher goes off, you are 'casting' a free spell. Meaning you're free to pay to Extort -every time-. I believe this was recently addressed in our MTG Q&A. The Armory Guard is definitely a doable pick, but cipher+unblockable+extort is amazing synergy, in my opinion.

The reason the sentry is bad is because a 3/2 for 3 will almost always lose out to a 2 mana 2/x. It's inefficient in this format because of the sheer number of bears. 2 toughness on anything is a death knell without a kickass ability, and over-costed regen doesn't qualify.

Armory Guard , definitely.

Selesnya Sentry

Armory guard no questions. It was a tough choice between him and the ogre in pack 4 but now he has no competition. He can block EVERYTHING. Haha

Selesnya Sentry is really good.

@DaShPrime - I dont like Selesnya Sentry because at 2 toughness he'll die to too many things, and a 6 regen cost with green (although it seems likely we could be using it) is a little too spendy. I'd rather have a creature that can hit almost as hard, will almost certainly have Vigilance, and can take a hit. Armory Guard gives us that.

in RTR Selesnya Sentry was a boss. I want you to look through GTC and DGM and count the amount of 2 power creatures there are out there...

Rogue's Passage would be played in addition to whatever lands we need for our 3/4 color deck. So I'm not worried about it ruining an opening hand. A hand where one of the two lands is colorless is actually better than a hand with only one land and an Armory Guard .

I dig the Land for the reason stated several posts above. It allows us to attack past a creature with a Stab Wound . However, it looks like we're going to be playing an attrition deck, where we grind out a victory using extort and stabbings. I doubt we'll be swinging with big fatties. That reduces the usefulness of Rogue's Passage .

If we're going to be successful playing extort, we need to keep signalling heavily in White and Black. So, despite what has been a very good discussion, I'm keeping my vote with Armory Guard .

@numa529:
Quick study, may count or leave out a creature or two but it gets the picture painted.

On the front side of the slash are creatures who can kill Sentry but can't be killed by it (Either: Power>1 and Toughness>3, or First/Double Strike w/Power>1); on the backside of the slash are creatures who would trade with the Sentry (Power>1 and Toughness<3), for which I tried to exclude anyone with a relevant activated ability that would protect them (Pumpers, etc).
Note also that these are just the creatures; I didn't do number crunching for spells that could take the Sentry out.

RTR -
C: 11 / 24
U: 7 / 24
R/M: 23 / 2
41 / 50 total

GTC -
C: 10 / 25
U: 10 / 16
R/M: 22 / 8
42 / 49 total

DGM -
C: 12 / 12
U: 4 / 10
R/M: 15 / 7
31 / 29 total

Knew I forgot some data points. Total overall creature count in each set:
RTR - 124
GTC - 128
DGM - 75

~33% / 40% of the creatures can eat / trade with Sentry in RTR
~33% / 38% of the creatures can eat / trade with Sentry in GTC
~41% / 39% of the creatures can eat / trade with Sentry in DGM

I'd again like to repeat this wasn't really scientific, just some fast data gathering.

Armory Guard .

I'm not happy with Rogue's Passage in a 3 color deck. It's just to slow, and could really mess us up. The sentry is good, but Armory Guard just seems better. I'd rather take an extra turn to play something that will actually stop a couple of attacks, (Guard) than taking the sentry and having it trade once. If our deck didnt seem slow so far, The sentry would seem better.

My vote is Armory Guard , if you didnt catch that.

Seems like Armory Guard is a pretty clear winner. So we must be waiting on either KrazyCaley or other drafters.

Armory Guard .... I have a feeling we're gonna be picking up tons of gates here. Might as well. Plus it's a great blocker.

I think we need a Rogue's Passage if it comes to us in a few more packs.

Here, I think Armory Guard is the pick, I do believe.

That's my point MagnorCriol.

1/3 of the creatures in RTR eat sentry.1/3 of the creatures in GTC eat sentry.

~1/2 of the creatures in DGM eat sentry.

That's a lot of creatures that sentry just gets eaten by. from our packs, we already aren't looking to even trade (we look like that extort deck that everyone hates thus far), so if we go with that...

~3/4 RTR creatures kill sentry (we want a durable blocker)7/10 GTC creatures kill sentry (trade or no trade)80% of dgm creatures kill sentry.

This means that in our defense first deck, sentry gets killed by 75% of all the possible creatures (80+70+75 all divided by 3) that people can draft... not including any possible combat tricks.

that's why we need armory guard, unless we are looking to be an aggro build (which we are not looking like right now)

Waiting on me, sorry. Moving along.

numa529 - I wasn't really trying to make a point with all that, I just felt like taking a break from working on my final project and that seemed a fine quick diversion, haha. But I agree, and that's why I voted Guard over Sentry. I actually like the Sentry just fine, but I don't like him much for our deck.