+1 Pursuit of Flight

+1 Azorius Arrester

It looks like we're going junk colors, and the arrester is a decent card, so I'll go with him

+1 Stealer of Secrets

In fact, this is very hard. I'm actually very fine with any of these cards. They are all very well playable.

However, I feel that the Stealer is the strongest card among them. Also, we shouldn't have trouble picking up a Way of the Thief or two to put on the Stealer (I don't believe that Rogue's Passage will table) and there are Ozhov and Dimir Guildgates coming in GTC.

+1 Azorius Arrester .

I think Pursuit and Stealer are both worth consideration as well - actually, all five of these cards aren't unreasonable - but Arrester stays more in-color and is a decent dude as well, so let's go with him.

+1 Stealer of Secrets

I'm basically on board with the rationale Absinthman posted - I have a funny feeling that once Gatecrash is said and done, we're very likely in Esper colors, and with a control outlook that seems pretty good.

Tower Drake . Solid, defensive flier. What a beaut.

ahem... +1 Tower Drake

Just some information for you guys: The number of cards per color taken by players that are NOT us:

G - 3
R/B - 3
U - 2
W - 2
U/W - 1
R/B Keyrune - 1
R/U Keyrune - 1
R/B Guildgate - 1

+1 Azorius Arrester

If we're solely going on what card would fit the theme of our deck, which is defense first, I would say Tower Drake fits the bill the best.

That being said, the Arrester is in our current colors and would help us contain aggro early while we set up our defenses. I don't see him as a 2/1 body, I pretty much just see him as a "this creature can't attack next turn", with the body being a bonus to hold off or even get rid of their other early attacker. I say this time, better safe than sorry.

+1 Azorius Arrester

+1 Tower Drake

Found all three of the creatures interesting, but decided on flyer because it's limited. Don't think detain will be as large impact for our deck to pick Azorius Arrester and Stealer of Secrets seems in need of supplementary support to get through.

+1 Azorius Arrester

We're someone settled into white now, as well as black, with splashes of green and red. I think we ought to stick with white and black as our main, and just maybe hit some decent Orzhov in the next pack.

+1 Azorius Arrester

Im not a fan of any cards in this pack so Im just gonna go with what we already have.

+1 Azorius Arrester .

It's on color, and it's actually a really strong card -- at worst, a bear or a one-turn pithing needle; at best he steals games when he removes a blocker / attacker. Let someone else see these signs and try to go izzet -- arrester is the only one of these cards we will actually main-board.

+1 Azorius Arrester

All 3 monsters are solid, but this one is more on color and more importantly discourages the people to our left from even thinking about white which is our best shot at Orzhov.

+1 Azorius Arrester

+1 Azorius Arrester

+1 Azorius Arrester

If we are going to commit to building an Orzhov deck then we need to start picking cheaper cards because the current mana curve will not support an Orzhov deck. I am not 100% sure this is the right pick my gut is telling me Stealer of Secrets but looking at the count it doesn't look like it would make much of a difference.

-1 Stealer of Secrets

+1 Azorius Arrester

I still like Stealer more but since the majority is for Arrester, I'll support it. It would have been my second choice anyway.

+1 Azorius Arrester

Low cost for Extort. Signals white. Stalls the board. Bosoms in armor.

Seriously, what's with people switching their votes to match the majority.

Is there like some prize for voting for the winning side?

I mean doesn't switching your vote to match the majority completely defeat the purpose of voting.

Imagine that seven people are voting. Three vote for A and two vote for B, then one person voting for B switches to A because that's what the majority is voting for then two more people vote for B.

IMO it's too early to switch your vote to match the majority. There's only been 20 posts so far and the previous vote passed 80 messages. People didn't even start voting for Lobster Crew until post 16 in the previous article/thread.

If you or someone else presents a strong case for Stealer of Secrets I'm sure plenty of people will switch their votes so if you feel it's the best card to pick out of the pack, vote for it then.

@Supersun: Well you are right that my switch in this case does not have a greater sense. In some cases though, swiching your vote to something can help defeat what you might consider a greater evil, when two cards are tied and you voted for third. Also, one more reason for me specifically is that I live in a completely different time zone that the majority of people here, so it's hard for me to support a card I've previously not voted for if later things develop infavorably. I wish I could say something like +1 Stealer of Secrets , if Stealer doesn't make it to top 2, then Azorius Arrester .

+1 Azorius Arrester

I would much rather see us grab Pursuit of Flight than dip into blue at this point. The drake isn't great defensively, tying up mana and only if we go white (which admittedly is likely). I don't like the arrester because he's a very weak body and detain is not a good ability if you can't get a lot of it going.

Stealer of secrets is an overcosted bear, and if they don't have something that can kill it by turn 3/4, then we're already in a better position than we have any right to expect.

Sadly I'm going to go for the Azorius Arrester because I don't see us grabbing the pursuit, and I really would like to avoid being trapped into blue in GTC.

+1 Arrester

Absinthman says: "I wish I could say something like +1 Stealer of Secrets , if Stealer doesn't make it to top 2, then Azorius Arrester ."

Technically, just giving both Stealer of Secrets and Azorius Arrester 1/2 of a vote each would have a similar effect,

+1 Stealer of Secrets .

@Supersun: Yes it would, but the rules of this poll require us to cast a whole vote for one card only.

+1 Tower Drake

+1 Azorius Arrester

+1 Stealer of Secrets

So for all the people advocating blue, I'm just curious. What cards in GTC are you hoping we'll see? Common and uncommons only please, no use hoping on a rare. We already can say that anything orzhov and boros is pretty playable, but what dimir are you hoping we can head into?

+1 Tower Drake

It flies, and it's possibly on-color, depending on whether or not we end up Esper. The arrester is kind of blah; detain isn't that amazing an ability.

• Azorius Arrester

+1 Tower Drake

I understand that the arrester fits the colors we already have, but the drake can impact the board for multiple turns after being played. The arrester is very much a one shot deal.

Tower drake because we need a way to clog the skies.

@thebeardedshuffler: To start off I voted for the Azorius Arrester so I'm with you on the vote.

Notable blue cards from Gatecrash in my mind are Cloudfin Raptor , Hands of Binding , and Metropolis Sprite .

Deathcult Rogue and Dimir Charm aren't god awful either.

+1 Tower Drake

+1 Azorius Arrester

Its the tempo that we need to make the deck work. Like Azorius Justiciar

+1 Azorius Arrester

In color, nuff said

+1 Azorius Arrester

Really wished we had picked up that Lyev Skyknight . Detain a permanent for 3 turns while getting us three creatures

+1 Stealer of Secrets

There are several good choices here for this late in the pack, but I like the stealer most. With multipule colours and a slower format there is a greater chance players will stumble in early turns and let us get in for free cards.

+1 Tower Drake

Which of these cards can win us the game? I know that Azorius Arrester is on color, but arrest isn't the greatest mechanic in the world and a 2/1 for 2 staller is... OK.

Both Tower Drake and an unchecked Stealer of Secrets can do some real damage. We haven't picked our 3rd color yet, and blue is a pretty good choice since 1) it looks open and 2) we have dimir cards next pack (and no golgari or selesyna).

I honestly like Stealer of Secrets best, because drawing free cards is the most powerful of the 3 and we have Way of the Thief to look forward to next pack. However, it's tough to count on getting that and going blue AND playing opponents who can't just remove it. So I vote for Tower Drake .

Dropping a 2/1 flier early or a 2/1 w/ a pumpable butt late is always going to be playable. It might not be worth making blue our 3rd color, but if we end up playing Esper and we have to decide whether to cut Azorius Arrester or Tower Drake ... which would you choose?

+1 Tower Drake

Evasion is king in limited on creatures in which a pack has no removal or bombs. Not only that, but the Drake can go BigBooty on defense if necessary and blanks red damage spells. The Arrester is going to do what exactly? Detain a turn 1 or turn 2 play and then potentially kill a creature?

Another way to look at it if this doesn't please you is that the drake can block opposing fliers. Keep that in your considerations.

Mostly I hope people reconsider this pick. I think Azorius Arrester is the 3rd best card here. We may not go blue, but I hope we're able to cut the arrester unless we're 2 colors (which we won't be). I'd be fine with either Tower Drake or Stealer of Secrets .

Blue cards from GTC that we may want(imho) for the deck stucture we seem to be moving towards:

AEtherize

Call of the Nightwing cipher + extort + flying chump blockers

Dimir Charm

Hands of Binding

Metropolis Sprite again, defend the skies

Psychic Strike and/or Spell Rupture a counter spell is a counter spell

Urban Evolution if we run 4 color-everything but red would be helpful

Rapid Hybridization chances are would be sided in if they have multiple large threats

i'm not trying to say we must go blue, or that we should really be looking for any of these, but trying to say that blue has nothing for us in GTC is just silly.

as it is, I am still unsure of how I would like to vote here. Azorius Arrester is an easily extortable spell with detain attached (I know I am one of the few people that loves this mechanic in limited, just usually works out for me). But we could also use Tower Drake to stop people from just flying over our defenders. I do not think Stealer of Secrets will work out for us, I know if I was on the other side of the table I would trade most 2 toughness creatures to stop you from getting that extra card. Same with the aura, just wont do the work we want. Dispel would be nice if this format wasn't all about the creature game.

• Tower Drake

I guess that is the safest choice. we do not know how much if any extort we will see. and a dude that can more or less block any-one thing in the sky sounds good to me.

why did my "+1" get turned into a dot? what formatting wizardry did I mistakenly use?

+1 Tower Drake

It's the best card here.

+1 Azorius Arrester

Leafs_suck put it plainly already - He fits our colors, and he stalls for us.

+1 Tower Drake

+1 Tower Drake

I'm liking all three of the creatures to an extent, but the Stealer probably requires more commitment to evasion addition, like Rogue's Passage , than we are giving right now.

Azorius Arrester is nice and cheap, which lends itself to Extort decks, but the drake has a very good potential at being a vital flying blocker, which would buy us more time than the arrester. I certainly wouldn't mind if we ended up in Esper colors.

We don't need, nor really want, aggro cards for this build. So cards like Cloudfin Raptor and Metropolis Sprite don't hold much value for us. I would put Tower Drake into the same category. Yes, the drake can also serve as a staller in the sky, but that requires leaving mana open. Which is not something we are likely to do if we get the Extort cards we want from the next packs.

I will say this for blue... Cipher cards plus Lobber Crew would build one rockin' lobster. But I'd rather hook up a copy of Shadow Slice on the Lobster. In a pinch, that could work as a win-con. Also, going with blue as our third color means a stop at red lobster is our fourth color.

All that is is secondary to getting the Extort cards we want. And cutting white is important if we expect to accomplish that. Let someone else be tempted into blue. It will keep them our of our primary colors.

That should read... "It will keep them OUT of our primary colors."

Cipher won't work on Lobber Crew I don't believe. Cipher requires combat damage.

Cutting white is a good point for extort. But the arrester is just so mediocre I don't see anyone going white because of it.

@SupremeAlliesCommander exarkun809 has it right. I tried something similar with a Guttersnipe and Hands of Binding and thinking it would infinite combo. Did some searching in the rules and the Cipher mechanic specifically calls for Combat Damage which is the damage dealt only during the combat phase by attacking/blocking creatures. For Cipher you would want them on an evasive creature like the Tower Drake or a Deathcult Rogue . Or we can just detain all of their blockers and Cipher away anyway. :)

+1 Azorius Arrester .

+1 Dispel

Because it looks so lonely.

+1 Azorius Arrester

azorius arrester is totally a maindeck card for us. We may not even run blue, we haven't been picking blue, so why would we pass over the arrester when we could grab something we SHOULD have grabbed 3 packs ago?

+1 Azorius Arrester

Yeah, unfortunately Lobber Crew has no way to cast ciphered spells without altering it's power. If it just read damage, though, Lobber Crew + Call of the Nightwing = infinite pings.

You're all correct. My bad. I guess that kinda weakens blue even more.

+1 Azorius Arrester
Not the best pick, but it's one we can easily use.

Azorius Arrester

+1 Azorius Arrester

Sorry!

Guys. Detain is a bad stall mechanic. It's a good tempo mechanic, which is not what we're trying to build. We're trying to stall, which means having real board presence. A 2/1 isn't gonna hold up for long. At least Tower Drake has a way to protect itself.

Lol Detain is a great mechanic...? it's better than hoping to add blue for a tower drake, at the very least. Hell, I'd take a vanilla 2/2 for 2 right now before I'd take tower drake in this pack.

This guy stops a late game powerhouse, we extort him, and get an extra draw step. towerdrake sits there, and we don't extort him because we need to pump a buttload of mana into him to make his butt big (which is REALLY bad for extort).

We don't need to have arrester protect himself, We have 2 more packs. chill.

I think we're picking up white/black cards primarily to be already on a good start with our Gatecrash packs. It's clear we are going for cheap/easy removal and while detain only works for one turn, the Azorius Arrester is a 2 cmc body for easy extortion. Yes the Tower Drake might be a better defender overall but it doesn't fit into the "plan" we have for the deck. Someone else will want it and it will cause them to lean for blue cards. Take the colors we want and let them have it.

I have to agree with numa529 here. What we don't need are manna holes like Tower Drake especially ones that require B or W manna, which we will use to extort.

Plus, pick 12 could have Azorius Arrester , Armory Guard , or Rogue's Passage .

Pick 11 has crap in our colors but we'll see.

+1 Tower Drake

All the other cards seem pretty bad or ok. The arrester doesnt do to much. We cast it turn 2 optimaly, but then we only really detain a 1 drop (if they have one) or if their on go- a two drop, which really isnt that good either. Later on in the game it's better - but hopefully were casting a better card.

For us, Azorius Arrester does not want to be played on turn 2. we want to use it to stop a bomb for an extra turn while getting some extort triggers and hopefully finding an answer. While it works very well as a turn two play in tempo decks, that is not the role we would be drafting him for. People keep saying he is at his best on turn two and even then all it does is detain a 1 drop. NO, that is when he is at his worst (for us). I still feel at this time the drake is a better pick, just so we can get some flyers in our pool.

+1 Azorius Arrester

Really don't hate any of the other options, but this is the best one. Playing 3 or 4 colors will be very difficult to have enough white to pump the drake to any useful size.

About 27 votes for Arrester, and about 13 votes for Drake (I may have miscounted a few). If you're going to change your vote, you should do it now.

If nothing else, I like that there's a heated and respectable debate here. This, to me, is where DDD gets interesting.

If it makes any difference, my vote is still with the Stealer, because I feel like GTC will help us grant him evasion and give him additional reasons to swing in, if Cipher winds up being in our game plan.

We don't have a game plan yet. The only cards I see us playing for sure are our Stab Wound s. Ogre Jailbreaker might make the cut just cuz we'll be playing black. everything else is pretty up for grabs. We haven't locked anything yet, so we shouldn't draft as if we have.

Either way, no super strong cards in this pack. Stealer of Secrets has the most potential, but is also one of the least consistent in its strength.

+1 Tower Drake .

It's good in Limited.

+1 Azorius Arrester

The reality of the situation is that we are very unlikely to see anything in Gatecrash that pulls us hard enough into blue that we actually want to play the Tower Drake , whereas there are a number of cards in Gatecrash that would make the Azorius Arrester better after turn 4, and that could fill out our deck to a point where it's ok to play him on turn 2 so that he stalls us until turn 4 or 5. The drake, on the other hand, gets progressively worse in Gatecrash because we'll be picking up stuff that encourages us not to save mana for his pump, and focusing on extort and removal is a much more reliable strategy than hoping to get all the good cipher cards that make Esper possible. The Arrester is just better going into Gatecrash and even, if you consider him a stall to turn 4, going into Dragon's Maze with all the Gatekeepers.

+1 Azorius Arrester

This is a very obvious pick guys.... we are building a semi-lockdown/removal deck. We have white. Why wouldn't we pick this?

+1 Azorius Arrester

Reasons:

1. In color

2. Id hate to see the person who picked the skyknight, synergize with it against us.

3. Making a creature not be useful for any amount of time is useful to us.

landgrafb is saying a lot of things that make sense and need to be listened to; even though my vote was (and still is) Azorius Arrester , the Arrester doesn't count as a 'stall card'. We can't plan for or around it and it doesn't last. A stall card is something that muddy things up repeatedly and reliably. Don't pick Arrester because you're thinking he's part of a stall plan.

We also don't really have a plan yet. One or two cards in a theme don't make a plan, though it gives us something to aim at. But if we open a superbomb in green or red in Gatecrash, we should consider following the bomb, since we haven't really committed to anything hardcore yet and a bomb will give us cohesion which we don't have.

I think Stealer of Secrets is better in a vacuum, but Arrester I think has the higher potential for value in our deck; a cheap white weenie that can remove a blocker for a turn goes fantastically into a Boros strategy, and we're actually pretty close to being able to be a Boros deck with a black splash depending on what we open next pack.

Something to note

If I counted correctly there have been 10 "creatures" with flying in the RTR packs excluding the pursuit of flight in this pack, and so far only 3 monsters with reach.

We claimed one of them, the pegasus, so far which means there are still 9 other flyers out there.

We'll likely need more ways to deal with flyers in the future. Not saying we should draft the Tower Drake in this pack, but if we are heading towards a stall strategy we are going to need some anti-flyer cards.

That's something to keep in mind, but we can't force stall as our strategy. There's still a lot of time left in this draft, so we should be prepared to adapt as we see new cards.

+1 Stealer of Secrets

+1 Tower Drake

Again, it's super easy to splash colors, and the Arrester just isn't impressive enough in Limited to matter. A flier that's hard to kill is excellent.

As other people have mentioned, Tower Drake won't be as good as you think in a three color build. A lot of the damage based removal does 3+ damage, and there are quite a lot of creatures with a power of 3. For the drake to survive either of these we would need to pump it with WWW, which quite frankly, we are unlikely to have out, and even more unlikely to have untapped. The most realistic scenario is the drake is 2/3 Flier, with an echo cost of WW.

As far as detain goes, I have won and lost games because of it. If we can pick up a bomb or two over the next two packs, stalling for a turn or two is really all we need.