I like Batter Krasis but he seems really underwhelming in triple DGM so if anything he might get tabled. Other than that Renounce the Guilds seems useful as it's removal and may or may not be in our colors.

I am unsure about Viashino Firstblade in this format, but the few times I've done triple DGM I've seen one or two get tabled, so we might be able to pick it up later if that's what we want. Riot Piker/Rakdos Drake are fine but I'm not sure if we're more interested in those than we are in Renounce the Guilds.

Give / Take is also an option that is kind of appealing. I'm between Give / Take and Renounce the Guilds.

Snack for Thought: Looks like the other group nabbed an uncommon (not that it helps any, but only multicolored cards are uncommon in DGM)

Clearly, the obvious choice is Steam Vents. Wait, no, sorry, that's my real life pick (I value paying for my draft over the draft itself in that setting). Anyways, my gut tells me to go for Battered Krasis, a fair body that matches our (far from set in stone) coloring. Piker, Jester, and Firstblade all seem respectable as well. Spell-wise, Give / Take and Renounce the Guilds catch my eye. I feel that Give / Take has a chance of tabling, and would like to see our creature base a little more before considering it anything less than a 6cmc Concentrate. Renounce could end up awfully double-edged in addition to that curse of choice, but I do count it as removal...
I don't think I have a clear personal choice here, but am willing to take the Renounce risk.

Let me clarify that first bit; all uncommons are multicolored in DGM (not the other way around).

+1 Renounce the guilds

All the good cards in the set are multicoloured so it isn't like we're going to be stuck without targets, though it obviously comes down to timing so we don't screw ourselves over.

This really isn't a great pack. Battering Krasis is ok in DGR because there is lots of synergies with it, but I don't know how good it is in 3xDGM. Give // Take is also a pretty good card, even if just for the give part, but again, without the synergy from vorel or even zamek guildmage I don't know if I'd want to take it this early. Same for protect // serve, which is a highly underrated card imho.

I'm really interested in which common/foil the preceeding group picked.

Ehh, this one's going to take a little bit of though.

I'll make a decision after I see what other people have to say.

Honestly, I think we should do our best to find out what possible cards got picked over some of those strong uncommon.

Can you contact Caley and see if you can figure out which card in the pack is holographic if any? If the holograph is still in the pack if should give us an idea of what rarity got picked.

For some reason I was under the assumption that there were four uncommons in a booster pack; my bad there. (Shows how much more I trade / use the secondary market, I guess)

@Supersun - I'll shoot Kaley a message and see if we can't find out.

Foil cards, no matter the rarity, always replace a common. So, since there is only a common missing from the pack, either the previous group first picked something like a Tithe Drinker or Beetleform Mage, or they got a foil something.

BUT...if something like Renounce the Guilds is a foil card it means that they took the rare in the pack, if an uncommon is foil it means they took an uncommon, if a common is foil it means they took a common, and if the land is foil that means...they picked a gate pick 1?

If none of the cards are foil then, well, that doesn't give us a lot of information since it means that they probably picked their foil from the pack and it could be anything.

Still, never hurts to eliminate the variables.

This is true. Do we get the picks directly from Caley? He usually does a pretty good job of making all the info available

Yeah, picks go straight to him, and packs are his response. All through the joys of glorious email.

Accessing this information for you guys, stand by.

Ok, I have the answer. NONE of your cards are foil, AND there is no error. Think carefully about what can be in a Dragon's Maze pack.

So the person before us either took a pick 1 common or picked a foil card if his pack included one (~16%).

I can't think of a ton of common creatures that I would pick over Protect / Serve and Spike Jester in that pack, (~14% of getting any one common in a pack if my math is correct).

This doesn't tell us a lot except that they either picked a Bomb or they don't realize how amazing Renounce the Guilds and some of the other uncommons are going to be in a DMG only format.

Probably best to assume that they took a foil card, pretend that we can't realistically guess the rarity of their pick, and focus on what the best cards in this pack and what signals we are going to send to the person we are passing to (and if we can starve them of a color).

The best cards in the pack imo are Protect / Serve, Renounce the Guilds, Spike Jester, and Rakdos Drake.

Someone to our near right probably picked up that Far / Away if their opening picks was either black or blue, and when they receive this pack it will probably give them a good idea that Black is open and there's a good chance that he'll grab the Spike Jester and plan to run B/U/R at least early on. (Though hive mentality could drive them to completely ignore our signals and pick up the Protect / Serve which even though it's the 3rd pick it's still the ONLY decent white card they have been passed).

Someone else to our near right will probably take that Beetleform Mage if he opened with a strong green first pick or some strong blue picks and the Far / Away was already taken. This could be a slightly dangerous situation since if he hasn't decided on a 3rd color yet he may pick up the Protect / Serve and run G/U/W which matches 2 of our potential colors, but would still only affect us pack 2.

I talked a bit about starving a color to our right and suggested either white or green with our first pick. If you think about it though with these picks there's little use in trying to hoard any of these green cards. If anyone were to open with strong green or blue cards there's a pretty good chance that they would jump on the Beetleform Mage we passed in our first pack, and they would most likely decide to chase after Green and Blue cards unless some ridiculously strong multi-colored card got passed to them. If anyone is drafting like that they will very likely grab the Protect / Serve over any of the other green cards in the pack.

This pretty much narrows our choice since it's still probably in our best interest to hoard White.

While someone drafting the Protect / Serve might create some competition for us in pack two if my theory is correct, it's a terrible card unless we are running blue. The white half of the card just isn't THAT good and probably wouldn't even make it into our final deck. While it may cause someone to go white they may not necessarily believe it's open just because of it.

Leaving that Renounce the Guilds to the table would be an even bigger mistake as Hive Mind does tend to follow B.R.E.A.D when in doubt and would pick up the white AND think it's open. Renounce the Guilds is also a card that we will 100% run in our deck if we are running white in it without black (and a good chance even with black) since removal is sparse in DMG and a 2cc instant sac is pretty amazing for white even if it is conditional.

+1 Renounce the Guilds.

We just have to hope that the Protect / Serve doesn't come back to bite us in pack 2.

There are guild gates in every pack. The gates in DGM boosters replace the basic lands. Or it could have been a good foil.

This pack looks like garbage battering krasis or steam vents are the best cards/picks. I say we pick up the vents and perhaps we will continue to be passed good UR cards

Steam Vents in this pack replaced the gate I think.

And just curious, what good UR cards are there in just DMG drafting?

Goblin Test Pilot sucks, Nivix Cyclops is only good if we build a spell heavy deck, Melek, Izzet Paragon, again, needs a spell heavy deck, Fluxcharger needs a spell heavy deck. The only 3 cards that I'd even consider remotely good in UR that you don't have to build around are Dragonshift, Ral Zarek, and Blast of Genius. Only two of those that I would specifically jump into UR for would be Dragonshift, a rare, and Ral Zarek, and mythic.

Without opening with a UR bomb I just can't see UR being a very good color combination without RTR, and even that only works after heavily dedicating your picks to sorceries and instants in the 2 previous packs.

I certainly don't think Steam Vents is worth considering imo the worst guild in draft, especially over renounce the guilds, a card that kills 2/3rds of the creatures in the format (there are 30 mono colored creatures and 46 multicolored creatures).

Wow... I dont know if I could write such long posts... Well anyways, I think I agree with hoarding white and sending a signal about that. So,

+1 Renounce the Guilds

Though the Drake and Krasis serve as good bodies, I don't think they trump Renounce this early in the draft.

+1 Renounce the Guilds

I dunno too much about this signal sending stuff, but I do know that once again, the best card in the pack sits squarely within our colors. I also know that there'll be plenty of time to pick up dudes and fixing later. This leaves me to decide on...

+1 Renounce the Guilds

@Supersun: there is also Turn // Burn, which I actually think is better removal than Far // Away -- especially once the rules change happens, though that won't be for draft.

what rules change would that be? are you talking about the indestructibility keywording?

Yus, no Boros Charm in response now

lol forgot about Turn // Burn, though if I were to draft that I would still avoid most Izzet cards like the plague and try to hoard white to run Boros and Azorius which both have some pretty awesome common 2 drops in DMG, and if lucky, some of the best uncommon creatures.

(also, Boros Charm is GTC so you can't use it in response in this draft anyway :P)

oh, GureiSeion. do you mind keeping up the packs caley gives us? that way we know what we've passed and whatnot.

it also seems like we have similar mind sets. there hasn't been too much arguing so far...