Yup. Maw is a very encouraging sign. Nobody who saw it, is likely in Orzhov.

I'm a little surprised to see th Firstblades still here. But now we gave a sac outlet- and one that doesn't completely suck.

Definitely the maw. Even if the red guy doesn't hit, he can push a surprising alpha in response to blocks.

I would have gone fore the firstblade. A 3/3 for 5 is expensive and I don't think we'll earn so much from the sac. just a though btw since you all have basically already decided

Well Maw allows us to mess with every single combat round. Any blocks we don't like, we sac out of and pump more damage through, or kill creatures with.

Also synergises well with smelt-ward gatekeepers, lets us steal and then kill.

Yeah, we can even sac post combat if we could get more damage in by just swinging with their creature. The maw gives us options, which is always good.

Calling the crew for pack 2, pick 7: vic, thebeardedshuffler, tigersfan774, VRonin, anewsome, GoldGhost012, xXBantbladesXx

Hm. We could get our hands on another Gleam of Battle . Alternatively I could see us picking Fatal Fumes , Weapon Surge or even Maze Rusher .

Btw I reduced the amount of hydra avatar to make at least the mana curve more apparent. :)

Hmm.. I agree on all counts except Maze Rusher. He's the worse of the cycle, with only 3 toughness.

I think Weapon Surge is the strongest combat trick here. It's cheap so we don't have to hold a lot of mana up, and it can help us win a lot of combat that we might otherwise lose, whereas the fumes can only affect 1. Weapon surge works nicely with Maw of the Obzedat, also.

That second Gleam is damn tempting though. It's a very strong card, makes all our creatures a threat that grow and grow. We take that, and we are very likely to play one every single game (or at least draw one by the time we can play it). Only downside is it does drag our curve up.

On the one hand, Gleam has tabled before. But showing everyone that card again might force them to start taking our boros cards next pack. Weapon surge will almost certainly not table.

I think we take Weapon Surge and count ourselves lucky if we see Gleam again.

I'm leaning toward Weapon Surge . It has my vote for now. I like the low cost, and the fact that it's a combat trick. It can be removal, and if we do starting piling up more creatures in our build, the overload effect as a combat surprise could kill 2 or 3 of their creatures and put the state of the board in such a way that they cannot recover.

Another Gleam of Battle is interesting, but the high cost is not appealing. The first one was even a little iffy for that reason, but then once it wheeled as a 9th pick it was good to take. The only way I could see running 2 of them is if we really go nuts on creatures from here on out. That could happen, I suppose, but I don't know.

Fatal Fumes is (limited)removal, but Weapon Surge can be as well, and for cheap.

Maze Rusher : Solid, but I think I would rather take an effective cheap spell than a 6 cmc unless it's something really really good. But I could be talked into it.

That's my 2 cents.

All things considered, I'd strongly vote for Weapon Surge . I just love this card and its versatility.

Weapon Surge is awesome. It's my vote.

Weapon surge for sure.

Calling the crew for pack 2, pick 8: vic, thebeardedshuffler, tigersfan774, VRonin, anewsome, GoldGhost012, xXBantbladesXx

Did anyone say red gatekeepers?

I could actually see a Wear / Tear mainboard in this format. The question is just: how much better are the gatekeepers?

With these many we ought to pick at least 2 other gates, even if they're semi off-color.

Agreed. This is tricky because we might not get the Rakdos and Boros gates we want. Others may grab them. Semi off-color gates are something to keep in the back of our minds.

As for this pick, the only artifacts are cluestones. Here is the list of all the enchantments in the set:

http://www.cardkingdom.com/catalog/view?search=mtg_advanced&filter[name]=&filter[key_text1]=&filter[key_boolean]=AND&filter[key_text2]=&filter[type]=Enchant&filter[type_key]=&filter[category_id]=2892&filter[manaprod_select]=&filter[rarity_all]=any&filter[concast1]=&filter[concast2]=&filter[pow1]=&filter[pow2]=&filter[tuf1]=&filter[tuf2]=&filter[price_op]=&filter[price]=

I'm thinking we probably take the 3rd red gatekeeper.

it's either the gatekeeper or the f*cking mana expensive bird so I'd go for the keeper

Updated Deck Stats:

Color Breakdown: (Olive=Multicolor)

Type Breakdown:

Mana Curve:

I'm all for taking a 3rd smelt-ward and mainboarding all three. With another gate or two they'll consistently dominate every game.

Yeah... Smelt ward is probably the best choice.

I like the gatekeepers. We just need to hit a couple more gates to make sure they are online as much as possible. Even without the gates, its decent wall at the 4 drop slot.

Smelt ward, kick-ass. Hope we get our sac-outlet going early. Wouldn't hurt us to get boros/rakdos guildgates we see in pack 3.

Boros/rakdos gates should be very high priority for us. Very high.