I want the gates too, but keep in mind that only 1 of the 10 color combos(Simic) would have none of our colors. Still, it is tempting, I know.

Also, we're not always going to have a Maw on hand T5 :P

Of course : ) Still, I think we're a bit loaded on our higher cost cards at this point.

Tough call. Abomination is tough, but the drake gets going faster.

We don't want gates so badly that we take one just to be a strictly worse plains. Not when we have actual good creatures. I think we take drake and see if the abomination wheels.

+1 rakdos drake.

+1 drake

Looking for gates to fall soon.

+1 drake for methe off color gate is not such a good choice if you ask me

Calling the crew for pack 3, pick 3: vic, thebeardedshuffler, tigersfan774, VRonin, anewsome, GoldGhost012, xXBantbladesXx

Hm. I actually like the Sin Collector from this one, lowering our curve a bit and hopefully getting rid of some removal.

The only other consideration I see would be another Ubul Sar Gatekeepers but I think the Sin Collector is the way to go.

+1 Sin Collector and hope ubul sar tables.

I wouldn't bet on ubul sar wheeling. That being said, I think son collector is probably the best choice. There are some nasty soceries in this format (see sorcery section above. :P).

+1 sin

Sin collector is better in standard, or RTR/GTC/DGM draft. In this format, I don't know if I'd take him over a gatekeeper.

He's not exactly lowering our curve when we need two specific colours of mana, either, even if they are our main colours. And once he's been played, we have one of the most fragile creatures in the set.

+1 Ubul Sar Gatekeepers

Options:

Sin Collector : Probably good IF our opponent has an instant or sorcery in hand at he time. If not, he's garbage. Multicolored(could be boosted if we get any maze monsters). Can be retriggered by Legion's Initiative .

Ubul Sar Gatekeepers : Good IF we get a couple more gates, which is a risk. Otherwise just a 2/4. Mono-colored. Can be retriggered by Legion's Initiative .

Blaze Commando : Good IF we have the damage dealing instants/sorceries. We have two right now. Even one more makes this a strong option. Otherwise still a good body. Having two copies of this guy on the board when we play a damage spell would be great. Multicolored. His tokens get the full boost from Legion's Initiative .

+1 Blaze Commando . Best potential upside, and lowest potential downside. If our gatekeeper strategy fails due to inability to get our gates, it would be really good to have aggro as a strong option.

Oh, and his tokens would also be triggered by a Maze Abomination . Nice.

Keep in mind that the more gatekeepers we have, the more chance some of them will trigger. They are valuable not only for their ETB effect, but also because they are a 2/4 body.

Also, legions initiative kills any tokens when it blinks out our guys. Not that I expect we'll have many. Toil / Trouble is the kind of spell we play when it wins us the game, since we don't want to give them cards otherwise, so the tokens it would generate are kinda irrelevant. So right now, it's only Warleader's Helix that would trigger a commando, and the 3 toughness for a 5 mana creature seems pretty bad to me. In short, I don't see enough upside on the commando to take it over a keeper.

If we had a couple of maze abominations at this point I'd likely feel differently. Even then though, a few punish the enemy's wouldn't hurt.

I don't think the Gatekeepers are very good if they don't trigger. I mean Pillarfield Ox is a famously bad card, right?

With Legion's Initiative , I don't expect we would be both bouncing out our creatures AND boosting RW creatures(Commando tokens). I expect it would be either/or depending on our build.

Good point about Toil / Trouble , but it could also be played to bring our opponent low on life(but not kill), then move in with critters, thus making the tokens a factor.

Overall it comes down to a couple of things for me:

1) I don't think we should put all our eggs in one basket with the gatekeeper strategy, because we may not get more gates.

2) A vanilla 5/3 for 5 is better than a vanilla 2/4 for 4. This, combined with our 3 drakes gives us some aggro as an option.

5/3 will trade down. We won't want to block with it, and they can hold up 3 power to take it out which would stop us from attacking. The 2/4 will at least block two thirds of the creatures in the set over and over.

3 toughness is also in range for punish the enemy. With our squadron of drakes, what we really need on the ground is reliable defence. And while it's unlikely the commando will get his ability to trigger, if it does we have 1/1 tokens. If the gatekeeper triggers we can kill anything with 2 toughness, or more if they've taken some damage in combat.

I really don't mind a pillarfield ox in this kind of environment or deck. Probably a moot point however, seems the rest of the gang like the sin collector :)

The more I think about it, the more I really do like Ubul Sar Gatekeepers . I'm biased towards the Sin Collector because I like the idea of Duress on legs, but it always seems underwhelming.

-1 Sin Collector

+1 Ubul Sar Gatekeepers

+1 Gatekeeper. More potential removal is good.

I don't know how many people will agree with me, but we really need to start collecting gates, even if we only can use 1 color of the mana it produces. Especially if we run 5 gatekeepers.

Yeah, might have to take a strictly worse basic land, I suppose. I don't like how light we are on creatures, but we do have some quasi-removal so maybe it won't hurt so much.

As for the 2/4 vs 5/3 argument, I will point out that we already have four 2/4s. And if the board state is ever such that the opponent has no blocker and we have one creature, a 5/3 is a helluva lot better. We're all toughness and not much power so far.

I do mind having a Pillarfield Ox. Especially when we already have four of them. If we don't get the gates, that's 5 cards that just became crappy.

And I agree, Gates need to start happening. Maybe next pick, even if it's off color. We'll see.

Calling the crew for pack 3, pick 4: vic, thebeardedshuffler, tigersfan774, VRonin, anewsome, GoldGhost012, xXBantbladesXx

Well. We can have another black Keeper. Other picks that could make it into mainboard: Fatal Fumes , Sin Collector , Haazda Snare Squad and Maze Sentinel

Not sure about the Guildgate here. It would seem that if we take something semi off-color it should at least be producing red. But I could be wrong.

Hate to say it, but I think this is the turn to start grabbing whatever gates we can. We want two more. This would be one of them. If we don't get them, we're going to have the Pillarfield Ox brigade. I'd like to put it off one more turn get another creature here, but this is getting riskier the longer we wait.

(begrudging) vote: Gate

I'd like to add that I don't think we can reasonably expect to get two on-color gates this round. Maybe one. But we're probably going to end up with at least one off-color, anyway.

We've also seen a gate in every pack so far. I think if we wanted to we could risk it for one more pack and grab the gatekeeper. Although that also means we might have to pass up something better than him next pack to grab a gate.

That being said, I don't think it's worth the risk for an ubul sar,

+1 Guildgate