So, Boros Cluestone or terribird? There aren't many flyers in this format and if they don't play blue he could be a decent sideboard card with the first strike.

Steeple roc. If we do run into a fliers deck, it'll be good sideboard tech, I feel.

I suppose it's the bird then.

+1 steeple roc

Also I went back to see what vic posted in response to my own post about land composition. I'm interested in what everyone else thinks.

Vic's position (in case you don't wanna go back and check) is that 16 lands is normal in his drafts and works fine, 17 is a stretch and 18 is too risky.

My own position is that 17 is the norm and when it's a slow format, or higher curve deck, I run 18. I personally think 16 is too risky unless you curve out at 3 or 4.

Now if we run the cluestones (not just to ramp into DttD but we had a lot of higher cost creatures/spells) we wouldn't need quite as much land. I normally treat mana producing artifacts as a half a land. I still don't think we need to run them, but we definitely want to hit our mana regularly, to cast our 3 and 4 drops. What are your opinions on how much land you run in drafts, and how much you think we'll be running in this deck?

Imho we should go with 17 for a 40 card deck since hitting our land drops and also having multiple lands to choose from is very important. Maybe even 18 with 41 cards.

I think it's good that we're having this discussion.

Looking at what we have so far, I think we're going to want to run 15-16 creatures(we could cut 1 Torturer) and 8 non-creatures, so 23-24 spells. That build would include either 2 cluestones or 2 Possessions. If we go 17 land, that puts us at 40-41 cards. If it's 2 cluestones(I'm leaning slightly that way), which I could see for card draw (we REALLY want to get 2 gates out) and for RW fixing, then I think 18 lands is asking for mana glut.

I have never run 18 before. Never tried it, never would have thought to do it. To me, 17 is as high as you would ever go, and I've rarely done that. I want to know if anyone has actually tried 18 in a real draft and what their experience was with it. It sounds pretty overboard to me, but I have never tried it.

+1 Roc

...since we have no flight defense, even though I could see us running 2 Boros stones.

In my view, the blaze commando and boros mastiff are more likely for us to cut, being inefficient creatures. I definitely prefer sinister possession to the cluestones, because the possessions help us against aggressive decks to an extent.

I have tried 18 land in a draft, as it happens. As I said, 17 is where I like to keep my landcount in draft, but slow formats, I'll go one higher. When the curve is higher, you want to hit your land drops more than you want to play creatures at the start of the game, because the early creatures you can cast are low impact. So you go from wanting to dump dudes on the board, to ensuring you can cast your bigger guys. Because limited is usually slower than constructed, drawing a little more mana than you need is way better than not drawing enough.

I actually played pack wars for the first time last weekend and I was very surprised by how 16 lands on 14 actual cards can still get someone stuck on 3 lands for 4 turns :D

I'm a fan of mana heavy decks (I normally run 27-28 in constructed) and have always put 17-18 in limited. Especially with gates, which slow the game down anyway.

I never run more than 16 lands in my deck. If w run both cluestones I think 16 lands will be fine. We can always play test it with different land amounts as well.

To be continued after next pick...

Calling the crew for pack 3, pick 11: vic, thebeardedshuffler, tigersfan774, VRonin, anewsome, GoldGhost012, xXBantbladesXx

Well, Blaze Commando or Sin Collector ?

Also, someone took Murmuring Phantasm over them so I could guess that we actually might run into one or two of them at some point to block our early game attacks.

Tough one. We may run into some deck that has strong use of instants/sorceries, esp the ones with Fuse that are able to use both colors. I could see one or two decks being that way. Sin Collector would be good sideboard material for such a deck.

Looking at our creature costs, we've got five at the 3-slot and two at the 5-slot(counting Roc as sideboard). The 5-slot is pretty open. And with a lack of 2-drops we're not likely to be playing a 2 and a 3 on T5. So a Commando fits very well. And he's a sure thing. Sin Collector is not.

Honestly, we could really use the beatdown plain and simple. We're still very low on Power, high on Toughness. But we have picked up some aggro cards lately, and I think we should utilize this aspect of our deck. Gatekeepers alone won't win it. They will support. But at some point we need to actually hit or we won't get them down to lethal damage. All this 2-power stuff is not going to cut it. DttD may or may not get drawn.

If we're going to run Gleam, Initiative, and Weapon Surge(and I'm sure we will), then we should build accordingly and make those cards work in a strong way. Commando helps us do that. He's maindeck material. I think we need to commit to being more aggro now. It's the hand we've been dealt, so to speak.

+1 Blaze Commando

As for the 18 lands thing, I'm still curious to hear how well it actually worked. As in, did it win? Because I finish high with 16 consistently. It's 40% of the deck, which is the equivilant of 24/60.

With Gleam of Battle , Legion's Initiative , and Weapon Surge , I think we're best off if we run 16 creatures. If we include a couple of stones, and use our good non-creature spells, I'm not seeing a build in which we can run 18 land.

*Sorry, make that seven critters at the 3-slot, but I'm not sure we really want two torturers. Anyway...yeah, that slot is loaded.

Yeah, we might actually drop the torturers to the sideboard against decks with lots of small creatures. 16 lands with 2 cluestones could work, but the thing is that a higher land count also means that we get colorscrewed less. I guess it depends on what we include in the end.

Here, you wanna play with this for awhile?

This would be a more aggro-weighted build(but not the only way we could build it). Let me know if you can view it.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/3-x-dgm/

One thing I will say is that I think we might have been better off getting the Dimir gate and having one less gatekeeper. Sorry guys.

I agree. Also, can't see that deck.

Here I'll uncheck it from private for awhile. Kept it that way, just in case.

There, now you can copy it.

Still dun work. You can share a private deck list with me if you have me as 'friend' (i.e. are following me).

Now here's a more long-game oriented build with 17 land. It assumes we're just going to eat early damage and then win it late. I'll leave it unprivate for a bit so you can copy.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/3-x-dgm-long-game/