I didn't say they weren't black at all. I said they weren't heavily committed to black (the point with Gray Merchant is valid too).

I've moved the UR Chimera to sideboard because I don't think we'll run it in the end. Same for Fate Fortold.

Right now, we have 10 mainboard dudes, if I count the Leonin we're going to pick now. We still need to focus on picking creatures. We're halfway through the draft, so having 10 is not bad, but the problem is that when I look at the packs we passed in this second round, there aren't any dudes that will table for us, except for Akroan Crusader and Silent Artisan. We will likely have to rely on pack 3 to fill the remaining creature slots.

+1 Leonin Snarecaster. Annoying cards are annoying, and annoying cards are good cards.

In terms of a creature curve atm we have

2-3: 4 creatures
4-5: 6 creatures

What type of creatures do you think would be ideal to add? While we need more creatures at least they are on some form of a curve atm.

I feel we still need more lowdrops because our game starts at four mana, and we need to be in a reasonable shape when we get there. I'd like to have some things from the following list:

Akroan Hoplite
Arena Athlete
Favored Hoplite
Hopeful Eidolon
Lagonna-Band Elder
Leonin Snarecaster
Minotaur Skullcleaver
Observant Alseid
Phalanx Leader
Satyr Rambler
Spearpoint Oread
Two-Headed Cerberus
or even Traveling Philosopher

Of course, we already have some of those, but it never hurts to gave more in case of Phalanx Leader or Leonin Snarecaster.

Lagonna-Band Elder

Told you to consider that card for a reason XD

(Not that Ray is a bad card)

I'm going to send the Leonin as our pick to Caley.

I think it's pretty clear that blue is very open in this pack. Should we consider grabbing a lot more blue cards? A 2-drop bear that taps things is ok I guess, but a 3/4 flyer that scrys for days seems pretty good.

It's open in this pack, but in pack 1 it was ridiculously choked if you remember (we didn't see virtually any good blue cards past the 3rd pick).

Remember that you draft Left, Right, Left. So while drafting to the right in pack 2 it may be open, in pack 1 where we drafted to the left blue was ridiculously hoarded so likewise it's fairly safe to assume that in pack 3 it will also be ridiculously hoarded.

That's why I'm being a little more hesitant on picking up any blue cards that require a lot of dedication like the Chimera that requires UU. From what we can tell it's not a smart idea to move into blue other then just a late game splash.

But yeah, it's a good card and if the people to our right weren't heavy blue I'd have considered moving into blue a long time ago with how many chimeras we've been passed.

Hi guys. Pack 2-8 is up,

+1 Akroan Crusader

In general a fairly terrible card, but there are a few things that make this card slightly better then normal, namely Phalanx Leader and Triton's Tactics.

None of the other cards I can realistically see us running in our final deck. The Wall is playable, but I don't think we would include it in our final deck since we are going to want a much more significant play then dropping a 0/4 with 5 mana unless we are about to cast our second SGR or something lol.

Anyway, he's a 1/1 1 drop. Not amazing, but something I think we will rarely regret seeing in our opening hand since he'll punish anyone that didn't have any plans for the early game. If the opponent does have an early game plan and is able to stop him early? Not a big deal, we just side him out for game 2 and side in some additional 4-6 drops to crush their early game.

It's a card that makes our deck a bit more aggroy in a format where people sometimes tend to forget about their early game.

While I would rather have Favored Hoplite, he is also uncommon.

Also, the Absinthman Crusader could potentially become much deadlier if we get the right cards in pack 3, namely the red (and white) ordeals.

If we had a slower deck, I'd actually consider the Witches Eye. That scry 1 is pretty powerful if you put it on a creature that otherwise wouldn't attack anyway.

But yeah
+1 FOR THE CRUSADE...errr

Addendum: or a creature with vigilance.

Don't forget that 1/1's for 1 are really bad in Limited unless you have a plan to utilize them well. You're pretty much always better off with a card that can also handle the mid-late game. Drawing your 1/1on turn 6 is bad.

I'll throw some more wood on the fire for Witch's Eye. I've seen plenty of people mainboard Thassa just for the every-turn Scry 1. We can get the same oomph from a cheap artifact. Also I feel like the Crusader is absolutely one of those cards that we would Scry straight to the bottom of the deck.

But we need more early creatures. The only creatures we have that will consistently come out on turns 1 and 2 are the Snarecasters, since Phalax Leader costs WW and I don't see us consistently getting 2 white sources by the first 2 turns. Crusader can be a nice chump blocker/attacker, and if we use Tritin Tactics on it when it blocks, makes another chump blocker/attacker.

+1Absinth Crusaderman

The crusader really shines with the phalanx leader on the board and a double buff card, effectively creating a 2/2.

The thing is we need all those things coming together, which is a lot harder in a draft than in constructed.

The point that drawing a 1-drop in mid-late game sucks is valid, but I doubt that our deck will have room for the Eye. We will want to be faster than this.

+1 Akroan Crusader

Yeah, I agree that the Crusader will be a terrible late game draw, but early drops in general just tend to be terrible late game draws.

We've been fairly lucky with our 2 drops so far with how they are actually surprisingly relevant later on, but those cards are the exception, not the rule.

I just don't see us realistically running the eye. It's not a bad card, but it just doesn't fit in our deck where we will want to be attacking as much as we can, and it's a card that is pretty much one of the first that you would end up cutting from your deck when it's decision time of what to run. I certainly wouldn't be cutting any combat tricks over the eye.

One other very important thing to note is that we have a very good chance of picking up another Akroan Crusader 2 picks from now. We saw one when we made our second pick, and I don't imagine that anyone else is planning on grabbing that one either (though there are quite a few other cards in there that I would take over it, most of them are white and I don't see them making their way back around to us).

Crusader it is. Sending to Caley.

Pick 2-9 is up. Sorry for being late. Work's gotten crazy this morning.

Eww...

+1 Guardians of Meletis

Sideboard material against heavy aggro that somehow doesn't use Wingsteed Rider, and hating against anyone else drafting this as a sideboard card which may actually be fairly effective at stopping our ground based mid game assault.

Hm. Maybe one of the Destructive Revelries in case we don't get enough artifact/enchantment removal? Although splashing for a fourth color could be tricky if we don't draft enough Unicorns and Unknown Shores.

For us to realistically splash green for a Revelry we would have to remove our blue splash. I can't think of many enchantments or artifacts that would warrant us running hate over SGR.

Either way we can save that discussion for 2 picks from now. It had a Ray AND a Destructive Revelry, and if we only need 1 more hate we might as well wait to see if we can get one in our colors first.

3 picks from now has a ray as well so our odds of picking one up isn't terrible.

Well, Rays can't remove artifacts but the only artifacts that are worth removing and are not enchantments as well are the Guardians and maybe a unicorn (although that can be easily nuked with a Lightning Strike if we get one).

So it might actually be better to pick the Guardians in the first place, but hating on a Destructive revelry gives our Emissaries a better world to live in (although I'd expect not really that much better).