Come on now. Don't throw out made up statistics out there. There's not even remotely a 50/50 chance that we will see another SGR.

There are 60 uncommons in the entire set. In a draft there are 72 uncommons total (barring foils). That means you will on average see 1.2 of each uncommon per draft. No, there's not really any decent statistical chance that we will see another one coming to us. In fact us seeing our second one here is already stretching our luck by a decent margin. In fact on average you will only see 1.98 of each common per draft and we have already seen 2 Akroan Crusaders as well.

You say you feel the need to pick Purphoros because we have no decent answer to him, but do we really need an answer to him? He gets dropped on T4. We should be ideally finishing the game around T7. He'll be annoying, but he's not a bomb that needs to be immediately addressed otherwise we lose. We'll take 6-8 damage from him over the course of a couple turns, sure, but that's not any worse then a Vaporkin.

You are afraid of Purphoros being played against us, yet you are perfectly willing to pass a SGR? That's a card that we have 0 answers for. Our deck is largely being shaped up to be a tempo deck. If our opponent plays SGR against us, we lose. Goodbye wonderful tempo that we managed to build over the first 4 turns.

Here's the thing. When people are saying that we have time to build around him I think people are not taking into consideration what our deck currently looks like.

1-3cmc: 5 creatures (3 white, 2 red)
4-5cmc: 6 creatures (1 white, 5 red)
Total: 11 creatures (4 white, 7 red)

We are already close to where we need to be in terms of creatures as we will probably want 13-15. Maybe 1-2 more 4-5 drop, and 2-3 more 1-3 drops.

Now what did you notice in that list above that's VERY important about running Purphoros. We only have 2 red creatures with a cmc of less then 4. Frankly put that should be telling you that we have no realistic chance of ever curving him into being a creature. All our red is 4 or higher. At best, atm, we are looking at him becoming a creature on turn 6 when we drop a second 4cmc drop 2 turns after we have dropped our 4th land (turn 5 is possible with borderland minotaur, but getting BOTH of our red low drops and our only single minotaur is a bit pipe dreamy).

Here's one other VERY important fact about running Purphoros. If we run him and build around him we will not likely be able to run Phalanx Leader. We currently do not have enough pump spells to effectively use Phalanx Leader and was hoping that we could use pack 3 to dedicate some time to drafting some. If we grab Purphoros, and have to draft the rest of pack 3 around him (focusing on weak drops). We will have to cut Phalanx leader.

So here is an important question to the people who want Purphoros.

Is he really worth cutting a Phalanx Leader and passing a Sea God's Revenge for?

Is it really worth drafting Purphoros and changing our deck's strategy last minute over a semi-bomb that is the perfect compliment to our deck's current strategy?

I know he's Mythic and pretty and all, but unless we can reliably turn him into a creature he's in no way shape or form better then SGR especially when we are talking about drastic last minute deck changes to incorporate him into a final deck that will be imo weaker then the current deck strategy (seriously, red low drops in general are terrible).

I am voting for

+Absinthman's Revenge.

If no other arguments pop up I'll probably vote for SGR (if that wasn't obvious).

I'll hold off my vote for now though in case something pops up if I am away.

I must say that Supersun convinced me.

+1 Sea God's Revenge

Would that mean we'd splash 4 blue cards? Or would we remove Griptide or Triton Tactics?

I think that would depend on how many R/W playables we end up with in the end. However, I also think that splashing more than three cards would break our mana base too much, and whether we remove Griptide or Tactics will partially depend on how many creatures we will have. Tactics get better with lots of heroic triggers which we lack, so right now, I'd say that Tactics are the candidate for ditching. This can change however, if we get another Phalanx Leader or, gods please grant me this humble wish, a Fabled Hero.

I would be comfortable with removing TT over SGR in case of no better R/W playables with Heroic or Griptide in case we do pick up on good Heroic creatures.

Either way, Supersun has made great points, and I'm on like Donkey Kong!

Yeah, TT is removable from our deck if necessary.

It loses a lot of its effectiveness when we can only realistically use it on turn 6 or later.

It's a good card, but it's also probably too defensive of a card for how aggressive our deck is shaping up to be. The guys we want to tap with the card are the ones that aren't going to be attacking and can't be tapped with it in the first place.

It'll have some sideboard application though. For example if we come across our worst nightmare, 100 Hand Giant. It's a good answer to get around that sob since with his vigilance he'll be swinging into us every turn and we can use TT to tap him and alpha strike around him for game.

+1 SGR

Current votes:

+3 SGR
+2 Purphoros

Time is running short. Those who haven't done so, please cast your votes. I'll try and get up early in the morning to send the pick to Caley.

I'm sending the pick to Caley in 10 minutes. Last chance to say something.

All right, time's up. We're taking SGR.

There's an update from Caley: Two groups haven't submitted their picks yet. We've been given an additional extra day. Although I've already sent our pick to Caley, I suppose he won't consider it final until tomorrow. Those who have something to say, please use this extra day to share your thoughts and cast the remainig votes.

Could use this time to briefly discuss what colors the people to our right could have been with pack 2 finally over.

We know that they likely weren't blue with that pick 6 griptide and that they weren't likely heavy red with all the cyclops we got.

The person to our immediate left also isn't Mono Black since Gary is pretty much the highest thing on your pick order. Seeing a pick 7 Pharika's Cure only solidifies that no one is likely playing heavy black (unless someone moved into it seeing that).

Anyone else see anything else that would send a signal? Hard to get more since by the time our first pack got to us it was at the point that people could have been easily hate drafting since there was nothing left in there that was really main boardable unless you were G/R.

Has anybody heard from VRonin, bhrusson0 and Riceeman? They have been offline for two weeks.

I think that trying to read signals in this draft has been less than helpful. We've made plenty of assumptions so far that have all come back to us with a giant "Whuaaaat?" when the pack comes back with a good card still in it.

I think we need to take a step back and just take good cards as they come to us. A great card now is worth more than potentially good cards in the future.

It's not that reading signals is a bad thing, it's just that we haven't been getting very clear signals in this draft. We should be putting a little less stock in what we think is going on.

The details of the signals like who is running what have been...odd at best, but there have certainly been some relevant signals, ones we've acted on and has frankly paid out big, naimly get into red.

We read that signal early in pack 1 that red was open, we moved in, and so far it's been absolutely the correct choice. We have been getting some absurd picks for how late they were. Borderland Minotaur pick 7 and Ill-Tempers on picks 4-5. Borderland should have been picked up WAY before 7, and Ill-Tempers on 4-5 are a definitely later then they should go.

Trying to read signals in pack 2 right now is more of an exercise than anything since from here on out we are only passing cards in that direction.

So far though the draft has been going more or less how we expected. With how choked blue got in pack one our prediction was correct that blue was going to come to us in fairly copious amounts in pack 2 with even a pick 6 Griptide making it our way.

After seeing pack 1 and given what we've passed in pack 2 we can also make another fairly safe assumption that the blue will dry up from our packs fairly fast from here on out. This is why, even if the card was good, that I took blue cards at a lower priority than good cards in other colors.

I mean how many times have you ever fallen for that trap? You see that a color is choked in pack 1, you see great cards of that color coming to you in pack 2, then in pack 3 that color get completely choked again. I've fallen for that way more then I should (and probably will continue to fall for). This is very likely what is going to happen again with blue and pack 3.

In regards to other colors, I can't say much besides that we may not see red as open as it was in pack 1 with our pick 7 Minotaur since it seems someone else at the table may have moved into red in some form.

From here on out though reading signals isn't going to do a whole lot of good for the actual draft. We know our colors and right now we need to focus on filling the holes in our deck. Honestly, we are probably the closest to having a complete deck at the table so far as we have done an excellent job keeping focus and not forgetting about our curves with the only real thing lacking is more creature pump spells and spells that target our own creatures for the few heroics we picked up (even then we aren't going to have a ton of room for them anyway. I'm hoping for some Titan's Strengths personally since pump + scry in this deck is silly).

I mainly just wanted to discuss signaling at this point for educational purposes and so that when that question comes at the end of the draft we have a respectable answer.

"You see that a color is choked in pack 1, you see great cards of that color coming to you in pack 2, then in pack 3 that color get completely choked again." - Oh my god, so true...

Well, I think that we've done a good job reading signals too (to the extent to which they were readable). In addition to red, I actually believe that we also have a chance to see some good white cards, unless someone moved into white during pack 2 (remember pack 1, pick 5 Heliod's Emissary). Looking at our deck, I must agree with Supersun that it looks quite good. I'm missing a few more lower drops (or Lightning Strikes / Magma Jets). And I hope we get passed some Wingsteed Riders. Our deck's biggest weekness is zero defense against fliers, which means that in flier-heavy matchups, our only defense will be good offense.

Our deck's biggest weekness is zero defense against fliers, which means that in flier-heavy matchups, our only defense will be good offense.

That's not even a good defense. My playgroup just started a Theros draft, and I faced my brother. He had 2 Benthic Giants, one of which was equipped to a Prowler's Helm, so he was swinging every turn, but I won because he just couldn't handle my Horizon Scholar (which ironically I stole from him with Psychic Intrusion, lol).

What I meant to say was that our only defense against fliers is to be faster and more damaging than they are.

Well, we also have Leonin Snarecaster and Portent of Betrayal to slow them down I guess.

Neither of those cards slows our opponents down. They allow us to do exactly what I said: attack better.

Pick 3-2 is up.

Thoughtseize is still here... wut.

In our colors: Spellkite Chimera, Stoneshock Giant, Annul, Dragon Breath, Borderland Minotaur, and Yoked Ox.

Geez, aren't the people to our right supposed to be at least partially black? Passing up a perfectly good Thoughtseize. Seems odd to me. What'd they pick, another Merchant? One of the only common picks I could see over Thoughtseize if at least partially black.

I think Minotaur and Stoneshock are in our interests. Maybe Spellkite Chimera can make its way back around for protection against pesky fliers.

Spellkite... Stupid brain. It's Spellheart, get it right.

People to our immediate right are not black. There's no way we would have gotten those Fellhide Minotaurs and Blood-Toll Harpy if they were. Black in general is probably one of the least drafted colors at the table.

For me it's between Armored Titan and Dragon Mantle.

We need heroic triggers, but I'm not sure a trigger that is essentially a cantrip is the best option. We aren't a heroic deck. We just happen to have a really good heroic monster (Phalanx Leader). We need more cards that can trigger heroic, but we also need those cards to not be terrible outside of having a heroic creature. We need cards like pump spells that not only can trigger heroic, but can also be useful even if we don't have our Phalanx Leader in our hand.

Because of that I'm leaning towards the Armored Titan. 5/4 for 5 is amazing and having a 8 mana ability that wins the game is also amazing. We also already have a ton of 4 drops and at most can only fit one more in so we can be a bit more patient with that.

With the addition of the Armored Titan we should be pretty good for 5+ CMC cards. I don't think we will want more than 4 of them (the fact that all 4 of them can essentially end the game is pretty stupid).