I should include my vote....

+1 Deathabsinth Mander

Yeah, the Hoplite would have been nice in another deck especially since we've now had the chance to grab 2.

Not even remotely worth the red we would have to sacrifice to run them though.

It would have been nice if we ran across the R/W uncommons, but that's just how the cards have fallen (also might imply that there is another R/W drafter at the table though he would have to be fairly far away given the stuff we've been getting).

Yeah, Creature is definitely the right choice.

I just noticed that the Dragon's Mantle in pack 2 has a pretty decent chance of making it back to us since the Minotaur should be the first pick by any other red players (though if they pick the Mantle over the Minotaur I won't complain if he makes it back to us lol).

Only reason that won't make it to us is if someone either hates it (which I'd be surprised since there are plenty of better cards) or there's a 3rd red player at the table which...honestly I don't see, but would be a huge red flag if there is.

Dragon Mantle is actually a decent cantrip heroic trigger. And it's a good mana sink for later. I hope it makes its way back to us.

It's probably one of the few cantripping enchantments in the set that I would gladly maindeck.

It does a pretty good job of making an early drop fairly relevant later on.

Akroan Crusader goes from a 1/1 to scary as shit.

My issue with Deathbellow Raider is that its absolutely worthless anytime after turn 2. A 2/3 that is forced to attack is going to be a dead card after turn 3 when he'll be forced to suicide.

Battlewise Valor interacts well with creatures we already have, gives us necessary Heroic enablers, and is a much better topdeck on turn 5.

It's also worth noting that we already have 3 2-drops. Unless your deck is absolutely geared to win turn 4 or 5, you're almost always better off taking a potential hit to your curve to play more powerful cards in the mid-to-late game.

Valid point, though I still think that picking up a dude is better for us now.

+1 Deathbellow Raider

Such is the nature of 2 drops in general though.

I mean sure, on turn 8, drawing into an Akroan Crusader is slightly more relevant then drawing into the Minotaur since the Crusader can at least chump block (the minotaur can chump too the turn he is played), but let's be honest neither card is exactly an answer.

Not everything can be awesome like our Leonins. In general low drops are irrelevant later on. That's just a necessary evil. This one just happens to be slightly more so while also being a ton more relevant earlier on (stops a bear in his tracks the turn you drop him).

In general, I would agree that the curve can be less important over running powerful cards, but we've actually constructed a fairly synergistic tempo deck. If we curve out properly any slower deck isn't going to stand a chance. We need to curve out properly into our 4 drops against faster decks otherwise we won't stand a chance.

Abusing tempo is how this deck is going to win, and missing an early drop will significantly hurt our chances.

Another valid point made. Seriously guys I'm going to go ahead and say this has been a wonderful experience. So much good and interesting reasoning has been made that I have to re-read every single comment to every single pick. I've learned quite a deal throughout this draft.

Can I consider the Minotaur the pick?

Yes, let's take it. It may get worse as the game goes on, but the pressure it provides early game is very valuable. Best case scenario, it deals some damage and the opponent either wastes removal on it or blocks with a creature that the Minotaur trades with. Worst case scenario, it is forced to block the turn it comes out and dies or it gets hit with a Last Breath as soon as it hits the board.

+1 Deathbellow Raider

Ok, I think the pick is obvious from the comments. Sending the minotaur to Caley.

Pick 3-5 is up. I think we pick the Minotaur for the curve. Also, notice the Emissary still in this pack.

DEFINITELY the Minotaur.

It can very easily amount to a 3cmc direct damage burn spell for 4 that leaves a bear on the field when you are done since not many opponents are expecting a 4/2 with haste to just suddenly pop out at them.

I have to vote for Absinthaur Skullman. I see nothing else worthy of inclusion nor is nothing worth hating over the aforementioned card.

The Battle Priest is weak. It has, in my opinion, the worst of the heroic abilities, and has very low power.

Spark Jolt is unappealing to our deck.

Also, even if we draw into this late game, it'll still be a 4 power attacker that will (usually) force a chump, trade or 4 damage. If it makes it through that combat, we'll have a chump blocker to top it all off.

minoman!

Looks like we're back to becoming the Minotaur guy.

+1 Minotaur

+1 Minosinthe Abcleaver

Never been disappointed with this guy.

I really hope Absinthman will call every card by some combination of the real card name and "Absinthman" when it's time to play the matches.

Sorry, but I don't think I will. It would get annoying to viewers pretty soon and I would waste valuable time on trying to come up with some creative names, where the main focus should have been on the situation at hand.

/endhumour :p

I realize that would be

a) Annoying

b) Taxing you unnecessarily mentally.

c) Not very fun after the first 3 "Absinthmantain" (Mountain)s.

Sent to Caley.

Another pack has arrived. I'm quite surprised but white seems kind of choked now. First, we get a pick 5 Heliod's Emissary, and now we get nothing at all? Strange... Nevertheless, there is a card for us in the pack.

+1 Cerberus

I'm not so sure about the cerberus since we don't have any 4 or 5 cost bestows and as a mere 1/2 with double strike he seems pretty meh.

Maybe take the traveller's amulet to fix for the splash and thin out the deck? That thing can fix pretty much any color problems we might run into, although it's a bit slow. But a lot faster than waiting 3 turns on the correct land to arrive.

I have to agree on the traveler's amulet.

The Cerberus is ...unimpressive at best. He flat out loses to the 2/3 3 drops, and only trades with the 3/2s. I mean even 2/2 bears trade with him just fine. The only thing that he can kill with his double strike that he normally couldn't kill are 2/1s. Every other situation without pump or low cost bestow spells he's essentially a 3cmc 2/2 bear which is...well...bad. We have a grand total of 1 pump spell and 0 low cost bestow spells.

We honestly aren't in that much of a crunch for low drops now. At least not to the point that we need to include trash into the mix. We have 5 2-3cmc creatures which are all acceptable to play on turn 3. On the play we have a 31% chance of of getting 2 by turn 3 which isn't a terrible chance (though it would be nice if it were higher. Adding 1 more 2-3 drop will increase that to 40%). On the draw it's actually a 37% chance (adding 1 more 2-3 drop will increase that one to 47% which is more the adequate).

We still have 2 more picks for a chance at low drops and so far it seems that the people to our right aren't exactly hoarding red low drops. It's probably worth the risk to hold off on grabbing an overcosted bear that would be the first card we would cut from our deck for a better pick. I mean worst case scenario, if we need more 3 drops because of an aggressive deck or something, we have 2x Guardians of Meletis in the sideboard.

(Not to mention that the Cerberus is double red and there's already going to be a fairly high chance that we won't have double red by turn 3 yet since we will probably be running close to equal white and red land).

Traveler's Amulet is actually a card that I was hoping we would have a chance to snag. We are already probably running the greediest deck at the table with 2 colors that require dual cost and a 3rd color late game splash (which is about as realistically greedy as you can get and still reliably cast your cards). Traveler's Amulet greatly increases our chances of having the right land when we need it. The only situation where we aren't going to want the amulet is when our hand is can already perfectly curve creatures into the table and we don't have 2 spare mana open across any number of turns which if that happens we probably don't need the amulet because we are smashing our opponent's face in. (That and we don't want it when top decking for answers, but then again, so is land).

It also gives us an additional turn 1 and turn 2 play which are ALWAYS good things (since those are by far the hardest to statistically increase the odds of without loading your deck with worthless cards late game).

Also probably most importantly. By including it in our deck with our 4 islands we could realistically reinclude Trition's Tactics back into our deck. That would mean that we have a 75% chance of having an island in our hand to play by turn 4 (assuming we have the open mana to use the amulet on turns 1-3). What does that mean? That's a 75% chance of having Griptide operational on turn 4, and a 75% chance of being able to use Triton's Tactics during turn 4-5 when it will by far be its most powerful in our deck (I say turn 5 because there's a good chance we won;t have open mana on turn 4 due to a 4 drop, but we will on 5 unless we want to drop a Armored Titan then).

Yeah, Traveler's Amulet > Cerberus lol

+1 Traveler's Amulet

Also, just curious, what are other people thinking our final mana base is going to look like including the Amulet? I'm thinking we should run the Amulet in addition to the 18 lands. Midrange decks in general tend to RELY on landing that 4th land drop on turn 4, and I'm not sure dropping lower then 18 is a good idea (remember, the Amulet when activated REMOVES a land from our deck. It's different than actually being an additional extra land). Amulet + 18 lands is probably closer to 18.5 lands in the deck then 19.

Besides, while we are a midrange deck, it's not like we lack late game plays. We have 4 cards that have 7-8 mana abilities that are all fairly devastating, and statistically we'll likely have one available to use by the time we hit that mana unless the only 4 drops we got were the Emissaris or something.