+1 Schrodinger's Heroes (I prefer Schrodinger's Gods, but I still think Heroes is a good)

Just linking some articles if anyone else is interested in reading them.

A Draft Guide for Theros Limited Part 1
A Draft Guide for Theros Limited Part 2

The Ins and Outs of Theros Limited

Theros Limited: Initial Impressions and Strategies

Evaluating the Speed of Theros Limited: Historical Perspectives

Haven't completely read them all yet, but from what I have read there's been some useful information so far.

I'm uncreative with names, so I'll hold back on those :p

So it appears we're basically decided on Schrodinger's Heroes, That's good, because it's awesome.

I also thought of a subtitle for the description. Europe has conquered the American Midwest. Now it eyes another prize: Theros. Just to go along with where we're all from and what we're drafting.

@Supersun: Thanks for the resources you've shared with us. I've found them quite intersting and insighful. I strongly suggest everybody takes a look at them, if they haven't done it yet.

@Everyone: Our team's name has been chosen - Schrödinger's Heroes. Let the uncertainty of our quantum state sow fear into the hearts of our enemies.

Not a particularly exciting pack in my opinion. The rare is very, very situational, not a high pick at all.

As for the uncommons, Chimera requires a very specific deck to really shine, Ordeal of Heliod is not bad but it's one of the weaker Ordeals as I see it (had it been Purphoros or Thassa, I'd have given it much more consideration). Triton Tactics is a nice card in my opinion, though I've heard mixed reports on its actual performance. However, I don't think it is a first pick material. It just doesn't do enough for it to be picked this high.

Commons: Battlewise Valor is slightly above-mediocre trick, Benthic Giant is a super resilient but expensive threat, blood-toll harpy is a good aggro card, but nothing really exciting. Boulderfall requires ramp and we don't want to pick a card that forces us to pick other stuff (unless it has "you win the game" written on it). Nessian Asp is the only card in this pack that I consider to be a first pick material. 4/5 reach for 4G is super solid on its own, and it can become an 8/9 two turns later. I say it's awesome. Shredding Wings is nice sideboard removal but nothing more. Those remaining cards don't stand a chance right now.

Summary: +1 Nessian Asp


P.S.: When voting, please always use this format: +1 Cardname. If you later wish to change your vote, Use -1 Old Cardname, +1 New Cardname. And don't forget, no card linking in the comments. Thanks! :-)

Oh my God guys, a Mountain. No doubt, we have to take it.

So I see four possible choices that I think would be best: Artisan of Forms, Ordeal of Heliod, Triton Tactics, and Benthic Giant.

The Artisan is good, but at the same time kind of narrow. It's a nice 2-drop for what it does, but its ability seems lackluster.

Ordeal of Heliod is nice. 10 life is good. Always.

Tritan Tactics is really awesome. 2 possible heroic targets for U is epic. It would be cool with just the first ability, but the pseudo-vigilance and Frost Breath just adds soooo much value.

Benthic Giant is a nice beater. Solid body with hexproof that can be enchanted. Nice.

I haven't played a Theros draft or gone through all of Supersun's awesome articles, but the versatility of Triton Tactics excites me. Benthic Giant would be my second choice.

+1 Triton Tactics

The problem I see with firstpicking Triton Tactics is that it forces us to capitalize on non-blue heroic creatures because there are only three heroic creatures in blue, and one of them is the rare we have in this pack. The uncommon heroic that draws cards is awesome, but we may never see it, which leaves us only with the common that taps creatures. The main problem, in my opinion, is that the best heroics are white and we will be competing for them with the red-white team which is bound to appear somewhere at this table. I'm not saying that Tactics is a bad card, it's good. I just say its a bit unsafe to pick.

Like you said before, we don't exactly have the greatest first pick pack. This is a pack you want to see second or third, I think.

What I especially like about the Tactics is that it's not just good in Heroic decks. It's just a good defensive blue card. If we run almost zero heroics and let's say we focus on Bestow and enchanting creatures with blue, the Tactics turn our tapped and quite possibly enchanted Benthic Giant into a powerful defender that locks down surviving attackers next turn. For the same cost as an Annul. That's powerful.

Is it the ideal first pick? No. Is Nessian Asp? Probably not (not dissing it, just my thoughts). We really don't have an ideal first pick in this pack. I just think the Tactics will be more useful to us in the long run.

I'm personally only looking at 4 cards that I think are first-pick worthy: Ordeal of Heliod, Battlewise Valor Nessian Asp and Voyaging Satyr. Taking the Ordeal is probably fine and leads us into going down a road towards W/x Heroic, which is fine, but not exciting to me. I will note that it's sacrifice ability may look less powerful then Thassa or Purphoros' Ordeals, but 10 life is huge in a race situation, and the format thrives on races. Battlewise Valor is a fine trick but gets better the more heroic creatures you play, and so taking it here is not too tempting. Of the two green cards, Satyr lends itselves towards a possible ramp deck, which I really like in the format, but Nessian Asp does that whilst also being such a good fit in most green decks. Triton Tactics is fine but I think it's really not on the same power level as the 4/5 reach for 5. I think it looks more exciting on paper then how it actually plays out, and many of the blue decks just don't want at all when they're attacking with Vaporkins. I feel like Asp is not only the strongest power level of card in the pack, but also keeps us the most open moving forward. It's not an amazingly interesting first pick but it's a very mediocre first pack and I'm always excited to play Nessian Asps. Viva la verde.

+1 Nessian Asp

Frankly I like both the Triton Tactics and the Nessian Asp.

Imo pack 1 pick 1 is the most important pick of the entire draft. Instead of rushing your votes out the gate it might be a better idea to slow down and examine what information we can get from this pack first.

First, how do you think this pack is going to play out. I can see the Ordeal of Heliod (white), Battlewise Valor (white), Nessian Asp (green), Voyaging Satyr (green), and Triton Tactics (blue) being the first picks of the pack pretty easily. After that I would assume Benthic Giant and Shredding Winds would be after that.

This means that the people to our left so far from the information this pack is giving us are going to be heading in the white and green direction, ESPECIALLY if we grab triton. Doesn't meant that they will stick with white or green, but I imagine that this pack could easily be strong incentive to at least 1 or 2 players to our left to begin investing in those colors (which would also mean that we could see less of those colors in the second pack and more of the others)

It's also useful to predict what cards are going to table back to us as well to get an idea of what our second pick will be like. 6 cards (excluding the mountain) will come back around to us. So the question is what are people going to think the 6 worst cards of the pack will be? I would guess Yoked Ox (white) and Viper's Kiss (black) are the first 2 that I would be surprised if they didn't make it back around. From there I would assume (somewhat optimistically), Traveling Philosopher (white), Blood-Toll Harpy (black), and Boulderfall (red) would be the next 3 we will see. After that the pick is a little bit harder for what I think the final card of the pack will be, either Artisan of Forms (blue) or Spellheart Chimera (blue/red).

Now I'm not saying that those will be the cards we are going to see. I wouldn't be surprised if someone at the table is looking to force black from a few lucky Merchant pulls and the Harpy gets picked and the Benthic Giant (blue) or the Shredding Winds (green) makes it back to us again.

From this information alone so far, I would say that blue is a better color to start with from this pack so far due to the fact that 1) we are probably going to get another relatively strong blue card to table back around to us by the time this pack reaches us and 2) the Voyaging Satyr is probably going to make someone to our near left consider picking up a green ramp strategy and large green bodies to go along with the Asp will be a bit sparse pack 2 (though we would get to choke him pack 3).

How about we address this question from another angle though. Which card is more easily splash able in case we don't go that color?

Blue imo easily wins it from a color splash ability standpoint. From what I remember of the card pool green isn't really the best splash color while blue probably has the easiest, most powerful splashable cards in the set with Griptide (best removal of the format by far), Nimbus Naiad, Voyage's End, and the near bomb level uncommon Sea God's Revenge.

Green does get Fade into Antiquity (best way to deal with Gods), Feral Invocation, Warriors' Lesson, and Shredding Winds (sideboard in case you really need to deal with flyers) so there are some decent green options.

From a deck type stand point I think Triton Tactics takes it over Nessian Asp as well. Nessian Asp is really only useful in a few types of decks. Decks that ramp into a giant fatty (and frankly if we want that type of deck the Voyaging Satyr would probably be a better pick imo).

Triton Tactics on the other hand is pretty much guaranteed to be a strong addition to nearly any deck. I disagree that it's only useful in a Hero type deck. A Frost Breath and a +3 toughness combat trick to 2 monsters for ONE BLUE MANA is a powerful card. It'll be useful in any deck that, well, can get an island out and has monsters. That's a pretty wide assortment of decks, at least a much wider assortment of decks over the Asp.

I'm going to hold back my vote for now until I get to read more peoples arguments, but so far (if you couldn't tell) I'm leaning towards the Triton and suggest everyone else gives it a second look as well.

It really all depends. The rare and the Chimera seem lackluster and will force us into a specific kind of deck too early. As mentioned earlier, I think our "only real" options are Nessian Asp and Triton Tactics. The Asp is a good blocker and can transform into a game ender. Triton Tactics, while it has great utility won't end a game on it's own, but it will make blocks, attacks and many other situatinos favourable for us. It's a hard choice, but as I think fatties will be available later on, due to the high number of fatties in general. My vote is for:

+1 Triton Tactics

I think you people are underestimating Artisan of Forms ability to be awesome. With a combat trick it basically beats all unbuffed attackers, period. Being able to copy any creature threat the enemy has (except Benthic Giant and a monstrous Fleecemane Lion) or even doubling our own threats is huge and I'm pretty sure that we won't see it rotating.

Triton Tactics is also awesome, but it's a support card while Artisan of Forms is potentially a big threat. I know that Triton Tactics is basically good in every deck and the Artisan forces our picks a bit in a direction, but that direction is really not that hard to fulfil in this format, since (Warning: misinformation ahead!) about 50% of the cards can target something.

Therefore:
+1 Artisan of Forms

Except there's one issue to your statement that Artisan of Forms beats all unbuffed attackers, this is Theros.

Artisan blocks something with Monsterous, she'll probably lose.

Artisan blocks something with Heroic that gives counters that's been triggered a few times, she'll probably lose

Artisan blocks something with some pants, she'll probably lose.

Artisan blocks a normal Hydra, she's going to lose.

I mean does anything else attack in Theros?

That's why I said 'with a combat trick', and unbuffed. I know that this might not happen a lot of times, but it's always a suprise if it does. Also, copying anything with monstrous allows her to become monstrous herself. And it's not like we can't use pants on her, right? There are so many useful things to copy, I would be suprised if she didn't do a hell of a job.

I stand by my choice, whatever you guys may think.

The problem I see with Artisan of Forms is that it requires kind of specific situation. There must be a creature which will make a difference when copied and we must have that combat trick. There aren't any blue buffs aside from Triton Tactics, so again, we would need to rely on buffs from other colors, particularly from green, because other colors don't have that many of them. It is probably going to get picked by someone along the first rotation, but I don't think it's a really high pick. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised if it tabled. Also, Supersun made a very strong point with his #9 post I think. I would avoid Artisan of Forms for those reasons alone.

While she CAN become monstrous, she would still have to activate the ability which means you can't trick her against a monstrous creature to win unless you have a LOT of untapped mana.

I mean I'm just pointing out, her biggest strength is dropping a trick on her and killing anything that attacks, but there are a LOT of situations in Theros where that simply isn't possible due to the main mechanics of Theros giving the monster she wants to copy something she can't immediately copy.

I still think she's a strong card, but Triton's Tactics is just stupidly good.

I still think she has a chance of tabling even with how good she is. It's a very hard card to drafting early before you get your combat tricks, and for heroic decks they will likely want to use their target spells on something a bit more long term (that and W/R being the more popular of the heroic combinations). It's not a card that easily fits into every deck, and I'm hoping other people shy away from it because of that.

Also one other thing to mention. The Asp is a common. There's a good chance we'll see more of him and he's not exactly a card that I'd imagine that we want 20 of unlike those stupid cyclopes >.>

To add to the aformentioned. Making Artisan of Forms monstrous when it copies something is quite hard. Imagine we copy our opponents monstrous creature. As Supersun has said, we'd need loads of mana to do it all in one turn, that's for starters, but we'd also need for that mana to be the exact color the copied creatures needs to activate its monstrosity. We'd have to meet a deck that shares at least one color with us for that to happen (unless we copy our own creature where again, blue has only two of them).

I'm fine with picking the tactics, no questions asked. It's a generally good card and I love myself some blue. Still not changing my vote :P

I understand the point about Nessian Asp being a common but it's a damn good common and ends up picked pretty early. I doubt we will see like 20 of them. As for Triton Tactics, I won't be bummed if we pick that. I recognize its strength, don't get me wrong. In fact there is a certain part of me that wants this card because it goes well with my favorite playstyle.

We still haven't heard from NobodyPicksBulbasaur, VRonin and bhrusson0. I guess they are from our midwestern division. I'm curious what they have to say.

Btw a funny interaction with her, however unlikely (just saying if it comes up at any point): if we use montrous creatures ourselves we can make her monstrous from copying them and then copy the opponent's monstrous creature in response to gain their monstrous effect, even if it's completely off-color. Obviously required at least two things that target her but might be worth it at some point IF we get a copy of her at a later stage.

@RussischerZar: That sounds like a fairy tale. But well, if we did pill this off, I guess Caley would have to invent some kind of DDD's Kraziest Play Award and give it to us. :-D

I would just like to add that two of the most common cards I was when doing various drafts of Theros (one of which I shared with you guys) were Agent of Horizons and Benthic Giants.

Make no mistake, we will find nice and powerful beaters and finishers.

Absinthman says... "There aren't any blue buffs aside from Triton Tactics, so again, we would need to rely on buffs from other colors, particularly from green, because other colors don't have that many of them."

First off, there's one other blue combat trick, Lost in a Labyrinth, but I get your point as that card is pretty bad. Second and more importantly is that white and red imo have more and better combat tricks then green so finding additional combat tricks isn't going to be an issue unless black is our splash or something.

Also, I found an interesting link that I suggest taking a quick glance at.
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/analysis/draft/theros-theros-theros

and specifically this list
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/limited/cards/draft/theros-theros-theros

(be sure to read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page).

(Card Name, Mana Cost, Rarity,# played in a games, win rate playing card)
Nessian Asp 4G C 5362 57.00%
Triton Tactics U U 1877 54.00%
Artisan of Forms 1U R 1130 50.00%