My vote is us taking aetherling, taking serious note of debt to the deathless. That card is almost certain to hit us hard at some point.

Aetherling fo sho. I would have responded earlier, but I just got off work... this won't usually be the case however.

But now that I look at the pack, its gonna be sad to watch Unflinching Courage and Debt to the Deathless go. I even like Deputy of Acquittals (Bounce your Trostani's Summoner... good times. I only keep mentioning Bant tokens because I had an amazing draft sim with it once. It could still be done too...)

Aetherling is fantastic. Also note that most of the other good cards have white.

So this is already getting too big to load properly -- I think probably after each pick I will record the comments to the google doc and then clear them out of the deck.

This was a strong pack. looks like something bant-y will probably wheel.

I just realized, we have 4 uncommons. We got a foil then?

+1 Aetherling. If it hits the table and you've got mana left over, it's game over. He definitely gets my vote. The format is slow enough that it is a real possibility we'll make it to turn 6,7.

For picks down the road, that death to the debtless looks really good. Armored Wolf-Rider has been a great card for me in the past. Easy to cast, nearly impossible to kill.

As awesome as having Debt to the Deathless come around would be, I can almost guarantee it won't. I mean, that card is a bomb in this format, so it will probably be picked next. If color actually matters to the other teams when it comes to bombs, someone along the line will be running some white or some black and snap it up. Or, teams could change direction after their first pick to use it. The cards I'm looking to come around that we could use are the Deputy and Haazda Snare Squad. The Wolf-Rider probably will too, being a vanilla creature. The big butt on it is pretty good, so I'd be Ok with it, so long as we end up with those colors. But as far as backup draft strategies go, Azorius is pretty nice. While its hard to remove creatures, we could just stop their creatures from doing much with detain and such. Someone suggested Runner's Bane, and I would agree, that could do work.

I don't know that DttD really is a bomb. It's good, but it's also really slow, and if we're behind on board, it will buy us a turn or two, but not much more, if we can't get the kill off of it. I agree with everything else Unforgivn_II says -- let's look for deputy or wolf-rider to table. And remember that even with a card like aetherling, we aren't all in on our first pick. Let's see what else shows up, though we probably will want to give some extra weight to cutting blue.

Yeah, I suppose its more of a finisher than a bomb (since it doesn't stay on the field). But again, if you've hit your drops for 9 turns, you can hit for 10, which should be game by that point. Just remember that a few of Caleys games in the last DDD ended with a big DttD. And there will probably be more out there, with 3 DGM packs.

I can't think of non rare removal that kills wolfrider sans putrefy.

But really, debt and courage are probably the next things that are going to be taken. A lot of the white cards are playable here. In theory, the people on our right are going to get all of those white cards. The pack is otherwise light on red and blue.

You guys DID get a foil, just FYI.

+1 to picking Aetherling.

Fact is that it is a bomb rare, it will win games and we cannot come close to dealing with it unless they tap out turn 6 to play it and we happen to have a removal spell that can nuke through 5 toughness or a counter. Removal is at an absolute premium, which means that Aetherling is even more powerful than it is in non-Limited format.

Yeah, this pack is a no brainer for this pick. He is so hard to kill and in DGM limited that drops to damn near impossible.

I'm hoping one of these will wheel:

Armored Wolf-Rider, Azorius Cluestone, Deputy of Acquittals, Haazda Snare Squad

I'd love for the Unflinching Courage or Death to Debtless to circle round but I think our chances of that are near 0.

Literally nothing kills it but a putrefy when we dont have blue.

I'd like to seethe snare squad cycle.

Should we see a list of the second pack somewhere?

Next pack!

Blast of Genius
Scab-Clan Giant
Toil // Trouble
Azorius Cluestone
Battering Krasis
Golgari Cluestone
Hired Torturer
Maze Abomination
Mending Touch
Nivix Cyclops
Orzhov Guildgate
Pilfered Plans
Rakdos Cluestone
Uncovered Clues

Pretty weak. looks to me like the best cards are blast of genius, scab-clan giant, and nivix cyclops.

My vote at this point is blast of genius. expensive, but works as both removal and finisher.

I like battering krasis personally.

+1 Scab-Clan Giant

I'm a fan of Toil / Trouble. It's got a lot of versatility. Card draw in a pinch. Or a punch in the face if needed. Or both.

I do wish we could link cards here... This makes them more difficult to compare side by side. Maze Abomination is decent and easy to splash.

I feel like Blast of Genius is a bit expensive and not as bomby as I would like for this pick.

Scab-Clan Giant is great in limited. He's removal with a really tough body. Granted, he's not consistent removal. But, I've usually seen him hit the board with on average 2 other creatures across from him. Which gives him good chances of clobbering something good. If we can grab a Species Gorger then he becomes really nasty.

Nivix Cyclops is great. But, I don't feel like he's as strong in limited. Especially in a deck where we'll want a certain minimum of creatures. Those will crowd out the pump effects that make him so very good.

My personal list in order of preference:

Scab-Clan GiantToil // TroubleMaze AbominationNivix CyclopsBlast of Genius

What are you guys thinking?

I'm thinking the giant over blast. Blast is an okay finisher but it's not hugely reliable for removal. Giant will leave a hard-to-kill body behind and can be reused as apt mentioned.

I like blast over giant, but not by much. it does share a color with aetherling, which is not that important but still helpful.

The giant is still pretty good. As far as I can remember, there is no bounce other than species gorger, but good nonetheless. dgm creatures seen to have trouble dealing with 4 power.

I guess the Giant is pretty good. I don't like that we're already into 3 colors, but red opens up Punish the Enemy to us, which is also (expensive) removal. I like the Krasis a lot though, and I doubt it will make it back around. But its a common so we should see many of them in 3 packs.

So to be clear, Scab-Clan Giant, +1

And we're gonna need to get that CMC down...

Well, we aren't committing to anything at this point. We're just grabbing Good Stuff (tm) so that we have options down the road.

We may not go U or G/R. It all depends on what we see and what we solidify on as we see and grab stuff. It's way too early to say we're one color or another yet.