Actually, -1 Beetleform Mage +1 Woodlot Crawler. Hopefully we wheel Fatal Fumes, Saruli Gatekeepers, or Weapon Surge. Since we have a lot of time on this draft we should be able to figure out what colors other people are in when we get our packs back.

I vote Weapon Surge. Extremely underrated, almost as good as Mugging in its worth, IMHO. For just 2 mana, all our creatures get +1 and first strike. Awesome.

I'm going to vote for Beetleform Mage. It makes combat very difficult for your opponent if you have the mana open to activate it.

I'm definitely going to go for the Beetleform Mage over the Woodlot Crawler. Woodlot is great, but it's not nearly as flexible or heavy-hitting as Beetleform.

I was actually on the Weapon Surge bandwagon before I went to bed, seems like a good time. It really is a pretty underrated combat trick. That said, Woodlot is pretty good for a twobie, and we know someone in this pool will wind up running green. (Of course, if it's pretty much just us, it may not do us any good.) Trouble is, we know many people will specifically have no green, and that makes him less useful. I don't mind the Mage, and the ability is good, but I wonder if we want to consign ourselves to a two mana ability every time we want to swing.

Let me know what you all think and I'll be watching from work tonight.

I can understand splashing blue for the Beetleform mage, but it would also force to essentially have that blue mana up every turn if we wanted to use its ability. It's a great card, no doubt, but it gets us into a fourth color.

that being said, it is only our 3rd pick and we might have time to go Blue/Green/Black if enough picks support it. I'm 65% for Weapon Surge and %35 for BFM.

It's definitely a pick that would help point us in a direction - but I feel like even if we take Weapon Surge and don't go red, it's still a good pick. Definitely still early though, and I wouldn't say red is a surefire color - it might wind up being the splash to include our Gladiator or something. I'd say at this point we're only definitely in black.

I don't think we need to go four color at all. I say we take the Beetleform Mage and drop red, making a BUG deck. There are some really nice cards in those colors, and I just really don't think Carnage Gladiator is that great. He has a decent body, but he dies to a lot of creatures in the format. At least the Beetleform Mage has some evasion.

Yeah, Beetleform Mage seems good to me.
-Woodlot Crawler +Beetleform Mage

I'm just sad because we didn't get a good red card like Punish the Enemy.

Alright then. If our remaining members don't come in and produce a solid argument for another card in the next few hours, looks like it'll be Beetleform Mage. Definitely not a bad pick, so long as UG are more than splash colors for us.

Alive / Well
Goblin Test Pilot
Unflinching Courage
Armored Wolf-Rider
Azorius Cluestone
Crypt Incursion
Deputy of Acquittals
Golgari Guildgate
Gruul Cluestone
Orzhov Cluestone
Phytoburst
Punish the Enemy

Where did the previous packs go? It's not too important but it's always nice to see what has been open, and when the first pack wheels we can learn a lot.

I think this pack has the first real signals. Looks like someone took a rare, a foil (rare?), and a common. And yet there's still an Unflinching Courage and a Punish the Enemy! So at least one person passed on those in favor of some common. There's also no black, which is worrying...

So do we try for Gruul / Rakdos with Punish the Enemy or hope there's a Selesnya gravy train coming?

I felt I needed to delete the older packs. The way the updates were working you would have to scroll down past every pack to see the first vote for this pack, which would have gotten a bit hairy down towards packs 2 and 3. I do have the pack lists in email, and I'll kinda do like Caley does and put up cards from the packs that we didn't take when they come around.

I was going to wait til more teammates chimed in before commenting, but you can definitely tell several of our opponents are shying far away from Selesnya colors. I don't know if a white splash is out of the question just yet, so it might be worth looking at Unflinching Courage. We've all seen the work it can do in limited.

That said, we'd be foolish to ignore the Golgari Guildgate staring us in the face, if we want to stick to our BUG guns.

Unflinching Courage is the BEST card in the pack, hands down, but in only one of our possible colors.

I vote the Guildgate

I'd go with Punish the enemy or Golgari Guildgate as the most viable at this point.

I agree that we should take the Golgari Guildgate since our best card is putrefy and we want to stay in those colors if possible.

Actually it might be a good idea to go into junk colors since it seems no one is in selesnya colors because no has taken alive/well or unflinching courage. And if we go junk we can still use the putrefy and unflinching courage. So either unflinching courage (because it really powerful) or the guildgate (mana fixing is nice). Also, I think the strongest colors in this block are red, black, and white.

But if i had to chose between unflinching courage or guildgate i would vote unflinching.

I would agree that unflinching courage is a powerful card, but picking that would mean that we can't use either of the two creatures we've picked so far. I would prefer to get the guildgate because it would ensure that we are able to cast the spells we already have.

I understand but i don't think the other picks aren't strong enough to justify staying in those colors if selesnya is open. Both are good picks but i think we should be wary of signs. If everyone else is cool with the guildgate, i'll support the pick. I have no problem with it. I'm just surprised the unflinching courage has made it this far and I just like to be in orzhov colors if its open in gatecrash.

Since we don't have any super bombs yet, we aren't really in any colors yet so we can still pick strong cards. If we had a super bomb which put us in certain colors, then i would understand the guildgate or if the pack was horrible and it was the best card but that's not the case so i say we should consider just continuing to pick good cards. This is just my opinion and my thought process during drafts. I would love hear more of your guys thoughts.

I just don't see us using the Courage at this point. The guildgate, however, would almost definitely be used.

Another thing to remember though, is that this draft is DGM-DGM-DGM. So we won't be seeing any gatecrash.

oh my bad, i thought it was normal dgr draft. Then yeah guildgate would be the best. Ill just be quiet now i feel silly. sorry. haha

I could imagine a number of our other teams looking at Unflinching Courage and deciding that they don't want to take the same risks with an aura that Caley's DDD group did, and passed it along. Or just hate auras in general.

At our seat, it's a beaut of a card, but not really in our colors, per se. I think my official vote, should we need a tiebreaker, is the Guildgate. But it looks like we already have three/four for the gate as is, so it will likely be our pick.

Another thought is that, in this format, we may want to spend pack 1 getting the best possible cards regardless of color, and in pack 2, choose colors based off what we have plus whatever the best card is in that first pick. Might be late for that now, as we are definitely heading down at least the Golgari highway, if not taking a very BUG route.

Here's the next picks:
Scab-Clan Giant
Azorius Cluestone
Battering Krasis
Golgari Cluestone
Hired Torturer
Mending Touch
Nivix Cyclops
Orzhov Guildgate
Pilfered Plans
Rakdos Cluestone
Uncovered Clues