And just to clarify, I wasn't excited about Test Pilot. Just saying he would be better with haste and indestructable.
July 5, 2013 10:54 p.m.
I've looked at Goblin Test Pilot and am at a loss on what could possibly work with him to make a deck. Boros Reckoner is the only one I can think of with any synergy, but it still basically sucks
July 5, 2013 11:43 p.m.
Darkness1835 says... #5
dcarpntr- no I know, just saying that its awful and there's no surprise it was last pick.
July 6, 2013 12:10 a.m.
actiontech says... #6
I like Maze Behemoth to some extent, and of course the Izzet Guildgate but Fluxcharger is clearly the pick out of what we have here. The others are commons and as mentioned above we may not need to worry about fixing anyway.
+1 Fluxcharger and I don't see how anyone would vote any other way.
July 6, 2013 11:25 a.m.
Fluxcharger is really cool for our deck. On another note I suspect we'll be getting enough instants/sorceries in our colors, but we do indeed need to keep a sharp eye out. Finally, I agree that fixing is becoming less important as we find more powerful R/U, especially considering that double mana costs aren't common in the cards we really want to play.
July 6, 2013 2:10 p.m.
Darkness1835 says... #9
New pack. The question arises: Nivix Cyclops the 4th or Weapon Surge the 2nd?
July 7, 2013 2:52 a.m.
Weapon surge obviously, Nivix we have 3 of. We can easily amp up for cheap with weapon surge.+1 Weapon Surge
July 7, 2013 3:29 a.m.
Darkness1835 says... #11
I'm not sure it's so obvious. Even in a sorcery-based deck, we need creatures, and Nivix Cyclops is the perfect creature, since its what were basing the deck around. We should be getting as many of these as possible, because the cyclops will get his bonus from any instant or sorcery; the first strike from surge is just icing on the cake because more than unlikely it'll turn into combat-based removal. Although what makes this a difficult choice is that Weapon Surge is the optimal kind of instant sorcery because its cheap and gives some added bite.
July 7, 2013 4:03 a.m.
We take the Cyclops here. It's only Pack 2, Pick 2. There is still time to pick up more instants and sorceries, and mana fixing.
July 7, 2013 9 a.m.
actiontech says... #13
Grab the cyclops. If nothing else it keeps our enemies from getting it and trying to play it which would mean they'd be taking other stuff we want as well. Good chance weapon surge comes back around anyway.
July 7, 2013 9:50 a.m.
actiontech says it well. If we leave the cyclops we risk losing other synergizing cards later on because someone else could start building for him. Take him now and random R/U instants and sorceries are more likely to be left for later picks. Nivix Cyclops now and everything else will follow.
July 7, 2013 10:48 a.m.
Agreed - the cyclops is the core to our deck, and creatures are at a premium. Any instant or sorcery can activate him, although Weapon Surge is one of the best ones.
July 7, 2013 11:02 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #16
We take the cyclops for most of the reasons listed above. We are building cyclops.dec, so we need every cyclops we can scoop up. More cyclops means more bang for our buck every time we do cast an instant/sorcery.
Also, the Weapon Surge we already took was like a 9th round pick, so there's a chance it will table.
July 7, 2013 11:55 a.m.
The more enablers, the better. 'Clops is the way to go!
July 7, 2013 11:56 p.m.
Darkness1835 says... #19
I am going to strongly urge that we hate the Debt to the Deathless .
July 8, 2013 3:16 a.m.
Hating one card at this point only makes our deck worse since we might not even face that card.Zhur-Taa Druid is good for our colors since it'll help with the double green if we play the advent and Wind Drake will help with our air dominance.Since we're going the more Izzet way I think air dominance it is.
+1 Wind Drake
July 8, 2013 4:16 a.m.
We have 4 options that I see.
Debt is pure hate, and helps us none. Ideally, we're going to win before they can hit 7-ish mana anyway.
Wind Drake is an okay flyer. Normally, that'd be a huge slam dunk for draft, but we have a strategy already, and multiple Drakes dilute it. Also, it loses to pretty much every other flyer in the format, and there are quite a few in DGM.
The Druid is pretty weak, particularly since we have nothing worth ramping to.
The final option, and my suggestion, is the rather unorthodox Uncovered Clues . It is a very powerful card for us. We have 5 Creatures where Sorceries/Instants matter a lot, and we're just starting pack 2. At this rate, we can expect to hit 8-9 of them on the low end. Clues, particularly in multiples, enable our Cyclopses and will still keep our hand full. We also really need to start forcing Instants/Sorceries, or else we will flop with this strategy. We're at 5 Izzet creatures, and 4 spells that enable them. Splash green, and that gets slightly better, but still... We want Delver style levels of Instants/Sorceries to make this work, and we're way behind the curve.
July 8, 2013 4:37 a.m.
Darkness1835 says... #22
Here's my issue: red and blue are so open, it means more than enough people will be happy to take Debt to the Deathless . I know that if we pass this card, it's almost inevitable that we see it used against us. This is a massive bomb that ends games, if not at that moment, then later due to massive life advantage. We should not be passing anyone their win condition. I'm surprise it got to us on pick 3.
July 8, 2013 5:07 a.m.
There is a strong chance that Uncovered Clues will wheel. It goes to a very specific deck in limited (namely ours) so I don't see anyone else either taking it or hating it especially since there are so many other good cards in this pack. My reason for Wind Drake is that with at least one (maybe more if we're lucky) we want the air dominance. Cyclops is good at keeping the ground but the charger can't attack if there are drakes on the other side of the table. I'd say our ideal situation might be 4 to 6 cyclops and all the flyers we can get. Drakes clutter up the air to deal with or slow down our opponents flyers and nibbling bits and pieces of our opponents life total might be the difference in whether we need to enable the cyclops for two or three attacks.
July 8, 2013 8:03 a.m.
There should be Fluxcharger there at "at least one Fluxcharger (maybe more if we're lucky)"
July 8, 2013 8:04 a.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #25
The only excusable reason to hate draft a card is if there is absolutely nothing playable for your deck. In this pack, that's not the case. To sum it up as quickly as possible, a hate pick only helps us against one of seven opponents, IF they would have drawn it. Picking a playable card helps us against seven out of seven opponents. Never hate draft.
/end rant.
Uncovered clues is a pretty decent card for our deck strategy, but we already have one and it probably doesn't do much the turn we play it. It is also almost guaranteed to table. The rest of this pack is pretty solid, and nobody else is going to want that crappy card.
Zhur-Taa Druid is pretty good as well, but I don't see us needing double green at the moment. And if we don't need double green, then the green mana we used to cast this guy will be plenty. No need to stretch our mana base. Trying to force Advent of the Wurm into our deck at this point will likely make it worse. Advent is a strong card on its own, but not a strong card in our build.
We should, however, start to prioritized U/g or R/g fixing so that we can play Beetleform Mage and Give / Take .
My pick would be Wind Drake . Our deck is fairly aggressive, and an efficient 3-mana flyer fits that theme quite well. We are quite weak in the air at the moment, so the drake will help us on both fronts.
dcarpntr says... #1
On a more serious note, we may get some good information on who is the other Izzet drafter at the table. Someone picked up the Steam Vents and Fluxcharger during Pack 1.
I'd like to think that we can tell just how close we are to the other drafter by how many packs go by before we're getting cut off from any good red and/or blue. I understand that we also get passed some packs that didn't have any good Izzet cards to start, but we should be able to figure that out if the following pack is better for us.
Depending on how close the other Izzet drafter is, we may have to focus on Simic stuff this round and cut some of the Junk players off from playable mono-green cards. I hope it doesn't come to that. I'd like to keep drafting Izzet if possible and only need to splash green.
July 5, 2013 10:52 p.m.