first strike damage resolves as a separate phase than normal damage, which you can see in MTGO quite clearly.

I can test it in mtgo to be sure, but my expectation is the normal damage cyclopi will be able to trigger.

I was actually theorycrafting the single Weapon Surge vs overloaded option in my mind at work today (kind of a dull day) and yes, it's really cool to pop cipher on the first strike especially if (and likely when) we have multiple cyclopi, and moreso if the cipher is on a drake etc.

Oh, and Hidden Strings +1!

@Darkness1835 - Agog and TiredTofu are correct, there are actually two damage phases and in between triggered stuff can happen, like ciphering a spell or putting 1/1 counters on things because something died, or P/T changing because there are now a different # of creatures on the board, or whatever. Then the non-FS damage happens. This is a beast of a concept for us and makes me want even more Hidden Strings copies!

Oh duh. First strike. Brain fart to the max.

Makes me want more Weapon Surge lol

Hear hear! More Weapon Surge at all costs. This janky format is actually kind of nice because we can assume with more certainty what we'll be getting in later packs, and plan accordingly.

yes yes more Weapon Surge

Oh! The sanity! I was just playing a game with my brother, he beat me by using Kudoltha Rebirth Then there is an enchantment where even cards can get haste. So use he used Weapon Surge for the win.

What, Ashling's Prerogative ? I like it a lot in casual goblins. It wrecks face in Krenko EDH that nobody lets me play any more.

One Simic Cluestone is foil. My vote is between Runner's Bane and Gruul Cluestone , preferring the Stone by far. I'm not worried about that other blue player getting Runner's Bane at ALL because our creatures will just have that automatically removed when we drop a Sorcery or instant. Also it's an enchantment so it doesnt trigger any of our creatures. We need this green splash our Beetleform Mage and Blood.

Yep, Runner's Bane should be no problem for us and as much as I'd like to take a foil cluestone I think Gruul stone is better for us. We need green and blue more at the same time than we need green and red so that makes simic stone detrimental to us compared to gruul stone.

Im game for the gruul stone

+1 Gruul Cluestone

As much as I loathe the things it's the best option here. We'll have a primarily blue land base and this is the best fixing outside of a Gruul Guildgate we can get.

+1 Gruul Cluestone

I don't mind the cluestones in draft, as the card draw is actually useful some times. Gates are way better, but you have to use an earlier pick to get a gate.

+1 Gruul Cluestone I don't need to explain why.

I'm okay with Gruul Cluestone.

Pretty crappy pack, but I'm glad were finally getting some fixing.

I'm with the cluestone as well. Bane looks less appealing the more Hidden Strings we get, and it doesn't trigger anything. Cluestone opens more options in the dregs of this pack and at the start of the next one. Quick question though, do we want gruul or simic? Both fix for green. I figure we take the simic if we will be including more mountains than islands and we take gruul for the opposite scenario (my reasoning being we want a proxy red or blue source if we have fewer chances of drawing a consistent one; basically if we have a 3 mountain/island hand, we can fix our other main AND our splash with a cluestone).

We have more blue than red at the moment, as I imagine will be the case for the rest of the draft. Blue is far more open, and junk players realize they have competition and are trying to diversify. We've seen this so far, with getting passed Runner's Bane and Hidden Strings in mutiples, and only 1 Weapon Surge or Punish the Enemy . We should pack more islands than mountains at this rate, and have the Gruul Cluestone fix our red/green.

Agree. I was just too lazy to tab out and count at the time.

Yeah, Cluestone it is.

I like Mending Touch in solidly RUG Cyclops builds, but we're just getting so much Izzet stuff that adding a mediocre green card would probably hurt the consistency of the deck due to the color issue, rather than help with the Instant/Sorcery count..

Doesn't that mean that we should take the Simic Cluestone ?

After thinking on it, we're more likely to see blue mana than red. If that's the case, wouldn't we want to have all of our red mana available, and not tied up if we need green. In a situation where we want to cast Flesh / Blood , for example. What if our only red source is the cluestone?

If we're in a situation where our only red source is our cluestone, then Simic Cluestone won't do us much good, landgrafb. :P

We're going to be low on red and green mana. We should pick the cluestone that helps make up for that deficiency.

And since I forgot to vote last time:

+1 Gruul Cluestone

Yeah that makes sense for the Cluestone. I was thinking of it as a Guildgate.

Gruul Cluestone it is.