Awww dcarpntr what am I, chopped liver? ;-)

I think what Agog hinted at should be considered as well. If we grab a cyclops here then we won't be as pressured to run Beetleform Mage . We want to be as non-reliant on green as possible.

Knowing that we won't get any core deck pieces in the remaining packs, this is the deck I see us running with the cards we already have:

6 Nivix Cyclops
2 Fluxcharger
2 Wind Drake
1 Maze Glider
1 Maze Rusher
1 Riot Piker , for a total of 13 creatures

5 Hidden Strings
2 Weapon Surge
1 Dragonshift
1 Punish the Enemy
1 Flesh / Blood , for a total of 10 instants and sorceries

total: 23 cards.

Since our curve is so low, I think it would be fair to say we can get away with 16 lands. That leaves us with exactly one slot left in the deck for this pick. Do we want a 14th creature or an 11th instant/sorcery?

I'm still leaning towards creature.

So, in your opinion, we should only be splashing for Blood . Honestly I think that may be alright; it'd make for one hell of a secret weapon. But, because we will have green anyways, we can board in the Beetleform Mage if our creature count seems lackluster, taking us to our coveted 14th creature. All being said, taking Hidden Strings here let's us make that choice and adjust as needed; another cyclops means we'd probably ignore the mage altogether. Flexibility seems better to me.

What's everyone else's thoughts on the mage? I think that with what we have all of our other 3-drop creatures would be preferable almost all of the time.

We could still get another glider to replace the rusher in he next few packs. But what about Gruul cluestone for some fixing for Blood? Or do we count on the 2-3 forests for that? I think we could drop a land for the Gruul cluestone and take out a drake for the Mage. It's very good. We can worry about deck theory later though. My vote stays with the strings. From my count its now 4-3 in favor of strings. I'll wait for draugo and tofu to respond before reporting though, since this pick is so close. Feel free to continue the discussion, although it seems everyone's made up their mind.

I suppose I could be persuaded- does someone have time to play test a few games of cyclops vs hidden strings? I'm working today and can't, but if we can still get strings xonsinently with 5, I'll change my vote.

My vote sticks to Hidden Strings, but what good is the activator without the Activate-ee.

I would say this pack can go either way.

Actually, I'm changing my vote now, because of the glider I pray we get in the next few packs. Flying cyclops won't get blocked in my dont have fliers, making hidden strings less relevant.

4-3 now for the clops

I'm sorry actiontech. I miss counted the total amount of voters in the group.

Ah! That's what I get for being late to the party.

+1 Cyclops

An activator does nothing without the base creature. The more the merrier!

Hey guys

I think it's a good call to go cyclops. It's a tight call, though.

I am considering pure Izzet on critters

But Beetleform Mage is SOOOOO GOOD. Anyways, 6-3 cyclops. Cyclops it is.

Hehe

Hear you on the mage being good

Lets see how it pans out

New pack, yo.

Why does it look like yesterday's pack?

This does look exactly like yesterday's pack >_<

If we somehow lucked into it, Hidden Strings . Otherwise, Wut?

WOT. HOW DOES ONE SIMPLY CHOOSE.

This must be a typo. I'm sure someone in yesterday's comments mentioned this was the last cyclops we'd have a chance to draft, so there can't be one in this pack. Wake up Darkness1835 I think you need to make a correction!

Uh oh. Not sure how this happened; Caley didn't send me a new pack last night and in a drunken stupor I just copy pasted the first pack I saw... Ignore this, I'll figure out what's what.

Correction has been made. Still confused; Caley's email didnt show up in my inbox until do I a search for it. Weird. Anyways, this pack is meh. I say we take the Riot Piker for another 2 drop.

Yeah, Riot Piker but prob for sideboard

I'd say Trait Doctoring You can trait doctor a cluestone to tap for blue and red. Then trait doctor it again if needed. It's a good mana fixing.

I still think piker is terrible. I'd rather see us take Clear a Path and hate draft that out of this pack.

Unfortunately, Trait Doctoring doesn't work like that. It states one color word, and cluestones just have the symbols.