Oh yeah. +1 Profit / Loss

Hey guys. I just got home from the sealed pre-release, took 1st with a decent B/U control deck. The set is fun in limited IMO. How did you guys do? I have another to attend at 4 PM and am pretty excited about it.

Arachnarchist, I'm sorry that you felt left out. If it means anything, I think you typically had pretty good logic. It just seemed to me that you were trying to draft a completely different, though just as viable, deck from the rest of us. I hope there are no hard feelings.

As far as our pick goes...

+1 Azorius Guildgate for me.

Sucks we have to pass a torturer if we get the gate... but we have seen tons of them thus far, we need the gate, it's a blue splash, and anyone that wanted a torturer has to have one or 2 by now so I think it's safe to assume that we will be passed more, late 3ed pack anyway.

On a side note, if I am offending anyone with my campaigning for the card of my choice. I'm not intending to be overbearing, but I fear from Arachnarchist's decision, that I might be strong-arming the group a little bit. I can try to lay off a bit if it's a problem. I just love to debate, especially magic, and when I feel strongly about a pick, I'm going to fight for it by nature. I hope no one takes offense.

+1 Azorius Guildgate

I agree this is definitely needed. We're looking at at least a blue splash at this point, and having 4 colors requires good fixing anyway.

One a side note, I'm sorry Arachnarchist decided to leave, as there were at least a few times I was agreeing with him. Now we'll be missing that angle of input.

Your guys' call as to whether to let Arachnarchist leave and join the observer group or not. If the call is to permit departure, then Leafs_suck should remove him from the share list of this deck, and post on my wall that it's done, and I'll add him in.

Yea I've removed him from the deck. I wouldn't want anyone to be forced to stay here who doesn't feel comfortable being in the group. If that's his wish I respect that.

Debate is fine, I think I've pushed pretty hard for what I want too.

As for this, we agree!

+1 Azorius Guildgate

It's unfortunate we have to pass a few of those other things though.

This one is kind of an easy decision, +1 guildgate all the way

Alright Guildgate wins. Next pack in 7hrs 10 mins.

Hey guys, just wanted to let yall know. I'm gonna be gone on a hike until the 20th, good luck on getting all of the nice picks. I'll be back before it's over, but I'm gonna miss a good 6 picks. Glhf!

See ya DeathByDragons

Sorry I was out today, guys. Choice was obvious, anyways.

We should try to turn Arachnarcist's departure into something positive, and re-evaluate our direction. At this point, we're still going to be invested into gatekeepers at least somewhat, but we can try to step back and see how much further we want to go. IAmKingTony brought up good points earlier about the holes in our strategy, so we should take this time to try to fill those.

So, what do we need to prioritize from here on out, and how far into gatekeepers do we want to go? How many more gates and keepers should we try to pick, and at what priority?

We should try to get on the same page, or at least debate and vote on this stuff so people don't feel left out.

Next pack will be late due to Pre-Releasing by Caley.

Will be posted tomorrow.

Fair enough; let's access.

Right now, based on our colors and mana situation, we have 7 playable creatures, 4 of which are gatekeepers, and 5 of which are 4 drops. We have a solid 2 drop and a solid 3 drop.

As far as spells go, we have Debt to the Deathless which is currently our best win con, followed up by Unflinching Courage , which if slapped on any of our current 4 drops, will be pretty decent.

As far as combat tricks/removal goes, we have 3 solid cards that are split to give us a lot of utility. Profit / Loss is pretty much a bomb. If it's used right, it will pretty much be a one sided board wipe, even if it takes out one creature of theirs that they were not going to lose, and leaves one of ours alive in the process that was going to die, it's a +1 in terms of card advantage. Realistically, it will do much more than that. Far / Away is pretty good in that a bounce of something holding an equipment is an auto +1 card advantage, and the away part could take something relevant out. Honestly though, the away will likely grab up something not super useful because of the nature of our deck. Protect / Serve is played right will be pretty powerful, not to the extent the B/W one will be, but powerful nonetheless. Personally, unless we just get offered a Ready / Willing or something, I don't see the need of another combat trick. We have 3 solid ones as is.

In my opinion, we need to either pick up gates, or creatures that are worth taking over them until we hit about 7 or 8 (preferably either gatekeepers, pingy guys like torturer or tithe, fliers, or bears) We currently have 5 gates, which is looking okay. I'd like 10, but 7 or 8 would be decent as well. I still think that gatekeepers are the way to go, we currently have 4 of them, might as well keep grabbing them up and go to value town. The main holes I see are a bunch of fliers, or somthing bomby like an AEtherling that can punch through our wall of bodies, (though if someone has hit an AEtherling , and builds the deck right, I think everyone else is in trouble anyway). Any ideas to combat these things? I'd really like a flier or 3 personally. Maybe a 1 of that counter to bring in from the side just in case someone drafted some bomb that we can't handle otherwise?

Anything I missed?

I think you got it all.

assess* ... wow, I'm tired, 2 pretty much back to back pre-releases will do that I guess.

BTW, for anyone interested, I won the 2ed one as well. I built a U/G control deck this time with my pool. Air Servant is huge in this set, trust me, I rode it to victory both pre-releases.

As well as the new pack, we also have a new memeber of our team guys! Welcome NeoHazard with open arms!

Welcome NeoHazard!

Well, now that we've dipped a bit more into blue, we can grab Opal Lake Gatekeepers ....

We also have Maze Abomination , which trades well in general, and is a big pain to other creatures in general. I recall some of the previous debate on the Maze Sentinel and now we've been passed the better version.

What are you guys thinking?

Looking back for our Gate/Gatekeeper Strategy, if we manage to grab two more green sources, with blue and black mixed in, we'd be in pretty good shape. Like maybe a Golgari Guildgate and Simic Guildgate .

Maze Abomination might just be as good of a bomb as we'll see, compared to everything else we've gotten passed.

Abomination of the Gatekeeper. What does everyone else feel?

I kinda like Pilfered Plans actually, but not quite as much as

+1 Maze Abomination

I think I'm gonna go +1 Maze Abomination as well. We'll need big dudes like this to smash through the clogged board states we'll encounter.

I looked at Pilfered Plans too, but I decided I would probably take the Abomination or the Gatekeepers before it.

Anyway, I'm leaning to the Abomination, myself, as it is more firmly in color and really can crack open a stalled board.

+1 Maze Abomination

maybe we can get a Plans in the next pick or two, it'd actually be pretty solid for us.

I really like the fact that Opal is a gatekeeper, but we don't have enough fixing yet to go 3 color... the rest of the splash that I'd recommend atm is playable without the blue part anyway. Because of that, and because of the past debate, I think I'm

+1 Maze Abomination

The beauty is that if we can land Unflinching on this guy, he will do some work. If you don't know how trample and deathtouch interact, look it up. It's sick together. Having a 6/7 trample/lifelink would be broken. I'm liking our deck in all honesty. I just wish we could plug the holes up.