There are a lot of strategies that can center around having the right creature. I have no problem playing Recruiter in those kinds of creature-centric combo/archetype decks. Taking Recruiter early can keep you on the lookout for those kinds of dudes, and can enable powerful decks more easily. I think Recruiter is definitely worth a high pick, even if you don't already have the nut target for it. Similarly to how Stoneforge Mystic is worth an early pick even if you don't already have a bomb target for her. They're not exactly the same quality of card, obviously, but Recruiter can get more important targets for the success of your deck. Grabbing a Fauna Shaman, Goblin Welder, Metalworker, Braids/'Ghast/Crawler/Skeleton, discard-outlet-on-legs, etc can be critical to the operation of the deck. Whereas grabbing a bomb equipment card is simply about snagging a quality card. I'm not saying it's better than Mystic, but I'm saying that Recruiter is a good early pick if you keep your eyes open to building a deck that can focus around powerful utility creatures.
Agree more-or-less, hence our similar (and above average) rankings of Recruiter: you put #16, me #17. It's a good early pick, I just don't think it's top 10 P1P1 material at all, which is what I was contesting - and in all honesty a pack would have to be pretty barren for me to consider a P1P1 from my #12-#15 spots and downwards from my red votes. All my blue/white top 20, artifact top 20, and a good many of my green, black, land and gold top 20, would all be picked before those, leaving them in somewhere between #80-#120 P1P1, at best, in the cube. The chances of a pack that shallow are <1% I expect, I can do the calculation when I get home later today. In practice, since we Winston draft, it goes quite rapidly from the stack thanks to being splashable and plenty versatile.
In all honesty, picking any card that's not in a top 10 group as my P1P1 regardless of color is pretty shallow. I mean, it's hard to create a random pack that doesn't have at least one top-tier card in it.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!