MTG Salvation

Demonlord is definitely the pick. Other cards are pretty solid and I would like to have many cards from this pack, but a 5/4 flier with recursion flat out will win you the game.

Demonlord of Ashmouth. He's huge, evasive, and UNDYING! He's ridiculous if you can make the drawback work.

Both Seraph of Dawn and Emancipation Angel are quite good as well. I wouldn't mind having any of the 3.

Quote from dimir impersonator

Why on God's green earth would anyone play the demon when the opponent has open mana?

It doesn't matter all that much whether they have open mana. If you play this card, you get blown out by something as simple as a Mist Raven on the next turn. By itself, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, of course.

Stern Mentor is pretty good and is the only blue card in this pack, so that's my pick. I can't see myself first picking the Demonlord since even without removals, it is pure card disadvantage. Maybe at a later pick when I have sufficient creatures to overcome its setback, but definitely not P1P1.

As important as sending signals is, if you don't take one of the white cards you are passing on probably the top 3 cards in this pack. That's not something I ever want to do P1P1

I would take the Emancipation Angel with the Seraph being my second choice

Nightshade Peddler seems like another option hoping to wheel the Swine, but I'm not convinced as to the power of that card yet

I chose Havengul Vampire. He doesn't require you to have another creature in play to be good and doesn't force you into a certain color by being hard to cast in multicolor decks. He just sits there and when things die he gets bigger. That's just plain cool because when I play red things tend to die a lot.

There's very little good removal to take down the Demonlord. At best, you blink him and make your opponent sac more creatures. Even so, a 5/4 flying undying for 4 mana is so far above the curve that it's hard not to pick.

It's a very strong pack overall. Demonlord, Peddler, Mentor, and both Angels are all very playable.

Seraph is my pick, it goes so well with the green soulbound creatures and any equipment. Flying + Lifelink is a gamewinning combo.

Quote from Wydogg5305

If you're curving out that well you're probably winning anyways.

That's really an idiotic statement. All those 'this is win-more' or 'then you're winning anyways' comments should stop, it's annoying and doesn't add anything to the discussion.

I picked Demonlord

Seraph of the Dawn or Demonlord of Ashmouth depending of the colors I had avaiable. Both are very strong cards in a draft. But considering it was my first booster, the demon, it can be a very fast kill, even if white is overall a much better color in Avacyn.

Emancipation angel, White is very good in this set... and 3 mana 3/3 is also very good in draft...

Quote from TheLizard

It doesn't matter all that much whether they have open mana. If you play this card, you get blown out by something as simple as a Mist Raven on the next turn. By itself, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, of course.

Then you don't play it until you have a stable board. There's plenty of low CC utility creatures that can be killed to the guy. I'd never play him if I was behind on the board. He's high risk, high reward and, IMO, a true skill challenge. But, unlike Taskmaster Demon, he's worth the risk.

The Demonlord is probably the best pick.
Although I understand people saying 'what if they kill your only creature?'

Well, let's think about that.
The first game you play this, your opponent probably doesn't kill your 'soon to be sacced' creature, because not many decks will leave mana open on their 3rd or 4th turn. And since this is a rare, your opponent would be kind of stupid to keep mana open and a kill spell active 'just for the odd chance that you might have Demonlord'.
So I'm pretty sure the first time you'd be able to do it unhindered.

The second game, your opponent might be prepared for it with a kill spell, at least, if he plays red/black. Since this is game 2, you know his colors, so you know if you need to play around a kill spell or not (and which ones as well). So you might cast this guy one turn later. That's not too bad, since a 5/4 undying flyer still beats almost all other creatures in the format.

A demonlord will rarely be a dead card in your hand. There is not enough removal around in the format to sit on zero creatures (unless you get hit by Terminus, Bonfire etc, which are all rare+ as well).

So the conclusion is that the demonlord is a lot less risky as some would believe. And he can win you the game very fast.
The only thing you really need to watch out for is blue with it's ravens...

Quote from mabberman

demonlord, let's abuse undying shall we?

Angel and white removal spell are my secondary choices.

The draft will be AAA, so no undying sorry.

Demonlord makes you the black player at your end of the table. In some games he will be a house and in others he is going to get hosed by removal.

You can send a clear signal here and get rewarded for it with strong black cards, including potentially wheeling the Grave Exchange while your neighbors fight over white/X decks.

Here is the problem and this pack illustrates it very very well:

You will likely get a much better deck fighting players on both sides of you for white than you will getting the best of black.

I picked Seraph of the Dawn because I want my opponent to take the demonlord and try to cut black.

Quote from Hammer

The draft will be AAA, so no undying sorry.

Undying is in AVR. Heck, the exact card mentioned has Undying.

So if you are winning, the Demonlord helps you win more. If you are losing, the Demonlord can't even chump very well. And if the board is stalled, you are trading one creature for another and since Flying shouldn't really count for much in this set...Angels everywhere...my pick is the Peddler. Making it so that every time you chump, at least you get value? Yes, please.

Quote from Timothy, Mimeslayer

So if you are winning, the Demonlord helps you win more. If you are losing, the Demonlord can't even chump very well. And if the board is stalled, you are trading one creature for another and since Flying shouldn't really count for much in this set...Angels everywhere...my pick is the Peddler. Making it so that every time you chump, at least you get value? Yes, please.

This is flawed reasoning because if you play the demon on curve you are way up in creature quality on the board. There's not a lot of other flyers that will compete on turn 4 in the set and in combat situations they're going to have to double block him to kill him. You're never going to have to "chump" block with him because he flat out kills most things in the format.

I pretty much disagree with everything you said about him...:tongue:

The Demon is NOT a bad card, but in the face of Emancipation Angel, you take the Emancipation Angel. Its one of the better uncommons in the set, and better than most rares. There's a decent amount of enchantment removal in the set, making the Angel better, AND at the same time making the Demon worse. Furthermore, the blink effects in this set make the Angel better AND the Demon worse. Lastly, white is significantly stronger than black in this set, so much so that Im actively avoiding black at all costs.

Emancipation Angel is the pick, and I wouldn't be upset about it at all. I wouldn't even bemoan the loss of the Demon.

Just like the skaabs vs. graveyard in INN/DKA, the demon can't even be played if you don't have a creature in play. Seems to me people are thinking only about the best scenarios (turn 4 with multi dork you don't mind losing.)

Most likely, you'll be top-decking him later in the game, your creatures on the board might be quality enough that sac'ing one will be a real downside. Add to that that later on in the game, there might be multiple big angels in play that can trade with him (forcing you to sac even better guys or lose it). Add bounce, blink, etc. I don't think the demon is as good as some think.

In a late, empty board, the demon is an awful top-deck.

If other Innistrad sets were drafted with AVR, with their multiple token gererators, it would be different, but unfortunately, in limited, the demon will often be bad.

Question: if you sac a creature that was bonded (thus unbonding the bonder) will the demon be able to bond with the newly freed bonder? I'm not sure about the order of events and when the bonding triggers.

Quote from rujasu

Undying is in AVR. Heck, the exact card mentioned has Undying.

You are right, but so am I. There are 5 undying cards in AVR, 2 of which are unplayable, 3 of which are rare and then there is a green guy. So there basically is no undying in the set to take advantage of this guy.

Emancipation Angel is cool, but I really like the Vampire.
He can get huge fast, especially if you jam other red cards like Thatchers Revolt.

I like the Emancipation Angel, that demon is just too conditional for my liking.
You need to have enough creatures in play to really take advantage of him and when you're facing against a deck with some blink in it you're hosed.

Although the vampire is also quite a nice pick. Might even be my first pick since it is likely that a lot of people will go for white thus cutting into your pool.

Quote from Oswalt

I like the Emancipation Angel, that demon is just too conditional for my liking.
You need to have enough creatures in play to really take advantage of him and when you're facing against a deck with some blink in it you're hosed.

Although the vampire is also quite a nice pick. Might even be my first pick since it is likely that a lot of people will go for white thus cutting into your pool.

There are no blink effects that target your opponent's creatures in this set.

Quote from dimir impersonator

Then you don't play it until you have a stable board. There's plenty of low CC utility creatures that can be killed to the guy. I'd never play him if I was behind on the board. He's high risk, high reward and, IMO, a true skill challenge. But, unlike Taskmaster Demon, he's worth the risk.

Doesn't that makes him win-more almost by definition?

He is definitely high risk, but I'm not sure how much of a reward you'll get by playing this guy. Personally, I doubt I would ever first-pick a card that turns all of my opponent's removal spells into 2-for-1's