MTG Salvation

I'm for this! Great idea.

Pretty easy skull clamp for me. There are other great cards, like Treachery or Sulfuric Vortex, but I think Skullclamp is as strong if not potentially stronger, along with going in way more decks. Without skullclamp it's a coin flip between the previous two, with Vortex being the choice if I just want to win and Treachery being the choice if I want to win + have fun too lol.

Vortex, Treachery, Pyro/Clamp

I'd take the Skullclamp here. Treachery and Vortex are fine choices but they both seat you into a color, while the Clamp lets you stay flexible. The pack's got four one-toughness creatures in it, so odds are pretty good that one or more of them will wheel... if the Pyromancer makes it back you've got a token-making engine, if the Legionnaire makes it back you've got a two-drop for any colors you're in. Sage is really unlikely to go in the first eight of this pack and provides even better value if you can Clamp it after its done its job.

Skull-clamp.

Oh, I agree that the Pyromancer wheeling is highly unlikely. But we all know strange things happen in cube drafts. Maybe the next four picks are the Vortex, the Treachery, the Swords, the fetchland... then you get someone who's not in red and grabs the Porcelain Legionnaire rather than open a new color... then you get someone who IS in red, but is building around Sneak Attack and Through the Breach, so he takes Mystical Tutor... then you get someone heavy enough in white or black to justify Flickerwisp or Drana... suddenly you pick up the pack and see the Pyromancer and think, okay, I guess that happened.

Perhaps it's just my playgroup, but often I see solid red aggro cards last until the final picks. Back when I had Canal Dredger in my cube, the person who took it pack 1 would almost always wind up with a pile of cheap aggro creatures (and unloved gold cards) as their spoils, usually things like Hellspark Elemental and Firedrinker Satyr.

Strip Mine, Sneak Attack and Braids.

Sword of Body and Mind for me. Its protections aren't as great as the other Swords, but it only needs to connect a couple times to win the game by itself. I'd proceed by prioritizing evasive creatures and token makers to carry it.

Sensei's Divining Top is probably my second choice. I know it's going in whatever deck I build, rather than committing myself early to building around something like Braids or Sneak Attack. You can make the same argument for Strip Mine, but the Top is going to have an impact all game long, while Strip Mine's going to get used once unless I can find one of the small number of ways to reliably get it back.

Strip Mine, picking a powerful card and staying open with my colors. Maybe I go into Rakdos,Boros, or Golgari aggro, or some sort of Golgari or Jund stax deck.

probably grab sneak attack here.

Strip Mine and hope to wheel Braids. I love playing that kind of deck, be it BW or BR for tokens and general aggro, or BG for land recursion and the grinder stax decks.

It's definitely between Strip Mine, Sneak Attack or the Signet depending on what I was wanting to play. My group likes to play fair decks, so a good chance at wheeling Braids would be a huge incentive to stick with Mine and hope to pick up Crucible/Ramunap later.

P1P1 from my low power list!

Tough one. I'd be tempted by the Sylvan Library, because its card filtering gives any deck with it a lot of reliability. But I'd probably take the Flametongue Kavu. Landing it provides a ton of value and if I can find a way to reuse it, I'm going to feel pretty confident in my deck.

Can't argue against Swords to Plowshares either, since it's one of the most efficient removal spells ever printed and it's not hard to splash into any deck.

I think library would be my pick but I would also like to grab flame tongue or swords and try to wheel assemble the legion because i love that card.

For me here this pick is between Sylvan Library, FTK, Swords, and Gary. Probably just Library because it's so good.

Quote from steve_man »

I'd take Sylvan Library from that pack. It's not exactly a card I'd think that would be in a "low powered" cube.

I feel like I get that reaction a lot whenever I post P1P1s from this cube. I find that having a few "bombs" so to speak adds to the fun of drafting a "low power" list like this. Not every P1P1 will have a card like Sylvan Library, but it feels good when you open one that does.

Sylvan Library, Earthquake and Swords to Plowshares, I guess.

Thragtusk, signet, mana leak. Pretty weak pack overall.

Weak pack. I'd take Through the Breach and hope that other cheaty cards show up and that Sphinx wheels. Thragtusk and Carnage Tyrant stand out as other good choices.

Cheers,
rant

I kind of want to say Carnage Tyrant. But I don't think I could take that over Thragtusk.