Regular REL never got lapsing triggers at the beginning of the year in first place. Non-may triggers should still be pointed out by anyone who notices them, players or on lookers. The judge playing should have known that. And besides, FNM is for learning, not rules lawyering.
Looter il-Kor - I think this guy is strong enough for a first pick and I'm not sending any blue with this pick. Ray of Command - Excellent tempo card, and one of blues best cards. Jilt - Personal preference, but I don't like Waterfront Bouncer. Jilt is a fine card that can let me go into red later. Withdraw - Another good tempo card. Counterspell - Between this and Mana Leak, and and this is just better.
P1: Pyrotechnics - This isn't really close for me. Crippling Fatigue is good, but I feel Pyrotechnics is more powerful and it's far more splashable. Over all, I feel it's the most powerful card in the pack.
P2: Errant Ephemeron - I don't consider Pyrotechnics marrying me to red, so I still feel pretty open. The three best cards in this pack are Errant Ephemeron, Seraph of Dawn, and Sentinel Spider. For me, this pick comes down to personal preference and the fact that I didn't really pass any good blue from pack 1.
P3: Izzet Boilerworks - Calcite Snapper is appealing, but by no means necessary, and mana fixing lands are quite rare in common cube drafts, so I'm happy to pick the one that's in my apparent colors.
P4: Flood - Fire Ambush and Rift Bolt both got my attention, but then I saw Flood and it's just not close. I'm concerned that blue may be getting cut, but if it is, why on earth did someone pass Flood in the first place?
P5: Magma Burst - I really want Shoreline Ranger, but I feel I can probably table that, and Magma Burst is solid removal.
So yeah, UR control it looks like for me. Cards I'm looking to table:
I can't understand why people are actually thinking about cutting bounce lands. Not only do I rank them just under the Gates for mana fixing, but I think it's a terrible idea to be cutting mana fixing lands when we have so few at our disposal. My rankings for mana fixing are as follows:
If I end up cutting any mana fixing at all, it will be signets, because those take up an actual card slot vs. a land slot, and that's really important, imo. I've found that it's hard enough as is to make cuts when drafting my cube vs. more powerful cubes because more picks are spent on nonland cards since there are so few nonbasics in the cube.
My favorite deck to draft out of my cube as of late has been Grixis Control. Artifact acceleration, 2-3 draw spells, 5-6 removal spells, an X spell and some finishers and support cards and it comes together nicely.
Someone usually drafts Bant midrange, someone else tends to draft Jund midrange, and Boros aggro is pretty common as well, among a myriad of other decks that are less frequent.
I'm going to be cutting cards from the colored (and possibly multicolored) sections of my cube to make room for the gates. I find that I don't have as many nonbasics as I would like and therefore making cuts in a draft are very difficult. I've been waiting for more common mana fixing for a while now.
As of right now, the only cards I'm excited about are the Gates and Grim Roustabout. Maybe Eye in the Sky to replace Captain's Call in my cube. But nothing else jumps out yet.
Also I don't think that they can do monocolour gates both because of the flavour and the math about the whole 25 "basic lands" thing - 5 of which turned out to be gates. (There's a thread about this in the rumour mill, I don't know that much about it personally).
Five of the basic lands are gates? I don't see that anywhere, not even on the official visual spoiler.
One weird thing though is that they reprinted one art for each of the land types from the original Ravnica. Haven't figured out why yet.
Yeah, the Gates are super exciting. Also, there are cards that reference gates (a greed creature that can fetch one and a defender that can attack if you control one.) Probably several others.
Bear was never good, and I finally got a foil Delver, so naturally I had to try it out in the cube :D. This means I'll probably have to put Brainstorm back in... I like Chasm Drake and I always wanted it to be good (pair with green and give your fatties flying?) but his ability was almost always irrelevant. So I'm trying out Shoreline Ranger. And in playing Amass, I quickly realized Sift would be better. Then figured Frantic Search would be better than Sift and just put that back in.
I'm figuring by the time you get to five mana (the point where you can no longer cast Edge of Autumn,) you won't need to cast Rampant Growth anyway. So might as well give it some late game functionality.
Ray of Command - Excellent tempo card, and one of blues best cards.
Jilt - Personal preference, but I don't like Waterfront Bouncer. Jilt is a fine card that can let me go into red later.
Withdraw - Another good tempo card.
Counterspell - Between this and Mana Leak, and and this is just better.
Lots of good blue in the first few packs. I like.
P2: Errant Ephemeron - I don't consider Pyrotechnics marrying me to red, so I still feel pretty open. The three best cards in this pack are Errant Ephemeron, Seraph of Dawn, and Sentinel Spider. For me, this pick comes down to personal preference and the fact that I didn't really pass any good blue from pack 1.
P3: Izzet Boilerworks - Calcite Snapper is appealing, but by no means necessary, and mana fixing lands are quite rare in common cube drafts, so I'm happy to pick the one that's in my apparent colors.
P4: Flood - Fire Ambush and Rift Bolt both got my attention, but then I saw Flood and it's just not close. I'm concerned that blue may be getting cut, but if it is, why on earth did someone pass Flood in the first place?
P5: Magma Burst - I really want Shoreline Ranger, but I feel I can probably table that, and Magma Burst is solid removal.
So yeah, UR control it looks like for me. Cards I'm looking to table:
P1: Flame Slash/Mana Leak
P2: Brainstorm/Soratami Cloudskater
P3: Calcite Snapper/Keldon Vandals
P4: Fire Ambush/Rift Bolt
P5: Shoreline Ranger/Miscalculation
1. Gates
2. Bounce Lands
3. Panoramas
4. Borderposts
5. Signets
If I end up cutting any mana fixing at all, it will be signets, because those take up an actual card slot vs. a land slot, and that's really important, imo. I've found that it's hard enough as is to make cuts when drafting my cube vs. more powerful cubes because more picks are spent on nonland cards since there are so few nonbasics in the cube.
Someone usually drafts Bant midrange, someone else tends to draft Jund midrange, and Boros aggro is pretty common as well, among a myriad of other decks that are less frequent.
As of right now, the only cards I'm excited about are the Gates and Grim Roustabout. Maybe Eye in the Sky to replace Captain's Call in my cube. But nothing else jumps out yet.
Five of the basic lands are gates? I don't see that anywhere, not even on the official visual spoiler.
One weird thing though is that they reprinted one art for each of the land types from the original Ravnica. Haven't figured out why yet.
Nope.
Wizard's Official Reprint Policy
In other news, I hope this doesn't mean Karakas is out. As much as I'd like a Wasteland, I'd like a Karakas more.
Chasm Drake => Shoreline Ranger
Amass the Components => Frantic Search
Bear was never good, and I finally got a foil Delver, so naturally I had to try it out in the cube :D. This means I'll probably have to put Brainstorm back in... I like Chasm Drake and I always wanted it to be good (pair with green and give your fatties flying?) but his ability was almost always irrelevant. So I'm trying out Shoreline Ranger. And in playing Amass, I quickly realized Sift would be better. Then figured Frantic Search would be better than Sift and just put that back in.
I'm figuring by the time you get to five mana (the point where you can no longer cast Edge of Autumn,) you won't need to cast Rampant Growth anyway. So might as well give it some late game functionality.