Alright drafters, here we go again!

Initial Reaction

This pack is fairly balanced. We have NO power and a bunch of cards that are fun, extremely playable, and bring a draft in all sorts of different directions.

When I first feasted my eyes on this pack, the cards that stood out most to me were Icy Manipulator, Living Death,  and Greater Gargadon. Now, that is not to say that they are the only cards in this pack worth considering. 

Honorable Mentions

If removal is your thing, then there’s both putrefy and terminate. I, personally, wouldn’t first pick either since they’re both two color spells that may get cut later and become wasted picks. Nevertheless, they are very, very strong and you wouldn’t be in bad shape if they did make your main deck.

Fauna Shaman also caught my eye, but more as a card that would be incredible to wheel. Now, don’t get me wrong, Fauna shaman is awesome. But, I don’t think it is a very strong first pick.  What if the guy to my right is first picking a rofellos? Well, then, I guess I wont be getting any green passed to me. If we do pick fauna shaman here, it is very likely we are going to wheel the krosan tusker. Great. Putrefy on the other hand, probably not. And we also won’t be wheeling the living death which is really what we would be wanting the shaman for anyway, isn’t it? So, shaman is out.

Psychatog is a fine card. It is a card that can be built around and when it is good, it is mean, but, I don’t go out of my way on P1P1 to make a deck that abuses psychatog. That just isn’t the best plan.

Quality First Picks

Temple Garden. There is always consideration for good lands.

Duplicant is definitely a card and deserves a mention as it leaves things pretty open. For those unfamiliar with him, duplicant can get nutty really quickly if you can find a way to abuse him. (Recurring nightmare, crystal shard, etc..) It also helps defend against that living death.

I might take the living death and hope to wheel either the Fauna Shaman, Putrefy, or the Krosan Tusker. Living death is so much fun to build around and even more fun to play. All I’m saying, I’ve seen games where this thing gets snapcasted.

Greater Gargadon, like Living Death, is really awesome when you can build a deck around it. Things like Balance, Armageddon, or board sweepers make Garg sickening. And, like the duplicant, it works well with or against the living death.

All in all, this is not an exciting pack to crack. If I cracked it today, I would take the Icy Manipulator. It is hard to know how dominating this card is until you’ve been beaten by it over and over. It deprives your opponent of resources turn after turn for an easy cost.

My picks

1. Icy manipulator
2. Living Death
3. Greater Gargadon

The rest of these cards are OK. Someone might want to force red or rakdos aggro and that is fine. Then there are some tempo role players that might make good wheel cards as well but remember, this is the first pick of a draft.

Make it count.

What do you take?

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