[M:tG] Draft Tech 5

After last week‘s amazing pack, I’m excited to see what’s in store for this week.

[cardlist title=”Booster 5″] Lay of the Land
Capashen Knight
Essence Scatter
Seismic Stomp
Dawnstrike Paladin
Armored Cancrix
Pillarfield Ox
Deathgaze Cockatrice
Wild Guess
Disperse
Glimpse the Future
Fireshrieker
Doom Blade
Shadowborn Demon
Swamp
[/cardlist]

Oooo a Mythic Rare!

First Pick

Well, this pack certainly favors Black, and I think that, easily, the most powerful card in here is the [card]Doom Blade[/card]. For just two mana, it destroys one of your opponent’s creatures. It’s easily one of the best removal spells in the M14 set. ’nuff said.

Second Pick

[card]Seismic Stomp[/card] is nice, even though it’s only temporary removal. [card]Dawnstrike Paladin[/card] and [card]Deathgaze Cockatrice[/card] are good for reasons mentioned before.

I’d be happy with any of those three, depending on what color I was invested in. I still think the [card]Deathgaze Cockatrice[/card] is more powerful than the [card]Dawnstrike Paladin[/card], if only for the fact that it’ll take out a creature of any size, where as the Paladin is great at blocking, but can only deal with things of toughness 2 or less.

Trickses

[card]Shadowborn Demon[/card] is great at a glance, 5/6 for 5, and it destroys something when it comes out. That’s awesome. However, unless you put it into play with the ability from the [card]Shadowborn Apostle[/card], then it’s going to start killing your own stuff pretty damn quickly. In a constructed format, this is a great card, because you can flood the deck with Apostles, put in a play set of demons, and have at it, but in a draft or sealed environment, the likelihood of pulling all six Apostles is nill. This card just isn’t for this format.

[card]Fireshrieker[/card] is cool, because double strike is cool, but 5 mana to get it to where it’s actually doing something for you? Draft and sealed is way too fast for that. You should be summoning a creature worth five mana at that point, or maybe removing some of your opponents stuff before swinging in. I feel like this is a trap, honestly.

Honorable Mentions

[card]Capashen Knight[/card] is cool because it’s pumpable, and First Strike is cool, but on a 1/1, it feels like its a waste, especially when you have to pay 2 to get the +1/+0.

[card]Wild Guess[/card] and [Glimpse the Future[/card] achieve roughly the same thing, but in wildly flavorful ways. My primary issue with [card]Wild Guess[/card] is that you only have 40 cards in Draft and Sealed, so milling your own deck could be hazardous to your health. I doubt it would be an issue, so this is a great way to sort of search through your hand and get stuff. However, I can’t help but feel that if you’ve constructed your deck right, there won’t be much of anything worth discarding. Unless, I suppose, you were combining Red and Black, and has some fancy necromantic way to bring stuff back from your Graveyard…

Your Thoughts?

What would you pick from here? Do you agree with me about the [card]Doom Blade[/card]?