10 responses to “Commander Cube First Pick #1”

1. The cards that stand out to me the most are Phyrexian Arena and Compulsive Research. Compulsive Research is great card draw and is also a nice enabler for graveyard decks, but Phyrexian Arena generates so much card advantage over the course of a game that it’s very hard to pass it up here. Condemn is a nice answer to aggressive generals, but you don’t really want to spend your first picks on reactive cards. Besides, removal is a dime a dozen in cube – we’ll find more later, or maybe even wheel the Condemn. Krosan Tusker is also notable as a nice mini-Cultivate that can be a beater in the late game.

2. Phyrexian Arena in a heartbeat. It’s kind of like Primeval Titan: if I open one, I’m taking it, and resign myself to playing its color. The only other thing that would tempt me in that pack would be Coffers and mayyyybe Compulsive Research.

3. It’s a toss up between Phyrexian Arena, Cabal Coffers and Relic of Progenitus. Arena is probably the best card in the pack by a fairly wide margin, but first picking Coffers is a powerful play because no one else will know where it is, making it a lot easier to pick up Urborg. I would be tempted to pick Relic because graveyard hate is super powerful, and I don’t like playing against it. I like to take artifacts for my first few picks sometimes to keep an open mind in the early picks of the draft.

   • Interesting point about Coffers. You make a good point, but I also think Urborg is probably powerful enough that someone might pick it up even without the Coffers to back it up, or just straight-up hate it so someone doesn’t get the combo piece. Witness me and my automatic pick of [card]Mycosynth Lattice[/card] whether or not I have anything to back it up.

     I don’t pick graveyard hate nearly often enough, and this has screwed me over more times than I’d like to admit. THIS IS A TEACHABLE MOMENT.

     • The relic is pretty fantastic graveyard hate, it’s true, but again, I don’t like to spend my early picks on reactive cards. I’d much rather pick up cards that advance my board state or provide unique and powerful effects I can’t get from anything else. I also like to spend the first two packs aggressively staking out my own color identity instead of staying as open as possible. That’s more of a draft style thing than a hard-and-fast rule, though.

4. i’m changing my vote to DEFIANTLY [card]Cabal Coffers[/card]

5. Without knowing the entire contents of the cube of heart, I’d definitely agree Phyrexian Arena would be the ideal early pick. It’s outlandishly strong, especially in a draft environment where enchantment hate is likely to be even more diluted (people will often underpick those cards).

   Runner up on Cabal Coffers and Relic of Progenitus. As a hatedraft, good anchor for a mono-black control deck, or even potentially a solid land in a B/x deck, I’ll grab it.

   I’d also be tempted to take Thrun because he’s a straight-up baller.

6. […] begins a new series with “Commander Cube First Pick #1″, where a pack from the EDH cube is cracked. What will you take […]

7. I’d pick arena easily. There are a few other decent cards to pick, but taking a card that will improve my game play slowly over time is what I want to work towards.

8. Phyrexian Arena. The card advantage is just too hard to beat.

   I also want to take the Tusker, the FTK, and Cavern Harpy.

   Second pick is FTK and look for a flicker / recursion strategy (such as Deadeye Navigator / Nim Deathmantle).

   Cabal Coffers can be very powerful. Especially if I know there’s good land tutor in the cube, I’d be tempted to first-pick it and just gamble on mono black. But I suspect the odds of drafting a functional mono-black deck are rather slim.