Pack One Pick One

You just sat down for a draft, opened your first pack, and are presented with this:

It's a pretty good pack, but how do you decide what to take?

To me, one card stands clearly above the rest. As a pack 1 pick 1 choice, it's hard to go wrong with booger. It's got a solid stat line, acts as removal, and enables future Bogs you may draft. Booger is one of the strongest cards in all of set 4, so I think this is a snap pick.

Now let's pretend we just got passed this pack again, but without the Booger. Now what would you take?

There are still a few solid options here. Lets take a look at each remaining card.

Slop: A surprisingly strong 1 drop in this format. It works great with 2 mana psybeams and hex’s. It's also got a solid evolution for bofa. It's unlikely you will draft its evolution, slopper, since it's a diamond card.

Goaty: 3 mana 4/4. Its evolution isn't very good either. It is possibly the weakest card in the pack.

Meowgiri and Fungo: Both 2 mana 4/4’s. If you want to play aggro take Meowgiri, if you want to play control take Fungo. I am far from excited to pick these, but your deck does need 2 drops. If you're desperate, it's playable.

Beetl: A casual 4 mana 6/6 with upside. It's not great, I wouldn't rush to pick it but it's fine.

Mudking: Mudking can be a game winner in draft if you can live long enough to get it into play. I wouldn't first pick it, but if my deck already has Glops, the Mudking becomes much better.

Jyotesh: 5 mana 7/7 is okay, where Jyotesh really becomes interesting is if your able to draft some Jyoti’s along with it.

 Vulpyre: Solid removal, it can generate a 2 for 1 pretty effectively, but it's not consistent. It could be a great pick if you're feeling lucky.

Thunderpuss: Fighting for worst pick in the pack with Goaty. It can be good if you have a lightning deck going but that seems hard to pull off completely.

All in all, for this pack I would rank the picks like so:

1) Booger
2) Vulpyre
3) Slop, Jyotesh, Mudking
4) Meowgiri, Fungo, Beetl
5) Goaty, Thunderpuss

Picking the Booger ensures a solid card at all stages of the game.

Picking Vulpire lets you draft removal while staying flexible.

Slop, Jyotesh and Mudking all need support. Slop relies on cards that can buff it, and Mudking prefers to be evolved out of Glop, and Jyotesh gets a lot better than you can reliably keep the board and stay aggressive.

Meowgiri, Fungo, and Beetl are all mediocre curve fillers for the 2/4 mana slot.

Goaty is bad, and thunderpuss requires a very specific type of deck to work.

What would you take?

Article by Szerro