While we are waiting for the update... is a pick 10 Forge Devil a signal red is open?

Pack 1:

Hornet Queen
Ancient Silverback
Netcaster Spider
Siege Wurm
Reclamation Sage
Phyrexian Revoker
Nissa's Expedition
Shaman of Spring
Necrobite
Hunt the Weak

Next...

Congregate
Shrapnel Blast
Shaman of Spring
Soulmender

Next...

Congregate
Unmake the Graves
Hunter's Ambush

Next...

Hydrosurge
Soulmender

And finally...

Mind Sculpt

Shaman, ambush, soulmender, mind sculpt.

I couldn't decide between hydrosurge and soulmender, so I went with the chump blocker.

edit: typo.

shaman, unmake, mender, sculpt

shaman, ambush, mender, mind sculpt

Why would we want Unmake the Graves over Ambush? We're in line to have a mono-green deck, and the Ambush will often function as a poor man's wrath!

Shaman
Ambush
Mender
Sculpt

Ambush is Fog for everyone else and Plague Wind for us

Shaman
Ambush
Mender
Sculpt

Fog is bad in limited?

You may want to re-read Hunter's Ambush rstnme

Only the damage dealt by NON-green creatures is prevented! Since we've been cutting green so hard, that means two big things; #1 - this WON'T prevent the damage dealt BY our creatures, and #2 - this likely WILL prevent the damage dealt TO our creatures! Now there could be a couple green creatures out there we might face, but we cut so hard that it seems to be a lower risk than it normally would be, but against everything else this is as effective as a Rootborn Defenses, while also incorporating Fog if we need it.

I know the card, I just don't think cards that are only good with numerous other cards aren't actually that good, whereas a card that, as the game goes on, turns into a CHEAP draw spell that will guarantee net us TWO spells is better.

Ambush breaks parity and is otherwise bad. And anyway, we have green creatures already, which should be better than other creatures, so isn't that kind of redundant to break parity?

EDIT: see the caps.

I guess that's the question then, do we expect this card to net us a card, mana, or tempo advantage compared to a draw spell? I'm going to say it'll be better than unmake the graves because it has multiple uses, whereas unmake the graves has just 1 use. Ambush is also useful both early as a cheap combat trick and late-game as a semi-board-wipe OR as a "protect then re-strike", whereas Unmake the Graves can only be used late game once we have a stocked 'yard and time to cast it.

I'm with this. Unmake is not worth splashing for. Hell, it's a pretty late pick if you're IN black (being decidedly worse than good-but-marginally-so cards like Morbid Plunder and Font of Return), so I don't see why we'd wanted when we can get a one-sided combat blowout.

It's not really a splash if it's our second color though? Forcing green is no way to draft.

I prefer cards that work organically with playing spells, not cards that require situations that make them profitable. I know many here judge cards from how they can perform at their best, I look at cards based on their worse performance possibility. Ambush, for me, has too many variables to it to make it good: you need creatures, a situation where your opponent will either attack into you when you have open mana, or one where they will block in order to maintain parity, again while you have open mana. The blowout potential is just as high as the personal timewalk potential. No thanks.

LSV ranks unmake and ambush the same, so I should point out this is a bit of splitting hairs type conversation. I'm fine with either this pick, I just would rather turn my terrible topdecks into mana dorks to draw spells. It's still a 21-23 card.

Well the other 3 picks are fine.
Ambush vs. Unmake is quite interesting though. I think very slimly towards Unmake because there are some good GB graveyard synergies, and we will probably have to pick a 2nd color eventually. I might play Ambush to turn trades into board wipes, but I am sure we can get another one. No one else is taking one, that's for sure.

we're not actually in mono green. we're just keeping our options open. although by that pick we will have 10 playable cards in mono-green. but the cost of adding a second color is so minimal that it's almost certainly worth it. we have bite so I guess we're leaning black already, although I'm ready to jump ship if we open a red bomb or something. so the question is, is Ambush roughly as good as Unmake?

Unmake is a divination for two strong creatures. Unmake for Silverback and Siege Wurm is basically GG. Unmake can pull us back from losing, whereas I think Ambush is only good if we're already at least at parity. I'm gonna say that Unmake is better enough to run the risk that we don't wind up playing it.

I don't see it this way. We keep saying that Ambush is dependent on other cards (it is) but how isn't Unmake? There is no lock that we will have two strong cards worth pulling from our graveyard. They are both dependent on other cards, so that point seems moot to me.

If we are losing, do we really want to spend 5 mana (or tap some creatures, leaving us more vulnerable) to cast a spell next turn? By then, it seems like it will probably be too late.

Our deck looks like it may be pretty slow. If so, Ambush helps us bridge the gap to our bombs against faster decks. Unmake helps us to break ties against decks with similar speed.

I'd rather worry about getting to the point of playing our hornet queen than worry about getting it back next turn.

If we play hornet queen we probably just win? Just saying. And if we unmake the queen after someone removes it, we win more?

It's wrong to say our deck is slow when we're only on pick 15 because we don't have a deck yet. If fifteen was enough for a deck we'd have a two drop, a three drop, and a four drop, what basically amounts to a 5-drop, a 6-drop, and a 7-drop. I call that having a curve? But it's not bc we don't have a deck yet.

You're forgetting too that unmake is more powerful in a creature-based deck because creatures are the crux of our deck. There will ALWAYS be targets for unmake unless we're winning, so we will always get value out of it when we need. Ambush is good if we have only green creatures, and yes we do have a lot of green, but there's no guarantee we'll always only have green creatures on the board too.

Ambush = needs green creatures that are better than or equal to opponent's creatures and an opponent willing to interact with our board when we have open mana, aka parity
Unmake = needs us to play our creatures

I wish we took that first Shrapnel Blast. It seems we could easily get three, and then all we need are some Sables and/or lands to really ruin somebody's day.

Anyway, I vote for the Blast (speculative), Unmake (see above), and then whatever.

Shrapnel blast seems really awkward in limited. I would think you would want 7-8 artifacts. That being said, I am not sure I want to run 2 Shaman of Spring... if we got some green bounce guys however...

10th pick forge devil a signal or no?