woah woah woah, even if allies are bad, a 4-mana 3/3 is always more playable than a 1-mana 1/1.

quest for the gravelord is gonna wheel. not that i want it.

i'm sticking with the sell-sword, but I think the torch is a fine pick too.

For what its worth, I remember this format being "draft Landfall and Bears."

I do remember Quest for the Graveborn being a very so-so card, and remember never thinking I had too many Oran-Reif Survivalists.

So, my pick is Oran-Reif Survivalist.

Pack 1:

Vampire Nighthawk
Blazing Torch

Next...

Cosi's Trickster
Quest for Pure Flame
Vampire's Bite
Goblin Bushwhacker
Scythe Tiger
Mire Blight
Highland Berserker
Grim Discovery
Trapfinder's Trick
Journey to Nowhere
Vines of Vastwood
Narrow Escape

Journey to Nowhere is removal.

Quick analysis:

I remember vampire bite being a very annoying card. 3x Zendikar was all about the race, so a card that could deal additional damage while setting your opponent back in the race was very swingy. Worldwake slows the format down some, but it's still a good card.

Goblin bushwhacker was an amazing card considering the aggressiveness of the format.

Highland Berserker was a decent card for the red allied deck, being a 2 powered 2 drop with decent ability.

Vines of vastwood was potentially devastating. Solid combat trick and can save your creatures. If your opponent is dumb enough to play a removal on your turn pre-combat when you had 2 green open, vines was backbreaking.

But, as good as all those cards are, 2 mana for unconditional removal is tough to beat. So journey to nowhere is the pick. I would be very curious as to what the other 2 players took. 2 uncoms? There are a lot of solid uncoms in the set, but other than vampire nighthawk, none come close to a 2cc unconditional removal. Maybe Shepherd of the Lost or Living Tsunami, but that's really stretching it and I personally wouldn't pick either over journey. I'm going to have to guess it was a foil card, or someone is really aggressively forcing allies and picked blademaster.

I don't like journey, it's too conditional. It requires our opponents to be playing creatures. If someone drafts the pyromancer ascension deck, we pretty much autolose.

Yeah, but how often does that happen?

Journey to Nowhere

And as a note, I'd like Narrow Escape if it wheels as a good combo to Journey since it can remove a small creature early, then swap it to a bigger creature later.

~SE++

Journey to Nowhere. And Cato's being sarcastic.

That seems really janky. Situationally, you can get some small amount of value, but even then it's not much, and the times when escape is a dead card will be just overwhelming.

It also returns allies and other things with EtB effects. I like it.

~SE++

I once had a deck choke full of removal. I lost to 5NarrowEscape.dec. That's the only time I saw narrow escape being any good.

Removal is removal. Just pick journey and forget about it.

Do you want to spend a card, 3 mana, and the cost of whatever you're bouncing and replaying just for that?

Narrow Escape was a bad card in Limited, hands down. Would you play that card in Theros draft?

Do we have seven or more agents of the fates?

Pack 1:

Vampire Nighthawk
Blazing Torch
Journey to Nowhere

Next...

Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Pitfall Trap
Carnage Altar
Punishing Fire
Tempest Owl
Sky Ruin Drake
Plated Geopede
Scythe Tiger
Vampire's Bite
Kor Skyfisher
Crypt Ripper

Another very strong pack. No good green, so I'm glad we didn't go that route.

Pitfall trap is an ok removal, but a little disappointing. The main problem I have with it is that it can't kill flyers and blockers. It's also a little hard to bank on the trap cost. Overall, not something I'd pick at this point.

Punishing fire rarely comes back, but it's still 2 mana for 2 at instant speed, so it's decent.

Sky ruin drake is a fine card, but nothing amazing. No reason to go blue over this!

Plated Geopede is an absolute monster.

I already addressed vampire's bite

Kor skyfisher is pretty solid in my experience. Oddly enough, the tempo hit is often worth it in this aggressive format, even on turn 2, due to the fact that you don't usually need to go too high up the curve. The additional landfall trigger is also relevant.

Crypt ripper is a card I don't mind playing 1 or 2 of, but I don't think it needs to be picked this high.

To me, the pick is between skyfisher (on color) or geopede (the stronger card). If we take the geopede, chances are we'll end up white/red, because that's what seems to be opened right now. Seriously, no way journey should have gone pick 3 and I can't think of many, if any commons I'd pick over geopede, so some people are actively avoiding white and red for whatever reason. So do we go with what's opened and leave nighthawk in the board, or keep on track, taking advantage of the white flowing in pack 1 and 3 and hope for black in pack 2?

I'm still debating it. I'll go for skyfisher right now, but might change my mind in a minute.

skyfisher is a 2-mana 2/3 evader. looks awesome.

Once again, plated geopede is good but not as good as the vampire. And skyfisher is good too. Of course when even I use this logic I end up losing in finals to the nut red (in this case) deck to the left of me.

I never played this set, but what I've seen in these packs so far I like it.

2/3 evasion on turn 2, really? I like the potential interaction between the Sell-Sword, Skyfisher and Journey to nowhere also (if we get more BW allies).

Skyfisher's my pick.