Not including the subpar artifact there's only one thing in our color (Phyrexian Ghoul) and its a decent one but blue seems to be open. The presence of Rewind and Disruptive Student make me wonder if we should seriously consider blue as our second color.

Rewind gets my vote, but there are some pretty good cards here including Disciple of Law and Disruptive Student

But we have two colours. The Disciple of Law having prot-red means it'll be immune to a lot of burn, and a good blocker against red heavy decks. Against non-red decks, he has cycling so he's a solid choice. Fertile Ground is both mana ramp and mana fixing, so we could consider that if we might dip into green. Monk Realist might have some use given all the enchantments going around, they seem to be a bit of a feature in this set.

I'd be tempted by fertile ground if it were later in the game and we knew green was going to be an important colour, but it's too early to take it for a "maybe". The Phyrexian Ghoul isn't bad either, but I'm going to have to go with the Disciple of Law.

Oh crap my bad, i forgot we didn't pick the path in pack 1.

Still going with the disciple though.

For me, this comes down to Rewind and Monk Realist. Between the two, I'll go with Rewind. The double U could be a challenge, but it's a solid counter for free.

Also, I'm not great at reading signals, but there's only the one black card in this pack. Is that maybe a signal that we have a rivals for the colour nearby? Or is it too early to tell?

I say take the Phyrexian Ghoul. It's the best proactive card in the pack.

Rewind is an awesome counterspell. It gets my vote. I hate being this light on bombs/aggressive creatures but I can't resist.

Rewind. Hard counter for free? Hell yes. Would we like it played against us? Hell no.

No critters yet, but free counterspell is too good to pass up.

I don't care for Rewind counter magic at such a high cost isn't that great. Yes you can essentially play it for free... but think about the scenario in which you are going to be playing this. Most often on their turn while they are casting something degenerate.... so leaving up 4 mana isn't going to be all that great unless we have something else we can play if they either don't play a spell or play a spell not worth countering. And remember most of what we are drafting will not have flash. Thus i would rather not move in on the Rewind at this point.

There are however some things that i do like in this pack. Dromosaur because he is a blocking nightmare, and has the ability to trade up with pretty much every creature in the set. Phyrexian Ghoul is an on color creature who can also trade up if there is another creature available to sac and did i mention he is on color? And finally Disruptive Student this allows us to screw with the opponent on EVERY SINGLE TURN when they are trying to cast something. I am not sure we could find a creature that would have as big of a board impact as this guy would. Every time they play a spell we would be forcing them to think about having to utilize an extra mana. Nothing could be more frustrating.

So i will rate it Disruptive Student gets my vote then the Phyrexian Ghoul b/c he is an on color playable body, and finally the Dromosaur because i believe he can effectively kill almost everything we will encounter.

I agree with DeckBuilder345. Rewind is great in constructed where you can make sure you have a way to take advantage of the untapped mana but in draft, thats hard to do. My vote goes to Disruptive Student which can screw our opponent up repeatedly and is less color intensive.

I can see where deckbuilder345 and ironhead are coming from. I won't be dissapointed with Disruptive Student at all. Either way, whichever we choose I don't think we'll see the other one table..

At this point, I'd like to point out we don't want to get too color comitted. Forcing colors is a great way to end up with a weak deck, sometimes you have to change horses midstream, and you're better off for it.

So a couple of things. Blue looks to be wide-open. Rewind is a hard counter and even at 4CMC "No." is invaluable in limited.

Disruptive Student strikes me as little more than annoying to play against and feels like it could table. Rewind... not so much.

I like Disruptive Student here. It can disrupt the opponent's tempo, which is really great.

More importantly, however, the art depicts Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir as a kid, and that is something I support in full.

+1 for bosheck

Though the Timmy in me agrees with dorminjake about the artwork.

@bosheck Just because the best card in the pack happens to be of the one color we're in so far doesn't mean picking it is "forcing". The other cards in the pack besides Phyrexian Ghoul just aren't as good. Holding 4 mana open during an early-game turn that should be spent advancing the board position isn't a good play, especially since it's rare that we'd actually be able to exploit Rewind's ability.

Between Disruptive Student and Rewind the student is just better. It's less colour intensive, it's a free counter every turn that they have to leave mana open to deal with, and it's a creature. Clearly I'm all alone on the Disciple podium so I'll throw my lot in with the student.

Suggesting that Rewind is free is grossly inaccurate. It's only free if we need it on our turn, we're not likely to need that mana during their turn, other than to play Rewind.

Again, there's no strong reason to go off color when the on color card is no worse than the other options. Phyrexian Ghoul gets my vote.

I say this should go do Disruptive Student. Rewind is a great counter, but it's usefulness only shows if we have other good instants to work with our 4 untapped lands, and I don't think we can count on that yet.

Disruptive Student will really slow down our opponent, and does so every turn so to me it is the best pick of the lot we have here.

Disruptive Student just makes all your opponents spells cost one more if it is untapped. I'm not super into the card, if it had flash maybe I could get down with it.

Disruptive Student forces opponents to either deal with him, or face some tempo issues. It gets my vote.

Phyrexian Ghoul is a decent creature that's on color. Disruptive Student doesn't do enough actually hurt the opponent; it just inconveniences them. And while Rewind would be great for constructed, a 4 cmc counter doesn't seem like something worthwhile. Phyrexian Ghoul is my vote.

I believe that most of us are looking at the cards and trying to determine what to pick; however, we're passing up a serious issue on the next pack:

Is the player to our right in Black?

If this is the case, we need to start thinking about cards in the context that we may not be B/x... but possibly X/b or X/x/b.

Experience with mixed set drafting has taught me that going for a two-color deck is generally a tier 2 strategy. A lot of players go for it and end up sacrificing card quality as they force a color into play. As a result you end up with some very durdley cards and awkward plays. Sure, you may never be color screwed, but when your opponent starts playing cards you just can't answer efficiently then you're going to lose.

Consider the signals.

We've been passed some solid white which we shipped at the theory that U/W commons are trashy in the set, we've been passed two (TWO) Dromosaur so the dude to our right is DEFINITELY not in red. We passed a bomb removal spell in Lightning P1 and a Dromosaur in P2. Now we're in pack three, see almost no black, strong blue, and we're feeding our left-hand side a sick red base.

I say that we decide on Black as a minor color to be obtained in Pack 2 and choose a major right now before things get out of hand.

Horseshoe Crab for he possibility of the Hermetic Study combo machine gun, and the fact that it has fake vigilance. Disruptive Student just isn't good enough here. Most of the cards we've seen aren't high CMC and probably won't be so the student loses his value if we don't drop him ON turn three and DRAW him by then too. We're not a tempo deck, so don't take tempo cards.

Horseshoe Crab is my vote. Consider what I've written carefully please, don't just dismiss it as crockery. Think. Put yourself in the player to our left's shoes. What deck would you be building?

If we're thinking of picking a major colour right now, I would still be inclined to pick white and take the Disciple of Law. Prot red, fairly cheap and cycling for the times when we don't need prot red or a cheap creature? That's a very solid card in any situation.

I can see value in the student, and threw my lot in there because nobody else seemed to be with me on the disciple. While the crab is also good I just can't be bothered to get too into the debate over those creatures that I view as inferior to my original choice.

I'm tempted by Fertile Ground. I would not have gone with the Worn Powerstone last pick because it's colorless ramp, and kinda slow. This card, however, is mana-fixing, and a turn two spell. I would gladly take Rampant Growth in drafts before, and this is strictly better. (Except for the prevalence of land destruction in these early sets, but eh.)

Blue is open, but so is green. Black and red appear closed, especially with the red we've been passing. They are either red or white to our left, possibly both. Disciple of Law is a decent pick for this reason. I would prefer to grab the Fertile Ground, because it doesn't lock us into a color and will help with whatever colors we do end up choosing. Of course, I'm enjoying seeing all of these two-toughness creatures going by right after we picked Sicken. Great removal, that. At least we can cycle it away every game we don't need it.

thebeardedshuffler: I'm tending towards Blue right now just because if our R player shipped a Disruptive Student then there's no telling what else we will get. I'm also really keen on the idea of Blue as a major color because we have BOK in the mix which could make for some Ninjutsu silliness. Ninja of the Deep Hours might get us some card advantage.

As for CrushU: Fertile Ground would be a good choice if it weren't for the fact that the Urza's Block was focused on enchantments (yeah, it actually wasn't about artifacts) and we've passed some pretty solid creatures with the ability to destroy them (Monk Realist and Elvish Lyrist). Disciple of Law would be a really decent pick for a sideboard and it cycles so at the worst it could be filtering mechanic to get to something better against a non-red opponent.

Good thing we picked that Sicken over Dromosaur, Acridian, and Opal Caryatid right?

I'm with jkarnes here. Makes a ton of valid points and ya'all should listen to why Disruptive Student isn't actually a worthwhile pick.

Well I can't pretend to argue on the set contents, I do not know these sets so I will take your word for these points. :)

I'd be happy picking up some blue, Horseshoe Crab is a good choice... I mean, Time Walk is in Beta, right? ;)

Voting for Horseshoe Crab

Changing my vote.

-1 Disruptive Student

+1 Horseshoe Crab

Have a 3-toughness blocker that can still attack for 1 seems a little more advantageous than a fragile tempo annoyance, now that I think about it.

I love baby Teferi though. I hope he tables (he probably won't).

I am not at all convinced that black is being heavily drafted to our right. We have 2 packs to judge this on, and pack 2 had a flood of black cards, and pack three has just 1... it is much too hard to assume that our right has been cutting black hard based mostly on what we see here in pack 3. I believe it is very possible that the Phyrexian Ghoul was the only black card in this pack. We should definitely consider our color options at every step of the way, but i am far from convinced that we need to jump ship on black at this point. Also based on what you are suggesting the people to our left are in white / red which means they aren't in black... and black should continue to flow pack 2. I do think we fundamentally missed moving into another color last draft that would have been far more open than green... but that doesn't mean we should hastily pull the trigger to exit black here.

It could be that cutting black even harder going to the left might be the best way to go at this point, so we are rewarded come pack 2. So maybe the Phyrexian Ghoul is a better choice.

I would say that red isn't unreasonable to jump into now, as we surely haven't passed anything so far that is so degenerate in red that they would have immediately snapped it up, and it does seem like blue has some openings (but again this is based on just 2 packs)

Also just because the guy to our right passed us 2 Dromosaur doesn't mean he isn't in red. Could be his snatched the red removal out of those packs and passed the rest.

TLDR: Color considerations are important... but ... i don't see a reason to jump ship out of black, or prefer another color over any others at this point just because we have so little information. The one color consideration that might be valid and which might change our pick here is cutting hard on black could be very rewarding for us in round 2 so maybe we should give a bit more weight to the Phyrexian Ghoul.

The only color i think it would be bad to move in on at this point is white, as we passed too much good white already. Surely white must be being drafted to our left.

I'm going to agree with people saying that the student isn't all its cracked up to be and that we shouldn't be so quick to jump ship.

I'm changing my vote to Phyrexian Ghoul

Yes, I was the first to call for picking Phyrexian Ghoul. I was saying that I don't get what the "jumping ship" comments have to do with anything. Just because it's a reason in favor of the card I want doesn't mean it isn't a weak reason.

@DeckBuilder345: Good points Sir. Allow me to defend my thinking:

I didn't participate in the last DDD because I discovered the article series late (Pick 38 I think) and decided to just wait it out for the next one. I saw the final decks that emerged but not how it got to that point. As such, I'm not touting the "jump a color" philosophy based on the last draft, I'm basing it on my knowledge of pack construction. Black creatures in this format are well costed and it wouldn't shock me if he went this route. By pick 7, we should have a really solid idea of if he's B/x or not (I'm fairly sure he is).

Now let's look closely at Phyrexian Ghoul. 2/2s for 3CMC aren't BAD in this format. Power levels were a little lower back in ye olde days so dismissing it on the current power curve would be unwise. Being black, it dodges a lot of removal spells (destroy target non-black creature), and having a built-in pump mechanism lets it survive some red removal. It's not a bad creature. Certainly better than Disruptive Student; however, it sets up some slightly awkward situations.

When will that +2/+2 ability be relevant? Maybe to push in the game winning damage when the board is clogged, maybe to psuedo-trade up by throwing a 1/1 to the Ghoul to kill a 3/3. More often than not it will end up with us getting 2-for-1'd so I'm really loathe to give it any extra points on that front.

I'll be objective and take Horseshoe Crab out of the mix for a minute and contrast Phyrexian Ghoul against what would have been my other choices.

v. Dromosaur: 2/3 that trades up without a sacrifice effect. Not strictly better, but at the same time, less likely to get 2-1'd

v. Curfew: Giving our opponent choices isn't good especially when we've drafted sicken as psuedo-removal. There is a lot to be said for tempo though. Maybe a decent contender.

v. Fertile Ground: I would never 3rd pick fertile ground unless I knew I was going tri-color from the start or was focused on playing Dinos.

We've already covered the merits of why Disruptive Student isn't a solid choice, and the other players have already covered why Rewind simply isn't an option at this point in time.

So what's that leave us with?

Horseshoe Crab v. Phyrexian Ghoul

Picking your card here decides two things:

Your strategy going deeper into P 4-7, and a minor/major color. Making this choice is entirely based on the player to our right playing black or not, and knowing that is almost impossible at pick 3. Ergo, your strategy is more important here.

Given this weird block I would rather go with the 1/3 semi-vigilant creature that can block almost every creature we've seen so far over the 2/2 for the same cost that could potentially get 2-1'd or worse.

My vote is still for Horseshoe Crab due to lack of good information from the right, and known values to the left.

Horseshoe Crab will be awesome if we know we will get some combat tricks in-color. We can pick it and hope for the ninjutsu cheaty nonsense mentioned above.

Gotta say, I like a DDD with a little extra D at the end. Good stuff.

Looking back at the other packs, I think it can correctly be said that anyone downstream and looking at black is going to have a hard time. Not drafting Phyrexian Ghoul puts them in the position of hoping, without getting anything terribly good. He forces them to come up with "expendable" creatures. If it tables, we can be pretty certain that no one is in black.

I'm not sold on the utility of Horseshoe Crab, but I do like picking blue in this pack. If Rewind is out of the running, I'll happily take the crab.

Though Dromosaur trades up, it will also have an irritating tendency to trade down.

Horseshoe Crab could be nice, but I feel that it's not a strong a pick as Phyrexian Ghoul, which is a solid creature that lets you make some solid plays.

My vote goes to the Phyrexian Ghoul

Look nothing in blue seems to be generating any agreement as we have tried, rewind, the student, and now the crab. Seems to me then none of it is clearly better than the Ghoul which is on color and a better signal. When things are all the same strength you go with the one that sends the best signal and fits best with the cards you already have in your deck, so imo we go Phyrexian Ghoul which is my pick at this point.

Waiting on other drafters. Given my schedule, we probably won't have a new pick up until Sunday morning, so feel free to carry on.

Everything's ready, I'm just lazy. Hang in there while I finish my lunch.

Looks like Phyrexian Ghoul is the choice by a very narrow margin, but with extended debate it's looks like that's as close as we'll get to a solid consensus.