Muligans in Draft and Sealed

[stiii]

No. I disagree. We can "agree to disagree" but I think the use of "terrible" is unfair. Plus, you provided no validation as to why you feel this way about the card.

Either way... to each his own.

I mean you provided no validation for why it is good either.

One drops without powerful abilities or two power just aren't playable in limited unless your deck is hyper aggressive or as a SB card against those decks. Scrivener's ability does nothing for hyper aggressive decks so it is pretty useless in those. One drops simply don't have enough of an effect on the game to be worth including in your deck. The 1/1 body has little effect on the board quickly becoming out classed and therefore unable to attack or block. Gaining maybe five life simply isn't worth a card and even that is assuming you drew on by turn one.

Pack raptor is also probably unplayable with its effect not having enough of an effect on the average game. It again is useless past turn one and replies on you drawing multiple raptors you shuffled in before it becomes good. An event which is much rarer than never drawing one and being stuck with a useless 1/1.

[Svenn]

I mean you provided no validation for why it is good either.

One drops without powerful abilities or two power just aren't playable in limited unless your deck is hyper aggressive or as a SB card against those decks. Scrivener's ability does nothing for hyper aggressive decks so it is pretty useless in those. One drops simply don't have enough of an effect on the game to be worth including in your deck. The 1/1 body has little effect on the board quickly becoming out classed and therefore unable to attack or block. Gaining maybe five life simply isn't worth a card and even that is assuming you drew on by turn one.

Pack raptor is also probably unplayable with its effect not having enough of an effect on the average game. It again is useless past turn one and replies on you drawing multiple raptors you shuffled in before it becomes good. An event which is much rarer than never drawing one and being stuck with a useless 1/1.

Scrivener is great if you have things to combo with it. A Righteous Paladin, for example. It's not bad at all for a 1 cost card since it will give you several life most likely.

Pack Raptor is going to be awesome in limited. With such a small deck size, the new ones that you shuffle in are going to be pretty likely to show up. Even so, with Swiftstrike there are plenty of good things you can do with them... taking out x/1 creatures by himself, pump him up with any sort of buffs for a higher damage Swiftstrike, etc.

[stiii]

Not bad for a one cost card isn't exactly a glowing recommendation. You don't have to play any one drops in your deck, so you need to compare it to higher drops. The fact you will always be able to get out a cheaper card isn't worth much if that cheaper card doesn't have much of an effect. I guess I@d be fine with it if I had multiple Paladins.

Raptor is a bit more complicated as it isn't a card that exists in other TCGs so there is little to compare it too. However the issue still stands that you really need to draw two more copies before you get a quality creature. A 2/2 swift strike creature is fine but hardly worth the risk of you never drawing another as a 1/1 is just unplayably bad. There is also the issue that even if oyu draw multiple they are very vulnerable to removal, if you block something they can often remove another raptor leading to you getting two for oned and back in the horrible positions of drawing 1/1 creatures.

[joseph5185]

I never said it was "good", per say, but yes you make very valid points. I have to be completely honest with you. I have yet to make ANY deck that doesn't contain 1 drops at all and I'm interested to try it now.

5 life can make all the difference to be fair, especially when you're racing somebody for example.

Pack Raptor is GREAT IF and really only IF you keep drawing them. Otherwise, well hopefully it wasn't your only strategy.

[LLCoolDave]

If I'm racing someone I'd rather have another relevant troop than 5 life. Scriverner's average case scenario is no better than Soothing Breeze. You gain like 4 life on the triggers and then chump block a 3 power attacker or some such, effectively gaining 7 or 8 life for a single card. That's just... not very impressive by any stretch of the imagination. Once you get multiple Paladins the effect becomes interesting, if you only have one or two it's probably still not worthwhile.

Pack Raptor is probably not good enough as a singleton in 40 card decks, though I haven't done the actual math on it. A 1/1 swiftstrike is very marginal and not playable in its own right. Once you go to having two 2/2 Raptors things are looking better and 3 3/3 swiftstrike troops can dominate a lot of boards. The issue then is how likely you are to get to that point and if that's worth the initial card investment. My intuition says that it isn't, but I might be slightly off.

The Ancestor's Chosen does pull its weight in a 40 card deck. With smaller deck sizes the Specter accumulation occurs at an actually respectable rate and 2/2 fliers are decent on almost any board state. It still remains hot garbage in constructed decks though.

A big mistake a lot of players make is playing far too many 1 drops. Sure, you get on the board early, but once your 4 troops board gets dominated by their 2 and 3 drop you are in a miserable position. 1 cost troops need to provide some inherent value, either by having some utility outside of combat (that actually amounts to something useful, not gaining 4 life or so) or by being able to trade favorably with more expensive cards on their end.

From my limited experience with this draft format, it seems less like a curving out format and more like an individual power level format. For most decks, the amount of actual good 2 and 3 drops you actively want to play at common is not that high. There's just not enough good cards for multiple people to simply play a deck with a "perfect" curve and beating their opponent on that front. The individual quality of troops takes a massive leap at 4 and especially 5 that can often times just regain the tempo lost from not playing perfectly on curve earlier on. Synergy and curve are important, but sometimes just having a little extra punch can go a long way as well.

For whatever it's worth, Shards of Fate is probably the best 1 drop in the format.

[joseph5185]

With all that being said, Howling Brave comes to mind. Hard to argue that's not a good 1 drop.