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[Draft On]Magic Online Booster Draft
Sterica
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
YesRegistered User, Moderator mod
Time for something different. This will be an attempt to get weekly (or scheduled) booster drafts organized for Magic: The Gathering.
What's a Booster Draft?
Magic formats are broken up into two types: Constructed and Limited. Constructed is just as its sounds: you take any of the legal cards available and make a deck.
Limited, however, is...limited. You don't have all the cards available to you. and have to make choices as to what will be in your final deck.
A BOOSTER draft is where you get X players, and they all have three packs each. Each player opens his or her first pack, picks a card from that pack, and passes the rest of those cards to the next player. In turn, they recieve a stack of cards (of course, missing the card the previous player took), pick a second card, pass that particular stack, and repeat until all cards have been selected. Open the next pack, reverse the passing direction, and continue until all three packs are depleted.
With the 45 cards you picked (and infinite basic land at your disposal), you must make at a 40 card (minimum) deck. Leftover cards are your sideboard.
Why Draft?
Do you hate having to keep up with the metagame? Do you dislike a player having the "money deck" loaded with rares? Do you want another layer of mental strategy? Then draft is for you.
Draft is even, as nobody brings any cards with them, you just have the three packs everyone bought. And as you continue to draft, you'll see the mind games that develop. There's also a thrill when you work with limited resources.
Okay, back to PA...
I want to make this thread like a night at the hobby shop. Weekly booster drafts.
We'd be using Wizards of the Coast's official online program for Magic playing. This has the downside of costing money (overpriced, in my opinion), but the benefit of tools to run Drafts. And hey, no rules confusion!
Money? How much?
An account costs a one-time fee of $9.99. Wait, don't go just yet! When you purchase an account, you get a coupon for $9.99 in their online store...so it's technically free.
As I said, Magic Online works just like the real world. You buy booster packs, starter decks, etc. just like at any store.
Even the same price.
Yeah. Wizards likes to boast that this means they have no monthly fee...but it's a lot of horse shit. But, you can keep the online cards and build decks with them, trade them, and so on.
Booster packs cost $3.69, so one Booster Draft will cost $11.07. You can buy the packs ahead of time, or wait until you join the game (a prompt will take you to the place to buy the packs).
The benefit is that the cards after the draft are yours to keep. Make decks, goof off, and so forth.
How Will We Roll?
We'll be playing casual, meaning it has no bearing on your rank or statistics for more organized play that Magic Online offers. Ideally, eight people is the number for this.
So, when you log in, just click on the "Casual Play" bubble and from there, go to "Limited Games". This is likely to be fairly empty, don't worry.
Helpful Image 1
Helpful Image 2
From there, we'll have a game waiting...assuming you aren't early.
Crap, I can't see what you are talking about!
Wizards has a "New Player View", which blocks more advanced formats from being seen. Go to the upper righthand corner of your screen and change it to "Expert". Look at "Helpful Image 1" if you can't find it.
Clan?
There is a Clan option, and it doesn't seem hard to put one together. I was thinking bringing this forum's pun to new levels and call ourselves "John Steindeck"...but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Tips for new Drafters
The Game is More Basic: Do not try complicated combos. You basically want:
-A hard-to-kill or hard-to-block creature that will kill your opponent in a couple turns after being played. Don't grab too many of these, as they tend to be expensive.
-Cheap creatures. Something that will chip away at your opponent, block effectively, or speed up your game via mana acceleration, card drawing, or deck searching. Bonus points if they can be sacrificed for some other benefit after serving their original purpose.
-Answers to threats. Your opponent will have their own threat to kill you. Creature removal, countermagic, damage dealing.
Don't grab something like, say, a cool card that wants goblins in play. You might not get a lot of goblins, or enough of that card to make a difference. If the card is good by itself, then that's cool. Just try to think less of combos and more of having a good creature base and answers to your opponent's creatures.
Think of the set: A card that is good with lots of artifacts is not normally that good to draft...but Mirrodin is half artifacts. Likewise, a card that kills a non-spirit creature for cheap is GREAT in most cases, but Kamigawa has a lot of spirits running around. Make sure you have a basic grasp of the set's themes.
Don't Hate-Draft early on: Hate-Drafting is taking a card that you don't intend to use. Why would you do that? Because the card is good. This is giving up a pick so you can make a single opponent weaker. It's a very difficult thing to understand, so just focus on your deck until you are comfortable with more advanced tactics.
Greed drafting is forbidden: Greed drafting is when you take a card purely for secondary market value (ie, some rare card with good trading value). It's fine if the card has a use, but if you have no plans to put that card in your deck, you won't be playing with us anymore.
Watch your colors: Try to use your early picks to pick your intial colors. In most sets, you want no greater than two colors (maybe splashing a third, but in VERY small amounts). Nothing sucks more than mana issues.
Sideboard: You want to make your main deck good, but if all options seem crappy...think of your sideboard. It can be hard to sideboard effectively in draft, but a color hoser is a better option than a crappy creature.
Don't draft basic lands: The "main" set of a block has a basic land in its boosters. You have infinite basic lands, so don't draft those :P
NON-basic lands are a different story.
Links
Official Magic Site
Official Magic Online Site
Online Store
Magic Online Client Download (includes direct download and torrent options)
Events Calendar for Magic Online (not related to this thread, but you might be interested)
My name on Magic Online is "Rorus Raz". It has a space.
What's a Booster Draft?
Magic formats are broken up into two types: Constructed and Limited. Constructed is just as its sounds: you take any of the legal cards available and make a deck.
Limited, however, is...limited. You don't have all the cards available to you. and have to make choices as to what will be in your final deck.
A BOOSTER draft is where you get X players, and they all have three packs each. Each player opens his or her first pack, picks a card from that pack, and passes the rest of those cards to the next player. In turn, they recieve a stack of cards (of course, missing the card the previous player took), pick a second card, pass that particular stack, and repeat until all cards have been selected. Open the next pack, reverse the passing direction, and continue until all three packs are depleted.
With the 45 cards you picked (and infinite basic land at your disposal), you must make at a 40 card (minimum) deck. Leftover cards are your sideboard.
Why Draft?
Do you hate having to keep up with the metagame? Do you dislike a player having the "money deck" loaded with rares? Do you want another layer of mental strategy? Then draft is for you.
Draft is even, as nobody brings any cards with them, you just have the three packs everyone bought. And as you continue to draft, you'll see the mind games that develop. There's also a thrill when you work with limited resources.
Okay, back to PA...
I want to make this thread like a night at the hobby shop. Weekly booster drafts.
We'd be using Wizards of the Coast's official online program for Magic playing. This has the downside of costing money (overpriced, in my opinion), but the benefit of tools to run Drafts. And hey, no rules confusion!
Money? How much?
An account costs a one-time fee of $9.99. Wait, don't go just yet! When you purchase an account, you get a coupon for $9.99 in their online store...so it's technically free.
As I said, Magic Online works just like the real world. You buy booster packs, starter decks, etc. just like at any store.
Even the same price.
Yeah. Wizards likes to boast that this means they have no monthly fee...but it's a lot of horse shit. But, you can keep the online cards and build decks with them, trade them, and so on.
Booster packs cost $3.69, so one Booster Draft will cost $11.07. You can buy the packs ahead of time, or wait until you join the game (a prompt will take you to the place to buy the packs).
The benefit is that the cards after the draft are yours to keep. Make decks, goof off, and so forth.
How Will We Roll?
We'll be playing casual, meaning it has no bearing on your rank or statistics for more organized play that Magic Online offers. Ideally, eight people is the number for this.
So, when you log in, just click on the "Casual Play" bubble and from there, go to "Limited Games". This is likely to be fairly empty, don't worry.
Helpful Image 1
Helpful Image 2
From there, we'll have a game waiting...assuming you aren't early.
Crap, I can't see what you are talking about!
Wizards has a "New Player View", which blocks more advanced formats from being seen. Go to the upper righthand corner of your screen and change it to "Expert". Look at "Helpful Image 1" if you can't find it.
Clan?
There is a Clan option, and it doesn't seem hard to put one together. I was thinking bringing this forum's pun to new levels and call ourselves "John Steindeck"...but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Tips for new Drafters
The Game is More Basic: Do not try complicated combos. You basically want:
-A hard-to-kill or hard-to-block creature that will kill your opponent in a couple turns after being played. Don't grab too many of these, as they tend to be expensive.
-Cheap creatures. Something that will chip away at your opponent, block effectively, or speed up your game via mana acceleration, card drawing, or deck searching. Bonus points if they can be sacrificed for some other benefit after serving their original purpose.
-Answers to threats. Your opponent will have their own threat to kill you. Creature removal, countermagic, damage dealing.
Don't grab something like, say, a cool card that wants goblins in play. You might not get a lot of goblins, or enough of that card to make a difference. If the card is good by itself, then that's cool. Just try to think less of combos and more of having a good creature base and answers to your opponent's creatures.
Think of the set: A card that is good with lots of artifacts is not normally that good to draft...but Mirrodin is half artifacts. Likewise, a card that kills a non-spirit creature for cheap is GREAT in most cases, but Kamigawa has a lot of spirits running around. Make sure you have a basic grasp of the set's themes.
Don't Hate-Draft early on: Hate-Drafting is taking a card that you don't intend to use. Why would you do that? Because the card is good. This is giving up a pick so you can make a single opponent weaker. It's a very difficult thing to understand, so just focus on your deck until you are comfortable with more advanced tactics.
Greed drafting is forbidden: Greed drafting is when you take a card purely for secondary market value (ie, some rare card with good trading value). It's fine if the card has a use, but if you have no plans to put that card in your deck, you won't be playing with us anymore.
Watch your colors: Try to use your early picks to pick your intial colors. In most sets, you want no greater than two colors (maybe splashing a third, but in VERY small amounts). Nothing sucks more than mana issues.
Sideboard: You want to make your main deck good, but if all options seem crappy...think of your sideboard. It can be hard to sideboard effectively in draft, but a color hoser is a better option than a crappy creature.
Don't draft basic lands: The "main" set of a block has a basic land in its boosters. You have infinite basic lands, so don't draft those :P
NON-basic lands are a different story.
Links
Official Magic Site
Official Magic Online Site
Online Store
Magic Online Client Download (includes direct download and torrent options)
Events Calendar for Magic Online (not related to this thread, but you might be interested)
My name on Magic Online is "Rorus Raz". It has a space.
Sterica on
0
Posts
Is this true.
Wish I could join in, but I don't have the cash right now for real cards, let alone virtual ones.
I've only used the MtGO cilent a little bit, but it seems ok. And drafting is a lot of fun. Besides, considering my in ability to find anyone (decent) to play cardboard Magic with, this will have to do
The question now: How many people do we need? I would think at least 8 or so.
Edit: I heard the same thing, Scooter. Get a full set, and you can trade it in for the real cards.
Sadly, the tourney options are rather limited, and a password option is missing. Shouldn't be a problem, though.
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
My sweet, untouched Miranda
And while the seagulls are crying
We fall but our souls are flying
I will, however, announce any free offers.
Really, the price isn't horrible. It's only slightly more expensive than what my store charged. The competitive shit, now that is some BS with their additional $2.00 fee for event tickets.
Steam BoardGameGeek Twitter
The newest card I have has two gears as it's set icon. :P
It's nice that if you buy the whole set they give em to you... but ... hurgh, I'd rather just buy real cards and remake the decks in a freeware program.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Edit: I found a program called MTG Studio that converts deck formats, so even if it only saves as Appentice we could still do MWS.
I'm moontouched on mtgo