So, a normal Magic draft has 8 players opening packs of 15 cards, picking one, and passing the rest along. Rinse and repeat for 3 packs.
45 cards per player.
24 packs at the table.
Each player sees 18 packs 2 times with choices to make and 6 packs only once or with no second choice.
This is the way it has always been… but is it the way it should be?
One day when trying to figure out if we could draft commander decks from our cube with only 4 players, we set up a draft with packs of 15 cards and had each player pick two. This “pick two” had three very interesting effects. First, as expected, it allowed us to draft 90 cards per player twice as fast as some variant that would have players select one card at a time (a huge boon when the goal is to get to playing Magic quickly before people have to leave for the night).
Second, it seemed to the folks at the table that signalling was much stronger. We were able to cut colors easier and read the cut signals easier.
Third, and really only relevant to the 4 player format we were playing, by seeing each pack only twice it gave the appropriate amount of consideration to wheeling picks.
After the success of that draft, we got to wondering about the standard 8 person pod and whether or not 15 cards-pick one was the optimum method for drafting. Why do we only draft one card per pack?
Let’s see what a Cogwork Librarian draft would look like.
Each player would see and choose 2 cards from their starting pack and 6 other packs as they went around the table. The last card would be the remaining card from the 8th unseen pack.
This would do a few things
By selecting two cards per pack you would be able to cut colors/themes more easily and give stronger signals to the people who were downstream from you in the draft. This should increase cooperation or awareness of what colors were being drafted in each seat which should result in better decks all around.
Since you only see each pack once this would remove ‘wheeling’ – a card from an early pack going all the way around the draft and coming back to you the second time you see that pack. This is probably a negative because there are many interesting layers to be read into what cards wheel when you get to see a pack again, but I feel that these layers are ignored (and often only marginally relevant) at the skill level of most Magic players.
Another argument in favor of the one pick per pack was that in the early days of R&D the playable cards often dried up around pick 6 and the rest of the pack was uncomfortable auras and 5 mana 1/2 creatures (Looking at you, Creature Bond and Chimney Imp.) This argument doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny. The root cause of the problem was the card design and set balance – ie. how many playable cards were in a pack – not how many cards someone drafted at once. Currently, because of the excellent effort and output by Wizard’s R&D team, the power level or playability of cards in a limited format is quite high. There are very few strictly unplayable cards in a pack and that means that deck quality and consistency have gone up.
I do think that seeing each pack only once may inhibit some odd strategies or special needs decks that require you to get ALL the Rosethorn Halberd’s or collecting every Dampen Thought before you know Arcane is open. But on the other hand, it may make these type of decks easier since you could now take a strong card and a speculative card with your two picks from that pack instead of having to decide between power and speculation.
I’d be interested in anyone else’s thoughts on how picking two cards would impact draft. Does the fact that you see fewer cards (remember you don’t get a selection from that 8th pack) get outweighed by the increased amount of choice (two cards!) from each pack? Will signalling actually be stronger or is that a fallacy?
I’m not convinced a “pick two” draft format is better but I’m not convinced it’s worse either. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments or send to @jedihead & @manatutors on twitter. Thanks for reading, thanks for pondering, and until next time – may your drafts be fast and may your signals be strong!