My own cube is still a bit messy, nevertheless I'm interested to hear about how you create boosters from the pool. I take 2 cards from every section and fill to 15 randomly (although colour balanced).
when you only have 6 or 4 players, sometimes we do 4 packs of 11 random cards rather than 3 packs of 15, which allows the pack to go through less players.
Some people prefer to make packs with set number of coloured cards, others are not a fan, its really up to you which one you prefer
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Shuffle and make everything random. Real boosters are not balanced.
True, but real boosters are not completely random either. I think a fixed part and then a random part mightr be best, but it can get tiresome to create the boosters.
If you use classic booster draft, fixing boosters could give clues about what your neighbors have taken from the booster that was passed to you. If you use this format, I'd either use completely random boosters or at most use a minor fix (for example 1 of each color and the rest random).
Since we use Rochester draft, there's no signalling and the boosters can be more balanced with no drawback.
Sorry, this might be slightly off-topic but what is Rochester Draft? (Yes I am relatively new to Magic)
Player 1 opens a booster and reveal the content to all players. Player 1 then chooses a card, then player 2 chooses a card and so forth until all the cards in the booster are taken.
Then player 2 opens a booster, reveals the cards and choose one. Then player 3 choose one and this process continues.
Continue this until all players have opened a booster.
Then repeat this with a second booster where the direction is the other way (like in booster draft).
And finally repeat this with a third booster to each player going the same direction as the first booster.
I tried many methods and settled of a combination of fixed and random distribution and it had worked out great for us, I've literally had no single complain ever since I started to use it. The drawback is that it takes longer to shuffle.
If you are interested to know what it is, I can post the shuffling method again.
6+ : 3 packs of 15
5 or less: 5 packs of 9, works very well.
As for shuffling:
Normally we divide them up into a number of stacks. Each person shuffles a stack than grabs a piece of another persons stack and shuffles it into theirs. I then combine them into 5 large stacks and individuals make their packs from those.
I'll repost it again, because I have more to add to it than the last time I have posted it. The explanation is quite long and it may seem very confusing, but it really is easier done than said, especially after the first time.
Preshuffle:
Know the number of cards in your cube, and the number of cards in each color section (the one for each color, artifacts, gold and lands)
Know the maximum number of players available, or boosters if your number doesn't divide perfectly for players
These numbers should be already known to the cube owner and nor normally change too often.
Now divide your cube into colors. Players already separate their lands from their decks at the end of each draft (unless they are in a hurry) so you can ask them to separate their colored cards too. Apparently some people make this stage appear harder than it truly is, as dividing my 720 cube takes maybe 10 minutes. I divide my cube into colors at the end of each draft. It also makes the process of finding specific cards easier when the cube is sorted that way.
Each color section should be shuffled (ask for help of your fellow players here).
This stage is in the preshuffle because it can be basically done at any time, not necessarily at the same time all the other shuffle steps are done.
The Shuffle:
Calculate the maximum number of boosters needed. It usually is the maximum number of players*3. A shortcut can be made, making only the number of boosters necessary, but making the maximum number of boosters makes the shuffle better and eases it.
Take number of cards you have in each color, divide it by the number of boosters and round it down. In my cube it's 96 cards, for 2*8*3 boosters, which is exactly 2. For most of us this number is going to be between 1 to 2. Also, for most of us the number of cards in each color is equal. If it isn't, then calculate again for each color.
Put that many cards from each color in a face-down pile. Those piles will be your boosters. All the remaining cards will be added to those piles.
If you have any leftovers, put them aside in one face-down stack called the leftovers stack.
Do stages 2-4 for each color, artifacts and lands. If some sections are rounded down to zero, put all the cards in that section in the leftovers stack.
All your boosters should have the same number of cards. Count a booster or calculate what it is. At my cube it should be 2*5 for each color, 1 artifact, 1 multicolored and 1 land = 13 cards in each booster. Go to each face down booster, count the number of cards in it, shuffle it, remove one card from it and put it in the leftovers pile. The number of cards in each booster after this stage should be the number calculated at #5 -1, and if you have too many cards remove them until you reach exactly that number. If you have too few, add that many random cards from the leftovers stack. If the number of cards ends up at 14 or 13 I'd consider taking out two cards from each boosters to increase the randomness.
Shuffle the leftovers stack.
Add cards to each booster so it has 15 cards.
Enjoy your draft
Drawbacks:
Obviously, it usually takes more time than just a random shuffle.
It doesn't work as nicely to cubes with sizes that don't divide into boosters perfectly, like 400.
In cubes who categorize cards in a different way than their card frame color the shuffle is much more error prone and/or much slower. Putting Vedalken Shackles in the artifacts pile or Kird Ape in the red pile is a very common mistake.
There are still a few picks that reveal certain information (see later).
Advantages:
The shuffle creates more balanced boosters than most other shuffle techniques, yet doesn't make signaling obvious like in fixed boosters. The shuffle has a really, really high quality. There is very little to no chance of seeing one-colored boosters, drafting boosters from previously drafted decks, seeing five lands in a booster etc. In a large cube it is more of a problem because an entire colors might be cut off from one pod and vastly overrepresented in another. It's even worse when it happens with lands, as many decks rely on them to varying extents. It also keeps signaling largely intact, and the amount of cards in each color will vary between each booster. Situations where the color of the first pick is 100% known are very rare. I did the calculation once and it resulted in two picks per eight players draft which could be confirmed. That menas that whenever you get your second pick, the chance to know what color your previous pick was is less than 1%. That chance can also be eliminated if you randomly take out an extra card from a booster at stage 6 and replace it with a random card from the leftovers pile.
Using this shuffle will instantly show if some cards are missing from your cube. It will even tell you their color.
Unlike the popular freeform shuffle methods, when you are never quite certain when to stop shuffling, when step #8 is over the cube is guaranteed 100% to be ready. No need to ever reshuffle. It also creates much less mess around and there is a much lower chance of cards getting lost/stolen.
This a more fair method to play in a contest due to its consistency. Especially when you play for prizes, it seems only fair that your players will know which shuffle method you use - it make the draft more player-supportive and honest.
Continuing the last tidbits, players have a much smaller cheating space. One player will still have a large control over the pool, but all the other players can do very little to improve their knowledge/picks.
What I hate in the regular "take a pile, then trade a half and shuffle again" is that even if anyone shuffled really well and no traces of decks are present, even one player who had shuffled sloppily can ruin the entire draft. This method leaves no room for such errors.
I like your method Metamind. We should really get a thread like this added into the sticky thread since this question comes up a lot and I've seen several interesting methods.
I'm only doing one on one drafting, so this may not be applicable to you. I take 20 of each color, 13 gold, 18 artifacts and 19 lands and shuffle them together into a pile. From there we just grab cards off the top of the stack as we need them for drafting.
I don't like the idea of seeding the card pool, people should be able to fight over a colour not just, There are this many cards of a colour, my first picks were that colour... opponent is a fool to try for them unless they are being hated...
On a side note, for 1v1 drafting I recomend winston draft. It also lets you be less picky on packs since generally you will only see half of the cards available.
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We still prefer partially fixed boosters in regular drafts.
1 card of each section (each colour, gold, artifact, nonbasic) per booster=8. Then we fill them up with 7 random cards. It's rather fast, if you have 2 or 4 helping hands and I prefer to keep the cube (450cards btw.) sorted at all times
Not once did we have issues with too much or too little randomization until now (30+ drafts played), so I guess it's a sufficient method, which doesn't take long to prepare and avoids making a booster easy to read.
We still prefer partially fixed boosters in regular drafts.
1 card of each section (each colour, gold, artifact, nonbasic) per booster=8. Then we fill them up with 7 random cards. It's rather fast, if you have 2 or 4 helping hands and I prefer to keep the cube (450cards btw.) sorted at all times
Not once did we have issues with too much or too little randomization until now (30+ drafts played), so I guess it's a sufficient method, which doesn't take long to prepare and avoids making a booster easy to read.
You guys who spend all this time sorting and such make my brain hurt. I just shuffle all the cards and make 15-card packs. All that time spent finagling with the cards could be put towards more playing/drafting/pimping, IMO.
You guys who spend all this time sorting and such make my brain hurt. I just shuffle all the cards and make 15-card packs. All that time spent finagling with the cards could be put towards more playing/drafting/pimping, IMO.
-AA
Amen.
It's not worth it and I think that shuffling the cube up and drafting it doesn't give me any problems.
We still prefer partially fixed boosters in regular drafts.
1 card of each section (each colour, gold, artifact, nonbasic) per booster=8. Then we fill them up with 7 random cards.
This is our method. It takes a little extra time (since you sort instead of shuffle). We wouldn't do if we only drafted, but we do sealed a bit, and find it worth it for fair sealed pools.
You guys who spend all this time sorting and such make my brain hurt. I just shuffle all the cards and make 15-card packs. All that time spent finagling with the cards could be put towards more playing/drafting/pimping, IMO.
-AA
It doesn't reduce the time of drafting, as we don't draft more than once in a single night anyway. And pimping doesn't even improve your gameplay, and wastes you both time and money. A better shuffle will directly affect your gameplay. Sorting also has many more advantages of just the shuffling. I advise anyone to try some form of partially fixed shuffle if they haven't tried any yet.
My cube is divided in 8 sections (as most of yours too, I guess). We each pick one of the sections, shuffle, make 3*X packs (X=players), shuffle the rest, and fill the boosters up. 2-4 players shuffling at the same time, takes approx. 5-10min. Perfect opportunity for trashtalk btw.
@bondafong: Thanks. I've been reading and learning from theses boards for quite some time and I wanted to voice my opinion and seek some advice (maybe later).
This is our method. It takes a little extra time (since you sort instead of shuffle). We wouldn't do if we only drafted, but we do sealed a bit, and find it worth it for fair sealed pools.
Sealed pools need to be 100% random as well. Just like a real sealed event.
If the cube is sorted, we will take equal numbers from each of the eight sections and shuffle to make packs. If the cube is not sorted we won't bother.
We used to go through a more complicated rigmarole to balance packs, but it wasn't worth it.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Sealed pools need to be 100% random as well. Just like a real sealed event.
I don't think this is actually true. Real boosters have some sort of loose organization if I recall correctly (my brain has gone all fuzzy). So if a sealed event is pooled from real boosters, it is not 100% random.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/other-formats/mtgo-pauper/developing/647850-primer-angler-delver
Modern: Sultai Death's Shadow
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/773885-sultai-deaths-shadow-bug-aggro]
Legacy: Snake&Show
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27217-Deck-Sneak-and-Show
Discuss my Cube @ MTGsalvation:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=207309
Some people prefer to make packs with set number of coloured cards, others are not a fan, its really up to you which one you prefer
Copy this sig to join the cause. Cuz, ya know, Wizards makes decisions based on sigs.
True, but real boosters are not completely random either. I think a fixed part and then a random part mightr be best, but it can get tiresome to create the boosters.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
If you use classic booster draft, fixing boosters could give clues about what your neighbors have taken from the booster that was passed to you. If you use this format, I'd either use completely random boosters or at most use a minor fix (for example 1 of each color and the rest random).
Since we use Rochester draft, there's no signalling and the boosters can be more balanced with no drawback.
Player 1 opens a booster and reveal the content to all players. Player 1 then chooses a card, then player 2 chooses a card and so forth until all the cards in the booster are taken.
Then player 2 opens a booster, reveals the cards and choose one. Then player 3 choose one and this process continues.
Continue this until all players have opened a booster.
Then repeat this with a second booster where the direction is the other way (like in booster draft).
And finally repeat this with a third booster to each player going the same direction as the first booster.
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Thanks to Bondafong for explaining.
If you are interested to know what it is, I can post the shuffling method again.
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
5 or less: 5 packs of 9, works very well.
As for shuffling:
Normally we divide them up into a number of stacks. Each person shuffles a stack than grabs a piece of another persons stack and shuffles it into theirs. I then combine them into 5 large stacks and individuals make their packs from those.
http://hgcube.blogspot.com/ (help me Make my Custom CUBE!)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=382498
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Preshuffle:
Now divide your cube into colors. Players already separate their lands from their decks at the end of each draft (unless they are in a hurry) so you can ask them to separate their colored cards too. Apparently some people make this stage appear harder than it truly is, as dividing my 720 cube takes maybe 10 minutes. I divide my cube into colors at the end of each draft. It also makes the process of finding specific cards easier when the cube is sorted that way.
Each color section should be shuffled (ask for help of your fellow players here).
This stage is in the preshuffle because it can be basically done at any time, not necessarily at the same time all the other shuffle steps are done.
The Shuffle:
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
For winston we are lazy sometimes and just pull out the first 90 cards and maybe shuffle it a bit.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
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On a side note, for 1v1 drafting I recomend winston draft. It also lets you be less picky on packs since generally you will only see half of the cards available.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
1 card of each section (each colour, gold, artifact, nonbasic) per booster=8. Then we fill them up with 7 random cards. It's rather fast, if you have 2 or 4 helping hands and I prefer to keep the cube (450cards btw.) sorted at all times
Not once did we have issues with too much or too little randomization until now (30+ drafts played), so I guess it's a sufficient method, which doesn't take long to prepare and avoids making a booster easy to read.
(First post for the win!)
Welcome to the cube forum.
My Tribal cube
My 93/94 old school cube
My Artifact cube
My Hearthstone Quiz App for iOS
-AA
I use descriptive language. Assume that I'm being nice and respectful. (I'll tell you when I'm not.)
My Cube: http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/9029
Amen.
It's not worth it and I think that shuffling the cube up and drafting it doesn't give me any problems.
I used to write cube articles on StarCityGames, now for GatheringMagic and podcast about cube (w/Antknee42.)
This is our method. It takes a little extra time (since you sort instead of shuffle). We wouldn't do if we only drafted, but we do sealed a bit, and find it worth it for fair sealed pools.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=385729
It doesn't reduce the time of drafting, as we don't draft more than once in a single night anyway. And pimping doesn't even improve your gameplay, and wastes you both time and money. A better shuffle will directly affect your gameplay. Sorting also has many more advantages of just the shuffling. I advise anyone to try some form of partially fixed shuffle if they haven't tried any yet.
The list on cube cobra
Read my blog on cube - Latest post June 2nd 2022
@bondafong: Thanks. I've been reading and learning from theses boards for quite some time and I wanted to voice my opinion and seek some advice (maybe later).
Sealed pools need to be 100% random as well. Just like a real sealed event.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
We used to go through a more complicated rigmarole to balance packs, but it wasn't worth it.
My 380 Beginners’ Cube on Cube Tutor
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I don't think this is actually true. Real boosters have some sort of loose organization if I recall correctly (my brain has gone all fuzzy). So if a sealed event is pooled from real boosters, it is not 100% random.