Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Truly blessed are we who cube with two. Sure, from time to time we might dream of boisterous eight-manners, of razor-sharp decks and varied opponents with varied tastes and play styles. Yes, we might not even know what signalling means. But do we care? Traditional pod drafts - fifteen cards, take one, pass, repeat - just don’t work with two. Instead, our best and brightest have had to innovate.
This is the beauty of two-player drafting: we have so damn many ways to do it.
Maybe even too many, in fact, and too far spread over the internet. That’s the point of this guide: to collect as many two-player draft formats as possible in one place. I mean to keep updating it as new formats emerge; if you have a method you think is worth sharing, please describe it below. Variants on established formats are welcome as well.
I’ve tried to break down the various formats in ways that could help people choose among them, but - disclaimer! - some I haven’t tried (yet), and of course every playgroup (playcouple?) does things a little differently. So if you think the “statistics” on length, deck power level, etc., are wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know. And I’ve never drafted with three; if you have, I’d love to hear how adaptable the various formats are to that size.
Additionally, I’ve lumped formats into a small number of categories. These will be imperfect, of course, but I think they can help us to see the strengths and weaknesses of whole styles of drafting, as well as pointing toward potentially undiscovered territory.
These draft formats are not, properly speaking, drafting at all. You don’t compete with other players for a shared card pool; instead, you’re dealt a chunk of cards, and make do with what you got. If drafting is two captains taking turns to choose kids for their kickball teams, sealed and its variants start with the coach numbering everyone off: One, Two, One, Two. The choices that make drafting so interesting are totally absent. On the other hand - as with the motley crew of Team Two - assembling your squad of randos into a dominating kickball machine - or in our case, deckbuilding - is more valued, and skill testing, than in other draft formats.
Sealed goes way back in Magic history. Its advantages are obvious: it’s simple, it’s quick, it’s scalable, it requires very little set-up. For otherwise experienced players new to cube, the mechanics and strategies will be old hat. Of course, the tradeoff is a greatly diminished power level - decks simply do not have the consistency found in other formats - and much less player choice in terms of color preference/archetypes. Decks tend towards midrange; aggro is hard to pull off.
Sealed also lends itself to hybridity. Though not discussed in detail here, there are plenty of variants possible. Like, say, a 30 card Sealed deck supplemented by 60 cards of Winston draft.
Sealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 90 cards. Done.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 180
Player’s Draft Pool: 90
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Yes (Entirely in deck building)
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Low
Works for 3: Yes
Macrosealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 180 (/120) cards. Each player uses that pool to build 3 (/2) decks. Play each deck against each opposing deck.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 360/240
Player’s Draft Pool: 180/120
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Yes (Entirely in deck building)
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: Larger Cubes
Microsealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 90 cards, as well as custom-made lands (see link). Players build 15 card decks, play with a unique ruleset, then discard and rebuild as they lose.
Inventor: Jason Waddell
Total Cards: 180
Player’s Draft Pool: 90
Information: None (initially)
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: Yes
Poker Draft
In a Nutshell: Players cycle their sealed pools in real time: first ten hands of 5, each "redrawn" twice in the fashion of draw poker, then the whole pool, twice more.
Inventor: Zetsu_Sensei
Total Cards: 150-175 per player
Player’s Draft Pool: 50
Information: None
Skill Testing: Medium
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: Yes
This category, which includes some of the oldest established formats for two-man booster drafts (anteceding the Cube itself), substitutes the large “hands” of orthodox pod drafting for a small number of piles, generally with multiple cards each. Pile drafting, in other words, features a comparatively smaller number of more complex decisions. Hate drafting is certainly possible here - more difficult in Winston, the sole face-down variant - but the fact that multiple cards are drafted with most picks makes reading your opponent’s intentions more skill-testing than elsewhere.
Unlike with sealed and geometrical drafting, these formats tend to begin with only a small handful of cards to choose among, and grow in complexity slowly; newer players will rarely be paralysed by gross information, although the choices themselves may be quite difficult (especially true with Solomon). Archetypes tend to be fairly chaseable and decks fairly powerful. These are, in other words, formats that tend to appeal to a wide range of players, that reward skilled drafting without locking out the less experienced, and that lead to the sorts of Magic decks Magic players like to play. Little wonder their longevity.
Solomon (AKA Fact or Fiction)
In a Nutshell: Player A splits a pack into two face-up piles of any size. Player B chooses either pile, Play A gets the other. Roles switch.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 80 (10 rounds of 8); 90 (18 rounds of 5); 84 (12 rounds of 7); etc.
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: Sort of (“hate splitting”)
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3: ?
Winston
In a Nutshell: Three cards are dealt face-down in three piles. The active player always starts by looking at Pile 1. They may pick it up - in which case play moves to Player B - or pass on to Pile 2; either way, a(nother) card is always added to a pile after it has been looked at. Likewise for Pile 2 and 3. If active player doesn’t take Pile 3, they must take the top card off the deck, after which play switches.
Inventor: Richard Garfield!
Total Cards: 90 (dealt out 1 at a time over 3 piles, plus occasional picks off the top)
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Medium
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: ?
Winchester
In a Nutshell: Four cards are dealt in four face-up piles. Player A takes one. Another card is dealt onto all piles. Roles switch.
Inventor: Gabriel Nassif
Total Cards: 80 (dealt out in 20 rounds over 4 piles)
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: Yes
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Long Island 64
In a Nutshell: Player A draws 6 cards, takes one, makes 5 face-up piles, and deals one random card (“long”) on each. Player B takes a pile, then makes a new one (“island”) the same size. Repeat with same roles until Player B chooses between two 5-card piles. Discard the remainder, switch roles. Four rounds total.
Inventor: Leelue
Total Cards: 116
Player’s Draft Pool: 48
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: Moderate
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Low
Deck Power Level:
Works for 3: ?
Probably the most interesting development in two-person drafting in recent years, these formats take the shaggy piles of early formats and turn them into neat rows and columns. For the first time, draftable picks on the table form something like a game board, where a card’s position in proximity to its neighbors affects its own value. That, and they’re just neat to look at all laid out face-up like that. So colorful!
These draft styles can take some getting used to. They’re a lot of information all at once. Decks can be very strong, but hate drafting also plays a major part of the fun.
Grid
In a Nutshell: Nine cards are dealt face up in a 3x3 grid. Player A chooses a row or column. Player B chooses a row or column of remaining 6 cards. Leftovers are discarded, new grid is made, roles switch.
Inventor: Trunkers
Total Cards: 162 (18 rounds of 9)
Player’s Draft Pool: 45-54
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: High
Deck Power Level: Fairly High
Works for 3: ?
Quilt
In a Nutshell: Cards are dealt face-up in 8x8 grid, each rotated 90 degrees from those adjacent. Players take turns picking one card with a short edge “open.” After half are picked, the rest are discarded and a second quilt is made. This time Player B goes first.
Inventor: tomchaps
Total Cards: 136
Player’s Draft Pool: 36
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: Somewhat
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Yes (plus “hate blocking”)
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: ?
Memory Magic (AKA Squid Drafting)
In a Nutshell: 45 cards are placed face down in a shape or pattern. Players take turns looking at 3 cards, then taking 1 card from anywhere. Each player has a marker that can be placed anywhere on the table each turn. After each player has 15 cards, reveal and exile the remaining 15. Repeat 2 more times for 45 card pools.
Inventor: Mergatroid_Jones
Total Cards: 135
Player's Draft Pool: 45
Information: Limited
Skill Testing: Somewhat
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: Yes
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3: ?
Pyramid Drafting
In a Nutshell: Build a face-up pyramid of 15 cards, with 5 at base and 1 at top, plus a stack of 85 additional cards. Players take turns choosing 1 card from the base. The pyramid then "crumbles" downward. Cards on the edge are simply replaced by the card above (repeated on each higher level); players taking center cards choose which of the 2 above to crumble down. Replace vacated top space with top card from stack; repeat until all cards are drafted.
Inventor: TRK27
Total Cards: 100
Player's Draft Pool: 50
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: High
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3? No
The newest - and, so far, smallest - of the draft categories, hand drafting seems poised to fulfill our long-held wish that two-man drafting could play like “regular” pod drafting. Indeed, here we get fifteen card hands, we take one card, and pass it to our opponents. Just like FNM!
Information, consequently, is much less perfect than in the other true draft formats (aside from Winston); hate drafting, likewise, is harder to do.
Schizochester is a bit of an odd fit here, with both perfect information and cards on the table, rather than in the hand; it seems even less appropriate in Pile Drafting, however, so here we have it.
Pancake
In a Nutshell: Both players start with 11 card packs, take one card, and switch. Players then take two and discard two, switch again, take two, and discard the last four. A total of 18 packs are used.
Inventor: Joost
Total Cards: 198
Player’s Draft Pool: 45
Information: Moderate
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Moderate
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Burnfour
In a Nutshell: Both players start with 15 card packs. Each takes 1 card and “burns” (discards) 4, then swap packs, repeat again, swap, and take a final card each (so 3 total). Repeat with fresh packs, twelves times total.
Inventor: ColbyCube
Total Cards: 360
Player’s Draft Pool: 36
Information: Low
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: ?
Glimpse
In a Nutshell: Like Burnfour, but only burning 2 cards at a time, and nine packs total.
Inventor: wtwlf123
Total Cards: 270
Player’s Draft Pool: 45
Information: Moderate
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: ?
Schizochester
In a Nutshell: Do a basic Rochester Draft – each player choosing 1 cards at a time from a face-up pack – while pretending to be four different people, ending up with 4 decks each.
Inventor: Hicham
Total Cards: 360
Player’s Draft Pool: 45 x 4
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Very Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Rare
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: No
The draft variant below was just recently brought to my attention, but it resonates with what I've been thinking for a while; namely, that one of the great unexplored arenas of drafting involves using cards to pay for other cards, that is, bidding or negotiation. I suspect that there are a lot more to be found, some perhaps quite different from anything we're playing today. Readers - the ball's in your court.
Lawyer
In a Nutshell: Over 8 rounds of 5 turns, players take turns picking one of six face-up cards or a random one from the deck. Within each round, players can also trade a card in hand for one on the table, plus a random draw from the deck.
Inventor: Sawler (via Oppen)
Total Cards: 128+
Player’s Draft Pool: 40
Information: High
Skill Testing: Moderate
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Fairly
Hate Drafting: Some
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Sometimes, drafting is too much of a hassle. Sometimes, deckbuilding is too much like work. What to do?
Why not just play?
These are the fastest formats there are, great for cubing in a hurry or between rounds of something bigger. They're also great for new players (notable exception: Mental Magic) who might be intimidated by the subtleties of archetypes, mana curves, fixing, and all that tricksy deckbuilding stuff that experienced cubers know and love and domineer with. Expect crazy, super-swingy games where anything can happen. If Cube, generally, is that primo Bolivian white - uncut, unadulterated - these formats are straight up crack.
Try it. You'll like it.
Wizard's Tower
In a Nutshell: Shuffle 135 cards and 16 of each basic land into a huge tower - a shared library. Players draw three cards each and can discard and redraw once. Seven cards are laid face up. During each players draw, they choose one face-up card and draw one off the top. When the last face-up card is drawn, deal another seven. Library and graveyard are shared.
Inventor: Ryan Miller?
Total Cards: 215
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: Little
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: Possible
Deck Power Level: Low
Works for 3: Yes
DC10
In a Nutshell: Unlimited mana, activated abilities once a turn, X costs are enough to kill things in play (Earthquake can be for the highest toughness creature in play) but can only be 1 or 0 when targeting a player (You can Devil's Play a 4/4 for 4, but you can't Devil's Play a player for 20), starting hand size is zero.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Type 4
In a Nutshell: Unlimited mana, one spell per turn, roll a d6 for starting hand size
Inventor: Antknee42
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Windfall
In a Nutshell: No limits on lands per turn, cards from hand face-down are 5-color lands, draw 2 cards each turn (unless you’re going first, then 1), starting hand size is seven.
Inventor: Travis Woo?
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Mental Magic
In a Nutshell: Seven card hands, cards played face-down as 5-color lands or as any spell with same mana cost other than the spell it is, or another spell already named. See link for more rules. (Note that this isn't really a cube format, but it could certainly be played by using one's cube – even if the cards named are all outside it.)
Inventor: Richard Garfield
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Extremely High
Speed: Depends on Your Powers of Recall
Newbie Friendly: Absolutely Not
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Super High
Works for 3: Yes
Shoutout to Glimpse drafting! Glimpse is an improved Burnfour -- my regular draft partner and myself have actually shifted from Burnfour to Glimpse. Wtwlf123 did a great job of improving the format from taking the packs from 12 each player to 9 each player and burning 2 instead of 4.
Noratora, because Burnfour and Glimpse drafting are so similar, I'd be entirely fine with just deleting Burnfour and just including Glimpse with credit given to myself and wtwlf123. I would tell any player interested in trying Burnfour to actually start with Glimpse anyway.
EDIT: Glimpse can work with any number of participants, but the number of cards needed for a draft goes up by 135 for each person drafting
2 people glimpsin': 270 cards needed (18 total packs of 15)
3 people glimpsin': 405 cards needed (27 total packs of 15)
4 people glimpsin': 540 cards needed (36 total packs of 15)
5 people glimpsin': 675 cards needed (45 total packs of 15)
6 people glimpsin': 810 cards needed (54 total packs of 15)
People have actually given some reports on the Glimpse thread of doing 4 man drafts with it and they say it's a blast.
This is what me and a friend did for quite a while when we started cubing. We still enjoy drafting like this every now and then. Works for 3 drafters as well.
I am not sure about the name of this draft....but I have copied this from someone named Sawler
To start the cube is completely randomized and then we determine who picks first. There are eight rounds to drafting.
Round 1: In the first round six cards are revealed in the middle.
Player A has the option of taking one of the revealed cards and adding it to his pool or taking a card at random from the remainder of the cube. If a revealed card is taken, then it is replaced with another card from the cube so there are always six cards showing.
Player B then repeats Player A's option of either taking a card from the middle, or taking one at random.
It is now Player A's turn. He has the same two options as before except now there is a third option. He can choose to swap one of the cards he has already drafted *this round* with one card in the middle AND take one card at random from the rest of the cube. This ensures that every turn, that player's pool increases by one.
The round continues until each player has five cards in their pool that they drafted that round. Once Player B gets his last card, all the remaining revealed cards are swept away and can no longer get drafted.
Round 2: Six new cards are revealed and now it is Player B's turn to choose first. The exact same rules are followed as in round one, with Player A getting the last pick in Round 2.
**Note: You cannot swap a card from your pool which you drafted in a previous round with a revealed card. Only cards drafted in Round 2 may be swapped for a revealed card in Round 2.**
After 8 rounds, each player should have 40 cards in their total pool to build a deck with.
This format is fun because the decks are generally more powerful and cohesive than a standard Winston or Winchester draft. It also leads to some sweet moments like when you take a mediocre card in the middle only to flip up a Sol Ring or Umezawa's Jitte for your opponent.
It also allows you to screw over your opponent if you have the last pick in the round. Say you are drafting R/G aggro and Jace, The Mind Sculptor gets revealed. On the final pick of the round that player could swap Jace for a card in the middle without their opponent getting priority to draft it.
Try it! Its a nice variant on a draft format I read somewhere and we do this about 75% of the time when two of us draft the cube.
Shoutout to Glimpse drafting! Glimpse is an improved Burnfour -- my regular draft partner and myself have actually shifted from Burnfour to Glimpse. Wtwlf123 did a great job of improving the format from taking the packs from 12 each player to 9 each player and burning 2 instead of 4.
Noratora, because Burnfour and Glimpse drafting are so similar, I'd be entirely fine with just deleting Burnfour and just including Glimpse with credit given to myself and wtwlf123. I would tell any player interested in trying Burnfour to actually start with Glimpse anyway.
Thanks for the feedback! We just did our first Glimpse draft the other day and it was a indeed a blast - even though we both ended up in rampy green decks somehow. Re: burnfour, I think I'd like to leave the guide up as is. Part of the appeal of the project was to build a sort of genealogy of draft formats: who, when, and how they were first made, and how they change over time. You might notice someone on Reddit pointed out "Pancake" drafting, which - I'm sorry to say - is very similar to Burnfour, and predates it (on the internet at least) by a year. The fact that different people came up with these variants independently is really interesting to me.
This is what me and a friend did for quite a while when we started cubing. We still enjoy drafting like this every now and then. Works for 3 drafters as well.
Thanks! I'll write this up for sure. Unless you have a better suggestion, I'm going to use my executive privilege to call it a "Lawyer Draft." The name has a nice consonance with this mysterious "Sawler" guy, and there's a certain aspect of negotiation that fits the theme.
You might notice someone on Reddit pointed out "Pancake" drafting, which - I'm sorry to say - is very similar to Burnfour, and predates it (on the internet at least) by a year. The fact that different people came up with these variants independently is really interesting to me.
It is similar in the sense that people are passing packs to each other, but that's where the differences end. Burnfour was created to best simulate an 8-man draft between two players, and Glimpse kind of changes that dynamic up a bit, but it's mostly similar to a 6 man draft now.
I think it's interesting too, but that's the nature of discovery and humans. We're always innovating and a lot of innovations are very similar and arise independently all over the world at roughly the same time. A lot of big inventions in history happened simultaneously around the world, so I'm not too surprised multiple people came up with 2-man pack drafting a year apart from each other.
Added Wizard's Tower - thanks to flclreddit for the tip. It's listed as a Sealed Variant, although I admit, with no deck building at all involved, it's a strange fit. Perhaps it deserves its own category: F It, Let's Play? Yup: F* It, Let's Play.
We just did our first Glimpse draft the other day and it was a indeed a blast - even though we both ended up in rampy green decks somehow.
You'll notice common threads/colors in most of your Glimpse events. You don't purge the average quality cards you want to wheel for your deck, so the packs tend to be saturated with similar cards. Eventually players realize what's being forced back and forth, and colors are typically shared. This goes away in a 3-person Glimpse, for the most part.
This isn't a new format but, lots of people forget it's an option.
Our favorite two player is two deck / three deck sealed.
If we have he time (4 hours) we play 3 deck sealed.
12 packs of 15. And you build 3 decks.
Then you play deck A vs deck A, BvB and CvC, then CvA, CvB, BvC, BvA, AvB, AvC.
So that every player 1 deck plays every player 2 deck.
Total 9 matches. Which gives an over all winner to the night as well.
If we are short on time (about 2 hours) we play two deck sealed.
8 packs of 15 and you each build 2 decks.
Then you play AvsA and BvsB, then AvsB and BvsA.
For 'F it', you can also use DC-10 ('off the top'), Type 4, and Windfall. LMK if you want descriptions of any of those; I Windfall a lot ever since Travis Woo showed me how because it's very fun and very fast.
Also, to the OP: the numbers in your summary of Quilt drafting don't line up with your description. 2 8x8 quilts would result in seeing 128 cards with each player having a pool of 32. Also, it works well with three players if you use 8x9 quilts, 12 picks per person per quilt, 3 quilts.
DC10: Unlimited mana, activated abilities once a turn, X costs are enough to kill things in play (Earthquake can be for the highest toughness creature in play) but can only be 1 or 0 when targeting a player (You can Devil's Play a 4/4 for 4, but you can't Devil's Play a player for 20), starting hand size is zero
Type 4: Unlimited mana, one spell per turn, roll a d6 for starting hand size (I want to point out that I actually created this format, because lots of other are attributed credit/take credit...others turned it into a draft format, but the concept and name were mine)
Windfall: Unlimited Exploration, Mental Magic lands (cards from hand face-down are 5-color lands), draw 2 cards each turn (unless you’re going first, then 1), starting hand size is seven
This isn't a new format but, lots of people forget it's an option.
Our favorite two player is two deck / three deck sealed.
If we have he time (4 hours) we play 3 deck sealed.
12 packs of 15. And you build 3 decks.
Then you play deck A vs deck A, BvB and CvC, then CvA, CvB, BvC, BvA, AvB, AvC.
So that every player 1 deck plays every player 2 deck.
Total 9 matches. Which gives an over all winner to the night as well.
If we are short on time (about 2 hours) we play two deck sealed.
8 packs of 15 and you each build 2 decks.
Then you play AvsA and BvsB, then AvsB and BvsA.
Just what we enjoy.
Cheers
Thanks! This sounds like a fun way to play. I'll throw it into the list asap. Heretoforth and forever anon known as Macrosealed. Cuz, you know, microsealed.
We Rochester draft with 8, each drafting four decks. Either you draft them as a team or not, that is up to how good you can do this honestly. Some find it hard to hate draft against themselves.
Rochester gives very good decks, is skill intensive and allows for good drafting discussions (during or after). The disadvantage is that it takes a long time. For us this an advantage as we prefer drafting over playing.
Only difference with 'normal' Rochester is that we place the picked cards so you can still see them. Remembering four decks perfectly in t is too Rainmany for us;) After two boosters we allow a quick break to look at each pile in more detail.
We Rochester draft with 8, each drafting four decks. Either you draft them as a team or not, that is up to how good you can do this honestly. Some find it hard to hate draft against themselves.
Rochester gives very good decks, is skill intensive and allows for good drafting discussions (during or after). The disadvantage is that it takes a long time. For us this an advantage as we prefer drafting over playing.
Only difference with 'normal' Rochester is that we place the picked cards so you can still see them. Remembering four decks perfectly in t is too Rainmany for us;) After two boosters we allow a quick break to look at each pile in more detail.
I think you're posting in the wrong forum? This is for two-player draft variants.
We are two players and we each draft four decks. We play them one on one.
We tried other two player variants but they all felt too zero sum for me. Especially as I have a tendency to draft negative in two player drafts. Why help yourself if you can screw the other one, that kind of thing.
We tried simulating booster draft, but that is pretty hard as you have to act as if you don't know the other picks. Rochester solves this as all information is open. In doing this we can enjoy the balance of a full draft, while still only being two. This way you can also include more narrow archetypes then you can do in most 2-playerd focused cubes.
This also works if you are three or four, btw. You can draft two decks each for example when you have four players.
Well it just like a regular Rochester Draft. Instead of having eight players, you have two players drafting four decks each. So I would draft deck 1,3,5 and 7 and you would draft 2,4,6 and 8.
Apart from that it works just like a 8 player draft. Three fifteen card packs per 'player', so 24 in total.
Rochester is an old format, we didn't change a thing except that we pilot four seats each.
Yes, but we have been doing this for years and are used to the schizophrenic part. But this is personal, some people cannot handle acting like different players and or for them playing as a team with your own decks is a perfectly acceptable solution. With playing as a team, I just mean that the decks don't play each other and that at the end of the draft you make the sum of the points to see who won the draft.
When it is just Fredo and me (the two cube owners)we do not team draft and it is considered bad form/cheating to be friendlier to yourself then to the other players decks. Also note that Rochester is a lot friendlier then normal booster draft as it is generally considered bad strategy to fight over colours and archetypes with your neighbours. This makes hate drafting rare then in most other formats.
Drafting like this takes between an one hour and three, depending on how much discussion you want during picks. We like as we love drafting, but some players prefer playing over drafting and thus find our system too focused on drafting.
My buddy and I will often do the simulation 8-man booster draft. We've never tried a Rochester draft before, but that's something to keep in mind. What I find is the biggest difference between our "faux 8-mans" and an actual 8-man is that not only is it much harder to keep up with four decks instead of just one, but all four decks tend to have my fingerprints all over them. By that I mean that I'll end up drafting Rock, Mono Red, UB Tempo, and UR Wildfire. It's rare that my side of the table ends up in any sort of dedicated control or combo-ish decks as I just dislike those types of builds. I also often find that I'll end up with two really good decks and two that are just ok or even bad because I didn't pay as much attention to them as I did the others. My Mono Red deck ends up being just beastly, but my Rock deck ends up being just a pile of decent black and green cards with no real direction or much synergy. Keeping track of all the cards and picks is definitely very skill intensive. It's also hard not to be very kind to your four decks while the packs are going through your side of the table. For example if my deck four is Mono Red and my deck one is UB Tempo, but the pack has nothing all that useful for my UB deck, it's tough to hate the Sulfuric Vortex because I know my other deck can really benefit from it. In an actual 8-man I'd likely just hate the best card in the pack in that instance. Doing this it's easy to just take something else and know that your Mono Red deck is gonna be the nuts.
It usually takes us about 45 min to an hour for the full draft and deck building. Then we spend the next three hours or so playing the rounds ourselves. It's a pretty fun way to spend the evening. You get to pilot a few different decks. You get to see what kind of output your cube has in that environment. You get to play a more synergistic deck as opposed to the normal decks we see in Winston drafts. And, of course, it always feels really awesome for one of your decks to come out victorious - even more so when the final two decks end up being your decks.
My cube partner and I used to play "Modified Winston" exclusively before we started Glimpse Drafting.
How it works:
1) Each player receives 2 fifteen card boosters, and opens them like a mini sealed pool.
2) Winston draft as usual.
It seems like a small change but having 30 cards in your pool pre-Winston really changed how we drafted by giving each player a trajectory from the start. We found that the power level of our Mod Winston decks was much higher than when drafted vanilla Winston. It also stretched us as deckbuilders by pushing us in directions we wouldn't normally have tried. I don't know if this warrants a separate entry in your genealogy of drafting, but it worked quite well for us for hundreds of matches.
Truly blessed are we who cube with two. Sure, from time to time we might dream of boisterous eight-manners, of razor-sharp decks and varied opponents with varied tastes and play styles. Yes, we might not even know what signalling means. But do we care? Traditional pod drafts - fifteen cards, take one, pass, repeat - just don’t work with two. Instead, our best and brightest have had to innovate.
This is the beauty of two-player drafting: we have so damn many ways to do it.
Maybe even too many, in fact, and too far spread over the internet. That’s the point of this guide: to collect as many two-player draft formats as possible in one place. I mean to keep updating it as new formats emerge; if you have a method you think is worth sharing, please describe it below. Variants on established formats are welcome as well.
I’ve tried to break down the various formats in ways that could help people choose among them, but - disclaimer! - some I haven’t tried (yet), and of course every playgroup (playcouple?) does things a little differently. So if you think the “statistics” on length, deck power level, etc., are wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know. And I’ve never drafted with three; if you have, I’d love to hear how adaptable the various formats are to that size.
Additionally, I’ve lumped formats into a small number of categories. These will be imperfect, of course, but I think they can help us to see the strengths and weaknesses of whole styles of drafting, as well as pointing toward potentially undiscovered territory.
These draft formats are not, properly speaking, drafting at all. You don’t compete with other players for a shared card pool; instead, you’re dealt a chunk of cards, and make do with what you got. If drafting is two captains taking turns to choose kids for their kickball teams, sealed and its variants start with the coach numbering everyone off: One, Two, One, Two. The choices that make drafting so interesting are totally absent. On the other hand - as with the motley crew of Team Two - assembling your squad of randos into a dominating kickball machine - or in our case, deckbuilding - is more valued, and skill testing, than in other draft formats.
Sealed goes way back in Magic history. Its advantages are obvious: it’s simple, it’s quick, it’s scalable, it requires very little set-up. For otherwise experienced players new to cube, the mechanics and strategies will be old hat. Of course, the tradeoff is a greatly diminished power level - decks simply do not have the consistency found in other formats - and much less player choice in terms of color preference/archetypes. Decks tend towards midrange; aggro is hard to pull off.
Sealed also lends itself to hybridity. Though not discussed in detail here, there are plenty of variants possible. Like, say, a 30 card Sealed deck supplemented by 60 cards of Winston draft.
Sealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 90 cards. Done.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 180
Player’s Draft Pool: 90
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Yes (Entirely in deck building)
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Low
Works for 3: Yes
Macrosealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 180 (/120) cards. Each player uses that pool to build 3 (/2) decks. Play each deck against each opposing deck.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 360/240
Player’s Draft Pool: 180/120
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Yes (Entirely in deck building)
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: Larger Cubes
Microsealed
In a Nutshell: Deal each player 90 cards, as well as custom-made lands (see link). Players build 15 card decks, play with a unique ruleset, then discard and rebuild as they lose.
Inventor: Jason Waddell
Total Cards: 180
Player’s Draft Pool: 90
Information: None (initially)
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: Yes
Poker Draft
In a Nutshell: Players cycle their sealed pools in real time: first ten hands of 5, each "redrawn" twice in the fashion of draw poker, then the whole pool, twice more.
Inventor: Zetsu_Sensei
Total Cards: 150-175 per player
Player’s Draft Pool: 50
Information: None
Skill Testing: Medium
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: Yes
This category, which includes some of the oldest established formats for two-man booster drafts (anteceding the Cube itself), substitutes the large “hands” of orthodox pod drafting for a small number of piles, generally with multiple cards each. Pile drafting, in other words, features a comparatively smaller number of more complex decisions. Hate drafting is certainly possible here - more difficult in Winston, the sole face-down variant - but the fact that multiple cards are drafted with most picks makes reading your opponent’s intentions more skill-testing than elsewhere.
Unlike with sealed and geometrical drafting, these formats tend to begin with only a small handful of cards to choose among, and grow in complexity slowly; newer players will rarely be paralysed by gross information, although the choices themselves may be quite difficult (especially true with Solomon). Archetypes tend to be fairly chaseable and decks fairly powerful. These are, in other words, formats that tend to appeal to a wide range of players, that reward skilled drafting without locking out the less experienced, and that lead to the sorts of Magic decks Magic players like to play. Little wonder their longevity.
Solomon (AKA Fact or Fiction)
In a Nutshell: Player A splits a pack into two face-up piles of any size. Player B chooses either pile, Play A gets the other. Roles switch.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: 80 (10 rounds of 8); 90 (18 rounds of 5); 84 (12 rounds of 7); etc.
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: Sort of (“hate splitting”)
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3: ?
Winston
In a Nutshell: Three cards are dealt face-down in three piles. The active player always starts by looking at Pile 1. They may pick it up - in which case play moves to Player B - or pass on to Pile 2; either way, a(nother) card is always added to a pile after it has been looked at. Likewise for Pile 2 and 3. If active player doesn’t take Pile 3, they must take the top card off the deck, after which play switches.
Inventor: Richard Garfield!
Total Cards: 90 (dealt out 1 at a time over 3 piles, plus occasional picks off the top)
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Hidden
Skill Testing: Medium
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: ?
Winchester
In a Nutshell: Four cards are dealt in four face-up piles. Player A takes one. Another card is dealt onto all piles. Roles switch.
Inventor: Gabriel Nassif
Total Cards: 80 (dealt out in 20 rounds over 4 piles)
Player’s Draft Pool: Varies
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: Yes
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Long Island 64
In a Nutshell: Player A draws 6 cards, takes one, makes 5 face-up piles, and deals one random card (“long”) on each. Player B takes a pile, then makes a new one (“island”) the same size. Repeat with same roles until Player B chooses between two 5-card piles. Discard the remainder, switch roles. Four rounds total.
Inventor: Leelue
Total Cards: 116
Player’s Draft Pool: 48
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: Moderate
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Low
Deck Power Level:
Works for 3: ?
Probably the most interesting development in two-person drafting in recent years, these formats take the shaggy piles of early formats and turn them into neat rows and columns. For the first time, draftable picks on the table form something like a game board, where a card’s position in proximity to its neighbors affects its own value. That, and they’re just neat to look at all laid out face-up like that. So colorful!
These draft styles can take some getting used to. They’re a lot of information all at once. Decks can be very strong, but hate drafting also plays a major part of the fun.
Grid
In a Nutshell: Nine cards are dealt face up in a 3x3 grid. Player A chooses a row or column. Player B chooses a row or column of remaining 6 cards. Leftovers are discarded, new grid is made, roles switch.
Inventor: Trunkers
Total Cards: 162 (18 rounds of 9)
Player’s Draft Pool: 45-54
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: High
Deck Power Level: Fairly High
Works for 3: ?
Quilt
In a Nutshell: Cards are dealt face-up in 8x8 grid, each rotated 90 degrees from those adjacent. Players take turns picking one card with a short edge “open.” After half are picked, the rest are discarded and a second quilt is made. This time Player B goes first.
Inventor: tomchaps
Total Cards: 136
Player’s Draft Pool: 36
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: Somewhat
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Yes (plus “hate blocking”)
Deck Power Level: Moderate to High
Works for 3: ?
Memory Magic (AKA Squid Drafting)
In a Nutshell: 45 cards are placed face down in a shape or pattern. Players take turns looking at 3 cards, then taking 1 card from anywhere. Each player has a marker that can be placed anywhere on the table each turn. After each player has 15 cards, reveal and exile the remaining 15. Repeat 2 more times for 45 card pools.
Inventor: Mergatroid_Jones
Total Cards: 135
Player's Draft Pool: 45
Information: Limited
Skill Testing: Somewhat
Speed: Medium
Newbie Friendly: Somewhat
Hate Drafting: Yes
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3: ?
Pyramid Drafting
In a Nutshell: Build a face-up pyramid of 15 cards, with 5 at base and 1 at top, plus a stack of 85 additional cards. Players take turns choosing 1 card from the base. The pyramid then "crumbles" downward. Cards on the edge are simply replaced by the card above (repeated on each higher level); players taking center cards choose which of the 2 above to crumble down. Replace vacated top space with top card from stack; repeat until all cards are drafted.
Inventor: TRK27
Total Cards: 100
Player's Draft Pool: 50
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: Not really
Hate Drafting: High
Deck Power Level: Moderate
Works for 3? No
The newest
- and, so far, smallest -of the draft categories, hand drafting seems poised to fulfill our long-held wish that two-man drafting could play like “regular” pod drafting. Indeed, here we get fifteen card hands, we take one card, and pass it to our opponents. Just like FNM!Information, consequently, is much less perfect than in the other true draft formats (aside from Winston); hate drafting, likewise, is harder to do.
Schizochester is a bit of an odd fit here, with both perfect information and cards on the table, rather than in the hand; it seems even less appropriate in Pile Drafting, however, so here we have it.
Pancake
In a Nutshell: Both players start with 11 card packs, take one card, and switch. Players then take two and discard two, switch again, take two, and discard the last four. A total of 18 packs are used.
Inventor: Joost
Total Cards: 198
Player’s Draft Pool: 45
Information: Moderate
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Moderate
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Burnfour
In a Nutshell: Both players start with 15 card packs. Each takes 1 card and “burns” (discards) 4, then swap packs, repeat again, swap, and take a final card each (so 3 total). Repeat with fresh packs, twelves times total.
Inventor: ColbyCube
Total Cards: 360
Player’s Draft Pool: 36
Information: Low
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: ?
Glimpse
In a Nutshell: Like Burnfour, but only burning 2 cards at a time, and nine packs total.
Inventor: wtwlf123
Total Cards: 270
Player’s Draft Pool: 45
Information: Moderate
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Sort of
Deck Power Level: Very High
Works for 3: ?
Schizochester
In a Nutshell: Do a basic Rochester Draft – each player choosing 1 cards at a time from a face-up pack – while pretending to be four different people, ending up with 4 decks each.
Inventor: Hicham
Total Cards: 360
Player’s Draft Pool: 45 x 4
Information: Perfect
Skill Testing: High
Speed: Very Slow
Newbie Friendly: No
Hate Drafting: Rare
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: No
The draft variant below was just recently brought to my attention, but it resonates with what I've been thinking for a while; namely, that one of the great unexplored arenas of drafting involves using cards to pay for other cards, that is, bidding or negotiation. I suspect that there are a lot more to be found, some perhaps quite different from anything we're playing today. Readers - the ball's in your court.
Lawyer
In a Nutshell: Over 8 rounds of 5 turns, players take turns picking one of six face-up cards or a random one from the deck. Within each round, players can also trade a card in hand for one on the table, plus a random draw from the deck.
Inventor: Sawler (via Oppen)
Total Cards: 128+
Player’s Draft Pool: 40
Information: High
Skill Testing: Moderate
Speed: Fast
Newbie Friendly: Fairly
Hate Drafting: Some
Deck Power Level: High
Works for 3: ?
Sometimes, drafting is too much of a hassle. Sometimes, deckbuilding is too much like work. What to do?
Why not just play?
These are the fastest formats there are, great for cubing in a hurry or between rounds of something bigger. They're also great for new players (notable exception: Mental Magic) who might be intimidated by the subtleties of archetypes, mana curves, fixing, and all that tricksy deckbuilding stuff that experienced cubers know and love and domineer with. Expect crazy, super-swingy games where anything can happen. If Cube, generally, is that primo Bolivian white - uncut, unadulterated - these formats are straight up crack.
Try it. You'll like it.
Wizard's Tower
In a Nutshell: Shuffle 135 cards and 16 of each basic land into a huge tower - a shared library. Players draw three cards each and can discard and redraw once. Seven cards are laid face up. During each players draw, they choose one face-up card and draw one off the top. When the last face-up card is drawn, deal another seven. Library and graveyard are shared.
Inventor: Ryan Miller?
Total Cards: 215
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: Little
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: Possible
Deck Power Level: Low
Works for 3: Yes
DC10
In a Nutshell: Unlimited mana, activated abilities once a turn, X costs are enough to kill things in play (Earthquake can be for the highest toughness creature in play) but can only be 1 or 0 when targeting a player (You can Devil's Play a 4/4 for 4, but you can't Devil's Play a player for 20), starting hand size is zero.
Inventor: ?
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Type 4
In a Nutshell: Unlimited mana, one spell per turn, roll a d6 for starting hand size
Inventor: Antknee42
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Windfall
In a Nutshell: No limits on lands per turn, cards from hand face-down are 5-color lands, draw 2 cards each turn (unless you’re going first, then 1), starting hand size is seven.
Inventor: Travis Woo?
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Low
Speed: Very Fast
Newbie Friendly: Yes
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: N/A
Works for 3: Yes
Mental Magic
In a Nutshell: Seven card hands, cards played face-down as 5-color lands or as any spell with same mana cost other than the spell it is, or another spell already named. See link for more rules. (Note that this isn't really a cube format, but it could certainly be played by using one's cube – even if the cards named are all outside it.)
Inventor: Richard Garfield
Total Cards: Any number
Player's Draft Pool: N/A
Information: None
Skill Testing: Extremely High
Speed: Depends on Your Powers of Recall
Newbie Friendly: Absolutely Not
Hate Drafting: No
Deck Power Level: Super High
Works for 3: Yes
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Shoutout to Glimpse drafting! Glimpse is an improved Burnfour -- my regular draft partner and myself have actually shifted from Burnfour to Glimpse. Wtwlf123 did a great job of improving the format from taking the packs from 12 each player to 9 each player and burning 2 instead of 4.
Noratora, because Burnfour and Glimpse drafting are so similar, I'd be entirely fine with just deleting Burnfour and just including Glimpse with credit given to myself and wtwlf123. I would tell any player interested in trying Burnfour to actually start with Glimpse anyway.
EDIT: Glimpse can work with any number of participants, but the number of cards needed for a draft goes up by 135 for each person drafting
2 people glimpsin': 270 cards needed (18 total packs of 15)
3 people glimpsin': 405 cards needed (27 total packs of 15)
4 people glimpsin': 540 cards needed (36 total packs of 15)
5 people glimpsin': 675 cards needed (45 total packs of 15)
6 people glimpsin': 810 cards needed (54 total packs of 15)
People have actually given some reports on the Glimpse thread of doing 4 man drafts with it and they say it's a blast.
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My Cube
Thanks for the feedback! We just did our first Glimpse draft the other day and it was a indeed a blast - even though we both ended up in rampy green decks somehow. Re: burnfour, I think I'd like to leave the guide up as is. Part of the appeal of the project was to build a sort of genealogy of draft formats: who, when, and how they were first made, and how they change over time. You might notice someone on Reddit pointed out "Pancake" drafting, which - I'm sorry to say - is very similar to Burnfour, and predates it (on the internet at least) by a year. The fact that different people came up with these variants independently is really interesting to me.
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Thanks! I'll write this up for sure. Unless you have a better suggestion, I'm going to use my executive privilege to call it a "Lawyer Draft." The name has a nice consonance with this mysterious "Sawler" guy, and there's a certain aspect of negotiation that fits the theme.
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
It is similar in the sense that people are passing packs to each other, but that's where the differences end. Burnfour was created to best simulate an 8-man draft between two players, and Glimpse kind of changes that dynamic up a bit, but it's mostly similar to a 6 man draft now.
I think it's interesting too, but that's the nature of discovery and humans. We're always innovating and a lot of innovations are very similar and arise independently all over the world at roughly the same time. A lot of big inventions in history happened simultaneously around the world, so I'm not too surprised multiple people came up with 2-man pack drafting a year apart from each other.
CUBE TOP 10 - Help us vote for the best cards in cube
It's listed as a Sealed Variant, although I admit, with no deck building at all involved, it's a strange fit. Perhaps it deserves its own category: F It, Let's Play?Yup: F* It, Let's Play.Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
You'll notice common threads/colors in most of your Glimpse events. You don't purge the average quality cards you want to wheel for your deck, so the packs tend to be saturated with similar cards. Eventually players realize what's being forced back and forth, and colors are typically shared. This goes away in a 3-person Glimpse, for the most part.
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!
Our favorite two player is two deck / three deck sealed.
If we have he time (4 hours) we play 3 deck sealed.
12 packs of 15. And you build 3 decks.
Then you play deck A vs deck A, BvB and CvC, then CvA, CvB, BvC, BvA, AvB, AvC.
So that every player 1 deck plays every player 2 deck.
Total 9 matches. Which gives an over all winner to the night as well.
If we are short on time (about 2 hours) we play two deck sealed.
8 packs of 15 and you each build 2 decks.
Then you play AvsA and BvsB, then AvsB and BvsA.
Just what we enjoy.
Cheers
Cube Tutor
-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
CubeTutor: www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/72
Thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=512410
DC10 I believe is like Type 4 but with Mental Magic-style "rowing" cards face down as lands instead of everything being free/1 spell per turn.
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
CubeTutor: www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/72
Thread: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=512410
DC10: Unlimited mana, activated abilities once a turn, X costs are enough to kill things in play (Earthquake can be for the highest toughness creature in play) but can only be 1 or 0 when targeting a player (You can Devil's Play a 4/4 for 4, but you can't Devil's Play a player for 20), starting hand size is zero
Type 4: Unlimited mana, one spell per turn, roll a d6 for starting hand size (I want to point out that I actually created this format, because lots of other are attributed credit/take credit...others turned it into a draft format, but the concept and name were mine)
Windfall: Unlimited Exploration, Mental Magic lands (cards from hand face-down are 5-color lands), draw 2 cards each turn (unless you’re going first, then 1), starting hand size is seven
-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
Thanks! This sounds like a fun way to play. I'll throw it into the list asap. Heretoforth and forever anon known as Macrosealed. Cuz, you know, microsealed.
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Rochester gives very good decks, is skill intensive and allows for good drafting discussions (during or after). The disadvantage is that it takes a long time. For us this an advantage as we prefer drafting over playing.
Only difference with 'normal' Rochester is that we place the picked cards so you can still see them. Remembering four decks perfectly in t is too Rainmany for us;) After two boosters we allow a quick break to look at each pile in more detail.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
I think you're posting in the wrong forum? This is for two-player draft variants.
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
We are two players and we each draft four decks. We play them one on one.
We tried other two player variants but they all felt too zero sum for me. Especially as I have a tendency to draft negative in two player drafts. Why help yourself if you can screw the other one, that kind of thing.
We tried simulating booster draft, but that is pretty hard as you have to act as if you don't know the other picks. Rochester solves this as all information is open. In doing this we can enjoy the balance of a full draft, while still only being two. This way you can also include more narrow archetypes then you can do in most 2-playerd focused cubes.
This also works if you are three or four, btw. You can draft two decks each for example when you have four players.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
Apart from that it works just like a 8 player draft. Three fifteen card packs per 'player', so 24 in total.
Rochester is an old format, we didn't change a thing except that we pilot four seats each.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Akrasia, a Custom 360 Cube
New To Cube?
Cubing with Two: A Guide to Two-Player Draft Formats
When it is just Fredo and me (the two cube owners)we do not team draft and it is considered bad form/cheating to be friendlier to yourself then to the other players decks. Also note that Rochester is a lot friendlier then normal booster draft as it is generally considered bad strategy to fight over colours and archetypes with your neighbours. This makes hate drafting rare then in most other formats.
Drafting like this takes between an one hour and three, depending on how much discussion you want during picks. We like as we love drafting, but some players prefer playing over drafting and thus find our system too focused on drafting.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
It usually takes us about 45 min to an hour for the full draft and deck building. Then we spend the next three hours or so playing the rounds ourselves. It's a pretty fun way to spend the evening. You get to pilot a few different decks. You get to see what kind of output your cube has in that environment. You get to play a more synergistic deck as opposed to the normal decks we see in Winston drafts. And, of course, it always feels really awesome for one of your decks to come out victorious - even more so when the final two decks end up being your decks.
MTGS Average Peasant Cube 2023 Edition
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How it works:
1) Each player receives 2 fifteen card boosters, and opens them like a mini sealed pool.
2) Winston draft as usual.
It seems like a small change but having 30 cards in your pool pre-Winston really changed how we drafted by giving each player a trajectory from the start. We found that the power level of our Mod Winston decks was much higher than when drafted vanilla Winston. It also stretched us as deckbuilders by pushing us in directions we wouldn't normally have tried. I don't know if this warrants a separate entry in your genealogy of drafting, but it worked quite well for us for hundreds of matches.