I know many of you are very familiar with drafting here at Paddy’s, but I’ve also seen quite a few new faces Friday nights. It’s great to see some fresh players here, and I hope this will help you get a leg up at the draft table. This article should cover the buildup, actual draft, and deck build for you. As always, things may need to be tweaked for your individual play style, and conditions at the table. Still, I hope this helps.

1)      The Buildup

Spin through the internet to look at the card pool you will be drafting, and through the online rulebook. This can give you both information on the different cards in a given draft pool, deck build ideas, and a good understanding of rule mechanics for how the different cards will interact with each other. Don’t worry if you haven’t memorized every card in the set, or can’t quote rules verbatim. Heavy knowledge of card pools will come as you play, and there will be a judge at any sanctioned event to help you, feel free to call them as needed. Friday Night Magic (FNM) is your first step to organized magic play, and the main objectives of FNM are to have fun and learn. Draft starts at approximately 6:30 p.m. It’s always nice to come a little early to set yourself up and be ready to play. Come early to give yourself time to say “Hi,” to everyone, pay, get your beverage of choice, and put your things down. It also gives you time to mentally prepare to draft. Drafting well can be quite mentally taxing, and always requires your full attention. Having a little time to set yourself up can make the difference between a good draft, and a random bunch of cards in your hand. Sometimes you just end up running late, and this can be unavoidable, however, every edge you can get is a good one.

2)      The Draft

All right! Time to sit down at the table and crack some packs! We’ll assume you have a good working knowledge of the set of cards you’ll be drafting, so you’ll have a good idea of what you will see in the first fifteen cards. Well, it’s always great to have a plan, be it a general one like “white and green have the strongest cards, I’ll draft them,” to a very specific draft archetype like a “Merfolk mill deck,” you’ll still need to be able to bend your draft archetype like a reed in the wind. I’ll elaborate on that later.

An easy way to value cards in a given draft is the acronym B.R.E.A.D. I make no claim to be the creator of this, but it has worked the best for me. B.R.E.A.D. stands for Bombs, Removal, Evasion, Abilities, and Dudes. I’ll explain:

BOMBS:  These are the first pick game enders, cards like Garruk Wildspeaker, your Blaze spells, guys that you’re always happy to see. Almost all of these are so good that they are worth splashing into a third color for. From Incendiary Command to Serra Angel, these cards win games. Often, these guys will give you a good look at what color or colors you will want to be in.

REMOVAL:  These take care of the other guy’s bombs, and clear the way for you! Terror, Oblivion Ring, Shock, many of these are also splashable. Be on the lookout for cards that can target multiple things, like Hurly Burly or Thundercloud Shaman, which is removal wrapped up as a creature. Also, Goldmeadow Harrier is another form of removal, often tapping that big nasty guy across the board. An abundance of removal in a given color is a clear tell to you as well, seeing a late Shock, or Eyeblight’s Ending lets you know that the color is open for you, and may forecast some nice late picks come packs 2 and 3.

EVASION:  These are your guys that can fly, hop over, swampwalk, has protection from, or just can’t be blocked by other dudes. Often a limited game can get stalled with a lot of dudes just staring at each other across the board. These guys end the stalemate, and many times that 2/1 unblockable guy just swings 10 times for the win.

ABILITIES:  Creatures with good “comes into play” effects, or reasonable in play effects, as well as combat tricks fall into this category. Good examples of this are Giant Growth, Surge of Thoughtweft, and Inkfatham Divers.

DUDES:  These are your hill Giant guys, your Grizzly Bears, your on color creatures that will fill up unused slots in your mana curve. Not much to brag about in these picks, but solid guys nonetheless.

The last few cards of any run are often filled with chaff, the Ingot Chewers, Squires, and such. Still, be sure to look at them well, because even some of these can work well for you in specific situations and can be good sideboard additions.

3)      The Deck Build

Now that you’ve finished the draft, it’s time to sit down and see what you have. I prefer to lay my cards out by mana cost, and make my adjustments from there. For all but the most aggressive limited agro builds, the one mana slot is pretty easy to pass by, as most creatures in that slot just don’t do too much, and are out-classed very quickly. Many one many spells can be remarkably good, but again, your Giant Growth or Tarfire will most likely be saved for when you need it down the line, and should be thought of accordingly. There are exceptions to this; Tatermunge Maniac, Mogg Fanatic, and the above mentioned Goldmeadow Harrier are all great one drops. Also, spells such as Thoughtseize turn one can knock the reason your opponent kept his hand right out of the game. Still, the major focus should be on 2, 3, and 4 drops with a few, (1 to 4), cards hitting the 5+ mana slots. Although a seven mana card better be a real game ender. A typical curve might look like this:

1 mana   2 mana   3 mana   4 mana   5 mana   6+ mana

  3            6               6              4             3              1

            Total:  23 Creatures/Spells

This leaves 17 open slots for a 40 card limited deck, the preferred number of land. Your land count can go up or down by one, depending on your curve or number of colors you’re using, but I wouldn’t differ too much for consistency’s sake. Remember, even the most aggressive constructed decks still want to see some mana to work with.

A common mistake for new players is to try to cram in too many things, some good, some bad, and end up with a 48-card deck that requires four different mana to run. Remember you’re looking for consistency here, so try to keep it to one or two colors, with MAYBE a third color for a splash. This also means limiting the card total to the 40-card minimum. You want to be able to draw and play the things you need to win the game. Keeping the mana costs easy and staying at the 40-card minimum will do that.

I hope this helps, but I gotta’ run, it’s time to draft!