The idea here is that many players enjoy Magic in a variety of different ways. Most people play several formats casually. Because each format is slightly different, they require different skills to be successful even though the rules of the game stay essentially the same. Playing these different formats will help you focus in on developing particular aspects of your mental game without having to worry about the less important factors or the stress of a competitive environment.
Today, we are going to discuss the Booster Draft and the particular skills that it allows you to develop. Booster draft is a very skill-intensive and difficult format. Experience and knowledge are paramount. In game decision making is almost taken for granted, you must have rock solid fundamentals because there is much more going on than just what is on the board. This is a big contrast to the last segment I wrote because Momir simplified the game of Magic dramatically, whereas any limited format, but especially booster draft, adds additional complexity to the game. There is a reason that booster draft is the most common format for Pro Tour competition. You must have the basics down, you simply can't afford low-skill mistakes. Once you graduate past this level of control then you can begin to train the skills necessary to be a great limited player.
Things you don't have to worry about in draft:
- Knowledge of older cards - In Commander you will see cards from every era of magic. In a typical game you could have a Zendikar fetch land search out a Revised dual land. Perhaps your Necropotence will dig you into a Phyrexian Obliterator. In limited the size of the card pool is much smaller. You must still have a high level of familiarity with the cards in the format, but the amount of information you must retain is much more manageable.
- Knowledge of mechanics - A related phenom. A game of Commander may demand that you understand the entire rules history of a twenty year old game. Knowing how Storm works or how Flanking works could become relevant. For me, this means I have to explain Banding every time I cast Baton of Morale. In a given limited format there are only a few mechanics at play and since they are usually new there is likely reminder text in case you forget. This keeps things from getting too hairy except in the craziest formats, like Time Spiral block, Cube, or Modern Masters.
- Politics - In competitive environs there really isn't such a thing as multiplayer. In the casual realm I have only ever play multiplayer games of draft in Cube, although I will admit, even that is rare and unorthodox.
That is about it, unfortunately. Booster draft is tough. It is designed to test you in many ways at once. Again, this why we demand that the best players in the world compete in this format.
Things Booster Draft will help you develop:
Mentally/emotionally prepare yourself, this is going to be a long list. For reference though I am going to limit this list to just things that draft will teach you that you CAN'T learn from a game of Commander.
- Deckbuilding - This sometimes gets lost in the wash when people think and talk about limited, but make sure you remember: the goal of the draft is to make the best deck that you can. This is the most important lesson you need to learn and the ultimate goal of every draft. Signaling, moving in and out of archetypes, audible-ing, pick orders, all of this stuff is just the periphery. You use those techniques IN ORDER TO build the best deck for your seat. Because you have to go through the deckbuilding process every time you draft you get lots of practice at making leaner, meaner decks. Knowing what cards to cut, what to splash, how to construct a mana base...you will get plenty of opportunities to use these skills and believe me: you will lose if you can't do these things well.
- Card Valuation - It is easy to tell which cards are better when they are both in play. You will see that your Frost Titan can just lock down their Rafiq of the Many while smashing face. Which one would you rather take in a draft? Being able to evaluate the power level of cards in a vacuum, with respect to the format, and in relation to the other options in the pack are all important considerations. In the course of a draft you will have to do this dozens of times. A lot of people I know struggle with this. They will see two cards that they want, but can't decide which is better. There are tons of heuristics people use, like established pick orders, etc., but the only real way to learn and what will help you in the long run is being able to KNOW instinctively what your deck needs. Highly developed card evaluation skills lead directly to better deck building and wins.
- Drafting - There is so much going on in the process of actually picking cards. It is so complex that I am not going to be able to explain it in an entire article, much less a single paragraph. Recognizing the best card, recognizing what your deck needs, making quick decisions, reading and signaling, when and what to force, when and what to splash, when to cut, etc. There are libraries of strategy articles on how to do all of these things better. You may not feel like this is going to improve your constructed game, but consider this. When you can pick the right card from a pool of limited choices, it gives you more experience toward making the same decision with a larger pool of choices...say, what to include in your constructed decks.
- Metagame - If you read any strategy articles about booster draft, particularly current formats, you might see people use the phrase, "solved the format". Indicating that there has been sufficient experimentation and data collection to suggest that the metagame is stable. When this happens it is important to to know because it will directly inform your choices within the draft. What kind of decks are available in this format? What synergies/strategies are supported? Which colors are better than others? What rares are playable and when should you expect to see them in an opponent's deck? Having insider information about any given limited environment generates free wins. It's just that simple. Know what is available so that you can know what your opponent is doing and what you should be doing. Again, draft formats are smaller and easier to digest than constructed formats, so you can train the skill of collecting and applying this higher level information to use for Commander or Legacy for example. These formats are much deeper and very wide open in terms of competitive play.
- Sideboarding - Once you have established the best deck you can make and taken time to collect information about your potential opportunities and threats, then you can use those previously developed card selection abilities once again to pick out the best answer to the problems that you opponent will be presenting. Sideboarding is difficult to implement, but fairly easy to conceptualize. You cut cards that are bad in order to put in cards that are better. Often this is easier said than done, but in limited you have only a handful of options for your sideboard anyway. It is important to think about your deck and the cards that you AREN'T taking simultaneously so that you have some information about what your opponent is playing. That way, you can take potentially relevant sideboard cards with your unusable picks. By starting out in draft, you can practice doing this bad vs. better card evaluation skill with regards to the sideboard, which will help you make those same decisions in constructed where the decisions will be more frequent, more difficult, and more important.
Okay, that was a lot to think about. Draft tends to be like that. I encourage all you Zoners to get out there get your draft skills up. Theros is now out and available on both MtGO and in paper so there really is no excuse! This is a fun and engaging format that is powerful, deep, and complex. A perfect testing ground to sharpen your limited game. See you next week!
-GG
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