Draft 2 (75 card sealed)

Same results as the last round. Joe was poinsed to dominate with Rare-B-Gone, but never got to play it.

Achievements unlocked:

• 1st power 7 or more creature & 1st mythic rare: Jesse (Round 2, game 2) with Godsire, but I did beat him the next turn
• 1st silver bordered card: Dan (Round 1, game 1) with BINGO

Draft 1

We've only got 4 players right now, so we're ending a round early.

Unfortunately, my deck with 2 Invasion dragon legends and Sword of Fire & Ice wasn't good enough to put me over the top. Jesse won the first draft 2-0, while Dan and I finished 1-1, and Joe brought up the rear.

Achievements unlocked:

• 1st legend in play: Dan (Round 1, Game 1) Ashling, the Exterminator (followed by 2 or 3 more legends)
• 1st player to deal a poison counter: Dan (Round 1, Game 2) with Sabretooth Cobra
• 1st creature with 3 or more colors: Jason (Round 1, Game 2) with Dromar, the Banisher
• 1st creature from Homelands: Joe (Round 1, Game 2) with Serra Paladin

Decklists coming later.

No video stream

It looks like my computer has picked up some adware that has hosed IE and Firefox, so I can't get uStream to work. Hopefully photos and blog updates won't be a problem.

Adding more variety to a day full of variety

Although the card selection will offer plenty of variety during the day, I've been thinking about how to keep things interesting during the day. First, we'll probably try to change the draft format with each new draft. We can start with a regular draft, but at some point I think a Backdraft (pick the worst cards possible, then pass them to someone else to build with) is something we'll have to do. One of our players will be out during the morning, but once we have all 8 available, a Two-Headed Giant draft is bound to happen as well.

I'm wondering if we should try any rounds with deck building restrictions (like playing all 5 colors) or not. I'm not completely sold on the idea yet.

I recently found a bunch of packs that I hadn't opened sitting in a box on my shelf. After going through all of the relevant stuff, I found 19 packs of Unhinged remaining. I'm thinking of giving them out as "event prizes" to the first player to accomplish a certain task during the day. (Think of it as unlocking an achievement.) Here are the ones that I've thought of so far:

• First Legendary card in play
• First creature with power 7 or more in play
• First creature with power 10 or more in play
• First creature from Homelands in play
• First spell from Fallen Empires played
• First silver bordered (Un-set) card played
• First Planeswalker in play
• First creature with 3 or more colors in play
• First creature with 5 colors in play
• First player to deal a poison counter to an opponent
• First mythic rare in play
• First player to have 3 or more different slivers in play at once
• First player to have 10 or more token creatures in play at once

That's what I've got right now. Any other ideas?

Random packs

Here's an exercise for those curious about how these drafts might go. I've pulled 3 different sets of 15 cards from the boxes. You'll notice right away that the collections are very odd. For instance, I didn't happen to pull any blue cards in the first or third packs.

What would you pick first from these packs? (You can click the images to see larger versions on Flicker.)

Pack #1

For me, I think the Royal Assassin and Disintegrate would be at the top of my picks. The Assassin is great in limited, but the burn spell will end a match. 

Yes, that's Double Play from Unglued in there as well. Silver border un-rules apply, so the "Double" spells will be pretty useful during the day. 

Pack #2

Pack #3

The big draft box

We'll be drafting using the "Big Box." The Big Box is a variant on the "Cube," which is a collection of just the most powerful cards ever created. Cube drafting is very popular among Magic players. The Big Box actually contains one of every Magic card ever created. Mine isn't quite complete, but it's pretty close. Here, take a look:

That's the box, with 4 rows almost completely filled up. Oh, wait, that's not all.

There's 2 boxes. One of the rows is empty so that there will be room to expand into later. For reference, there are 11 tournament pack boxes in that empty row, taking up about as much room as the cards in the other rows. On the far left side, there are two fat pack boxes. But we're still not done.

Finally, this is all of the cards. The row on the right side contains basic lands and tokens (as well as tips and tricks cards and pro tour player cards) for use during play. This is 10 almost-full rows of cards. I'd estimate that it contains somewhere between 9 and 10 thousand different cards. So what's actually included? One of every unique non-foil card printed in the following groups:

• Every core set from Revised (3rd edition) through 10th edition... except the dual lands from Revised.
• Every expansion, large and small, from The Dark through Eventide.
• All of Shards of Alara, except for 9 cards. Six of them are the new Mythic rarity, and two of them are planeswalkers NOT named Ajani. Thanks, WotC.
• The un-sets, Unglued and Unhinged. Because they're too much fun to leave out.

In addition, there are numerous other cards from the Alpha/Beta/Unlimited set, as well as Arabian Nights, Antiquities, and Legends, but not complete sets. If any of the cards were reprinted in later sets (Desert, for example), then those copies have been added. There is only one copy of any given card, no matter how many times it was printed, so there's only one copy of Stone Rain, even though it was printed in a dozen or more sets.

What won't be included?

• Cards from Portal or Starter sets that were not printed in other sets.
• Foil only cards. (Super Secret Tech, Fruitcake Elemental)
• The big power cards from the original set.

Tomorrow, I'll include a few sample "packs" of 15 cards pulled from the box to show what kind of card pool you can end up working with.

What is Magic?

For the people who are making pledges for the players, you might be wondering what is this game that we'll be playing?

Magic: The Gathering is a trading card game that premiered in 1993. Since then, over 10,000 different cards have been published, with about 700 new cards each year. In a trading card game, players build their own decks using their own collections, and play against each other. Using cards to represent creatures and spells, a player usually wins by dealing 20 points of damage to theid opponent, though other ways of winning are possible. With so many cards available, there are many different strategies that players can build their decks around, in order to win the game.

In 1994, Magic won the "Top Five mind games award" from the annual Mensa Mind Games competition. Currently, the game features yearly national and world championship tournaments, as well as a professional tournament circuit, which pays out over $200,000 in prizes at each Pro Tour tournament.

For more information, see the official game website, or the wikipedia entry on the game.