When it comes to Magic formats, most people start out in a constructed format. A new player usually buys a starter deck (or borrows someone’s), and plays the game with a set of cards that the player has pre-set or chosen to put in his/her deck. This is called the constructed format because you are contructing your deck to your liking.

            A draft, as well as sealed tournaments, are in the limited format. A limited format is when a player has a select pool of cards to build a deck from: your options are limited. A draft involves usually eight players with three booster packs each. Each player opens their first booster pack, picks a card, and then passes the pack to their left. This process continues until all of the cards are gone from the first set of packs. The process is then repeated with the second pack, and then the third until everyone has their pool of cards to choose from the cards they chose in the rotation.

            From here, the draft works like a sealed tournament. You have to make a forty-card deck out of the cards you have chosen. For first timers, this is seen as a daunting and difficult task, but at this point in the draft, friends can help you out, give you advice, and tell you what cards are good specifically for drafts. As a general rule of thumb, basic draft decks should…

Have as many creatures as possible, for as cheap mana cost as possible

            Creatures are usually what wins games (obviously). The more you have, the better your board looks, the stronger you are, the more likely you can whittle someone down to swing for the win. If you have cheap creatures for only one or two mana, you can often start striking you opponent before they have time to build up, putting them into a bad posistion from the start.

            Evasion

            Whether it be through protection, intimidation, abilities, enchanments, and most famously flying; evasion is much more valuable in limited games than constructed. Due to the limited pool, a player is less likely to be able to react to such threats with evasion, because creatures with evasion are doing exactly their purpose; evading danger to damage enemies.

            Spot Removal

            Spells are fun, but you don’t want your spell count to take away from the crucial creature count. Spells that are an auto-include for any draft deck. Spells such as Doom Blade, Pacifism, Mana Leak, Naturalize, Incinerate, are all removal spells that would help any deck overcome obstacles such as annoying or powerful creatures, enchantments, or artifacts.

            So remember in your next draft to keep these rules in mind. It can really surprise other players if your knowledge in drafting is high enough to beat them in a tournament, because a limited format is a level playing field. No one has four thirty dollar mythic cards unless, they were really, really lucky.