This far into the block, everyone’s pretty much got a hang of how drafting Scars of Mirrodin block works. Wizards has turned the draft format on its ear by making the newest set of a block the first pack in the draft. But what if you started with Mirrodin Besieged… and got passed a pack of Alliances? Outside of praying that there’s still a Force of Will in the pack, what do you pick?
Start thinking now, because on April 2nd, you’ll get to make some difficult picks. Islandhome is running a Chaos Draft – or Wacky Draft, whatever you want to call it – where you’ll all get random packs to draft with from the past sixteen years of Magic’s history. That’s Fallen Empires to Mirrodin Besieged… with a few surprises tossed in as well.
Since we’re going all out on the wackiness, how about a fourth pack? Not a pack of Fourth Edition, I mean an actual fourth pack in the draft. Drafting will go left-right-left-right. There’s a few reasons for this. One, some older packs had less cards. Alliances and Chronicles each had twelve cards in the pack, while Fallen Empires and Homelands had eight cards each! The latter two will be doubled, so if you’re one of the lucky ones to pull Fallen Empires as a pack, you’ll open two packs of that set and shuffle them together into one sixteen-card pack. Two, chaos drafting is going to be a bit more difficult to read signals and construct a deck. You’ll need the extra cards to choose from. And three, it’s more fun! You won’t get to do this often, so let’s go all out!
Bridging the Gap
As different as Magic’s sets have been, there’s a coherency involved in the mechanics of the game. All cards in the game work together, whether intentionally designed to or not. Wizards has been careful to put inter-block synergy between their blocks these days, but even when that wasn’t always the case, there’s still some there. Creature types are one of the biggest ties: Elves from Lorwyn work great with Elves from Onslaught, Kamigawa’s Spirits have many friends in other sets, Changelings work great with any tribal card ever printed, and so on. Just be aware that there was a great creature type update semi-recently, though it’s usually obvious what a creature’s type now is under the current Oracle text.
Combos involving cards from different sets have formed either naturally or intentionally in Magic’s history. Will you pull off Dark Depths/Vampire Hexmage in draft? Splinter Twin/Pestermite? Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek? Anything’s possible, and even if you don’t pull off an “I Win” combo, you’ll find synergies in the strangest places.
The Oracle
I’ve always said that one of the hardest parts about judging Vintage is that none of the cards actually do what they say. Magic’s templating has changed a lot over the years, namely the two major overhauls in Sixth Edition and Magic 2010. I’ll have the Oracle text of all cards handy in case you need them, and obviously I’ll be there to answer any questions about old cards and old mechanics. A lot of them are self-explanatory (oh… except banding and phasing), but this isn’t sanctioned, so don’t stress!
I Wanna Draft!
Come on down to FNC 3.0 – The Arena on Saturday, April 2nd at 6:00 PM and be a part of Magic history… by drafting a big part of it!
Mirrodin Besieged launch parties begin Friday, February 4th, and stores around the Island will be holding events all weekend! The Mirran and Phyrexian packs from the prerelease are gone, so this is the first time you’ll get to crack open actual Mirrodin Besieged boosters!