As has been mentioned more then once in this guide, building a deck in the Limited environment entails choosing between two different lines of strategy that hold a certain tension between them: the wish to include the best quality cards in the deck, versus the wish to choose cards that work well with each other. As could be seen in chapter 3, this tension is absent in Constructed, where the huge card pool can create a synergy effect that is more powerful than quality could produce. In the Limited environment, card quality strategy is usually more tempting, and sometimes forced by reality (see chapter 5, dealing with deck building strategies in the Sealed format). In contrast, there exists an equilibrium in draft between the benefits of card quality and various synergistic effects. This makes draft very varied indeed, and in my opinion also makes it the most interesting format.

This chapter is divided into three parts. First, we deal with the two goals you should keep in mind when picking cards in a draft: acquiring the best quality cards (in comparison to other players), and creating as powerful a synergistic effect as you can. The second part deals with different methods to choose colors in a draft. The third part combines the two previous parts, and deals with different strategies in draft.

1. The Goals which Determine the Cards You Pick

1.1 Better Quality Cards
Controlling the art of signalling is intended to give you the best quality cards in comparison to other players. There is an irony in articles dealing with drafts to focus on the idea of passing along clear and truthful signals, as if this is a goal by itself. As we will soon see, passing along good signals is only one possible tactic, whose logic is beneficial collaboration with the players to your left in order to gain better card quality for the entire group against the players further away in the table. It's illogical trying to gain better decks for everyone: Magic is a “zero sum game,” where an advantage of your opponent is your disadvantage and visa versa. The fact that your neighbors also enjoy this clear signalling collaboration is a price you are paying for improving your chances against other players. This is in fact a gamble, because you may be facing one of your neighbors in the first round…

In order to enjoy better card quality, you first need to be able to evaluate the cards correctly (which is covered in the two first chapters). This knowledge will also serve you in deciphering signals and passing them along in a clear manner, because the common understanding in regards to the quality of the cards is the language used to pass along these signals, and you can't benefit from signals if you do not understand this language. This does not mean that there is a complete consensus between players as to the value of each card in comparison to other cards. Professional players of the highest rank argue about the way certain cards should be scaled, and it is seen often in different articles on the matter. But there is an agreement between expert players as to the estimated value of cards, and this is sufficient to "converse" in a draft.

Let's take any set in Magic, choose a certain color and grade each card according to its evaluated quality so that we will have a list of cards scaled from the best quality to the worse quality (excluding rares). Now we will divide the list to four equal parts. We will receive four seemingly arbitrary categories of cards, but if you check closely you will find out that they in fact reflect general tendencies of different sets in Magic. This is what you will end up with:

Category A: Quality cards– Cards that in the cost/utility test get a very high mark. The ruling class of this group are the "bombs," cards that alone can contribute greatly to achieve victory. But not every quality card has to be so good. In general, these are very desirable cards that are not supposed to remain on the draft table for more than the first few picks. A 3/3 flying creature for four mana is an example of such a card.

Category B: Playable cards – These cards get a good grade in the cost/utility test (but not beyond), and so almost always find their way into one of the decks. A 2/2 creature for two mana is a good example of such a card.

Category C: Filler cards – Cards that don't get a good grade in the cost/utility test, but are not so terrible at the point you can't make use of them. If you were unlucky enough to not have enough playable cards, you can include these to "fill up" the deck to the number of cards necessary.

Category D: Unplayable cards – The cost/utility grade of these cards is so low that using them will actually hamper your game play. On occasion these cards can serve a function – but it is a very rare occasion.

Now, in order for players to be able to communicate, they don't need to agree on the exact value of every card. It's enough that they know to which category every card belongs to. We will soon see how to actually use this category division. This division is usually not done consciously but rather intuitively, and every good player knows if a given card is quality, playable, filler, or unplayable.

How will you obtain better card quality over other players? The answer is divided to two:

You must try to ensure that you choose the colors least played by other players.
You need to "help" your close neighbors to decide not to play the colors you chose, or at least not one of them.

Now let's check each one of these separately:

The number of cards played on the table:
You don't need to be a mathematician to see that, the fewer players play one of the colors, the more quality cards will end up in the decks of those who chose to draft this color, regardless of their sitting position in the draft (their positions will determine the relative portion of each of them of the total pie – the relative part of the collective profit). To illustrate, lets examine an 8-player draft, where four players chose to play two colors and the other four play two colors and a third splash color. The players have chosen twenty "different" colors to play: 4x2+4x3=20. Now, the question that arises is how this number is divided between the five colors of Magic. A completely equal division would mean that every color was chosen four times, meaning by four different players: 20/5=4. But divisions that are close to this one would also be considered equal divisions. In order for a division to be considered unequal, there has to be a color that was chosen by no more than two players as a main color and another player for splash. In this case, this color will be considered underdrafted, and choosing it will usually gain an advantage of card quality for those players that chose it. This is why finding out which colors are chosen less on the draft table will help you gain better quality cards.

Location of the players that share your color:
The quality of cards you can obtain is not only dependent on the number of players sharing your colors, but also on their position in relation to you. Why? The reason is that there is a hierarchy in the cards' quality and whoever gets to pick first wins more. Especially important are the first picks, where the highest quality cards are taken. The further away from you the players are that share your color, the better are your chances to acquire the quality cards of this color. If for example, you and the player to your right are playing exactly the same colors, you can't hope to be obtain almost any quality cards (except for the booster you opened) unless the booster he passed you had more than one of those, and even then you will only get the worse card among them (here, controversy between players as to the exact quality of each card could sometimes create a situation where both parties are content). On the other hand, if the closest player sharing a color with you is placed three seats to your right, you could acquire all the quality cards in three different boosters, giving you a big advantage.

This is a good place to remind you that the neighbors to your right are much more important than the ones to your left. This is due to that fact that two out of the three boosters passed to you are passed clockwise, and only one in the other direction.

1.2 Synergy in Draft
Draft is a rather comfortable format for acquiring a powerful synergic effect… as opposed to Sealed, whose card pool limits this option to some degree (see chapter 5). Let us view the three parts of synergy types presented in the previous chapter:

Functional Synergy:
In draft it's important to build your deck around a strategic idea. New players are not sufficiently aware of this principle and tend to emphasize on acquiring the best card quality (as was the case of Jim). They tend to overlook the possibility to acquire effective synergism as they know from Constructed, and believe that giving up a good quality card on the altar of synergy is always a mistake. This is, of course, not the case. Dozens - and even hundreds - of times, I saw how decks filled with quality cards lose to decks with worse cards but that are consolidated around a strategic idea.

When players internalize this fact, they often tend to keep choosing cards during the draft according to quality alone, and only try to acquire the synergy during the deck building time, from the cards they drafted. This attempt also tends to fail. A pool of 45 cards is usually not wide enough to allow any kind of a functional synergic effect (after all, half of the cards in this pool have to find their way into the deck). Functional synergy can only be obtained if you choose cards in advance for this end. This requires concentration, initiative, and pre-planning, as well as composedness and an act of "sticking to the mission", since you required making "painful" sacrifices. All this is true; however, card quality remains an important factor that shouldn't be ignored, and often you will need to postpone your synergy attempts for locating colors that could produce the best quality cards available.

For example, you could be picking cards for an aggressive Red/White deck, where around the fourth booster you notice that you are passed some really good quality Black cards (which are not splashable – meaning they are either cheap or require more then one Black mana to cast). It may be a good idea to start drafting Black even if there are still playable Red/White cards you could pick, as this could mean you may enter an underdrafted color, with all the benefits involved – if you are correct, you will still have time to create a synergy effect which involves Black in some way. On the other hand, functional synergy demands coupling of certain colors, and this limits your freedom in choosing colors (this would be explained later).

Mechanical Synergy:
Acquiring a powerful synergic effect is possible in the draft format. Its power will never be in the league of Constructed, but that is not an obstacle, since the challenges your deck is facing are not in the league of Constructed either. In fact, more than once it occurred that a deck built around the mechanism of a specific set became dominant in the format of draft, while the stronger and more efficient Constructed version of this deck was not strong enough to compete in the hostile environment. Spiritcraft, for example (G/R; G/B), was very common in draft during Champions, but was never established as a real deck in Constructed. The same applies to the "splice into arcane" mechanic. Only part of the colors of every set support a given mechanic, and you are forced to narrow your options in choosing colors if you wish to use that mechanic – unless you choose to play the mechanic according to the colors you already chose to draft, and not via versa (in Ravnica this is especially true). In addition, picking cards that go along with a mechanic is a gamble, because it's important to also see that a functional synergy is also obtained. Many times I saw players beaming with happiness after a draft because they managed to pick cards that create a "crazy" mechanical synergy effect, but their excitement was reduced during deck building when they found out that they lack the proper tools to acquire victory. Mechanical synergy is easier to obtain when the cards that create the synergy effect are relatively weak on their own (meaning situational regarding their flexibility). In that way, a player could be relatively confidant when choosing to play Slivers during OLS (or Zuberas during CBS), knowing that he has a big chance in obtaining a large number of them. Of course, that also makes the gamble all so more risky, since if you don't manage to get enough of them, you are stuck with quite a few unplayable or filler cards.

Operational Synergy:
The dilemma behind the wish to acquire operational synergy is how much you are willing to reduce your card resources in order to obtain it. It will be perhaps more useful to put this question on its head: how much you are willing to hamper your operational synergy in order to improve your deck (better quality cards, and more suitable other cards in regards to function). The obvious answer is that this is dependant on the quality of cards in your deck, and the quality of cards that are currently outside this deck that you are considering adding. In Sealed, you will often decide that the cards in your deck are not good enough, and will want to jeopardize your operational synergy for better quality cards or more effective functional synergy (by adding a third splash color or playing with less lands – more on that in chapter 5). In Draft, the situation is different for two reasons:

In draft, the gap in quality between the cards you are debating whether to include or exclude is smaller than in sealed format (see appendix).
The functional synergy in draft is sufficient enough, so that harming it (due to mana complications) is not worthwhile.

Because of that, the guiding principle in draft is play two colors. This principle has a few exemptions:

A narrow weak pool of cards: if the pool of cards you collected within your two main colors doesn't have enough playable cards, and also can't create an effective functional synergy, then you should seriously consider splashing a third color… providing you actually have a few quality cards of a third color that are splashable. However, do not expect this act to miraculously change your deck for the best.

Filling specific needs: Occasionally a situation arises where you manage to build an effective deck, but it has a weak spot (it could be inability to "deal" with flyers, susceptibility to "ping" abilities and so on). In this situation, if you have splashable cards that help you with this problem you should consider splashing them, or alternatively remember to add them after sideboard against decks that can utilize this weakness.

Abundance of mana fixers: If you find yourself with a sufficient number of high quality mana fixers, you could add a third splash color without significantly hampering your deck's operational synergy. Certain sets are based on multicolor cards (Invasion and Ravnica) and offer an especially large number of mana fixers, a fact that changes the way you should look at adding a third or even a forth color.

You may say that adding a third color as a splash can be less costly (in operational synergy terms) if we add more lands. It's true if we take into consideration only the correspondence between the types of mana generated to the types required for playing the spells. But remember that operational synergy has a second dimension: The correspondence between the quantity of mana generated to the quantity required to play the spells. By adding lands we hamper this aspect of operational synergy. As we can see, there is no magical solution to this dilemma, and sacrifices need to be made.

2. The Different Methods of Choosing Colors

What are the most effective methods for advancing the two goals set above: acquiring quality cards and synergy in draft? How could you reduce the number of players that share your colors around the table? How could you affect the colors of your neighbors? And how can you make sure the different components of synergy are attained? Two major techniques can be applied, which are opposite to each other: Late Choosing or Early Choosing of a color. It's important to note that the word “method” here means “a series of actions aimed to improve the quality of cards in one specific color.” Because you will most probably be playing at least two colors, you can in fact, combine these two techniques (choosing one color early and the second later), and that is indeed done in most cases. We will view this later on (see Draft Strategies).

2.1 Late Choice
Late Choice of a color focuses on deciphering signals a lot more than passing them along. This technique is essentially passive, and gives up on the option of affecting the color division, with the reward being able to acclimatize more quickly to the situation on the draft table. You choose to wait and see where the "wind will go" before you commit for a specific color. The success of this technique is very much based on the strategies of the people to your right. There are two sub-techniques for choosing the less drafted colors on the table. The first is swifter - to decipher the initial signals from your neighbors to the right; the second, is to wait until you get clear messages from the entire table, which could be done no sooner then the middle of the first booster.

The success of each technique is dependant upon the creation of suitable climate. As will be evident, the second technique is much more demanding in this regard than the first one, and so is too risky to commit to in advance. After all, you would like to know as early as possible the colors that you will play, in order to pass along clear signals, and also for an easier task at creating synergy. This is why, in most cases, waiting for the whole table to choose colors should only be used in case the first technique yielded few results.

First sub-method: Deciphering Neighbors' Signals:

Contributing Conditions:
Your closest neighbors to the right share at least one color, and that usually leave at least one color "free," even if they splash a third color.
The players to your right are experienced, and so are likely to pass along reliable messages (they can evaluate cards correctly and are familiar with the method of passing signals.
The players to your right are using an early color choice method.
The first booster opened by the players to your right consists of cards that enable passing along clear signals.

This sub-technique gives a high rate of probability of identifying the colors of the neighbors to the right. The fact that the booster circulation is done clockwise twice is what makes the neighbors to your right more important. In order to find what colors they are not playing, you need to gather intelligence. Every booster you are passed after the one you open provides another important piece of information, which you need to decipher. The longer you postpone your decision, the more information you will receive and the better your chances to find out what colors they are playing. However, this delay has its drawbacks, as we shall soon see. It's important to note that you don't actually need to find out what colors they are playing, but rather what color they are most likely not playing. The essential question is: what is the color that is most likely not picked by the players to the right? The best signals used for this purpose are quality cards. When you are passed a quality card from your neighbor, he knows that you will most likely pick it, and so, he will avoid picking cards of this color in the future so that on the second round (when you are the one passing cards to him) you will not be picking cards of the color he committed to.

The second sign is the number of other playable cards in that booster. If when playing RRG draft, you are passed Compulsive Research (which is considered to be a quality card) alongside Terraformer and Tattered Drake (which are both playable), you should know that this is a clear signal for you that Blue is clear.

First Pick: no information can be obtained.

Second Pick: If there is a quality card, there is a possibility that closest neighbor is not playing that color. This hypothesis becomes stronger the stronger the card is.

Third Pick: If there is another quality card of the same color as in the second pick, it is almost certain that your first neighbor is not playing that color. Also, it's possible that the second neighbor is not playing that color either. If at this stage, a quality card of a different color shows up, it's best to prefer the new color, because this is a clearer signal (according to the principle that the later in the draft a quality card is passed to you, the better are the chances that its color is underdrafted).

Fourth Pick: Your chances to get quality cards from this stage on are slim. If you do, then follow the above mentioned principle.

Second sub-method: Deciphering Signals from the Table as a Whole

Contributing Conditions:
Unbalanced division of colors on the table (so that there is a color which is underdrafted).

This method does not focus on deciphering the early signals from your neighbors to the right, but rather on the colors less drafted as a whole on the table. The assumption is that, regardless of the seating on the table, choosing an underdrafted color will allow you to obtain a better quality card pool, even if the player to your right shares this color with you. In order for this method to work, it requires that there will actually be an unequal division of colors. Since this situation often does not happen, and since this method requires signals from everyone on the table (and is only relevant at a relative late stage of the first booster), it should be used only if you didn't receive clear signals as to what colors your neighbors to the right did not choose.

It works in this way: you are looking for playable cards that are passed to you around the 7th or 8th pick and on. If there is an equal division of cards, you are not supposed to see many playable cards around the draft table at this stage (and certainly not quality cards). If at this stage, you sense that playable cards of a certain color keep on coming (even intermittently) then there is a high probability that this color is underdrafted.

Pros and Cons:
The clearest advantage of Late Choice strategy is the ability to obtain in most cases a better quality card pool in absolute terms. This is because this technique is more efficient in finding the underdrafted color (or colors in very rare situations) and also in identifying what your neighbors to the right are drafting. On the other hand, this technique is based on several presumptions. It assumes that there will be an unequal division of colors and also that your neighbors to the right are choosing colors based on an Early Choice method and that they are not doing exactly the same thing you are… Another flaw is that you often miss the first few picks in the first booster. Since you are just taking the best quality card every pick without committing to a color, when you do choose your color you will remember with sorrow those nice playable cards you passed along that could fit perfectly into your deck. This is why often the best approach is to combine both strategies (one for each color you are drafting) and so ensure the first picks will not be wasted. Another major problem with this method is insensitivity to the synergy aspect. Your color was chosen based on the quality of cards rather than according to its suitability to your other color, which you already chose (see the discussion on the different strategies next).

2.2 Early Choice
This technique focuses on manipulation, meaning on passing along messages and not on deciphering them. It's active and contrives to affect the color division on the table and specifically on the choice of your neighbors to the left. It's less sensitive to trends, and so it's harder to acclimatize. Practically, you keep on drafting the same color consistently.

You want to:
Avoid any chance that the neighbors to the left will draft this color.
Reduce to a minimum the number of players around the draft table drafting this color by "drying" the table of playable cards of this color.

Unfortunately, this often requires choosing playable cards of this color over quality cards of other colors, just to make sure that your neighbors (or anyone else for, that matter) don't get any idea about entering into this color.

Just as in the previous technique, the Early Choice technique can also be divided into two subcategories:

First sub-method: Pre-Draft Choice
Basically, you choose which colors to play before the draft starts. There could be two main reasons. First, you could be trying to obtain an advantage by specializing in a specific color, despite the lack of flexibility during the draft. If you've played Constructed more than a few times, you probably know how practice has a great significance on your gameplay. When you practice a deck for a while, you gain a substantial advantage. It is often worthwhile to keep playing the same deck in Constructed even if it's not best suited for the current metagame, just because you are so skilled in playing it! In Limited, the diversity of decks does not allow practicing a single deck, but it does allow becoming more skilled with a specific color. This skill may compensate you for choosing less quality cards due to the lack of flexibility during the color choosing in the draft.

Another reason for pre-draft choosing of color could be finding a specific trend of color, which makes it more suited for manipulation. This means a color in which the quality of its cards becomes better during the draft. As you know, a block is made of three different sets. Often, one of the colors in the first set is "deprived" in comparison to the other colors. Early choice of that color has a good chance of "shoving" players from it, since this color will have a tendency of being underdrafted anyway. Yet, before the additional expansions of this set are published, it isn't necessarily worthwhile to draft it, because it has low quality cards, a thing which probably justifies it being underdrafted. It only becomes worthwhile when the colors become more "balanced" during the next two expansions (it's a common tendency to balance colors in the expansions of a set). Think of a block where the Black color was deprived in the first set, becomes better during the second set and is the best color in the third set. Now, pre choosing black cards in the first booster will encourage your neighbors to the left not to play Black, and reduce the total number of players playing Black on the table since they don't have the incentive to choose black anyway (unless they are doing exactly what you are doing of course). Sticking to Black during the second booster will attempt to convince the players to your right to abandon it in case they chose it during the first booster. If that succeeds you could hope to enjoy a very good flow of Black during the third booster…

In the long run, this sub-method can be beneficial in another aspect: repetitive use of it allows a process of learning. Other players "learn" that you always play these colors, and this could convince the players to your right to choose other colors in advance. This gives you some of the benefits of the Late Choice method.

Second sub-method: Choosing According to the First Pick:
Early choice of color could be done in the draft itself (and usually is). Two criteria are supposed to guide you in this choice: what is the highest quality card, what is the easiest color to manipulate (meaning which color, if you take its best card, would not be attractive any longer). This sub-method has two advantages over the other:

You enjoy the first pick, which could possibly be a very high quality card.
You improve the chances that the manipulation will work, because you adjust the choosing to the booster's characteristic.

However, you do not benefit from the pre-draft choice advantages, which were covered previously.

Pros and Cons:
The most distinctive advantage of pre-choice is the ability to obtain high synergy. The reason for that is that early knowledge of the played color will enable focusing on the strategic idea from the beginning, and thus give you a greater ability to obtain functional and mechanical synergism. Another advantage is the possibility to enjoy all the quality cards of this color from the beginning of the draft. You are also less sensitive to trends around the table, such as color division and neighbors' strategies. On the other hand, this method makes it hard to acclimatize to opportunities such as moving to an underdrafted color.

3. Draft Strategies

The previous part dealt with the different methods of picking colors during a draft. As you remember, draft forces you to play at least two colors to allow a sufficient card pool both in regards to quality and quantity. There is no need to choose both colors using the same method, and it's usually best not to. Next are a few typical strategies for the draft format. Draft strategy means the pattern by which you pick cards during the draft.

Each strategy will be titled xxx/xxx, where each is the way you choose one of your two colors. Choosing your colors in different ways gives you a greater flexibility to respond to your draft.

Conservative Strategies: a Combination of Late and Early Choice
This combination is tempting, because it is a relatively secure strategy that reduces the drawback of each of the methods comprising it.

Choosing According to the First Pick / Deciphering Neighbors' Signals:

This strategy is the one most common in Magic. Beginner players (but not only beginners!) feel most comfortable with it, because it allows obtaining the cream of the first picks and still remain in contact with the changing situation of the table. This by itself is not a bad thing, but the problem begins when the second color is chosen only according to the signals received, and no consideration is given as to choosing a color that fits with the first color, in order to obtain functional synergy.

Pre-Draft Choice / Deciphering Neighbors' Signals -> Deciphering Signals from the whole Table:

This strategy is more tempting for experienced players. It allows for choosing colors according to proficiency or analysis of the environment considerations, and allows focusing on manipulations (meaning passing clear signals to the left) during the first picks. Simultaneously, it allows choosing a second color according to quality considerations, with the emphasis on suitability to the first chosen color. If you don't receive clear signals from the right, you can decide to choose the second color according to the picks you already took, or wait for signals from the entire table.

Gambling Strategies:
These strategies use the same type of choice for both colors. Under certain conditions it could be very profitable, but there is a risk, because they are very much dependant on these conditions. In spite of that, I suggest you try at least once using each one of those – you'll get to learn a lot from it.

Deciphering Neighbors' Signals / Deciphering Neighbors' Signals -> Deciphering Signals from the whole Table:

This strategy focuses almost solely on obtaining better quality cards. It will be very beneficial in the rather extreme situation where there is an unequal distribution of more than just one color, meaning when your neighbors to the right are playing the same colors or when there are two underdrafted colors on the draft table. Using this strategy, I once ended up with an astonishing card pool – I was never able to recreate anything even close to that. But as the odds for this happening are rather low, this is probably a gamble that is not worth trying on a regular basis. In any case, synergy considerations should not be abandoned here.

Pre-Draft Choice / Pre-Draft Choice

In this case you come to the draft with a finished plan of action. You implement it regardless of the conditions on the board. You can, of course, make a replacement strategy in case the original conditions failed (for example, if you didn't get the key cards you were planning for the strategic idea for the deck). This strategy works best if the cards you are planning on are not wanted by other players because they are lower quality on their own (e.g.: Dampen Thought or Drake Familiar).

Choosing according to first pick / Choosing according to second pick

This is not Magic! A player that can't get out of the habit of choosing colors this way would be better off playing dice games in a casino.

Appendix

In an 8-player draft there are a total of 360 cards: 15x8x3=360. Suppose that thirty of them are colorless (not in Mirrodin, of course). If so, each color has 66 cards: 330/5=66. How many players share the same color? An average of a little less then three. In that case, every player will get to "acquire" between 20-22 cards of his chosen color. As about half of the cards are playable, every player will have 10-11 playable cards in each color, meaning 20-22 cards in both colors. Add 1-2 playable colorless cards and you will see that there is no need for additional colors in order for the deck to have playable and quality cards only (as opposed to Sealed, where the use of two colors alone would force you to play with fillers). There could be other problems that would require a third color, such as lack of creatures or removal and more.

It is worth noting that this division of colors is not always perfect, and sometimes more players share the same color.

[Editor’s Note: Join us tomorrow for Chapter 5 of the Guide, dealing with Sealed Deck strategies and theorems. — Craig]