If anyone has tips or resources for drafting I’d love to hear them!
I’ve been playing paper magic for a few years but never played any limited. I didn’t really understand the appeal. But my brother convinced me to try Arena and I had a draft or quick draft token and now I am hooked. But I also kinda suck at draft.
I think my goal is to be good enough to break even ish on gems so I can draft a lot without spending a lot. I’m okay spending while I learn ($60 so far… (probably only $25 towards drafting)).
I think I have most of the basics down. Stuff like 17 ish lands, 13 ish creatures, a good mana curve, prioritize removal and land fixings.
I find myself doing research online of people’s favorite sets to draft and wondering if I’ll ever get to draft it. I saw Neon Dynasty is coming up on the schedule and I’m very excited to draft it. I enjoyed Dragonstorm and am enjoying Ixalan. I feel like my first 3 or so drafts of a set go pretty terribly. They’re fun still, but it also stinks to lose $5 so fast…
I’m hesitant to do anything besides quick draft because of the stronger competition and bigger downside to losing quickly. But I don’t want to stay this way. Ideally I’d quick draft to learn a set and then switch to premier. But I also don’t want to miss out on what’s available - right now Mix-Up Draft and Core Set 2021. I’m tempted to try both, but feeling like maybe I should stick to a set I know until I develop skills?
“How do I get good at drafting” is such a big topic that multiple people have made years-long podcast shows about just that. One thing you can do as a new drafter is to “study” a set to gain familiarity with it before you get into a real draft.
You can practice evaluating and picking cards on a site like Draftsim.com. For past sets, you also get the benefit of community-wide hindsight, with loads of articles, social posts, and podcast episodes to study. You’re aiming to get to the point where you think beyond just open colors and start building your deck during the draft itself.
As an example of deckbuilding during the draft, it’s not just recognizing that black is open, but that there’s an important black card here for the BG [archetype] deck. What other pieces of the BG deck are you hoping to see to convince you to commit to it (as opposed to another Bx deck)? Which cards, even if they’re pretty good, are replaceable enough that you’re willing to pass them to mine for the more key cards?
Awesome - yeah I definitely see the advantage of being familiar with a set. Helps you draft something with a plan and know how to play against different decks. What I was missing was figuring out how to study a set. Basically I was just playing and watching streamers play. But it felt like I needed to watch hours of gameplay, or play a bunch of drafts, before feeling like I understood just the basics of the set.
Draftsim is so cool!! Thanks! I think it’ll be huge for me seeing cards in a set and having a little fun as opposed to just reading cards for study. Gonna have to use a lot of self control to not mess around on the site while I’m at work…
I’m still so excited to be getting into draft. It feels like a pretty rewarding format to spend time getting good at. Skill and knowledge mixed with gambling, fantasy, and an actually fun game? And I feel like I experience way more of a set’s flavor than I would just seeing the cards mixed into various decks.