Drafting Dragon's Maze
This post is because I feel that my friend circle might have been one of the few groups that drafted a Magic: the Gathering Dragon's Maze booster box without Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash packs and I feel there are probably people wondering if they could've done the same. The recommendation and official drafting tournament structure was to draft with the full block. (http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptdgm13/through_the_maze)
But that's not the way we did it.
I don't know if anyone else has the same mind to buy a box with their friends to 1) buy packs in bulk to save money and 2) avoid dedicating an entire Saturday to drafting at a comic book store with strangers. Not that that isn't fun to meet new people and all, but drafting with friends at a time that's convenient for the group is much more relaxed and grants room for the open banter that usually occurs (or at least does in my group). For example, we drafted in my friend's apartment at 9:30pm on a Friday with a group of five (normally 6). After buying the typical box from the local comic book store for $100, it only cost each friend $20 for 7 packs and left one pack for the winner of our small, friendly tournament. Going through a box also guarantees that you pull through the odds of pulling out the rares and uncommons you may or may not have known you were looking for. If you just buy a bunch of packs from each set, those odds decrease, and if you ever drafted the initial two sets previously, you probably already have an over abundant amount of cards from those sets. For these reasons, and maybe a few others, we plunged forward into drafting a solo box of Dragon's Maze.
Going into this draft, the expect is that you will have to take a combination of at least two colors. I can confirm that expectation is correct. Drafting seven packs sure grants an opportunity to build a deck that features only one color, and at one point I strongly considered going mono red--I definitely had enough red cards to do so.
(Article still in writing)
But that's not the way we did it.
I don't know if anyone else has the same mind to buy a box with their friends to 1) buy packs in bulk to save money and 2) avoid dedicating an entire Saturday to drafting at a comic book store with strangers. Not that that isn't fun to meet new people and all, but drafting with friends at a time that's convenient for the group is much more relaxed and grants room for the open banter that usually occurs (or at least does in my group). For example, we drafted in my friend's apartment at 9:30pm on a Friday with a group of five (normally 6). After buying the typical box from the local comic book store for $100, it only cost each friend $20 for 7 packs and left one pack for the winner of our small, friendly tournament. Going through a box also guarantees that you pull through the odds of pulling out the rares and uncommons you may or may not have known you were looking for. If you just buy a bunch of packs from each set, those odds decrease, and if you ever drafted the initial two sets previously, you probably already have an over abundant amount of cards from those sets. For these reasons, and maybe a few others, we plunged forward into drafting a solo box of Dragon's Maze.
Going into this draft, the expect is that you will have to take a combination of at least two colors. I can confirm that expectation is correct. Drafting seven packs sure grants an opportunity to build a deck that features only one color, and at one point I strongly considered going mono red--I definitely had enough red cards to do so.
(Article still in writing)