The one I'm familiar with has everybody open a booster, pick a card, pass left until the booster's gone...then everybody opens another booster, passes right...then the third, passes left again...gets some basic land, makes their deck, plays.
That's Booster Draft. Far and away the most common type of draft outside the Pro Tour.
One way is Rochester(?), where one player takes 4(?) cards at a time and puts them in two piles of two cards each. Then the other player chooses a pile.
Actually, I don't know if there is a name for this one. It is often called Rochester Draft, since it resembles that type of drafting. It's technically not, though. I've heard it called "One-on-One" and that's how I refer to it, to avoid confusion.
The common way to do this is the way
Yellowjacket describes, which more closely mimics the actual Rochester style.
Arena League (back in the days when formats were determined by DCI) had a season or two of "Continuous Draft" which uses this style of drafting. The idea being that you keep whatever cards you draft as you go through opponents, keeping your decks ever-changing throughout the season.
Another is point draft, where each member gets a set number of points (60 is good). Then there are X+1 "slots", where X is the number of players drafting...<snip>
That's a new one for me. I'm not sure I understand from the description how it works. After the first card is put in the X+1 point slot, does the player who turned it over get to pick it, spending that number of points? As the turn passes around the table, does each player flip a card, then choose whether to draft one from the flipped cards or pass? Or does that player choose either to draft a card or flip a card?
This one sound really interesting. I'd like to know more.
Another way is "Backdraft", where you try to draft the worst deck because you're going to give it to your opponent and have him play it against you (and you get his cards). You can do this in any draft setting.
I love this one. Too bad no one around here ever seems to want to play it.
Rochester draft is when a complete pack is layed out face up and cards are chosen in order, and then several packs are done like that.
Right. Starting with player one, that player chooses one card, and play goes around the table until you reach player 8 (called the "wheel") who gets to choose 2 cards. Then the draft reverses until all cards are drafted. This leaves player one with only one card, supposedly balancing the advantage of picking first.
There are a number of packs used equal to the number of players times three.
This is (as far as I know) the
only type of drafting done on the Pro Tour, since it's regarded as being highly skill-intensive, with lots of decisions and political maneuvering, based on the knowledge of every card that each player has drafted, since they are kept face-up the whole time. Also, very time-consuming.
Another form is Soloman Drafting which has all the cards for two players shuffled together and basically "fact or fiction"ing piles of five...
Solomon Draft is an Invitational staple. I've seen it done with piles of five cards each, giving a total of 18 piles, and nice cards each, giving ten piles (and a somewhat quicker draft). I prefer this type of one-on-one to the "mini-Rochester" type, as it goes a little bit faster and seems to require a bit more skill.
There's a minimaster, which is a fifteen card pack that you add three of each land to, play your first opponant with that deck(unlooked at, by the way) and whoever wins 2/3 gets all the opponant's cards, constructs another deck (40 card min.) with no sideboard, and plays again...
Also known as "Pack Wars." This is a lot of fun for a group of friends who don't mind losing the 3 bucks they spent on cards. In my area, we sometime do Pack Wars, but without the tournament and deck-combining, meaning that we just play long series of packs, one against the other. Winner keeps both packs.
There is almost no skill involved, since you don't even see your cards before you start to play, but sometimes the tricks you can pull off can be unexpected and occasionally astonishing.
Spidey also mentions Grandmaster, which is a tournament setup that can be used with just about all of the draft styles, as well as with sealed decks.
Another version is "Ironman" which doesn't get used much anymore, since a lot of players don't see the fun in literally destroying cards (instead of simply putting them in the graveyard) when they are "destroyed" in the game.
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