The Oversoul Ultimate Drafting Challenge Sorta

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
So after reading Turgy22's article I thought I'd see if I could find and of my old decklists. I was usually not one for writing my decklists down. But I remembered a slip of paper that would have something if it still existed. And so I searched and found deep in my collection of actual, physical Magic cards.

This marks the first time I have looked at those cards (I used an actual deck when I played Rector-Donate against Spidey and Istanbul, but that was from cards pulled from a box containing a few decks I took apart) in well over a year. So of course this led to major nostalgia.

And I thought I'd like to actually do something with those cards again. But aside from playing against myself or using this message board, I don't have any opponents. All the friends I'm still in contact with that used to play have quit. But I don't need to build decks. I can do something different.

A draft! I've never been good at drafting, but some of you are. And the rest of you need practice. So join this game. The premise is simple. It's like a normal draft, but with MY cards. These are not repacks. You don't know what set your cards will be from. You have no idea what cards you'll get. NO ONE knows what cards you'll get. I am the only one who has some idea, and I'm not telling. The only thing I'll say is that these cards will almost invariably be Prophecy or older. And they'll probably be Revised or newer. My collection is pretty scrubby. You might draft Jandor's Saddlebags. But you might draft Masticore. It's a mystery. Oh, and I won't be putting Snowfall into this draft. That's all I'm going to tell you about it.

I don't know how many rounds we'll do or whatever. We'll work that out later. It depends on how many people sign up.

If you're still reading this, you have enough time on your hands to participate.

Okay, sign up here.
 
L

Limited

Guest
I read it, so I'll sign up.

Are you talking about mailing actual cards? Or just using your cards as a way to come up with draft piles for forum games?
 

Mooseman

Isengar Tussle
I could use dome practice... count me in.
If you do it Rochester style you could post the draft here.
 
D

DarthFerret

Guest
I am in...since I read the whole message, and because I normally cannot afford to do real drafts...and when I did, I generally stunk at them..
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Limited: Using my cards to come up with draft piles.

Mooseman: Hey, that's a good idea. I've never done a Rochester draft myself (I was usually too poor to draft at all). But I could probably still run it that way and it might take less time. I'll do which ever one you guys prefer.

So which will it be? Rochester or normal?
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Update. Bad news then good news.

Bad news: My cards were poorly organized and my knowledge of the game is not what it used to be. I was hoping to have more than enough cards ready for quasi-random draft piles by the end of today. But since more than 50% of my cards are pre-Exodus, I have to look up commonality rather frequently and I don't know how much time I'll have to finish this. I should be ready by the middle of next week, but I can't promise that.

Good news: There are certain cards I want to keep in sleeves because they're either mint or really beaten up. I didn't want to exclude too many cards from the draft, but I realized that most of these cards were rare. So I'll just make a pile of rares that might be put into the draft and have all of them be sleeved (as that won't impact anything). What this means for you is that the scrubiness of the rare slots in your draft piles will have gone down a bit from what it would have been. You simply won't draft my Sheltering Prayers. Odds are you won't draft my Balance either, but whatever.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
All right. So far it's Jigglypuff, Limited, Mooseman, Darthferret, and Melkor.

There's room for plenty more (my collection is small for how long I've been playing, but the limiting factor here would be my rares and I already have around 300 of them randomized for this game, so yeah, plenty of room) and it's not too late to join up. I'm still randomizing my commons (takes a while since there are a couple thousand of them). We'll start on Tuesday or, more likely, Wednesday.

Any preferences for the type of draft?
 
L

Limited

Guest
no preference whatsoever.. you pick! (the draft type, not my cards)
 
D

DarthFerret

Guest
Lol Limited....I agree, Oversoul, you pick the draft choices...I can pick Limited's cards!
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I'm inclined to let Limited pick his own cards. Of course, if we did a backdraft, then the round you faced Limited would see him using the cards you picked for him...

But I was going to just do a regular draft. The Rochester suggestion eliminates the need for PM's and cuts back on the time taken by passing piles around the circle. But I've seen Rochester drafts and I think they're hard. I would probably find myself frustrated in such a game. I don't want to give an unfair disadvantage to anyone who might not have as much drafting experience, but if everyone's comfortable with it, then I guess we'll do it.

Maybe it would even be better, since there won't be the strange surprises that there might be in a normal draft. I remember on the last day of our gaming club in high school, these guys made repacks for us to use in a draft. I was drafting U/B/r and my second pack had Flametongue Kavu, Nekrataal, Fact or Fiction, and Sleeper's Robe. The guy next to me saw three of those four cards when I passed it to him, so he was sure I wasn't drafting any of those colors. He soon learned that this was incorrect.

Anyway, since most of you seem amiable to either format, if anyone does have a preference, you can pretty much pick which one you like more...
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Seeing that I have a huge, amorphous pile of mostly randomized commons sitting on my desk and in need of moving into proper piles, we will indeed hold off on starting the draft until tomorrow. Anyone who wants to join in between now and whenever I start this tomorrow (probably sometime in the afternoon, Pacific time) is free to.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Alright, I opted for a regular draft, which may take a bit longer than the Rochester (the weirdness of these piles might make drafting a deck even harder than normal, so I went with the regular draft), but there is one very small twist: I'm the only one that knows the order in which these piles are being passed. I don't know if this will have much effect on anything, but the idea amuses me. I have randomly (or something like that) determined an order for this draft, but it is not going to be disclosed at this time.

I will PM each player his first pack presently. All you need to do is make your first pick and PM it to me. You can PM me the card you're picking out of the pile, the entire pile sans the card you're picking, or both. It doesn't matter because I'll be able to figure it out in each case.

When we get to the actual gameplay, since there are only six of you, I figure we can do a round-robin style bracket, but I'm open to other suggestions...

If you can read this and have not yet received your first draft pile, just chill. It should totally be ready in like fifteen minutes...
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
At this point, all six of you should have your starting draft piles. If there is a problem, you can of course PM me. Since we haven't actually gotten going yet it should be easy for me to fix any problem, unless that problem is something like, "I really did get Jandor's Saddlebags. This draft pile sucks..."
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Melkor, do you need your draft pile resent?

Edit: I'll be gone this weekend, but I'll pass the piles again when I get back...
 
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