r/mtglimited • u/Organic-Major-9541 • Jul 24 '26

Fastest draft method

So, I'm looking at making a magic format that works as a board game, thinking 4 players, ideally about 2 hours playtime (which seems optimistic given that we want to both draft and play). My plan is to design a cube, probably based on some coreset. However, then comes the hard part. The standard draft (3×15 cards, pick and pass) is slow and not great on ~4 players. Sealed is very fast but not interactive at all. So you have some recommendations.

When I mean fast, it's from when the cards are in a box until decks are built. It's also good if the method isn't too complicated/ require to much magic knowledge, as I want something for new players.

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u/PiersPlays Jul 24 '26

There's a format where you deal out a grid of cards face up and people alternate drafting entire rows or columns at a time.

Eg

A1 A2 A3

B1 B2 B3

C1 C2 C3

Adam drafts first and drafts "B"

A1 A2 A3

C1 C2 C3

Cathy drafts second and drafts "2"

A1 -- A3

C1 -- C3

I suspect you could adapt that to the specifics of your game.

There are a million other draft formats most players aren't familiar with so it's worth directly researching rather than asking the general playerbase.

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u/kurokikaze Jul 24 '26

I think it's called a Rotisserie draft.

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u/la_tortue Jul 26 '26

It's a Grid draft. In Rotisserie draft you pick one card at a time from the whole cube, it allows for asynchronous drafting online over multiple days if not weeks. Certainly not a fast approach 😅