Solomon Draft (2p) A unique take on the Booster Draft format, Solomon Draft allows Magic players to draft

with just two people. Each player needs three booster packs, which they o pen without looking at the contents. You shuffle all six packs together, creatin g a combined pool of ninety cards. Then you're ready to draft. Decide who will be "Player A" and who will be "Player B" through a random method , generally a die roll. Player A gets to draft first, while Player B gets to cho ose whether he or she wants to play first during the games. To draft, Player A f lips over the top eight cards of the deck and then divides them into two piles. They can be divided evenly into two piles of four cards, or disproportionately i nto piles of five and three, six and two, seven and one, or even eight and zero. Once Player A has split the cards, Player B picks one of those piles and adds it to his or her drafted cards. The other pile goes to Player A. The process is th en repeated, this time with Player B separating the top eight cards from the dec k into two piles and Player A selecting a pile. The process continues, alternati ng between Player A and Player B splitting the piles, until all the cards have b een drafted. (The last batch will have ten cards rather than eight.) You then ea ch build decks of at least 40 cards, adding as many basic lands (Plains, Islands , Swamps, Mountains, and Forests) as you like. Many players enjoy the Solomon Draft format because it challenges them in differ ent ways than a traditional Booster Draft. Instead of simply choosing a single c ard from a single pack, players have to analyze what colors they think their opp onent will play, balance powerful cards with mediocre ones in order to have good cards in their own pile, and remember the cards that have already been drafted for both decks. Solomon Draft is a great way to enjoy a draft with just a single friend. ===== Winston Draft (2p) Looking for a Limited format you can play with just one other player? Winston Dr aft is just for you! Just as in a Solomon Draft, the two players each supply three booster packs, whi ch they open without looking at the contents. You shuffle all six packs together , creating a combined pool of ninety cards. Decide who will be "Player A" and wh o will be "Player B" through a random method, generally a die roll. Player A get s to draft first, while Player B gets to choose whether he or she wants to play first during the games. To begin drafting, Player A sets the top three cards from the main pile in three stacks face down on the table, without looking at them. It should look like thi s: [Draft Deck] [Pick Pile 1] [Pick Pile 2] [Pick Pile 3]

Player A then looks at the card in the first small pile without showing it to Player B and chooses to either draft it or leave it. If Player A drafts the pile, it's rep laced with the top card of the main stack (also face down). If Player A leaves t he card, the top card of the main stack is put on top of it, creating a two-card pile. Player A repeats the process with the second pile and then moves on to th e third pile. If Player A didn't choose any of the three piles, that player must take the top card from the main stack, no matter what it is. Once Player A draf

ts any pile or the top card of the main stack, it's Player B's turn to go throug h the whole thing again. Remember: Each time a player takes a pile, it's replaced by the top card of the main stack to form a new one-card pile. And each time a player puts a pile back, the top card of the main stack is added to it. There's no limit to how large a pile can get! After all the cards have been drafted, each player then builds a deck of at leas t 40 cards, adding as many basic lands (Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, and Forests) as they would like. Winston Draft is a great way to enjoy Magic with packs you've just recently purc hased, and lets you play Limited with just one friend! It also provides a challe nge unlike any other draft format, as players must determine whether they should risk taking an unknown card, a single powerful card, or a pack of multiple medi um-powered cards. ===== Back Draft (2-8p) Tired of trying to figure out what the most powerful cards are in your local Boo ster Draft each week? Or are you looking for the opportunity to play cards in dr aft that are normally passed over? Back Draft is a Magic variant that functions like a Booster Draft in reverse! The setup is exactly the same as a Booster Draft. Unlike a Booster Draft, howeve r, the players don't play with the cards they draft. Instead, when players are p aired with one another, they switch card pools and build from the other player's pool! How does this affect play? It means that you actually want to draft the worst de ck possible! This can lead to hilarious results as typical draft considerations like power level, color cohesion, and mana curve all go out the window. The form at is also surprisingly skill-testing, since you have to wildly reevaluate cards on the fly, then face the challenge of building a playable deck out of a card p ool picked to make doing so as difficult as possible. A Back Draft is a great wa y to spice up one's draft life. ===== Emperor (6p) The Emperor variant involves two teams of three players each. Each team sits tog ether on one side of the table, with team members deciding the order in which th ey're seated. Each team has one "emperor," which is the player seated in the mid dle of the team. The remaining players on the team are "generals" whose job is t o protect their emperor while attempting to take down the opposing emperor. Play ers randomly determine which emperor will go first, generally using the high rol l on dice, and turn order then progresses to the left. Emperors have a "range of influence" of 2, which means that their spells and abi lities affect only themselves and players within two seats of their own. In othe r words, at the start of the game, they can affect everyone except the opposing emperor. Generals have a range of influence of 1. At the start of the game, they can't affect the opposing emperor either. The only way to get an opposing emper or within your range of influence is to defeat an opposing general! Players may attack only opponents seated immediately next to them. This means th

at at the beginning of the game, emperors can't attack anyone because no opponen t is sitting next to them. Each player plays as an individual. Players can collaborate by looking at each o ther's hands and discussing strategy, but each player keeps a separate life tota l (starting at 20), hand, library, battlefield, and so on. The one difference is the "deploy creatures" option. Each of the emperor's creature has the ability " {T}: Target teammate gains control of this creature. Play this ability only any time you could play a sorcery." Keep in mind that when a player is eliminated fr om the game, all cards he or she owns (including creatures controlled by other p layers) are removed from the game. If that player controlled permanents that are owned by other players, they'll stay in the game and go back to whichever playe r should be controlling them now. Winning and losing an Emperor game works differently than normal. A team wins th e game when the opposing emperor has been eliminated. It doesn't matter whether the losing team has any generals remaining or not. This also means that a genera l that's been eliminated from the game can still win if his or her team eliminat es the opposing emperor later on! The Emperor format can be played with more than two teams; in that case, the app ropriate Free-for-All rules are applied. The format can also be played with more than three members on each team, as long as each team has the same number. Each extra player on a team is an additional general. That means that some generals won't be sitting next to an opponent (they'll be between two teammates), so they can't attack anyone at the beginning of the game. Be sure to increase the range of influences accordingly. ===== Commander (3-8p) Commander starts with the rules for multiplayer Free-for-All games, in which any number of players compete against each other as individuals. It's played with t he Singleton format (in other words, except for basic lands, each card in your d eck must have a different name), and each player starts with a life total of 40 rather than the usual 20. Most importantly, the centerpiece of each deck is a le gendary creature that serves as that deck's commander. To build a deck, you first choose a legendary creature, called a "commander" or "general," then construct a Singleton deck around it containing exactly 99 other cards. Only cards of the commander's color(s) and colorless cards may be includ ed in the deck. (Note that split cards and hybrid cards count as all of their co lors.) In fact, if a card contains a mana symbol anywhere on it that's not one o f your commander's colors, you can't include it in that deck! Within the game, i f you would add mana to your mana pool that's a color not shared by your command er, you get colorless mana instead. Appropriately enough for a format named after the legendary creature that's lead ing your team, your commander works differently from other cards in the game. Be fore the game begins, each player removes his or her commander from the game. Yo u may play your commander from the command zone for its normal costs plus an add itional {2} for each previous time it has been played this way. If your commande r would go to the graveyard from anywhere, you may remove it from the game inste ad. In addition to the normal Magic loss conditions, if a player is dealt 21 poi nts of combat damage from a single commander over the course of the game, that p layer loses the game! It somehow makes sense that such a larger-than-life format was invented up in th e wilds of Alaska. Its originators used commanders only from the Legends set, in

cluding (and especially!) the Elder Dragons such as Chromium and Nicol Bolas. Ov er time, the format spread. It became popular among judges, who would play it in to the wee hours of the night following a hard day's officiating at a Pro Tour o r Grand Prix event. (You can read more about their rules here.) It soon reached the mainstream and has become a favorite format in casual playgroups everywhere, from the kitchen table down the street to Magic Online to the Wizards of the Co ast headquarters! For more information and discussions about the Magic Online 100 Card Singleton Comma nder format, please visit the Magic Online 100 Card Singleton Commander discussion f orum (English only). ===== Grid Drafting (2-8p) "Traditionally", Grid Draft is a format for two players, with the following draf ting method: 1 - Randomize 18 packs of 9 cards. 2 - For round 1 to round 9: 2.1 - For each player P: 2.1.1 - Place the cards from a closed pack face up in a 3x3 grid. 2.1.2 - P drafts an entire row or column from the grid (3 cards). 2.1.3 - P's opponent drafts an entire row or column from what's remaining of the grid (2 or 3 cards). 2.1.4 - Discard the remaining cards in the grid. 3 players: 1 - Randomize 24 packs of 9 cards. 2 - For round 1 to round 8: 2.1 - For each player P: 2.1.1 - Place the cards from a closed pack face up in a 2.1.2 - That player drafts an entire row or column from 2.1.3 - The player at P's right drafts an entire row or ning of the grid (2 or 3 cards). 2.1.3 - The player at P's left drafts all the remaining ===== Rochester Draft (3-8p) Rochester draft can be played with 2-9 players easily. After 10+ players it may be best to split into 2 tables of 5+ You will need 3 15-card booster packs or its equivalent (45 cards) per player. Shuffle all of the booster packs together. Set these cards aside in a pile face down. Randomly determine who drafts first. The person who drafts last chooses weither to play or draw. The player choosing first draws 2 cards per player and chooses one. Then puts t he remaining cards face up on the table. the second player chooses 1 card and s o on and so forth until the last player who takes 2 cards, then the drafting rev erses direction with the player who drafted first getting the final card as well . Repeat this process with the player who drafts first rotating one seat to the right for each "pack" of cards drafted. ===== Original Winchester Draft (3-8p) Take six boosters, open them and shuffle everything together. Someone is chosen

3x3 grid. the grid (3 cards). column from what's remai cards (3 or 4 cards).

to go first and begins their turn by laying out four cards from the pile, three face-up and one face-down. That player then takes one of the four cards from th e pile, leaving three. The second player takes two cards, and the first player t akes the one remaining. Switch off who picks first for each batch. Once per draf t per player, on whoever's turn it is to go first, after the cards are laid out they can either invoke the Gun or the Reload. Gun: the four cards are discarded, and the other player gets a face-down card fr om the top of the deck. Reload: Two more cards are added to the initial four, one face-up and once facedown. The other player chooses two of the six cards first, then the remaining fo ur go to the one who called the Reload. Alternate Winchester Draft

A different Winchester Draft was proposed by Tom LaPille (here: http://wizards.c om/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/143) Each player opens 3 booster packs, and shuffles all the cards in our respective packs together without looking at them. This done, each player will have a stack of 42 cards. Each player deas two cards face up, each turn, the player whose turn it is draft s one of the four piles, adding all the cards in that pile to his or her card po ol. After the player whose turn it is drafts, each player deals one more card onto e ach of the two piles in front of him or her. Then the next player drafts a pile, and so on until all 84 cards have been draft ed. ===== Wizard's Tower (2-5p) What you need: Two to five players Nine booster packs Eighty land (sixteen of each basic land) Starting a game: Open the booster packs (Try not to look at the cards in the boosters yet, though . It's more fun to discover them during the game.) Shuffle the cards and lands together into a single huge deck. Determine randomly who will go first. Deal three cards to each player. Starting with the first player, each player may discard any number of cards and redraw that many. Once all players have done this, shuffle the discarded cards a nd put them on the bottom of the deck. Put the top seven cards of the deck face up in the middle of the table. The deck becomes a library that's shared by all players. Playing the game: When playing Wizards' Tower, your draw step gets a bit more interesting: First, choose one of the face-up cards and add it to your hand. If there aren't any, put the top seven cards of the tower face up in the middle of the table, an d then choose one. Draw the top card of the tower. All players share the same library and the same graveyard. If you cast a spell t hat targets a card in an opponent's graveyard or manipulates the top card of you

r library, those cards affect the shared library or graveyard. The face-up cards aren't considered to be in any game zone. Other than that, the game is played as a free-for-all Magic game. The last playe r left standing wins!