Oh, the Ways You Can Play Pt. 1

Features

Matsi883

24 November 2013

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Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Oh, the Ways you can play. This will be a three-part series on the sanctionable formats, and two other very popular formats, in Magic: the Gathering.

We are going to start by listing all the formats that we will discuss. Those formats are:

The Sanctionable Formats

The Limited Formats

(Booster) Draft

Sealed (Deck)

The Constructed Formats

Block Constructed

Standard (Sometimes called Standard Constructed)

Modern (Sometimes called Modern Constructed)

Legacy (Sometimes called Legacy Constructed)

Vintage (Sometimes called Vintage Constructed)

The Non-Sanctionable Formats

Pauper

Commander/EDH

The formats in italics are the ones that we will be discussing today. Those formats are Booster Draft and Sealed. Draft and Sealed make up the sanctionable Limited formats.

Limited and Constructed

The difference between Limited and Constructed lies in the way you have the cards to build your decks. In Constructed formats, you build your deck before you reach the tournament. Pros will go over the exact way to build the deck, the individual cards that are best in building your 60-card deck. In Limited, you build your deck out of booster packs you open at the tournament. Pros will go over the archetypes, or themes, you can build your 40-card deck around so that cards can synergize with each other. A synergistic deck is more likely to win major tournaments than a “goodstuff” deck, a deck where you take the best cards out of your colors and play those cards.

What I will talk about…

During each format, I will talk about three things.

1a. I will give an overview of the format. I will give the sets legal in the format and I will also give the Banned/Restricted List for the format.

2a. If the format is a Constructed format, I will give a link to a sample decklist that won a recent Grand Prix. I will also give a link to the most recent Grand Prix in that particular format. I will also link the recent Grand Prix Finals from that format.

2b. If the format is a Limited format, I will give a link to a sample of a format. I will also give a link to the most recent Grand Prix in the Limited formats.

3a. I will tell you why that particular format is a good format and why you should play it.

Random notes

Day 1 for a Limited Grand Prix is Sealed, and Day 2 is Booster Draft. Both Day 1 and Day 2 for a Constructed Grand Prix are the format the Grand Prix is in.

The words that I put in parenthesis when I listed the formats are words that are part of the full name of the format, however are usually not used (and I will not use them) when talking about the format.

For the sake of discussion, I am assuming you know nothing about anything mentioned in this article.

For the numbers when I discussed what I was going to talk about, TappedOut’s text parser would have substituted the 3 for a 1 unless I put the “a” ‘s in.

A sanctionable format is a format that Wizards allows official tournaments to be in.

For the formats:

Booster Draft

1. Booster Draft is a Limited format where you “draft” cards from a booster pack like you “draft” players in fantasy sports, hence the name. In (Booster) Draft, you open a booster pack. You take a card from the pack, and then you pass the pack on to the person next to you (which side you pass it to depends on which pack it is). Once you have drafted three packs, you should have enough cards to create a 40-card deck. As in every Limited format, whatever cards you open (and basic lands) are legal for play.

2. This is the link to the most recent Limited Grand Prix: Grand Prix Valencia 2013, and a draft deck that won a random PTQ (and the runners up) here. Also, here’s a random draft: If you’d like to draft for fun, try here

3. You should play Booster Draft because it is very skill-intensive. There is much more to the format than just picking a random card. You have to know which cards are in your deck because, when you get to the Grand Prix, you cannot look at the cards you have already picked until you have finished drafting the pack. You have to read signals and see which color is open and you cannot know your deck from back to front, because you do not know what your deck looks like until you have built it. You cannot proxy your deck and test it out before ordering the 4 Sphinx's Revelation that may or may not belong. You have to go with your deck and play well and hope for the best. (Sorry for the rant)

Sealed Deck

1. Sealed Deck, or Sealed, is another Limited format where the booster packs you build your deck from booster packs that are “sealed,” as opposed to “drafting” the cards out of the pack, hence the name. To build your deck, you open six booster packs and build a 40-card deck out of only those cards and basic lands. Sealed, just like Draft or any other less popular Limited format, has no ban list. Whatever cards you open, you can play. Whatever cards you do not open that are not basic lands, you cannot play. It is as simple as that.

2. Just like Draft, this is the link to the most recent Grand Prix. That was a link to a “How To” Sealed and a sample pool with deckbuilding. It is a very long video, but in the description, there are some important times to watch. And this link takes you to the Sealed decklists from the Magic Online Championship Series from 2012. If you’d like a sample Sealed pool to try and build a deck from, go here

3. You should play Sealed for a lot of the same reasons that you should play Draft. It is a very skill-intensive format that focuses even more on the deckbuilding then Draft does. In Constructed, you have the opportunity to know your deck back to front. That also lets your decks be very consistent. They are less consistent in Draft but the least consistent decks are found in Sealed. In Draft, you get 90 cards. That is it. You have to take (about) 23 of your best 90 cards and make them into a deck. Also, Limited is the great equalizer, as I like to say. Somebody with barely any money can go into a Limited event and beat a millionaire. That would not normally be true in Constructed.

Conclusion

So, that is an overview of Booster Draft and Sealed Deck. Next time the formats I will be going over will be Block Constructed, Standard, and Modern.

Until next time,

Matsi883