Oh, the Ways you can Play Pt. 5

Features

Matsi883

26 January 2014

1704 views

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Oh, the Ways you can Play. This is the fifth installment of a multi-part series on popular formats in Magic: the Gathering.

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

The Limited Formats

(Booster) Draft

Sealed (Deck)

Team Sealed

Rochester Draft

Group Game Draft

Cube Draft

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)

Pauper

Commander/EDH

Two-Headed Giant

Archenemy

Planechase

Duel Commander (French EDH)

Unified Standard

Pheasant

Horde

Noble

Hero

Pauper EDH

Momir Basic

Vanguard

Emperor

The formats in italics are the ones that we will be discussing today. Those formats are Team Sealed and Rochester Draft. Those are Limited formats.

What I will talk about…

When I talk about each format, I will go over three things.

1. I will state an overview of the format. I will go over the sets legal in the format and I will also give the Banned/Restricted List for the format.
2. I will give a link to a sample decklist from that format, and a game played in that format.
3. I will tell you why that particular format is a good format and why you should play it.

Random Notes

This is the fourth of a multi-part series. The first article can be found here. That article went over Booster Draft and Sealed Deck. The second article, which can be found here, which went over Block Constructed, Standard Constructed, and Modern Constructed. The third article is here, and it talks about Legacy Constructed and Vintage Constructed. My last article, which can be found here, went over Pauper and Commander/EDH.

Grand Prix are “professional Magic: The Gathering tournaments, awarding cash prizes, Pro Points and invitations to Pro Tours.” (Wikipedia) The Top Four people (and others) from each Grand Prix in a season go to a Pro Tour, which is a Grand Prix-like tournament for invited people only. If you want to know how you can get invited to a Pro Tour, this is a good link for you. When I say metagame, I will be talking about the decks that have good records at recent Grand Prix.

With the addition of Cube Drafting as a format I will talk about, I decided to split up the remaining Limited formats by two and two, as opposed to three Limited formats in one article, and then Limited and Constructed formats together. That is why Group Game Draft isn’t in this article, even though I said it would be.

If you'd like me to go over a format, just ask in the comment section.

DISCLAIMER: All things that are not proven as fact in this article are my opinion

This article accidentally appeared on my page under the “Articles by this User” tab at 8:08 PM on Wednesday, January 22nd. If you were there and was able to read it, you got a sneak peek of this article. The article was deleted shortly afterwards.

And now, the formats.

Team Sealed

1. Team Sealed is like Sealed Deck (you can see my article on Sealed Deck here), where you build out of sealed booster packs (hence the name), except Team Sealed is played with a team of three. In Team Sealed, a team of three opens twelve booster packs and builds three 40-card decks and three sideboards out of them. As with any Limited format, no cards are banned, so whatever you open, you can play.

2. Team Sealed has Grand Prix, and the last one was Grand Prix Kyoto. However, whoever was covering GP Kyoto did not take much video coverage, so no video exists of the finals. However, part of the World Magic Cup each year is played in Team Sealed, so there is a round from that below:
   
   The gameplay starts 57 minutes in (and I should have programmed the video to start then). An article showing us the deckbuilding process of Team USA (and the final decklists) from 2012 can be found here, which are the decks seen in the game.

3. Team Sealed is a great sport if you want to play on the same team with friends. Team Sealed is the only Limited format where you must play with a team. Therefore, whether you win or lose a match isn't completely up to you. If you lose your match, then you have two other opponents to back you up and maybe you can lose your game, but win the match. Also, you don't have to be as good as you have to be in 1v1, because somebody else can help you build your deck and help win the match for you. And if you don't need the help, then your teammates are there for second and third opinions, and to back you up.

Rochester Draft

1. Rochester Draft is a Draft format that was originally showcased and played in Rochester, New York, hence the name. In Rochester Draft, you open one pack and reveal its contents. Then you pass the pack around and take cards as if it was a regular Booster Draft. When all 15 cards are picked, the person to your right reveals a pack and the cards are picked. This happens until each player has opened three booster packs and all the cards are picked. Rochester Draft usually follows an interesting draft structure: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,7,6,5,4,3,2, where 1 is the person that opened the pack and 2 is the person you pass the pack to: the person to the right if it's pack 1 or 3, or the person to the left if it's pack 2. As with any Limited format, whatever you open, you can play, because there’s no B/R list.

2. Rochester Draft is not a sanctionable format, although once upon a time, it was. Therefore, it is only used around the kitchen table, like as shown below:
   
   This is a 6-player draft of a cube with nine cards in a pack, so the draft order was 1,2,3,4,5,6,6,5,4,3. I don’t recommend watching all of that because it’s over an hour and there is a lot of discussion going on (it’s technically Team Rochester, but that doesn’t really matter until the games start, except for the fact that the teammates are talking to each other). Team Rochester is drafted as a Rochester Draft, but the games are played like Team Sealed games. I sadly couldn’t find decklists for these decks (or any other), but you see every card as its drafted, so you can take a guess.

3. Rochester Draft is like Booster Draft, but even more skill intensive. You have to know the cards in 24 different packs and which cards your opponent took so you can play around them. For example, if you’re attacking with a Scavenging Ooze into a Loxodon Smiter and both players have Giant Growth in their hands, there are a few possible scenarios, and here are some that could happen in Booster Draft:

• Your opponent thinks there’s a trick, but doesn’t want to waste his Giant Growth, so he doesn’t block.
• Your opponent wants to kill the Scavenging Ooze, so he blocks. Both players Giant Growth and the Ooze dies.

But imagine if this was Rochester Draft and you knew that your opponent was playing G/W with a lot of tricks. Then both of those scenarios could apply, but most likely, you wouldn’t attack and lose your Scavenging Ooze.

Thanks for reading! Next time, the formats will be Group Game Draft and Cube Drafting. Depending on how many formats you suggest, there might be another format as well.

Until next time, may playing with a team bring you a win even when you lost your match.

Matsi883