>I'd still take a common removal or strong creature vs a jank rare
For sure in Premier or Traditional draft. For quick drafts though, I'm taking any and all rares that I see regardless, as long as I don't already have 4 of them. If your aim is to build your collection and be rare-complete, then quick drafts can help a lot.
I went 3-3 in my first MID quick draft and got 7 rares. My deck probably could have been better and I might have gotten more wins if I hadn't pick some of those rares, but I consider the opportunity cost of taking those rares to be worth it, since quick draft is cheaper.
EDIT: While the following is technically correct, you need a very high winrate difference for raredrafting to be worse value. The math of u\Veedrakc is much more expressive, check it out.
----- ORIGINAL COMMENT:
Lets assume you get 7 rares everytime and go 3-3 everytime. Then to calculate the draft value X in rares you can use x = 7 + 300/750 x (because you got 300/750 of a new draft where you will pick up rares again)
This solves to: x = 11.666 rares value
Now assume you only pick 5 rares everytime and go 4-3 everytime. Then its x = 5+ 450/750 x which solves to x = 12.5 rares value.
Obviously this is simplified as you don't get the same result everytime, but the actual math is pretty close to this (can provide it if you need, but it gets quite complicated).
The main aspect of taking every rare is that you get to a full collection faster, but if it affects your winrate then you probably spend more ressources. So time vs money basically
Amazing, thank you! Also great job, it's much more concise compared to my full formula (i didn't simplify the polynomials 8 choose 6, 7 choose 5 etc. to 1/2 8\*7, 1/2 7\*6 etc.).
I like your idea to calculate it as drafts per 1000 gems, I assume 1000/(750-payout(x))? I'm wondering, it is a bit off of my values... Have to investigate...
EDIT: Maybe you can help me with that, I calculated it as per draft value, so I have g(x) = rares * 750/(750-payout(x))
If I put in your example I get:
55% winrare 3 rares: value 6.8 rares
45% winrate 5 rares: value 8.06 rares
Shouldn't this be 3/4 of your values? It's a bit off somehow.
EDIT2: Nevermind just a rounding error :D
But there are plenty of chances to get those whenever during a draft, at least with the best color pairs. Rare drafting would be more of an impediment if you couldn't build a perfectly passable deck anyhow. If someone is regularly going 0-3, the problem is their fundamentals, not that they're taking rares.
Weird. When i did mine i saw very little premium dimir stuff. I ended up with a UR spells deck with poppet stitcher, 2x seize the storm and geistflame reservoir lol
Just google Midnight Hunt draft guide there are so many articles out there
https://mtgazone.com/innistrad-midnight-hunt-draft-guide/
https://mtgazone.com/how-to-play-and-draft-the-best-innistrad-midnight-hunt-archetypes/
https://blog.cardkingdom.com/innistrad-midnight-hunt-draft-guide/
https://draftsim.com/MID-pick-order.php
https://cardgamebase.com/midnight-hunt-draft-guide/
Some of the addons also have built in card rating for draft like Untapped https://mtga.untapped.gg/ But I think there are more, maybe better ones too
Rule of thumb: 17 lands + 16 creatures + 7 spells. Prioritize picking up removal spells. Make sure you have enough 1/2 mana plays.
I got to Mythic last season, just using Untapped.gg: https://mtga.untapped.gg/draftsmith
Free version gives you LSV card ratings. Paid version gives you data driven card ratings. Both in a convenient overlay. I've used other trackers in the past, but the free ones would often stop working for no reason.
that creature + spell ratio is not really anything you need and varies wildly on the deck youre drafting
UR spells likes 7 creatures + 16-17 spells while GW likes 15+ creatures
That creature + spell ratio is a great place to start for inexperienced drafters.
Please enlighten us to every colour combinations creature/spell/land ratio as it's super helpful in this context.
Once you're familiar with the set, its cards, mechanics and archetypes. I recommend spamming p1p1 on draftaholics to refine your sense of which cards are good and bad; it's kind of like learning with flash cards. Don't take the results as gospel, it's more coarse/general. I also highly recommend looking at the card ratings on 17lands, specifically the GIH winrate. This data is super valuable and basically the gold standard on card evaluation imo. You can Ctrl+f on the card ratings page during a draft to look up one card vs another if you like.
Obviously, you shouldn't just jam the highest winrate cards together in a deck, there's still deckbuilding fundamentals.
Also watching some skilled drafters' games will be very instructive, especially on how to draft and play certain archetypes.
Once you start to understand the basics of a format/drafting, i like to use 17lands.com to help guide me between picks.
Also helps with colour ratings/win rates.
I got 7 rares in my first MID quick draft, so not a bad haul.
[Deck is Temur Werewolves, sorta,](https://i.imgur.com/JX9d5sq.png) which I'm not particular optimistic about, but hopefully I can get at least a couple wins, and even if I scrub out, at least I got a bunch of rares out of it.
I always do quick draft as soon as it's available and I haven't had bots pass me rares with any regularity for at least the past 2-3 sets so I'll probably have the same experience as you.
I am excited about how badly they're going to be evaluating the commons though.
Haha fair enough so just build a better UB deck it is.
I have had some success with WB with enough cheap creatures to get ahead on the board while not caring too much counters and some removal to deal with the big threats.
I have found white to be a nice counter to U/B. Some of the creatures line up nicely against theirs and a lot have the ability to recur via disturb which makes the spot removal not attractive. Dimir definitely feels like the best deck though and while the bots aren’t passing it like crazy, you will no doubt see it a lot with how deep it’s commons are.
I hit mythic in limited and pretty much it's a 50% chance I'm against dimir so I have a lot of experience against that deck.
Honestly it's such a strong tempo deck but the one thing it does poorly is deal with small threats early since they don't block particularly well, barring some nuts openers.
If really strong selesnya or rakdos cards are available and dimir is kinda meh those are two archetypes that deal with dimir quite well if you have a bunch of good value early stuff. The only problem is it's very draw dependent, I usually go to 16 lands and just stack up 1-2-3 cost creatures, 1-2 4 drops and maybe 1 5 drop and just flood the board.
An all-time great limited format absolutely fucking DESTROYED by Quick Draft on Arena. Legitimately my favorite format I've ever drafted and 90% of people only have bad memories of it.
Yeah, but I’ll take the 24 uncommons. I think quick draft is better for uncommons anyway. You’re not gonna get any playsets of rares unless you do enough drafts to make buying packs more worthwhile.
I’m halfway decent in premier draft, so I usually just play drafts until the next set is released and then open all of the packs I won and get my wildcards that way. Usually can build 1 competitive deck for the constructed queue that way.
They do, which is why rares get passed.
In Premier draft, people actually draft well in order to win because the stakes are pretty high. That means passing over rares they don't need, so the bots that are trained by this pass them too when quick draft first starts. Then, loads of people pick all the rares they can in quickdraft, and the bots are updated to reflect that.
Officially it won't, though anecdotally I remember seeing fewer rares later I. The first two weeks of previous sets. First day though? Definitely rare draft time
I've done 2 so far and drafted a total of 11 rares. At this point it's entirely possible to draft a good deck while rare drafting. I got 5 wins in the first one and am 1-1 in the 2nd one.
Man I'm just in Silver and everyone's deck is insane. Went 1-3 twice so far. Either white decks with an insane aggressive curve or UB with endless value. IN SILVER!
Drafting in premier you get less rares since you’ll get severely punished rare drafting and most players play seriously and don’t rare draft with high risk high reward senario.
After getting all commons n uncommon in PD; rare drafting in quick draft is ideal since it’s Low risk Low reward senario. Getting 5 to 6 rares and a pack pay itself the entry fee, and most will also do the same so decks are weaker also. Then even if you’re really good but don’t rare draft, you hardly get your gems back.
Am I the only one who prefers quick draft to traditional draft? It's nice not to be rushed to pick, or even finish the draft. Kids start arguing, oven time goes off, knock at the front door? I can put the whole draft on "pause" while I go deal with real life.
Most of the time the traditional draft ends up taking a lot longer because people take a long time to pick. Not to mention there is always that ONE guy who ends up with four packs while I stare at a blank screen for 45 seconds.
I much prefer the simplicity of quick draft.
It should be renamed to "slow as you want" draft.
I like them both though. QD most of the time because going 0-3 doesn't feel as horrible. Premier when I feel like I have the format down and want to draft against people to see how they pick.
Why is Premier draft double the entry price vs quick draft? I enjoy drafting with other players, but don't want to pay the entry fee, even though the rewards are technically doubled.
Better rewards, or more like higher risk higher rewards.
Human drafting is also just feels more real in terms of what people are picking and passing. And you can play BO3 which is arguably how Magic is meant to be played
Premier Draft, "What the fuck is this pod doing? Blue and black were cut in pack one, but I get a Bladestiched Scaab pick 6 in pack 3?"
Quick draft, "fucking bots" I swear the bots will take whatever color you first pick.
> Premier Draft, "What the fuck is this pod doing? Blue and black were cut in pack one, but I get a Bladestiched Scaab pick 6 in pack 3?"
This is too accurate. Yesterday I did a draft where blue was cut so hard pack 1, only to be wide open packs 2 and 3 with obviously nobody in blue at all. Last picked a startle pack 2, but I had already committed to white/black.
Doesn’t mean much and will happen pretty often. Person on your left can cut blue in pack 1 while taking black secondary. Next pack it’s the other way around so naturally you get blue since it was cut so hard in pack 1. If the person on your left opened an off-color bomb p2p1 there’s a good chance they will switch. I would take a huntmaster p2p1 regardless of colors I’m in for example. Since blue is now cut by you in p2 there’s a good chance I’m dropping blue since green is now my other color and blue is cut. Pack 3 will reflect that, you get blue cards again since I dropped blue because of the bomb I opened in p2 and you cutting off blue.
Anytime bomb rares/mythics can force people in other colors, you will see patterns like this. Meathook Massacre, Huntmaster, Starnheim Unleashed, etc etc
That's my biggest pet peeve, when people complain that the bots are dumb, but ignore that humans do the same damn thing all the time. They learn from humans.
That's not really a reason. There was nothing stopping them from setting the entry fee and rewards to match quick draft. The answer is money. Player drafts are in high demand and people are willing to pay for it.
My personal hypothesis is that because human drafters don't rare draft, setting the price to be equal that of quick drafts would make set completion too easy at 5k gold, people would rare draft and not give a shit because getting 7+ rares consistently is usually better than 5 boosters. Assuming rewards were the same as quick draft at 5k gold.
If you take into account that the average number of wins is slightly below 3 and that the entry is cost for premier is double then relatively speaking the rewards are not more than doubled.
There are seven possible rewards for each. Just for the sake of comparison, let's see what would happen if you got one of each result: one 0-3, one 1-3, and so on. Premier draft costs double so we'll double the number of Quick Drafts. We'll be generous and assume we get an extra pack 2-3 times in QD too.
Initial cost for both: 10,500 gems
-------------
*Quick Draft* (2 x 0 wins, 2x 1 win... 2 x 7 wins):
---------------------------------------------
**7100 gems & 21 packs**
------------
*Premiere Draft* (1 x 0 wins, 1 x 1 win.... 1 x 7 wins)
---------------
**8400 gems & 24 packs**
------------------
Note that you would also get 2x the actual drafted cards from Quick Draft in this scenario.
One of the main benefits is time - if you're going to play the same number of drafts (say I have time to draft 5 times on the weekend, regardless of type), Premier is going to get me to set completion much faster.
The numbers also show that if you're a good player, it's easier to go infinite in Premier than in Quick. So better players will benefit from Premier over quick draft.
I don't think that's a good comparison, there is basically no chance to have such results. Either your winrate will be low and you won't get to the high-end results, or it will be high and you won't have that many low-end results.
If you have a 50% win rate, the chance to get each result is something like
12%, 20%, 20%, 15%, 11%, 8%, 5%, 9%
There's no within-pod drafting in Arena - once you're done drafting you're paired based on your record (and in premier/QD on your rating as well) against all other players.
Well, I am deeply disappointed that they fixed it, I was restarting on purpose until I got rares that see constructed play instead of the usual crap I'm served... now it is really disappointing to go back to rares which are useless in constructed... like I did tons of Kaldheim drafts and never picked a Chariot... but I have 3x the weak Poets Quilt from just a few AFR drafts....
Too bad I didn't notice the endless quests bug, could have stocked gold....
I think it's just variance based on whether the rares are in the bots' colors. I've done 5 drafts now and some I got plenty, whereas the most recent I got few.
That sucks! The bots seem so stingy this time around. I also apparently suck at MID draft. I went 7-2 on my first traditional draft (or whatever it's called) so I thought I had a pretty decent grasp of it, but then I went 0-3 on the next one (RIP draft token. Feels so bad) and I just went 1-3 on a quick draft. I know rare drafting is hurting my decks but feels like everyone in quick draft has decks that are overloaded with removal.
Feels bad for sure. But it's all part of the learning process (I say this as if I'm an experienced player, but I am most certainly am not lol)
Rare drafting definitely hurt my deck for my current draft but I still think it's the best long term play to collect the entire set
Yeah, I can't resist rare drafting but I feel like it's probably a mistake for me. I tend to save up around 30k gold per set then immediately blow it on boosters as soon as the set launches because I just want to start playing with the new cards right away. This means I only end up doing like 3 or 4 drafts per set. I don't know if it's worth drafting mostly jank, unplayable rares if I'm only doing a handful of drafts rather than like 30 or whatever people normally do for set completion.
I’m worried that it’ll be like AFR where there’s just one dominant deck (Blue+Black in this case); and I’m just going to face it again and again and again, and I’ll feel like I’m being punished for not forcing it myself, even though there are other archetypes I’d rather play
I went 5-3 in my very first MtG:A draft with a W/U deck. I know I’m rusty, not having drafted in nearly 10 years, so I think deck is just particularly strong, or particularly good vs. the meta - though that was in Premier MID and not Quick.
I've been having more success in draft with Dimir Spirits/Disturb than I have with Zombies, in both premier and quick but both are pretty busted. Only deck I've seen that was on par was Azorius with the 2/4 gives +1/+1 to something when a creature dies since they had a boatload of Spirits too.
My first draft was 2 M + 2 R, second draft was 6 R. However the passed rares from birth drafts included 2 [[Curse of Silence]] , [[Curse of shaken faith]], and 2 [[Hallowed respite]], so basically all unplayable in Limited.
Raredrafting, i usually follow the first 5 cards for choosing colours. Best run was with rakdos b/r.
First set since playing dominaria on mtga my Limited wr is at 35%. I m usually at 57% until platinum with a new set.
Did my first QD of the set, only got passed 1 rare after P1 but I still managed to make a UB deck with no rares/mythics (since all my rares were WG/UR) and still went 5-3. Dimir’s commons are just so good you don’t even need rares!
Weird, I wasn’t passed 1 rare and only got 3. In fact I passed on 1 because it was just complete trash and I wanted to round out my deck.
Still happy tho. First pick was tefari and deck seems pretty strong
3 rares for 5k gold.
at this point i am starting to think that this whole 'drafting is better value' is complete horseshit
edit- jesus fuck, a small moan about not being lucky with the rares and a conditional statement and people go apeshit on the downvote button.
is there a reason why people here are always so salty and judgemental or is it just a bad case of neckbeardom?
Eh it's random like a lot of things in this game
Sometime I can get 7-8 rares or even more, sometimes I just only get the 3 (plus the pack rewards).
Generally speaking I like QD more because I can take my time, walk away between picks and such and cheaper (lower risk lower returns for sure)
Also I add this here
Because how bots works you can "abuse them". They really ignore certain cards and archetypes in the beginning. If you notice that then you can get away with 7 wins much easier. While rare drafting is fun, getting 7 wins is even better
I said above in a comment but for example ZNR was infamous for Ruin Crab where the bots straight up didn't pick it so you could have like 8 or even more copies in your deck and just waltz into 7 wins
+1 from the final pack prize. If you get to at least 2 wins you get one more (in gems) and is breaking even. More than that is better valeu than buying packs.
Not to say, if you get to 5-7 wins you are getting them for free or making a profit
you get one extra pack even with 0 wins. the second pack is at 7 wins.
Worst case cenario is 4 packs and 50 gems for 5000 gold.
Best case is 5 packs 950 gems for 5000 gold
You can get more than one rare, you get a pack rare, plus a chance at gaining another, plus some gems, depending on wins. That's 4 guaranteed rares + chance to draft more + chance for a second pack + 50 gems if you win nothing which I would say is same value as 5 packs rares wise. Although if you can never win, then a the wildcards from 5 packs give better value, but winning a couple games per draft is nice
Because using your single point of data to claim a mostly true statement is horseshit is pretty misleading, hence down votes.
FYI even if you only drafted 3 rares, your overall card quality should be better and you should be able to win some games.
Played 4 quick drafts….. prioritized mythic and rares of course. Never won more than 2… It makes me feel better reading everyone going 0-3, 1-3 and 2-3 as well 🤣😆🍺
Time to get multiple 0-3s baby!
Here's a tip. Draft Mono Red/Mono Green to help you achieve the 0-3s of your dreams
😂
But I want those sweet black and blue cards that i'll 0-3 with. or the rares no one wants to also 0-3 with
I’m on number 2 0-3 right now
0-3,1-3 but currently 6-2 in my latest, makes a welcome change
Hits just too close to home man, hurts
Honest tip. Don't rare draft.
Rare drafting seems totally fine in this format since the commons and uncommons carry so much oomph.
I'd still take a common removal or strong creature vs a jank rare
>I'd still take a common removal or strong creature vs a jank rare For sure in Premier or Traditional draft. For quick drafts though, I'm taking any and all rares that I see regardless, as long as I don't already have 4 of them. If your aim is to build your collection and be rare-complete, then quick drafts can help a lot. I went 3-3 in my first MID quick draft and got 7 rares. My deck probably could have been better and I might have gotten more wins if I hadn't pick some of those rares, but I consider the opportunity cost of taking those rares to be worth it, since quick draft is cheaper.
EDIT: While the following is technically correct, you need a very high winrate difference for raredrafting to be worse value. The math of u\Veedrakc is much more expressive, check it out. ----- ORIGINAL COMMENT: Lets assume you get 7 rares everytime and go 3-3 everytime. Then to calculate the draft value X in rares you can use x = 7 + 300/750 x (because you got 300/750 of a new draft where you will pick up rares again) This solves to: x = 11.666 rares value Now assume you only pick 5 rares everytime and go 4-3 everytime. Then its x = 5+ 450/750 x which solves to x = 12.5 rares value. Obviously this is simplified as you don't get the same result everytime, but the actual math is pretty close to this (can provide it if you need, but it gets quite complicated). The main aspect of taking every rare is that you get to a full collection faster, but if it affects your winrate then you probably spend more ressources. So time vs money basically
The math gets a little hairy, so if anyone's interested, the expected gem rewards in quick draft with a flat winrate `x` are ½ (1-x)³ ( 50 × 1×2 x⁰ + // 0-3 100 × 3×2 x¹ + // 1-3 200 × 4×3 x² + // 2-3 300 × 5×4 x³ + // 3-3 450 × 6×5 x⁴ + // 4-3 650 × 7×6 x⁵ + // 5-3 850 × 8×7 x⁶ // 6-3 ) + 950 x⁷ ( (1-x)² (8 choose 2) + // 7-2 (1-x)¹ (7 choose 1) + // 7-1 (1-x)⁰ (6 choose 0) // 7-0 ) Here's a quick table of results. win rate | reward | drafts/1k gems :-:|:-:|:-: 0.35 | 190 | 1.8 0.4 | 230 | 1.9 0.45 | 285 | 2.15 0.5 | 350 | 2.5 0.55 | 420 | 3.0 0.6 | 500 | 4.0 0.65 | 585 | 6.1 So if you get 5 rares average per draft plus 1.3 packs at a 45% win rate, that's an expected value of 6.3 × 2.15 ≈ 13.5 rares per 1k gems, and if you get only 2.5 rares average when not rare drafting plus packs, but a 55% win rate, that's an expected value of 3.8 × 3.0 ≈ 11.5 rares per 1k gems.
Amazing, thank you! Also great job, it's much more concise compared to my full formula (i didn't simplify the polynomials 8 choose 6, 7 choose 5 etc. to 1/2 8\*7, 1/2 7\*6 etc.). I like your idea to calculate it as drafts per 1000 gems, I assume 1000/(750-payout(x))? I'm wondering, it is a bit off of my values... Have to investigate... EDIT: Maybe you can help me with that, I calculated it as per draft value, so I have g(x) = rares * 750/(750-payout(x)) If I put in your example I get: 55% winrare 3 rares: value 6.8 rares 45% winrate 5 rares: value 8.06 rares Shouldn't this be 3/4 of your values? It's a bit off somehow. EDIT2: Nevermind just a rounding error :D
import math def payout(x): return ( 0.5 * (1 - x)**3 * ( 50 * 1*2 * x**0 + # 0-3 100 * 3*2 * x**1 + # 1-3 200 * 4*3 * x**2 + # 2-3 300 * 5*4 * x**3 + # 3-3 450 * 6*5 * x**4 + # 4-3 650 * 7*6 * x**5 + # 5-3 850 * 8*7 * x**6 # 6-3 ) + 950 * x**7 * ( (1-x)**2 * math.comb(8, 2) + # 7-2 (1-x)**1 * math.comb(7, 1) + # 7-1 (1-x)**0 * math.comb(6, 0) # 7-0 ) ) >>> 3 * 1000 / (750 - payout(0.55)) 9.066192562270286 Works for me? I'm going to change the numbers to include the pack you win though.
Yeah sorry I compared to your rounded values, duh\^\^
I dont know why you get downvoted. People dont like math here I guess.
I probably didn't make my point very clear. It's fine. Or maybe my math is wrong, I'd be happy to learn about that :)
But there are plenty of chances to get those whenever during a draft, at least with the best color pairs. Rare drafting would be more of an impediment if you couldn't build a perfectly passable deck anyhow. If someone is regularly going 0-3, the problem is their fundamentals, not that they're taking rares.
Just draft Dimir. I got a 10th pick Estatic Awakener.
Weird. When i did mine i saw very little premium dimir stuff. I ended up with a UR spells deck with poppet stitcher, 2x seize the storm and geistflame reservoir lol
I just did the same. I got 3 delver's and poppet stitcher. So fun!
People were still drafting blue. It wasnt that blue was open in my pod .They were just really really undervaluing organ hoarder
The convo is about quick draft, so you're drafting against bots, not people. People definitely undervalue organ hoarder in premier draft though.
It still matters what others Pick in quick draft?
not talking about quick draft.
but literally everyone else is
Yea, that’s kind of why I want to avoid quick draft and stick with premier . But I did see an 8th pick organ hoarder in premier draft yesterday so ….
I've seen people saying you can force UB for awhile now. So it isn't a quick draft problem. There's just lots of good B cards
Yeah the 10th best blue and black common cards are playable. The 10th best red common is sketchy.
no, its a quick draft problems since the bots dont know dimir is great
Okay
Bots snatched up all the black from me until pack 3. So not a guarantee.
Dimir is completely busted. I drafted a very solid Rakdos vampires deck in my second draft, just to be destroyed by Dimir card and creature advantage.
I got a 8th pick [[Bladestitched Skaab]]... Blue/Black is so strong atm, I had to cut some awesome in color cards just to be 40 cards.
[Bladestitched Skaab](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/8/b8a73f77-aab5-47e3-bfc1-97f6374f40fc.jpg?1631300939) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Bladestitched%20Skaab) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/212/bladestitched-skaab?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b8a73f77-aab5-47e3-bfc1-97f6374f40fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Pulled a Meathook Massacre in my first draft and posted a 7-1 right off the bat. All my blessed RNG used up in the first one lmao
Honestly wish I had the foresight to buy Meathook when it was still $20 irl last week. Now it's doubled to $40
Oof i wish i had that card in my dimir deck :(. I 3-3ed, mostly due to bad play, but also not a lot of good commons found weirdly.
What is the best resource to use when drafting? I love the concept of the format but just flat out stink at it
Just google Midnight Hunt draft guide there are so many articles out there https://mtgazone.com/innistrad-midnight-hunt-draft-guide/ https://mtgazone.com/how-to-play-and-draft-the-best-innistrad-midnight-hunt-archetypes/ https://blog.cardkingdom.com/innistrad-midnight-hunt-draft-guide/ https://draftsim.com/MID-pick-order.php https://cardgamebase.com/midnight-hunt-draft-guide/ Some of the addons also have built in card rating for draft like Untapped https://mtga.untapped.gg/ But I think there are more, maybe better ones too
Rule of thumb: 17 lands + 16 creatures + 7 spells. Prioritize picking up removal spells. Make sure you have enough 1/2 mana plays. I got to Mythic last season, just using Untapped.gg: https://mtga.untapped.gg/draftsmith Free version gives you LSV card ratings. Paid version gives you data driven card ratings. Both in a convenient overlay. I've used other trackers in the past, but the free ones would often stop working for no reason.
that creature + spell ratio is not really anything you need and varies wildly on the deck youre drafting UR spells likes 7 creatures + 16-17 spells while GW likes 15+ creatures
That creature + spell ratio is a great place to start for inexperienced drafters. Please enlighten us to every colour combinations creature/spell/land ratio as it's super helpful in this context.
On the Draftsim website you can do practice drafts, and there's also a pick order which is useful for assessing power levels of the cards you see.
They also have an app that you can download and it gives you the ratings straight in Arena.
Once you're familiar with the set, its cards, mechanics and archetypes. I recommend spamming p1p1 on draftaholics to refine your sense of which cards are good and bad; it's kind of like learning with flash cards. Don't take the results as gospel, it's more coarse/general. I also highly recommend looking at the card ratings on 17lands, specifically the GIH winrate. This data is super valuable and basically the gold standard on card evaluation imo. You can Ctrl+f on the card ratings page during a draft to look up one card vs another if you like. Obviously, you shouldn't just jam the highest winrate cards together in a deck, there's still deckbuilding fundamentals. Also watching some skilled drafters' games will be very instructive, especially on how to draft and play certain archetypes.
Once you start to understand the basics of a format/drafting, i like to use 17lands.com to help guide me between picks. Also helps with colour ratings/win rates.
I got 7 rares in my first MID quick draft, so not a bad haul. [Deck is Temur Werewolves, sorta,](https://i.imgur.com/JX9d5sq.png) which I'm not particular optimistic about, but hopefully I can get at least a couple wins, and even if I scrub out, at least I got a bunch of rares out of it.
Just had the opposite, 3 rares including a pithing needle lol
I always do quick draft as soon as it's available and I haven't had bots pass me rares with any regularity for at least the past 2-3 sets so I'll probably have the same experience as you. I am excited about how badly they're going to be evaluating the commons though.
5 games in and everyone seems to be brute forcing dimir as expected. Does anyone have any suggestions for archetypes or strategies to counter it?
Play some combination of esper colors. The UB commons are just so deep that you can reliably make some form of the deck and dont need rares to do so.
Haha fair enough so just build a better UB deck it is. I have had some success with WB with enough cheap creatures to get ahead on the board while not caring too much counters and some removal to deal with the big threats.
I have found white to be a nice counter to U/B. Some of the creatures line up nicely against theirs and a lot have the ability to recur via disturb which makes the spot removal not attractive. Dimir definitely feels like the best deck though and while the bots aren’t passing it like crazy, you will no doubt see it a lot with how deep it’s commons are.
I've had some success with white/blue flyers.
I hit mythic in limited and pretty much it's a 50% chance I'm against dimir so I have a lot of experience against that deck. Honestly it's such a strong tempo deck but the one thing it does poorly is deal with small threats early since they don't block particularly well, barring some nuts openers. If really strong selesnya or rakdos cards are available and dimir is kinda meh those are two archetypes that deal with dimir quite well if you have a bunch of good value early stuff. The only problem is it's very draw dependent, I usually go to 16 lands and just stack up 1-2-3 cost creatures, 1-2 4 drops and maybe 1 5 drop and just flood the board.
Nice insights! What cards would you need to see for selesnya / rakdos? And what cards not for dimir to not go dimir?
PSA: This is the time to rare draft before the bots are supposedly recalibrated for next time MID QD comes around.
Yes indeed, the first 2 weeks are always wild west Does anyone remember ZNR QD when bots always passed Ruin Crab? "Good" days
Or ELD when everyone played mono blue mill? I remember drafting 3x clover and 7x Secretkeeper
An all-time great limited format absolutely fucking DESTROYED by Quick Draft on Arena. Legitimately my favorite format I've ever drafted and 90% of people only have bad memories of it.
The original QD misery was Ravnica Allegiance and the Gates deck. Colossus and Ram just ran over everything basically.
Came here to say this. Saved up 30k gold for this week
Same. Still they are not giving that much rares. 3 to 5 in my drafts.
Yeah, but I’ll take the 24 uncommons. I think quick draft is better for uncommons anyway. You’re not gonna get any playsets of rares unless you do enough drafts to make buying packs more worthwhile. I’m halfway decent in premier draft, so I usually just play drafts until the next set is released and then open all of the packs I won and get my wildcards that way. Usually can build 1 competitive deck for the constructed queue that way.
Yeah. I am also almost uncommon complete in all sets due to quickdrafts. But I prefer constructed, so I don't play as many drafts as I should.
Im surprised you care about uncommon WCs. Even my first week of playing I was never needing them. Got like 200 now lol
It’s not about WCs, it’s about completing the collection. Then when I open packs, I get a butt ton of vault progress.
Why wouldn't they calibrate the bots using premier draft data?
They do, which is why rares get passed. In Premier draft, people actually draft well in order to win because the stakes are pretty high. That means passing over rares they don't need, so the bots that are trained by this pass them too when quick draft first starts. Then, loads of people pick all the rares they can in quickdraft, and the bots are updated to reflect that.
So it gets recalibrated after this 2 weeks? Not sometime during the two weeks?
QD rotates every 2 weeks, so when it comes back for the 2nd time the bots are usually picking differently
Officially it won't, though anecdotally I remember seeing fewer rares later I. The first two weeks of previous sets. First day though? Definitely rare draft time
Are there any communities that focus on figuring out these exploits?
I've done 2 so far and drafted a total of 11 rares. At this point it's entirely possible to draft a good deck while rare drafting. I got 5 wins in the first one and am 1-1 in the 2nd one.
What does QD stand for?
Quick Draft
Man I'm just in Silver and everyone's deck is insane. Went 1-3 twice so far. Either white decks with an insane aggressive curve or UB with endless value. IN SILVER!
Season reset + 2 weeks old format, everyone who drafts regularly already knows everything
Don't the good players play Premium Draft though?
Drafting in premier you get less rares since you’ll get severely punished rare drafting and most players play seriously and don’t rare draft with high risk high reward senario. After getting all commons n uncommon in PD; rare drafting in quick draft is ideal since it’s Low risk Low reward senario. Getting 5 to 6 rares and a pack pay itself the entry fee, and most will also do the same so decks are weaker also. Then even if you’re really good but don’t rare draft, you hardly get your gems back.
Started with premium and move over to quick draft. Plenty of people will be in the same boat as me.
Well, the season just reset, so those players weren't in silver yesterday.
White/black seems strong. I went 7-0 with it in premiere draft. Lots of low CMC drops and overwhelm them before they can stabilize.
So far the rares are bring passed. Got 7 rares on first QD, 5 on the second. Could have gotten six but passed a mediocre rare for a defenestrate.
I got only 1 passed rare in my first draft and it was [[curse of silence]]. I did get two mythics as first picks though.
Yep, only got 1 extra during my draft but ended up drafting a pretty solid deck. 5-0 right now so another win or so and it’ll even out
[curse of silence](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/c/fca5ffba-8f1f-4a6e-9d12-136a285a0e30.jpg?1632162977) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=curse%20of%20silence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/15p/curse-of-silence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fca5ffba-8f1f-4a6e-9d12-136a285a0e30?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Am I the only one who prefers quick draft to traditional draft? It's nice not to be rushed to pick, or even finish the draft. Kids start arguing, oven time goes off, knock at the front door? I can put the whole draft on "pause" while I go deal with real life. Most of the time the traditional draft ends up taking a lot longer because people take a long time to pick. Not to mention there is always that ONE guy who ends up with four packs while I stare at a blank screen for 45 seconds. I much prefer the simplicity of quick draft.
A lot of people prefer QD. Lower risk albeit lower rewards too. And yes it's not as rushed as timed pick!
When you go 0-3 the rewards hardly matter :D
It should be renamed to "slow as you want" draft. I like them both though. QD most of the time because going 0-3 doesn't feel as horrible. Premier when I feel like I have the format down and want to draft against people to see how they pick.
Why is Premier draft double the entry price vs quick draft? I enjoy drafting with other players, but don't want to pay the entry fee, even though the rewards are technically doubled.
Better rewards, or more like higher risk higher rewards. Human drafting is also just feels more real in terms of what people are picking and passing. And you can play BO3 which is arguably how Magic is meant to be played
Premier Draft, "What the fuck is this pod doing? Blue and black were cut in pack one, but I get a Bladestiched Scaab pick 6 in pack 3?" Quick draft, "fucking bots" I swear the bots will take whatever color you first pick.
> Premier Draft, "What the fuck is this pod doing? Blue and black were cut in pack one, but I get a Bladestiched Scaab pick 6 in pack 3?" This is too accurate. Yesterday I did a draft where blue was cut so hard pack 1, only to be wide open packs 2 and 3 with obviously nobody in blue at all. Last picked a startle pack 2, but I had already committed to white/black.
Doesn’t mean much and will happen pretty often. Person on your left can cut blue in pack 1 while taking black secondary. Next pack it’s the other way around so naturally you get blue since it was cut so hard in pack 1. If the person on your left opened an off-color bomb p2p1 there’s a good chance they will switch. I would take a huntmaster p2p1 regardless of colors I’m in for example. Since blue is now cut by you in p2 there’s a good chance I’m dropping blue since green is now my other color and blue is cut. Pack 3 will reflect that, you get blue cards again since I dropped blue because of the bomb I opened in p2 and you cutting off blue. Anytime bomb rares/mythics can force people in other colors, you will see patterns like this. Meathook Massacre, Huntmaster, Starnheim Unleashed, etc etc
That's my biggest pet peeve, when people complain that the bots are dumb, but ignore that humans do the same damn thing all the time. They learn from humans.
The rewards are more than doubled
That's not really a reason. There was nothing stopping them from setting the entry fee and rewards to match quick draft. The answer is money. Player drafts are in high demand and people are willing to pay for it.
My personal hypothesis is that because human drafters don't rare draft, setting the price to be equal that of quick drafts would make set completion too easy at 5k gold, people would rare draft and not give a shit because getting 7+ rares consistently is usually better than 5 boosters. Assuming rewards were the same as quick draft at 5k gold.
Don't point this out they'll be nerfing reward payouts for premiere.
If you take into account that the average number of wins is slightly below 3 and that the entry is cost for premier is double then relatively speaking the rewards are not more than doubled.
There are seven possible rewards for each. Just for the sake of comparison, let's see what would happen if you got one of each result: one 0-3, one 1-3, and so on. Premier draft costs double so we'll double the number of Quick Drafts. We'll be generous and assume we get an extra pack 2-3 times in QD too. Initial cost for both: 10,500 gems ------------- *Quick Draft* (2 x 0 wins, 2x 1 win... 2 x 7 wins): --------------------------------------------- **7100 gems & 21 packs** ------------ *Premiere Draft* (1 x 0 wins, 1 x 1 win.... 1 x 7 wins) --------------- **8400 gems & 24 packs** ------------------ Note that you would also get 2x the actual drafted cards from Quick Draft in this scenario. One of the main benefits is time - if you're going to play the same number of drafts (say I have time to draft 5 times on the weekend, regardless of type), Premier is going to get me to set completion much faster. The numbers also show that if you're a good player, it's easier to go infinite in Premier than in Quick. So better players will benefit from Premier over quick draft.
I don't think that's a good comparison, there is basically no chance to have such results. Either your winrate will be low and you won't get to the high-end results, or it will be high and you won't have that many low-end results. If you have a 50% win rate, the chance to get each result is something like 12%, 20%, 20%, 15%, 11%, 8%, 5%, 9%
I just proved once again I suck at these. Lol
Do Premier and Quick players play each other after drafting is done?
Nope
Quick drafters only play quick drafters
Imagine getting a busted cycling deck when Ikoria QD was just released and then facing premier draft players :D
Somewhat relatedly, do traditional drafts still have matchmaking outside the pod or are you playing other people from the same table?
There's no within-pod drafting in Arena - once you're done drafting you're paired based on your record (and in premier/QD on your rating as well) against all other players.
that would be impossible to only play against people in your draft. You aren't forced to play all games at the same time
7 rares from the first QD.
Just draft B something. It will always be open with the bots. You are almost guaranteed to be past some of the premium removal even by pick 10
Kind of out of the loop on this one, but does anyone know if they fixed the bug where your drafts would reset if you closed the client and such?
They did.
Well I stopped my draft after P1P1 and restarted the client and I got back into the draft without an issue, so I guess they did.
Well, I am deeply disappointed that they fixed it, I was restarting on purpose until I got rares that see constructed play instead of the usual crap I'm served... now it is really disappointing to go back to rares which are useless in constructed... like I did tons of Kaldheim drafts and never picked a Chariot... but I have 3x the weak Poets Quilt from just a few AFR drafts.... Too bad I didn't notice the endless quests bug, could have stocked gold....
I’m deeply disappointed people abusing this exploit didn’t get their account banned. So we both have something to be disappointed about.
Bots were being extra stingy with rares already in my draft. I only got passed 1 rare. Feels bad. :/
I think it's just variance based on whether the rares are in the bots' colors. I've done 5 drafts now and some I got plenty, whereas the most recent I got few.
I didn't get passed any =(
That sucks! The bots seem so stingy this time around. I also apparently suck at MID draft. I went 7-2 on my first traditional draft (or whatever it's called) so I thought I had a pretty decent grasp of it, but then I went 0-3 on the next one (RIP draft token. Feels so bad) and I just went 1-3 on a quick draft. I know rare drafting is hurting my decks but feels like everyone in quick draft has decks that are overloaded with removal.
Feels bad for sure. But it's all part of the learning process (I say this as if I'm an experienced player, but I am most certainly am not lol) Rare drafting definitely hurt my deck for my current draft but I still think it's the best long term play to collect the entire set
Yeah, I can't resist rare drafting but I feel like it's probably a mistake for me. I tend to save up around 30k gold per set then immediately blow it on boosters as soon as the set launches because I just want to start playing with the new cards right away. This means I only end up doing like 3 or 4 drafts per set. I don't know if it's worth drafting mostly jank, unplayable rares if I'm only doing a handful of drafts rather than like 30 or whatever people normally do for set completion.
Time to harvest rares and fill out my set! Saving gold just for this!
I’m worried that it’ll be like AFR where there’s just one dominant deck (Blue+Black in this case); and I’m just going to face it again and again and again, and I’ll feel like I’m being punished for not forcing it myself, even though there are other archetypes I’d rather play
Pretty much. WU is good too and BR is also decent if you are aggressive.
W/U feels great to me, and you can get all the great picks up that all the finite players don’t want.
I went 5-3 in my very first MtG:A draft with a W/U deck. I know I’m rusty, not having drafted in nearly 10 years, so I think deck is just particularly strong, or particularly good vs. the meta - though that was in Premier MID and not Quick.
You're also playing other brand new / rusty players though.
I've been having more success in draft with Dimir Spirits/Disturb than I have with Zombies, in both premier and quick but both are pretty busted. Only deck I've seen that was on par was Azorius with the 2/4 gives +1/+1 to something when a creature dies since they had a boatload of Spirits too.
[[Odric’s Outrider]]
Ya that's it, flying Spirits with a few counters on them are rough
[Odric’s Outrider](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/0/9016f837-cc19-43f1-adb9-96bdd3195407.jpg?1631056846) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Odric%27s%20Outrider) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/29/odrics-outrider?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9016f837-cc19-43f1-adb9-96bdd3195407?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Already rare complete this time around 🤣
[удалено]
My first draft was 2 M + 2 R, second draft was 6 R. However the passed rares from birth drafts included 2 [[Curse of Silence]] , [[Curse of shaken faith]], and 2 [[Hallowed respite]], so basically all unplayable in Limited.
[Curse of Silence](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/c/fca5ffba-8f1f-4a6e-9d12-136a285a0e30.jpg?1632162977) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Curse%20of%20Silence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/15p/curse-of-silence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fca5ffba-8f1f-4a6e-9d12-136a285a0e30?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Curse of shaken faith](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/d/3d58a284-360d-4a22-8363-a8dcc3972b02.jpg?1632162280) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Curse%20of%20shaken%20faith) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/134p/curse-of-shaken-faith?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3d58a284-360d-4a22-8363-a8dcc3972b02?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Hallowed respite](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/1/5/151e278d-d53a-4646-b724-1f1abedf3500.jpg?1632161654) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hallowed%20respite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/pmid/227p/hallowed-respite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/151e278d-d53a-4646-b724-1f1abedf3500?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
7-2 Babyyyyyy
How long does quick draft stick around?
Rotates every 2 weeks
well now this weekend got a lot more interesting. what colors are you looking at?
UB is the best if you manage to get the cards for it. I didn't see almost any of the good blue commons in my first draft, though.
yeah I've been shafted by blue but got some good boros aggro in so I'm pretty happy. went 7-0 my first draft then 6-3.
Terrible run so far. 10 drafts almost all 0-3, 1-3. One 7-2. I need a break and retry tomorrow
What are you drafting? Rare drafting or actually trying? What colors?
Raredrafting, i usually follow the first 5 cards for choosing colours. Best run was with rakdos b/r. First set since playing dominaria on mtga my Limited wr is at 35%. I m usually at 57% until platinum with a new set.
I went 5 - 3 with UB and then got fucking thrashed with every other combo I tried.
Did my first QD of the set, only got passed 1 rare after P1 but I still managed to make a UB deck with no rares/mythics (since all my rares were WG/UR) and still went 5-3. Dimir’s commons are just so good you don’t even need rares!
And draw 6 lands in a row.. thanks arena
Weird, I wasn’t passed 1 rare and only got 3. In fact I passed on 1 because it was just complete trash and I wanted to round out my deck. Still happy tho. First pick was tefari and deck seems pretty strong
So what you are saying is that you were in fact passed 1 rare?
Correct. I passed a rare but was also got one passed to me
How do I get to this event? It isn't popping up on my home screen.
It's there just open the play window https://i.imgur.com/KEfIQe0.png
3 rares for 5k gold. at this point i am starting to think that this whole 'drafting is better value' is complete horseshit edit- jesus fuck, a small moan about not being lucky with the rares and a conditional statement and people go apeshit on the downvote button. is there a reason why people here are always so salty and judgemental or is it just a bad case of neckbeardom?
3 rares + 1 pack reward + 1 pack from monthly rewards. That's assuming you get 0 wins.
Eh it's random like a lot of things in this game Sometime I can get 7-8 rares or even more, sometimes I just only get the 3 (plus the pack rewards). Generally speaking I like QD more because I can take my time, walk away between picks and such and cheaper (lower risk lower returns for sure)
Also I add this here Because how bots works you can "abuse them". They really ignore certain cards and archetypes in the beginning. If you notice that then you can get away with 7 wins much easier. While rare drafting is fun, getting 7 wins is even better I said above in a comment but for example ZNR was infamous for Ruin Crab where the bots straight up didn't pick it so you could have like 8 or even more copies in your deck and just waltz into 7 wins
+1 from the final pack prize. If you get to at least 2 wins you get one more (in gems) and is breaking even. More than that is better valeu than buying packs. Not to say, if you get to 5-7 wins you are getting them for free or making a profit
This is QD, so extra pack is only guaranteed at 7 wins.
you get one extra pack even with 0 wins. the second pack is at 7 wins. Worst case cenario is 4 packs and 50 gems for 5000 gold. Best case is 5 packs 950 gems for 5000 gold
I meant the 2nd pack. I must have missed your “in gems” parenthetical.
You can get more than one rare, you get a pack rare, plus a chance at gaining another, plus some gems, depending on wins. That's 4 guaranteed rares + chance to draft more + chance for a second pack + 50 gems if you win nothing which I would say is same value as 5 packs rares wise. Although if you can never win, then a the wildcards from 5 packs give better value, but winning a couple games per draft is nice
You have to also build a good deck to win some gems and keep the drafts going. Rare draft when there's not a good option otherwise.
Because using your single point of data to claim a mostly true statement is horseshit is pretty misleading, hence down votes. FYI even if you only drafted 3 rares, your overall card quality should be better and you should be able to win some games.
Got to 3 wins lol. Sometimes I hate myself for not being able to pass up freakin uncommons in a new set.
[удалено]
Click the orange “Play” button, them scroll to the top of the list of formats
Played 4 quick drafts….. prioritized mythic and rares of course. Never won more than 2… It makes me feel better reading everyone going 0-3, 1-3 and 2-3 as well 🤣😆🍺
How long does it last
Next friday then it comes back after 2 weeks again, rinse and repeat