Booster draft is the lifeblood of Magic: the Gathering. Any time I’ve lost touch with Magic, it’s not a cool Constructed deck that hooks me back in, it’s a new Limited format where I can jump back in without feeling like I’m going to be competing with people who have weeks, months, or in some cases years more of knowledge.
For newer or returning players, there’s been no better time to jump in than Foundations Limited. Foundations is a masterclass in design for what it was meant to be—a simpler, more basic set that displays what Magic is and its potential. I’m often a critic of WotC, as someone who cares about the game and its direction, so I am happy to give credit when it’s due.
One concept of booster draft that keeps coming up, and one that is often overlooked when I watch great drafters play Limited, is the importance of a specific pick out of a specific pack.
The win rate of a card is not the best reason to select one card over another. Limited decks are often made up of mostly commons, a few uncommons, and a rare or two. Maybe the rarities have upshifted a bit since the release of the play booster, but functionally it’s all the same.
Often, especially on stream, I don’t have a clear answer for “What’s the Pick?” The cards are close in power level, and in many cases, it doesn’t matter what you take early between two cards in your colors with similar power levels. What matters is how you follow those picks when you have enough context. The later picks contain most of the value. You don’t need to sweat too much when you’re deciding between a Bushwhack or a Bite Down the second or third pick of a draft. What matters is that if you take the Bushwhack you know you should be more open to taking cards to splash later, and if you take Bite Down you likely want a much lower curve to get your creatures out before your removal. The win rate differential with this pick matters much less than both the known and unknown contexts of the pick. Too often, people focus on drafting like it's a science and remove all the nuance from a complicated strategic game. Drafting is an art form, and you are the artist. You see the final product in your head and navigate the draft in a way that will get you to that desired outcome.
Many people will look at 17Lands.com to find the highest win rate red card to determine the best red common. There are so many reasons this is a flawed approach, but if everyone’s doing it, you should be doing it too in many cases. This is where I value the data the most. Following trends is important in draft.
Our decks are often best when we have a mix of the good commons. If every pack had a Burst Lighting, then at some point we have to be taking creatures over Burst Lightnings. For this reason, knowing the general consensus of pick orders is in many ways more valuable than formulating your own. Let’s pretend there were only three cards to draft: Rock, Paper, and Scissors. If the goal of your deck is to have a mix of each, and the community is slamming Rock because it’s a bomb, then even if you disagree, you should be taking it in many cases due to its perceived value.
In many cases, this is simply deciding to either take the solid two-drop or the great four-drop. There are a lot of solid four-drops, but playable two-drops are sparser, so I’ll take the two-drop even if the card is a bit worse on rate.
The goal of drafting isn’t to find out the best cards and take them as early as possible. You don’t win Magic games by coming to a realization first, you win Magic games by compiling a bunch of small edges. Let’s say the average draft position of a card is the eighth pick, and you think it’s great and one of the best cards in its color. Your goal shouldn’t be to take it first or second. Your goal should be to have them land in your lap during the sixth or seventh pick, slightly ahead of the average draft positions, and you’ve accumulated a lot of value. Once you start taking cards too aggressively, you’re losing the opportunity to make huge value gains later. Maybe this card that goes eighth on average goes ninth and you just cost yourself the second-best card from a fresh pack because you jumped the gun.
There’s also value to be gained if people are taking “the bad cards.” If you know Infestation Sage is a bad card and should only be played in your heaviest black decks with lots of sacrifice outlets and synergies (decks I avoid since the juice isn’t worth the squeeze) then you will dismiss an Infestation Sage in a pack like you would a card such as Broken Wings. It’s a card in the pack that you don’t assign value. In the circumstances you need it, you’ll take it on the wheel or late in packs. It’s important to realize there’s a percentage of people out there who think it’s the best black common and that is more of a signal about the availability of black. That doesn’t mean take it if you think it’s not a good card, but it does mean be aware that you’re potentially sending and receiving a signal that you may not agree with, but your pod does.
Following the trends and understanding the flow of drafts will also conceptually change your evaluations of colors as time progresses. Let’s look at Foundations: Green is my current pick for the best color. Blue has somehow stood the test of time, as it’s aggressively drafted by top players and is still in the same category.
Saying green is best may sound crazy to you, but it’s because of trends. Green got labeled out of the gate as the worst color, and rightfully so, as it’s a bunch of unexciting creatures and random fight-or-bite spells. The trend of green being underappreciated leaves it as the most valuable in my eyes. The creatures at rate are better than the creatures of any other color, the removal is a little weak, but the biggest value in green is how late the top commons, uncommons, and even rares and mythics go.
People refuse to play “the worst color” far too often, and right now is a great time to capitalize. I went into the Arena Open with a clear plan to take green cards if the color appeared open at any point because I knew others would be unwilling, and I would get rewarded. That situation happened in my first draft, and I capitalized on the value that the players at my table didn’t appreciate.
My first Arena Open deck
Many players would prefer to close Arena knowing they were in the best color and lost than being in the worst color and losing. That fear pushes people away, especially in higher stakes events, such as the Pro Tour.
Understanding the patterns is key. I know I'll get in green if I get passed a solid rare, but it’s the commons that are the most curious ones. If I see Llanowar Elves, then I know green is likely open. This isn’t because I highly value Llanowar Elves. If I'm just dipping my toes into green, I prefer it be for a card like Bite Down since your support color should be for removal in many cases in Foundations, as it’s the most difficult and desirable hole to fill in a deck. However, I know people love Llanowar Elves, and it’s likely the card with the highest average draft position. For that reason, I can recognize it’s open. Even if I don’t take the Llanowar Elves, I won't be scared to jump in if I see something a pick or two later.
Black was generally considered the strongest or second-strongest color in Foundations Limited when the set hit, but trends changed. For a week after the set’s release, I was getting Stabs on the wheel at the seventh pick. I could fill my decks with black removal and none of the abysmal creatures the color has at common. Why did this happen? For one, Infestation Sage was, and maybe still is, a card people take far too aggressively. At the time, maybe they were taking it over Stab. Now they aren’t, so the value that usually spills through isn’t there anymore. Currently, and it will likely change in the life cycle of this longer-lasting Limited set, black is the worst color, and it’s not that close. I avoid drafting black like people do drafting green. It’s mostly because others are overdrafting black. While this will be different for each draft depending on the packs and players at the table, there’s usually something to fall back on when a color like green is almost always open.
Regardless of what you take away from this, remember that one step to becoming a great drafter is realizing what cards are good, but to take it to the next level, you have to be able to observe, understand, and react to trends in Booster draft.
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