How to hold a Snowball Draft in Magic: the Gathering

If you want to get the most out of your "Magic: The Gathering" booster packs, nothing beats the exciting two-man draft format called Snowball Draft. Rather than dumping all of your cards into your deck at once, you slowly evolve it while dueling your opponent. Once you've played it a few times, standard drafting will pale in comparison. Here is how to hold a snowball in "Magic: the Gathering."

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 6 booster packs of Magic: The Gathering
• <br>Lots of basic land
• <br>Opponent

1. Make sure both you and your opponent each have three booster packs from the same sets. Open the first booster pack, take one card you want to keep for your deck and pass the rest of the pack to your opponent. When receiving a pile of cards from your opponent, take one to keep for your deck and pass the rest back to her. Continue in this manner until you have gone through all the cards in the first pack.

2. Play the opening match. Take two of each basic land (10 in all), and shuffle them in with all 15 of the cards you have chosen. This is your deck for the first round. Players do not lose by emptying their libraries in the first round. Instead, when forced to draw from an empty library, the graveyard is shuffled and then becomes the new library. Play best two out of three.

3. Once the first round is complete, remove the 10 basic land from your deck, but set aside your other 15 cards. Now, each player opens her second booster pack, takes one card and passes the other 14 to her opponent. As in Step 1, continue drafting until the second pack is exhausted. Take the 15 cards you just drafted, and add them to the 15 you drafted initially. This is your card pool for the second round.

4. For the second match, decks have a 35-card minimum, but may have any number or type of basic land. You are no longer required to use all of the cards in your card pool. Be aware that in round two, players may once again lose by running out of cards in their libraries. Play best two out of three.

5. Once the second round is complete, remove all basic land from your deck, and set aside those 30 cards. Each player opens the final booster pack and drafts as above. When this is complete, you will have 45 cards just as if you had started a normal draft. The difference is that you will have gotten to play much more.

6. The third and final round has the standard 40-card minimum. Use any number of cards from your card pool, as well as any number of basic land, to build your deck. Duel your opponent in a best two out of three match.

7. Whichever player wins more rounds is the overall victor. While technically after two rounds one player can already have won, Snowball Draft is entertaining enough that playing out the final round is still worthwhile.

Tips & Warnings

• Snowball draft is the perfect game to suggest to a friend who is always waiting on more people for a standard draft.
• Snowball draft takes a lot longer than standard draft, so don't play unless you've got a few hours to kill.