How to hold a Winston Draft in Magic: the Gathering

Most "Magic: The Gathering" draft formats have strict requirements of unopened booster packs, or a certain number of players. Winston Draft, however, is incredibly forgiving. It can be done with any number of players, or stacks of opened cards instead of sealed packs. Best of all, it's a fascinating variation on the standard draft. Follow these steps to hold a Winston Draft.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards
• <br>Lots of basic land
• <br>At least one opponent

1. Create your giant drafting deck. If you have unopened booster packs to burn, open three for each player (without looking at them), and just shuffle them all together into a deck. If you have no booster packs, grab 45 cards for each person, trying to get a somewhat even color distribution and a few artifacts. If you can't be bothered to sort or count cards, don't. Just grab random cards from your collection until you have a stack of cards that looks roughly the right size. It doesn't really matter.

2. Shuffle the drafting deck and then take the top three cards and place them (still facedown) in three single-card piles next to the drafting deck. The starting player looks at the first pile (currently one card) and decides whether to keep it or pass.

3. If she passes, she replaces the first pile facedown on the table, and then adds the top card of the deck to that facedown pile. That player then looks at the second pile, and again may choose to keep or pass. If she passes, she replaces that pile and adds the top card of the deck to that facedown pile. She then looks at the third pile, and may choose to keep or pass. If she passes on the third pile, she replaces it facedown and adds the top card of the deck to that pile.

4. Whenever a player chooses to keep a pile, he keeps all the cards in the pile he picked up, and replaces them all with a single facedown card from the top of the deck, reducing the pile to a single card for the next player. As soon as a player keeps a pile, the other player starts again from the first pile.

5. If a player passes on all three piles, she simply draws the top card of the deck and must keep it, after which the other player starts again at the first pile.

6. When there are no cards left in the deck to be added, piles no longer grow. Continue looking at piles and passing or keeping as normal, keeping in mind that the final pile cannot be passed if there is no deck remaining.

7. Once the draft is complete and each player has gathered his cards, build 40-card minimum decks as normal, with any amount of basic land. Whether you then play a tournament, a series of duels or a giant free-for-all, is entirely up to you.

Tips & Warnings

• Winston Draft can be spiced up with an interesting card pool. Why not make a drafting deck by shuffling together all of your rare cards or all of your uncommons?
• <br>Always add a card from the top of the deck facedown when you replace a pile. It's easy to forget in the heat of drafting, but it's the important rule that makes Winston Draft work.