Subject: Pat Chapin's Identical Draft
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 15:30:49 -0500 (EST)
From: edt@umich.edu
To: Frank Kusumoto <fkusumot@ix.netcom.com>

Pat Chapin's Identical Draft

Last weekend I had the opportunity to play the best new draft variant I
have ever played.  I know that Chapin is always finding new ways to
play the game, from type 1 draft (you play regular draft, but you make
packs out of type 1 cards), interesting new constructed formats (such
as pairing one of the older expansions such as alliances with two the
newer expansions and imposing interesting design restraints), but this
new variant of draft I think combines some of the best of both
constructed and limited play to make a really exciting and fun magic
game.

Here's how you play identical draft:

You want to play identical draft with only 4 players.  This is an great
advantage over regular draft because you don't need to scrounge up 8
people to get a game together.   If you tried to play regular booster
draft with only 4 players, the card pool is too limited, and you can't
make as interesting decks.  But with identical draft, 4 players is
actually the optimal number, giving you the most interesting drafting
and game play.

Choose the cards that you want to play with.  You will need to use 4 of
each card that you want to draft with.  You can choose nearly whichever
cards you like.  For instance, you could do urzas saga only cards, or
assorted type 2 cards if you like.  You normally don't want to use
broken type 1 cards like ancestral recall in this format because of
problems of degeneracy (for instance, having 4 ancestral recalls can
create degenerate decks).

Next balance the colors.  You don't want to make one color overpowering
or allow broken color hosers because that would make the draft
uninteresting.

After you have chosen 4 of each card and balanced all the cards equally
among colors you create the booster packs.

Take 15 of your sets of 4 cards (60 cards total).  You then make 4
piles of 15 so that each booster is identical (this is why it is called
"identical draft").  You can do this very easily by taking 15 sets each
of 4 identical cards, putting them into 1 stack of cards, and then
dealing them out into 4 piles.

If you are using 45 different types of cards in your draft (or 180
total cards in the draft), this will give you 3 different sets of
boosters, from which you can construct 40 card decks.

If you are using 60 different types of cards in your draft (or 240
total cards in the draft), this will give you 4 different sets of
boosters, from which you can construct 60 card decks.

I think the 60 card decks are better because you will end up having a
lot of 4 of a kind in the decks.  As we know from constructed, if you
use limits like 4 of a card per deck, a good number for the total deck
size is going to be 60 cards.

After you have made all the booster packs (or you can do this while you
are first choosing the cards to draft with), reveal the boosters to let
all 4 players at the table see all the cards from which they will have
a chance to draft.

Now you just play regular booster draft from the packs you have
constructed.

Pass out the first set of boosters.  Everyone will be looking at
identical booster packs.

You choose your card, and then pass packs as normal.

After the first set of 4 is drafted, give out the next set of 4
identical boosters.

Do the same for the rest of the boosters and then construct your decks
as normal.

There is no more of that "Oh he opened up that broken first pick card,"
that you see so often in regular booster.

Everyone has the same chance to first pick the same exact cards.  Just
like constructed.

There's no more of that, "Someone else made his deck, that's why he
won," that you see in constructed.

Everyone has to construct his or her own deck.  Just like limited.

Identical draft combines the best elements of both booster pack and
constructed formats.

In a tournament setting the way I would do this format is to create all
the booster packs before the tournament starts, so people don't have to
wait around while you deal up the sets of boosters.

After players have been seated, I would suggest passing out the first set
of boosters so they can look them over.  Give them 1 minute to look over
the cards.  Ask for the first booster back.  Pass out the 2nd booster to
allow the players to look over them.  Ask for them back.  Do this for all
the boosters.  This gives the tournament director an easy way to allow the
players to know what are in the packs without having to type up card lists
or having to display 60 different cards at once.  It's important to make
sure you give out and return the boosters one at a time, because if you
pass out all the sets at once, players will almost certainly get confused
and mix up the order of the boosters.  Then hand out the first booster
pack once again and begin drafting as usual.

This would be a great new format for the pro tour.

Some advice: the single most critical element for success to identical
booster is good card selection so make sure you spend some time
choosing which cards that you want to draft from.

--- edt