Date:         Mon, 7 Jul 1997 11:53:35 +0100
From: Julian Wiffen <julian.wiffen@ZSASSOC.CO.UK>
Subject:      The Rhythm of the Draft

On Sunday, I went to a booster draft event (Reading - thanks to John Garret
the organizer for a well run job) and tried out a new theory, which worked
well. (Note that this is straight draft, not Rochester)

The strategy is simple:

Take the best card in the booster.

Sounds unnecessary advice right? Let me moderate it.

For the first booster to go round, take the best card in the booster,
WITHOUT REFERENCE TO WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY DRAFTED.

At the end of the first round, look at your cards carefully. The majority will
be in one or two colours, most likely not red or black. These are the colours
that are not being drafted or are being drafted by people who don't know
what they are doing.

Now proceed to draft normally, taking the best card with reference to those
you have already drafted.

The first round of drafting will not weaken your position - you will be denying
good cards to the opposition, even if you cannot use them yourself.

Theory seemed to work well - went 5 and 1 in matches - this was over two
drafts - the first deck I drafted, used for the first three rounds, did not
drop a single game - in the draft my system showed that no one was really
touching blue and so I had a fantastic selection of blue cards....
Second draft brought me blue/white and a nice selection of goodies (archangel,
ballista, miraculous recovery, dream tides, maro armour).

Comments anyone?


Julian Wiffen