I already talked about card games (both CCG and LCG) and how they are sort of lifestyle games. The fact that these games evolve regularly makes it more difficult to play with more casual people. Especially if you follow the tournament scene closely.

Magic The Gathering - Limited

One great way to level the playing field in Magic the Gathering is to play Limited format like a booster draft. In a booster draft players buy boosters packs and draft the cards in them in a specific manner. Each player must then create the best deck possible. And then you play a tournament involving all players and see which one was able to draft the best.

Booster drafts are a good way of playing a game with people who do not have a huge collection of cards. But they can be costly. Especially if you are drafting Modern Masters boosters. And what to do with all the cards afterwards if you are not a regular player?

An alternative is to design a Cube and do a Cube Draft. You must first assemble your cube by building a balanced set of at least 360 cards (all different if possible). Then you gather 8 players who will draft using randomly assembled boosters of 15 cards. And then you play a tournament and see who wins. Cubes are fun both on a drafting and playing point of view. They are also super interesting because of the cube building aspect. Which cards do you pick? Do you want to seed your Cube with predefined deck archetypes (aggro, control, ramp, tokens)? This article highlight all the basis of good cube building. The only downside to a Cube draft for me is gathering 8 players and have a tournament. That is why I find it really easier to play Cube on Magic the Gathering Online.

Epic to the Rescue

The ULTIMATE solution to a cheap draft that can easily accommodate 2 players is the Epic Card Game. This great card game is sort of a simplified Magic the Gathering (on steroids).

The Epic starter box supports multiple formats of play both constructed and Limited. You can do booster draft similar to Magic or Cube drafting (with 2 starter sets). But Epic also comes with a 2-player drafting format called Dark Draft:

• Shuffle a stack of at least 120 cards (ex: one starter deck)
• Deal 5 to each player.
• Each player takes 1 card out of their hand of five cards and drafts it, then passes the other 4 to the other (at the same time).
• Each player takes 2 cards out of their new hand of four cards and drafts them, then discards the remaining two cards into a shared face-down discard pile.
• Both players now have drafted three cards. Repeat nine times to get to a 30-card deck, shuffle and play.

This makes for a quick draft and then you play a few games with your newly built deck to see who drafted (and who can play) better. Epic Starter Set cost 14$. This is the best cost/quality ratio you will find on the market!

Fun Fact: being simpler than Magic makes Epic easier to teach and thus easier to gather 8 players for a draft!