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Winchester Draft

Winchester Draft for two MTG drafters that asks them to choose quality or quantity.

At A Glance

  • Players: 2
  • Setup Overhead: Low
  • Minutes: 15
  • Core Concept: Each pick, draw 4 cards adding one to each of 4 piles of cards, take turns choosing an entire pile.

Winchester draft with four piles of cards on the table

Setup Requirements

  1. Gather enough cards for the desired card-pool size that’s divisible by 4 * the number of players (Usually 40 cards * 2 players = 80 cards).
  2. Shuffle the cards thoroughly! to form a single draw pile.
  3. Order which player is player 1 and gets to pick first in the draft, leaving player 2 that goes first in the first game.

How To Draft

Follow these steps for the draft keeping in mind that you may not get enough playables if you frequently choose piles containing 1 or 2 cards:

  1. Deal the top four cards from the draw pile face-up in a row to create four separate piles (There will always be four piles even if a pile has 0 cards in it temporarily).
  2. Player 1 chooses one of the four face-up piles and adds all cards from it to their card pool.
  3. Replenish each of the four piles with a new card from the draw pile face-up, leaving any previous cards unobscured (Drawing 4 cards in total and now you’ll have one pile with 1 card and three piles with 2 cards).
  4. Player 2 chooses one of the piles and adds all cards from it to their card pool.
  5. Repeat these steps of alternating turns of replenishing (if able) and choosing piles until the draw pile and all four face-up piles are empty and all cards have been drafted.
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