Alternate Draft Formats: Solomon

When someone talks about draft, the format that first springs to mind is booster draft. But that is just one of many draft formats out there. Sometimes you can’t get the numbers to support a full booster draft. Sometimes you might just want to try something a bit different. Whatever the reason, this series of articles will look at some alternate draft formats that can be supported by Peasant Cubes.

Solomon Draft

Solomon draft, often dubbed ‘Fact or Fiction draft’, is personally my favourite two-player draft format. It offers a lot of interesting, tough choices through the entire draft process and even when a player is not the one making the decisions, it is interesting to watch how the other player makes theirs.

Players draft from a shared stack of ninety cards (three boosters per player) and take it in turns to take eight cards, divide them into two piles, then their opponent picks a pile to add to their card pool (à la Fact or Fiction but with eight cards) and they add the rest to their card pool.

The two piles do not have to be equal in size and at the end of the draft there are two cards remaining which get discarded. As all of the cards are sorted and drafted face up, all of the information is available to all players. As you can see what colours and themes your opponent is playing, you can use this to influence what pile your opponent picks. For example, if your opponent is playing a black based reanimation deck but is lacking good reanimation targets, you could make one pile contain Skeletal Wurm and Vivid Marsh and the remaining six cards all in the other pile. Knowing they really need to take the Wurm, you’ll get six cards for your card pool. Although be warned, this can backfire, leaving you with a Wurm you can’t play.

How to Draft Step-by-Step

1. Take three boosters per player and shuffle them into one big stack.

2. Player one takes eight cards from the stack and places them face-up on the table.

3. That player then divides the cards into two piles.

4. Player two then takes one of the piles and adds it to his/her pool of cards.

5. Player one adds the remaining pile to his/her card pool.

6. Repeat the process with player two dividing the cards into two piles and player one choosing which to take.

7. Do this with all the cards until there are only two left, then discard those cards.

8. When all cards have been drafted players build their decks using cards from their pool and basic lands.

9. Play Magic.

Example Packs

Rather than walking through an example draft, I will give you two example ‘packs’. Treat both as if they were the first in a draft.

In the first example I’ve divided the pack into two piles. Which pile would you choose?

Pile A Firespout Whispersilk Cloak Tolarian Winds Man-o’-War

Pile B Moroii Cabal Pit Taj-Nar Swordsmith Zuran Orb

In this second example, it’s up to you to divide the pack into two piles. How do you arrange them?

Last Gasp Electrolyze Sakura-Tribe Elder Tectonic Edge
Darksteel Ingot Accorder Paladin Putrid Leech Ninja of the Deep Hours

There is no right or wrong answer to either example (although there may be an optimum answer). Let me know in the comments what your answers are!

Expanding Beyond Two Players

Solomon is particularly difficult to expand to three players. One way to do so would be to split twelve cards into three piles however I fear a lot of the subtlety of the format would be lost. With four players I would strongly recommend that you run two drafts concurrently, rather than having sixteen cards and four piles! With five or more players you would be much better off to do a different type of draft.

Another way to draft with three would be to draft round in a circle (or rather, a triangle) with one player sat out at a time.Player A draws eight cards and makes two piles. Player B chooses a pile and the remaining pile goes to player A. Then player B draws eight and makes two piles. Player C chooses a pile and player B takes what’s left. Finally, player C creates two piles. Player A takes one, player C keeps the remaining pile.

An advantage to playing this format in this fashion is that even when a player is not actively making a decision, they can watch the others make theirs, as all the information is all open.

Fact or Fiction

Hopefully this has been a good introduction to one of the greatest – and slowest – two player draft formats out there. The draft may take a long time, but that time is spent making tough decisions not just sat around doing nothing. Often, the draft itself can be just as exciting, or more so, than the games played with the decks. Calling an opponent’s bluff and scooping up a pile they wanted, leaving them with nothing, is one of the greatest feelings you can have playing Magic. And having to agonise over a pack where there are two cards you really REALLY want can be more challenging than any booster draft decision.

-Lennox
@mtg_lennox