Prerequisites
To get started all you need is 200+ cards (for example a shoebox of bulk) with a roughly even color distribution and around 20-30 basic lands of each color. The cards can be mixed from any sets, they may just be a box of commons or the last 20 boosters you won at game night shuffled together. Anything goes in this format! Just throw some cards together, use this website to track your game and you may start!
The format is played in rounds, each round consists of three phases:
- Playing a game of Magic.
- Drafting new cards into your library.
- Building your deck.
The first round
To start the game and play the first round, shuffle the available cards into one big pile and deal 6 cards to each player. These are now the player's libraries. Players will later build their decks from this library. For now each player chooses 6 basic lands to go with these cards and shuffles together a 12 card deck. The first game is played with this deck.
Playing
Each round a game of Magic is played. The deck sizes are determined by the number of rounds played. The starting life total is equal to the number of cards in each deck divided by 3 (rounded down). The first round is therefore played with 4 life.
The winning player receives a point. The first player to reach 25 points wins!Drafting
After each round, 4 new cards are dealt from the available pile and drafted into the player's libraries. Player take turns in picking cards and adding them to their library. The player who lost the last game chooses first. If a player has lost 3 or more games in a row, they get to immediately choose 2 of the 4 cards for themselves, the rest goes to the other player.
Keep in mind that this format will see up to 49 games played, cards that don't fit your deck now may become very useful later. You will likely change colors and playstyle many times!
Deckbuilding
To play the next round you must build a deck from your library consisting of one more card than last game. The second game will be played with 13 cards, the third with 14 and so forth. Players may use as many basic lands in their deck as they choose. In theory the second round may be played with 8 cards and 5 lands 7 cards and 6 lands ... or 0 cards and 13 lands. Choose wisely ;-)