Format Draft Two players
Richman draft
Rich Man's draft. Both players open a fifteen-card pack, both take exactly one card, and everything left over is shuffled back into the pool to be dealt again. Nothing is ever wasted, and nothing is ever safely passed.
Start a Richman draft All formats
At a glance
- Players Two
- Pack size Fifteen
- Picks per round One each
- Rounds Thirty-six
- Leftovers Back to the pool
- Picks Simultaneous, secret
How it works
- Shuffle a pool. Deal each player a pack of fifteen cards from it.
- Both players pick one card, simultaneously and in secret. You do not see your opponent's pack and they do not see yours.
- The twenty-eight unpicked cards from both packs go back into the pool, which is reshuffled. Two fresh fifteen-card packs are dealt.
- Repeat for thirty-six rounds, which leaves each player with a thirty-six card pool to build from.
On pool size
Because only picked cards leave, the pool shrinks by two per round. Endstep pads any cube or set pool up to the size needed to deal both seats a full pack in every round, including the last, so the closing picks are as wide as the opening ones.
The card you passed is coming back
Richman inverts the instinct every drafter has trained. In a normal pod the card you pass is gone. Here it returns to the pool, so it may be dealt to you again next round, or to your opponent, and you have no way to know which. Taking the second-best card because it fits your colours is a real gamble on seeing the best one again.
It also gives each player a very deep look at the pool. Over thirty-six rounds you see far more of a cube than an eight-person pod ever shows you, which makes it an unusually good way to learn a cube you have just built, and a fast way to settle a two-player evening without either of you touching a decklist.