Tips and tricks for a successful chaos draft!

To begin with, I want to make sure that everyone is familiar with Chaos Draft.

The Choas Draft works in exactly the same way as the usual Booster Draft. With one exception: each set in the form of a Booster is only available once. For example, if you are 8 people, 24 Boosters are needed so that everyone has 3 Booster Packs. Imagine that everyone has completely different Booster Packs from various series of Magic that have been released over the years. You can find Choas-Draft products HERE. I recommend that you build something that you can reach into. I took an old shoe box and cut a hole in it. One by one, you reach in with your hand and pull out a Booster. Nobody knows which Booster Pack they will receive.

But now to the tips for successful drafting.

Choose cards with good values

What do I mean by high stats? I mean a card that just does its job no matter what. Such cards are often called “vanilla cards”.

Cards like these always work in Chaos Draft because they don’t rely on synergies or anything else to be effective. A 2 mana 3/2 like Garruk’s Companion will do well in any green deck in Chaos Draft. So don’t feel bad about picking this beast.

This card is not exactly the yellow of the egg, but it is a reasonable card with good basic values. Believe me, a deck with lots of “vanilla cards”, as they say, usually does very well.

Keep an eye out for the top keywords

There are certain top keywords in each set. Very strong abilities are flying, trample and haste. Personally, I think flying is the best ability, which is also represented in every set. Flying creatures with stats that are quite okey often bring victory. Why? Flying creatures are very hard to block in the draft because creatures with reach are very rare.

Aside from top keywords, there are also certain play tactics in each set that almost always work. Common deck types that you can build in almost every set:

Green / Red Beatdown – Use big creatures and use direct damage and small red creatures to get aggressive.

Blue / Black Control – Kill things with spells and gain some card advantage with the blue color.

Green / White Go-wide – Both colors are very focused on creatures. You use both colors to flood the field with your army.

Red/White Aggro – The two most aggressive colors in Magic the Gathering combined always finds a notable place in the draft.

Blue/White Fliers – Blue and White have the most flying creatures and therefore stand out from the ground troops. You simply keep flying your damage at the opponent until he has no more life.

Lower your expectations of playability

Most of the cards you don’t play in your decks are simply not in your deck because they are too bad. In the draft, however, most cards are perfectly fine.

A creature for 3 mana with the stats 3/3 and no other abilities is easily overlooked in constructed decks. Here in the draft, however, such a card is totally okey.

Avoid synergies

This tip mainly refers to the Choas draft variant. In Chaos Draft, it is simply very unlikely that you will be able to build a successful synergy with your cards.

The vast majority of cards that have a condition related to a set are bad in Chaos Draft. Since you play with X different sets and all sets support different mechanics, it makes less sense to rely on such synergies.

Let’s take War of the Spark as an example. You opened this Booster and saw a top card that is terrific in combination with other Planeswalkers. In Chaos Draft this means: DO NOT TOUCH IT. IT’S GARBAGE! War of the Spark is an exceptional set that favors Planeswalkers. No other set will be able to offer you strong support. I hope you understand what I mean by avoiding synergies.

Drafts according to the CABS principle

CABS stands for Cardsthat Affectthe Board State. In German, this means drafting cards that have an influence on the current board state. As described above, the synergy part of the Chaos Draft is rather understated. Here it is all the more important to have cards that have an immediate influence on the current playing field. Make sure you include some of these cards in your deck. You can hardly go wrong with that.

Recognize bombs

What do I mean by bombs? These are extremely powerful and independent cards that immediately turn the game in your favor.

Various sets come together in a Chaos draft. If you are a long-time Magic player, you will probably be familiar with most of the cards in the sets. This gives you a big advantage, because you can recognize so-called bombs relatively quickly. Some bombs are immediately obvious to the vast majority of Magic the Gathering players.

The real bombs are often inconspicuous and at Common and Uncommon levels. In every set, there are some extremely strong draft cards at these rarity levels that are often overlooked. That’s where your opportunity lies. Oh, and if you come across a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, pick it. Take it. Just take it xD.