Format: One pack draft.

[GoblinGame]

I was looking around for some fun casual formats the other day when I came up with this online somewhere. You play by taking one booster pack of any set, and adding 2 of each basic land to it then play as normal magic would, but you do not lose due to decking. The fun part of this was picking the best set for it. Tempest seemed to do pretty well because shadow creatures are crazy good, because removal is at a minimal, and unless both people take it, you almost can't block any of their guys. Or perhaps when I played against it my opponent just got lucky enough to see 3 or 4 shadow guys. Anyway, I enjoyed the format, it takes very little time and you can do it on apprentice, so play around if you like.

[pi]

Hi,

I've seen this format being used in several shops, where they called it booster battle. The winner would get both boosters. It's a lot of fun, but you do have to be able to deal with losing anything you open.

pi

[Necrologia]

A friend of mine told me about something like that. It was a "Mini-masters" tourney. Everyone got a booster, and 2 of each basic land. If you beat someone in a match you add his cards to your own. By the finals it looked like both players had a Battle of Wits deck. The winner was then allowed to keep his cards.

This was back around Mirage. Just try not to end up with something like Ancestral Memories as your rare. UUU is rough with only 2 islands in your deck  

[Jacob Orlove]

Booster drafting with one booster each (and then adding land of your choice) is also quite interesting, especially since we allowed decking. We set the minimum deck size at 25, just like yours would be, but there's less randomness.

It's the optimal format to hatedraft, though. :D

[LotusHead]

I tried out the One Pack Draft and everybody had a blast.  First a 4 man draft, then an 8 man draft.

We make all rares/uncommons/foils as the prizes (so it looks like we have a lot of prizes) and everybody just buys a pack of something.

We have a hardcore 10 land of your choice, and 15 cards you drafted for exactly 25 card decks.  It is in all other ways exactly like a game of Magic.

At the local shop, many kids have little money to do real drafts, but most can come up with A pack of Magic.

Next time, I may force the kids to proxy up ONE Black Lotus to use in their draft deck (I love type 1), or for "Ante's sake" dig out one rare (crap or no) from their trade binder to use in their decks and be part of the prize pool.

Thanks for highlighting this fun, cheap casual format!