Online Rotisserie Draft Latest Magic MEME

by News | posted at 2010-08-10 23:16:00
tagged: MTG, Magic, Magic the Gathering, Draft, Meme, Rotisserie, Online

Magic memes come and Magic memes go, but the latest is taking competitive circles on the net by storm. Kicked off by Hall of Fame candidate Chris Pikula, the premise is simple: draft from a pool that includes every single Magic card ever amongst friends. The draft format, called Rotisserie, has been used in high profile drafts before on the Wizards of the Coast Magic magazine DailyMTG.com. Generally those drafts featured Wizards employees picking all the cards from a recent set.

So how does the draft actually work? Players set up the draft using Google Docs, which allows a set of friends to edit the document indicating which cards have been picked while thousands of anonymous users can watch and check in. The draft has proved to be so attractive copycats have begun springing up.

The original is here. Originating amongst the East Coast New York scene, it features stars like Chris Pikula, Steve Sadin, Jamie Parke, and at least one O'Mahoney-Schwartz brother.

Soon after it launched, a second draft featuring West Coast players from the Magic digital magazine ChannelFireball.com began. Tom Martell laid out its concept here in a special feature for the site. The draft itself can be found here. Name players participating in it include Gabe Walls, Matt Sperling, and Luis Scott-Vargas.

Finally, a Seattle draft soon spawned featuring some of Wizards of the Coast's own employees. That draft, begun by Kyle Boddy, stars Zac Hill, Greg Marques, and Dave Guskin all present or former Wizards employees as well as StarCityGames.com columnist Max McCall. That draft can be viewed here.

So what have the picks been? Ancestral Recall has been a frequent first, but the topic of Sol Ring versus Black Lotus has ignited debate over the best second pick. Some drafters, like Charles "Aceman" Dupont and Greg Marques in the Seattle draft, have even tried drafting "fair" beatdown decks rather than the more broken combo decks favored by many of their compatriots.

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