Rough Drafts - A Limited Magic Podcast
Aug 15, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
Time to recap my experience drafting the Hobbit blind - no previews, no discussion, no 17lands data. This episode mainly focuses on the topic of card evaluation. My drafts…
The first draft that I did, just jumping into the set totally blind, not having read any of the cards, was so stressful.
I kind of didn't think this through, and if I could go back in time and change it, I wouldn't, honestly.
I think it was pretty fun to, like, stress myself out and, like, not physically be able to read all the cards in the pack as I was drafting.
Like, that was a very novel experience for me because I'm a little bit of a sicko and know, like, basically every Magic card ever printed, so, like, there's not a lot you can do to surprise me anymore.
But it was very, very interesting to just go into the set completely blind and just really have to, like, read all the cards and not really have time to process them.
Like, obviously, if you're optimizing for win rate or whatever, that's not a very good strategy to do.
I'm really glad I'm doing this because, like, this is the last small set for the foreseeable future.
I wanna take the other sets more seriously, and I'm having a lot of fun with this project.
What was interesting, I found, was, uh, this is part- partially because it's a small set, because it is about two-thirds the size of a normal expansion, um, was that draft one was really, really stressful.
I ended up in red-white with a pretty nice equipment deck, um, that did trophy, though it wasn't silver.
Um, I found that even by packs two and packs three, and especially when I got to my second draft after I had played, uh, what is it? Nine different opponents, I knew basically every common.
[smacks lips] Like, the, the, the small sets are small, but they're still, like, only two-thirds the size.
So, like, I think it would've been like this for a normal expansion, maybe by the third draft.
But after my third draft and after I'd, like, closed the stream, I did end up going to Scryfall and looking at all the commons, and I confirmed that I had seen and read and sort of considered every single common in the set.
Like, there were no commons that I was like, "Oh, I didn't even see that in the draft," or anything.
So I learned a lot quicker than I thought I would, and really by the end of the stream, by drafts two and three, I was doing fine.
Like, I ha- would have a couple of uncommons in the rare to read in every pack, and then I was able to sort of gloss over the rest of the commons, and it was, it was, it was pretty, pretty okay.
And, like, by day two, I was, like, really totally fine, and I did confirm after my sixth draft, after I ended the stream, um, on, what was that? Wednesday, um, that I did...
The first draft that I did, just jumping into the set totally blind, not having read any of the cards, was so stressful.
I kind of didn't think this through, and if I could go back in time and change it, I wouldn't, honestly.
I think it was pretty fun to, like, stress myself out and, like, not physically be able to read all the cards in the pack as I was drafting.
Like, that was a very novel experience for me because I'm a little bit of a sicko and know, like, basically every Magic card ever printed, so, like, there's not a lot you can do to surprise me anymore.
But it was very, very interesting to just go into the set completely blind and just really have to, like, read all the cards and not really have time to process them.
Like, obviously, if you're optimizing for win rate or whatever, that's not a very good strategy to do.
I'm really glad I'm doing this because, like, this is the last small set for the foreseeable future.
I wanna take the other sets more seriously, and I'm having a lot of fun with this project.
What was interesting, I found, was, uh, this is part- partially because it's a small set, because it is about two-thirds the size of a normal expansion, um, was that draft one was really, really stressful.
I ended up in red-white with a pretty nice equipment deck, um, that did trophy, though it wasn't silver.
Um, I found that even by packs two and packs three, and especially when I got to my second draft after I had played, uh, what is it? Nine different opponents, I knew basically every common.
[smacks lips] Like, the, the, the small sets are small, but they're still, like, only two-thirds the size.
So, like, I think it would've been like this for a normal expansion, maybe by the third draft.
But after my third draft and after I'd, like, closed the stream, I did end up going to Scryfall and looking at all the commons, and I confirmed that I had seen and read and sort of considered every single common in the set.
Like, there were no commons that I was like, "Oh, I didn't even see that in the draft," or anything.
So I learned a lot quicker than I thought I would, and really by the end of the stream, by drafts two and three, I was doing fine.
Like, I ha- would have a couple of uncommons in the rare to read in every pack, and then I was able to sort of gloss over the rest of the commons, and it was, it was, it was pretty, pretty okay.
And, like, by day two, I was, like, really totally fine, and I did confirm after my sixth draft, after I ended the stream, um, on, what was that? Wednesday, um, that I did...
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