When we got married, we promised in our vows that we would always Winston Draft every new set of Magic: The Gathering together. There are a few creative ways for two people to play Magic together, and our favorite has always been Winston Draft. If youâre not familiar with the format, take a minute to read that article, and then come back. Weâll wait.

Winston-drafting is our favorite two-player format because we both love drafting, and this way, we can experience the choices, the deck-building, and all the fun of a Draft, and we can play a few games with just the two of us. Plus, it doesnât usually take more than an hour or two.

With the latest release of Conspiracy, Wizards of the Coast has managed to create a great, new, multiplayer experience. We were thoroughly excited for this release since we were both able to playtest it while at Wizards. Before it was even out, Tifa knew she wanted to try out Winston-drafting the set. It didnât take much convincing.

Once we decided we were going to attempt a Winston Draft with Conspiracy, we needed to make some decisions. A lot of the draft-matters cards were going to need to be changed. So, we talked about options and made notes on how each of the cards would need to be changed, regardless of what we opened. This was a fun process in itself because we were able to consider the open world of possibilities that Winston Draft has to offer the Draft environment and how different it is from regular draftingâas well as how itâs similar.

Two-Player Changes

The conspiracies were left unchanged, as they didnât affect gameplay that much.

Voting â Voting was something we had a long conversation aboutâand we ultimately decided to leave the voting cards unchanged as well. We figured it was best to just let the tie determining factor decide what happens if we always voted for separate effects.

Draft-matters artifacts â This is where things became a little crazy. Here are all the changes we made to the draft-matters cards.

Aether Searcher â Instead of revealing the next card you draft, you choose any one card from the next pile you draft (which could only be one card) to be searched for.

Agent of Acquisitions â For this card, we changed it so that when a player turned the card face down, he or she could take all three piles. Itâs not as powerful, but itâs still pretty good.

Canal Dredger â Once the big pile is depleted and the active drafter makes his or her choice, the person who drafted this card receives whatever cards are left.

Cogwork Grinder â If a player with Cogwork Grinder picks up a card or even a pile with more than one card, he or she can exile any of those cards to count toward Cogwork Grinder.

Cogwork Librarian â This was the most difficult card to modify. After a lot of discussion, we realized the card just doesnât work in a Winston Draft as itâs written. For this, we decided to do something that would be awesome in a Winston Draft that wouldnât make sense for a normal Draft. We changed it to read: âDraft Cogwork Librarian face up. After looking at all three piles, pick any one pile and take it. If you do, place Cogwork Librarian face down replacing the pile you chose.â This is something we both always wished we had the ability to do, so this card really rocks in Winston Draft!

This was modified so that whoever drafted this card simply was able to see the next pile that his or her opponent drafted.

Cogwork Tracker â There were no changes to this card. It was just simply going to attack the other player.

Deal Broker â This card was left unchanged. To be honest, this was something weâve already been doing since we started Winston-drafting together. Sometimes, one of us will have fewer cards in the colors he or she is playing, so this card seemed to be perfect.

Lore Seeker â Does this card need any changes? Nope. Open a new booster, and shuffle it into the big pile.

Lurking Automaton â This card would essentially work the same way, but its existence would be known by both players immediately. If it were in a pile, the player who found it would announce it was there. It would be turned up and set next to the pile it was in with a die on top of it. Anytime a player didnât pick that pile, the die counter would go up.

Whispergear Sneak â Instead of looking at booster packs, you could look at any one pile (excluding the big pile) or the top card of the big pile.

Paliano, the High City â Instead of three colors, you and opponent each choose a color. Then it taps for either of those two colors.

With these changes, we were ready to draft!

Worldknit early, and it threw off the draft dynamics quite a bit. She was incredibly disappointed. This is the card she is most excited about drafting in Conspiracy because it is so incredibly powerful if you pick it up early onâyou simply draft the best card in every pack from that moment on. However, in a Winston Draft, it isnât that great and is extremely complicated. Since piles have one card (which could be an unexciting common) or are full of a mixture of cards, there were a lot of not-so-stellar cards mixed in with the powerful cards. This made it pretty difficult to draft a sixty-five-card deck that would be guaranteed awesome, but she still tried and managed to win 2â0 against Mikeâs control deck.

Our packs werenât the best, and we saw very few draft-matters cards. We were a little disappointed because we put all this work into making the draft-matters cards matter. However, we plan on doing another Conspiracy Winston Draft, and we are just as excited to try again as we were the first time.

Weâd also love to hear stories from other peopleâs Conspiracy Winston Drafts, we would like to know if you use our rules and what you think of them, and we are interested in any additional rules folks use.

Until next time, happy gaming!