I was just playing in a 9th edition draft game on MTGO. (If you’re not familiar, here’s what happens in a draft: Eight guys throw in three booster packs each, then pass them around the table picking out one card from each booster at a time. When there are no more cards left, everyone has 10 minutes to make decks from the 45 cards they’ve chosen plus as many basic lands as they want.) The great thing about these core-edition drafts is that the gameplay feels just like it did in the old days. No Sensei’s Diving Tops or land-fetch cards, no creatures with complicated abilities, just simple leisurely games.

Anyway, the server basically barfed massive lag all over our tournament and skipped the drafting phase completely, leaving each of us with 45 random cards. I made a crappy red, white, and green deck and played a match against this really nice guy, matty1415 (he beat me 2-to-1). After talking with a moderator, I learned I could get a refund because of the server error. It should actually end up being pretty cool — from what I understand, when these errors occur they let you keep the draft picks and refund all the money you spent on the boosters and entry fee.

Here’s a screenshot from a game I was in this morning (playing my “Glorious Isosoldiers” deck against a rather cutthroat black deck).

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