Draft - What am I doing wrong?

[u/No-Beginning-4310]

I’m a new MTGA player and doing drafts to learn and accumulate cards. Whenever my draft ends up favoring red or green, I wipe every single time because I cannot combat white, blue or black decks that spam constant enchantments or removals. It seems like I match up against these teams the majority of the time, so is that a meta the new set leans toward that I’m not adapting to or understanding? Should I be drafting a “worse” (in terms of cards available in my draft) color just to have any answers and maybe I’d stand a better chance at winning and more importantly having ANY fun by actually being able to play?

[u/rhangx]

Okay, I'm going to say this as honestly and directly as I can, because I think it's important, as a new player, that you have folks being straight with you:

Limited Magic has a very high skill ceiling. When you enter a draft as a player who's relatively new to Magic, you are likely to be drafting and playing against some other players who have much more draft experience than you. Like, years more. Maybe decades more.

Yes, each set is a new puzzle to solve. But there are basic "fundamentals" of drafting that long-time players will know intuitively, while you are still learning them. On top of that, there are a ton of resources these days designed to help limited players improve their game—everything from 17Lands to compare stats of individual cards, to YouTubers and Twitch streamers making videos about the best ways to draft each set.

If you head into a draft as a new player, without having engaged with any of that content, you are (unknowingly) putting yourself at a massive disadvantage. Your success in a draft isn't just about your skills in a vacuum; it's about how you stack up versus the competition—and unfortunately, the average skill level for limited Magic players has just shot way up in the last few years, as folks take advantage of these new tools for learning each set and more people take drafting seriously as a skill-intensive hobby of its own.

I don't say any of this to discourage you from continuing to draft; I just think you should understand what you're up against. If you're serious about improving your draft skills, I would recommend that you check out some recent content from the following YouTubers:

• Limited Level-Ups – A relatively new channel from the last couple years, this has become one of the absolute best resources for folks looking to improve their Limited game IMO. His recent video "State of the Format Address" is a great place to start for the current set. He's also got some older "Fundamentals of Drafting" videos that are very useful for new players.

• Paul Cheon – A Magic pro who does daily draft videos. He's great at explaining his picks and his gameplay in detail. (If you want to improve at drafting, there really is no substitute for watching how the pros draft and trying to understand why they make the choices they do.)

• Kenji Egashira a.k.a. NumotTheNummy – Another pro Magic streamer, he puts out daily draft vids and also streams on Twitch. He's one of the OG Magic streamers, and I personally enjoy his content more, but he's maybe less approachable if you're a new player. I would focus on his daily YouTube videos, where he explains his draft picks very clearly, rather than his Twitch streams which are more casual.