Booster Draft is a limited format where players open booster packs and pick a card before passing the rest of the booster to the player to their left. Cards are drafted this way one after another until players end up with a card-pool out of which they have to build the most balanced deck. Booster Draft is a fun and challenging way to experience Altered. The format requires players to make strategic choices in order to build the most synergistic deck out of the cards available in each pack.

As a limited format, Booster Draft doesn’t require you to build a deck beforehand.

• Booster Drafts are played 1v1, the recommended number of players is 8.
• Each player receives 4 Altered booster packs.
• Players each open their first booster pack, and remove the token/foiler card. Each player secretly selects 1 card from the pack, then passes the remaining contents to the person to their left.
• Players then secretly select another card from the pack they were passed, and continue to do so until all cards have been selected.
• Players do the same with their second booster pack, passing to the right instead of the left.
• Finally, players do the same with the third booster pack (passing to the left) and the fourth booster pack (passing to the right).
• Sealed decks must be at least 30 cards following the deck building instructions below.

After the draft portion, players should have a card-pool constituted from the 4 booster packs that were drafted per player. Each player must construct a deck of at least 30 cards based only on the cards that have been drafted, which may include a Hero card. Limited decks in Altered must adopt the following guidelines:

• A deck must contain a minimum of 30 cards.
  • Token cards do not count towards the deck minimum. If you have token cards to go with your deck, they start outside of your deck.
• You may play cards from up to three different factions.
• A deck can include a Hero card. If so, it counts toward the 30 cards minimum.
  • Your Hero must be from one of the factions in your deck.
  • You may choose to not play a Hero card.
• There are no restrictions on the number of cards with the same name that you can play in your deck.
• There are no restrictions on the number or rare or unique cards you can play in your deck.

Mana Convergence cards are cards that appear in the token slot of some booster packs. If you’re unable to play 30 cards in your deck (because you have less than 30 cards among the three factions you’ve chosen in your pool of drafted cards), you’ll need to fill out the rest of the slots with Mana Convergence tokens until you reach at least 30 cards in your deck. Like all token cards, they can be used from anywhere, not just those in the drafted booster.

Mana Convergence tokens act as any card in your deck, but:

• They can not be played in any other zone than the mana zone by their owner.
  • They cannot be played in an Expedition, Reserve or Landmark area
• They can be affected by card effects such as “Discard a card to do X” or “Your opponent discards a card” and are counted as a card for any other purpose like “I gain X boosts based on the number of cards in your discard pile”.

• Structure: Best-of-one
• Rounds: 3
• Drafting and Deck Construction Time: 40m
• Round Time: 30m
• Number of Players: 8

You are not required to play a Hero card as a part of your deck in limited formats like Booster Draft, but it is often better to play one in one of the factions of your deck than not play one at all.

Players may freely change their deck using their pool of drafted cards between games while playing limited formats.

After the draft portion is done, during deck building, unless stated differently by the draft organizer.

Check with the tournament organizer to see if they have extra. If you’re unable to locate any, use other tokens as a placeholder.