Drafting with saviours !

[Therberus]

So my friends and I have decided to pool together, grab a box of boosters and draft off of them.

Looking around I have seen a box of Saviours of Kamigawa for about 60€ (a box here costs around 100€ / 80€) so this seems like a really good deal, I am just curious about how drafting off a Saviours of Kamigawa pool is, as I don't know much about the block !

So what does everyone think ? Will this be a great drafting experience or will it be homeland like hell ?

[Volafortis]

Saviors is a small set, and because of that, isn't made to be drafted alone.

You'd either need to get a box of Champions of Kamigawa, or a draft set of Kamigawa block (8 of Champions, 8 of Betrayers, 8 of Saviors) in order to draft it (assuming 8 people).

Also, if you do get a draft set of Kamigawa block, an important thing to note is that during Kamigawa block, the first set was opened first, unlike current draft style, so you'd open the boosters Champions > Betrayers > Saviors, instead of the other way around (Do this, because that's the way the set was made to be drafted, and typically works better.)

As far as how fun Kamigawa block is to draft, I personally like it, although it's certainly a unique beast. The Spirit and Arcane mechanics are, as they're somewhat notorious for being, rather parasitic, meaning they only really work well with themselves, so you'll often end up with a player or two drafting these mechanics, and ONLY these mechanics, but there are still other strategies you can go for. (Bushido is awesome, and works in any deck)

It's kind of like Scars block limited, but even more divisive. If you enjoy unique, well built strategies, it's great fun, but often you'll find there isn't much room for strategy adaptation in the cards you get. You want to pick a strategy and go for it, because cards you don't want are often cards you really don't want. However, this often also means you can reliably get some cards to table to you.

[Kapol]

Also, to build on what Volafortis said, throwing Savior packs into other drafts (to do a chaos draft) is a BAD idea. I've had people do that quite a few times at my LGS, where we basically only have chaos drafts. It was miserable since so many cards only work with other Kamigawa cards.

[jkefka]

Seconding Kapol's comment. I did a bunch of wacky drafts at PAX east and you really need a critical mass of Kamigawa packs in a draft to make any of the cards remotely worthwhile. That said, splice, soulshift, and spirits does make for a pretty crazy draft if you can get enough of it going.