Activity: Magic the Gathering sealed draft
Did somebody say Magic?????? omg count me IN.
About a year ago, we started a program called "Magic Mondays" where anyone 6th grade and older can join. We filled out a request for a free kid from Magikids and they sent us SO many supplies (highly recommend applying for one). In the beginning, there were quite a few that I had to teach to play, but as the program went on, they started inviting their friends. Fast forward to now, we've got a pretty solid group of 30 or so individuals who come every week. I was originally nervous about the adults and teens not wanting to mingle, but their schedules kind of helped with that. The teens tend to come and play afterschool and the adults come later in the evening after they get off of work.
Since you can't be a reasonable person and just casually enjoy Magic, we decided the best option was to fuel our addictions and host a draft!
This program is definitely budget intensive.
Because such a huge portion of our Magic regulars are teens, we opted to not charge full price when it came to recouping the cost of supplies. Depending on the set, one box (which accommodates 5 players) can be anywhere from $100 to $220. This particular draft was for Secrets of Strixhaven. We bought 4 boxes to host 20 people and it was just under $700. Our Friends of the Library were willing to pay for half of that cost. The other half was mostly recouped through the registration fee of $15. (For reference, the average game store tends to charge between $30 and $40 for an entry fee.)
Ours was a casual, sealed draft format. That means each person gets 6 packs to open and build a deck of 40 or more cards. After they finished building, they would play 1v1 matches.
For a structured version of this program, you can give everyone 15 minutes to grab their packs, sleeves, and other supplies. After, they get 45 minutes to build the deck. Once that time was up, you could use a bracket creator to randomly select opponents for each match. Each match gets 50 minutes to play best of 3.
Almost all of the attendees we had for this were either friends, or knew each other from our regular Magic program, so we decided it was best for them to create their own pairings and play how much or as little as they wanted.
If you opt to do the more structured format, prizes for the winners are an option. We chose not to because of how much we had already spent on the program. Most don't feel it necessary, and are just happy to be able to play.
10/10 recommend (even if that's just my opinion because I love Magic almost more than life itself 🤭)
