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I have done several drafts with my drafting group, but we recently elected to try the next one as Two-Headed-Giant instead of a 'normal' matches. How should my drafting strategy change to reflect this? How should my team determine what decks to play? What strategies from 'normal' MTG-drafting apply and do not apply to a THG draft?


In short, in a THG draft there are 4 teams of 2 players each, at the beginning of each round, each team (not player) gets a booster, chooses 2 cards from it, and then passes it to the next team. There are 6 rounds instead of 3, so there still ends up being 3 boosters per player. Each player then builds a deck from the cards their team has chosen, and then the matches are played. Communication between players regarding strategy during the draft is acceptable at any time as long as it is public (no passing notes)

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Many strategies get better or worse in Two Headed Giant. These are the same as what changes in regular sealed.

Much better:
Alternate win conditions are typically stronger as their thresholds don't change with the number of players. Making one player run out of cards in their library will cause the team to lose. Similarly having one player win the game, say with Felidar Sovereign, will cause the team to win.
Poison used to be a very strong strategy, see the Sliver Kids wining the PT, but that is no longer true. Previously just one player had to be dealt 10 poison for the team to lose, a rules update has changed it to the team receiving 15 poison.
Each Opponent effects are much stronger as well. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is the poster child for this type of card. Already strong in regular sealed and draft, the card is very overpowered in every format with more than two players.

Much worse:
Aggressive Creatures are not nearly as important in Two Headed Giant as in other formats. The increased options for an opponent to block back them much decreases value in attempting to overrun an opponent early. As does the 30 life that needs to be dealt with, it's very hard to build two decks to deal 15 damage each before the opponents can stabilise.

How things change completely: Colour Choice. In Two Headed Giant it is likely that a team will play all 5 colours. At the minimum you'll be playing 4 colours, splashing the 5th in one of the decks is very easy. In original Ravnica block I won a 2HG draft where we played 7 colours. This means you don't want worry about what decks you are playing too early. Just take the best cards for the first 2 or 3 packs, then start to worry about filling out good curves and making decks in the second half of the draft.

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As far as changing your strategy goes--it really depends on which sets you are drafting as well.

A sliver based draft strategy can be quite powerful in 2HG, if that's an option.

And then you have to ask exactly what you and your partner's game plan is going to be--it may be in your best interest to build one very good deck and mediocre one, for example.

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