Last updated on May 19, 2026
Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God | Illustration by Raymond Swanland
Draftsim’s Draft Simulator has undergone a major upgrade: You can now digitally draft every set ever for free, right now! Want to check out Limited Edition Alpha? Maybe some Return to Ravnica? We have you covered!
In honor of this new capability, I’m ranking X of the best Draft formats to check out and mess around with (though I would lying if I pretended there wasn’t some personal bias).
#6. March of the Machines
Breach the Multiverse | Illustration by Liiga Smilshkalne
March of the Machines had a killer bonus sheet with the Multiverse Legends sheet uniting legends through Magic’s planes and history to confront the Phyrexian invasion—or, in some cases, aid it.
The bonus sheet gets most of the accolades as it injected the format with ample bombs and created many powerful, diverse decks. The return of the companions in particular made the format charming; Lurrus and friends might have warped Constructed, but they’re amazing build-arounds in Draft. It was a little bomb heavy for my tastes, but I was still at the LGS every Friday after drafting on Arena the other six days of the week.
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#5. War of the Spark
Narset, Parter of Veils | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve
War of the Spark has a special place in my heart: While I drafted other sets prior, WAR really got me into Limited. The gimmick of a planeswalker in every pack is reminiscent of a bonus sheet, and creates a fascinating dynamic within the set: While it’s a fairly slow format due to the card advantage offered by the planeswalkers, it’s still really important to curve out to pressure opposing planeswalkers, especially the uncommon ones with no upticks. This format was definitely unbalanced—white sucked and the Grixis colors with amass lead the pack—but I’d be down to play this any time.
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#4. Triple Khans of Tarkir
Dig Through Time | Illustration by Ryan Yee
Though triple Khans of Tarkir isn’t a personal favorite, I respect those who adore it as one of the greats. Our first foray to Tarkir brought a complex set with abundant fixing and plenty of gold cards to splash; few sets allow playing four or even five color piles as well as TKR.
Morph, the marquee mechanic, complements the multicolor piles: Since they can be cast for and don’t require colors, even a sketchy draw lets you drop a 3-mana card. You don’t even lose out much tempo; with all the taplands, games often “start” on turn 3 anyway. This is a great set for players looking for long games.
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#3. Modern Horizons 3
Ocelot Pride | Illustration by Chris vSeaman
Modern Horizons 3 had a glaring eldrazi issue that nearly overshadowed Zendikar’s: Writhing Chrysalis was a common that punched like a mythic, and the Temur eldrazi decks in general were very strong.
But other archetypes kept up; eldrazi was the best, but a good energy brew could still punch through the masses of spawn and Cranial Ram enabled exciting decks. The price point was unfortunate and much can be said about the set’s negative impacts on other formats, but I’ve never played a Draft format that felt so close to Cube.
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#2. Mystery Booster 1
Mana Crypt | Illustration by Matt Stewart
Mystery Booster is another bias of mine: While I’m warming up to Constructed, my favorite way to play Magic is Chaos Draft, and MB1 is extremely close to that. The set had an absurd 1,694 unique cards emulates the idea of rolling up with 24 unique packs and included amazing chase cards like Teferi's Protection and Mana Crypt.
While the format isn’t quite as novel as a true Chaos Draft that exposes you to an entire packs’ worth of cards from a set you’ve never seen, I also found that the set smoothed out one of the downsides to Chase Draft: Getting a dud of a pack like Savior of Kamigawa with one playable card, two if you got lucky.
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#1. Triple Innistrad
Liliana of the Veil | Illustration by Steve Argyle
Triple Innistrad is a familiar claim for one of Magic’s best draft formats, with good reason: It’s amazing. Flashback is one of the best Limited mechanics out there because the card advantage shines in a format of small edges and it happens to have great synergy with all the self-mill and other graveyard nonsense INN has going on.
While the card quality was good, the big element of the format were its build-arounds, with Spider Spawning and Burning Vengeance standing out as premium cards that could lead to astonishingly powerful decks if you capitalized on them properly. It also did a great job of balancing typal archetypes like zombies and humans around more generic archetypes like self-mill and Travel Preparations aggro—Lowryn Eclipsed could have taken a few notes.
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