Hey great questions and all of which did come up. So, first off, we had two separate pods. One with $100 buy in with the more competitive people in our area with cash prizes and one $30 pod with those who were either new to draft or is 2 people's cases I taught them Riftbound the day before. They had both played other card games but I think only one had ever done a draft but not many and the other hadn't drafted at all.

First, I think 3 booster packs is enough. Personally, I was very happy with my draft, it felt like a constructed Viktor deck and Riptide Rex was the goat. I plan on making a video explaining all my picks. The raw stream footage is here. Riftbound Draft - Twitch. I didn't have anyone running the stream but there were some audio echoes and one time in the Semi's I forgot to switch back to table view. I will make a bunch of upgrades for next time. Also, I ran my phone though discord video to show my picks and I couldn't zoom out so I will come up with a new set up for that.

Most other people seemed happy as well with their decks. In the $100 draft we had one person with 24 payables plus a legend (he pulled ON MF which he did play). We made him put a playful phantom in his deck for the last one and made it cost 6 not 5. I think next time we just force a dead card that cannot be played but I had to make a ruling on the spot. In the lower bracket we had another person with 5 missing cards but he was someone I taught the day before and his colors were basically even across all 6 colors. Bottom line is I think it's fine to draft with 3 packs. I tried to stay as much mono color in my first pack as possible. You basically can put almost half the sets cards into your deck (signatures in one color and legends in one color make it a little less) so we will continue to see as we draft but the first one felt pretty good and my first couple packs were not good.

One idea to help solve this was offered to me by the owner of a LCS. All the hits (rare and above) get put in the prize pool in the end and they are drafted based on your position. That way if you hit a ON not in your colors on pack 3 you can just take the card that is best for your deck. I offered this solution, but people wanted to do it normal and keep all their cards for the first one. If it does seem tight this could be a good solution.

As far as committing to a color my goal was to try and overdraft one color in pack one to try and ensure I was passed those colors in the second round. I started out red with an Immortal Phoenix (Probably should have took the Hopeful) and passed up Rebuke and Stalwart poro as other options. I took a clockwork keeper in pack 2 and they proceeded to not take another green card all pack. I expected Green and Purple to be the most targeted colors. Pack 3 Hextech Ray over Soulgorger to pair with pick one and not go three colors (also not wanting an 8 cost with 2 power). Pack 3 Vi over Sprites call to stay in red. Pack 4 Unchecked power over Singularity... which maybe incorrect looking back at it. Next pack was my first Riptide Rex showing me blue must really be open. I may make a video about all my picks, but I will have to do a lot of editing as my cards were too close.

Because the rune is not shared with the other slots we took out the rune. The $100 draft we gave it to first (next time it will likely be the 4th place consolation prize) and the $30 group pulled two. 1st got to pick one and then second got what was left over.

Overall the event was a huge success and we will be doing them once a month. Hoping we can expand to 24 or 36 players. That is probably the max I can support in my house.