Reject Rare Draft

Reject Rare Draft is an unofficial casual limited Magic: The Gathering format, similar in structure to the booster draft. Instead of using booster packs, each player brings 45 rare cards (often ones which are otherwise not very useful). The rares are shuffled and separated into 15-card booster "packs" and distributed randomly among the players. The draft then continues as a normal booster draft, with each player picking one card from the "pack" and passing the rest. The players keep the cards they draft unless house rules say otherwise.

A "reject rare" is said to be "Any rare card its owner cares so little about they're willing to donate it to this draft."

Reject Rare drafting is a great opportunity to try out cards that have never or rarely seen play in most Constructed formats. It also puts a crazy spin on Limited, which is generally dominated by commons and uncommons.

Origin
The variant is said to have begun at the "Neutral Ground" store in New York. The store held raffles for rare and expensive Magic cards, such as Time Walk. Instead of paying money for a raffle ticket, people would have to give any rare Magic card to the store to receive a ticket. Naturally, people gave the worst rares they had. Unable to sell these rares, the store held a Reject Rare Draft tournament, with prizes and a normal entry fee.

Columnist Mark Gottlieb introduced readers of MagicTheGathering.com to his more casual version of the Reject Rare Draft.

Rules
The 45 donated cards are shuffled together and dealt out as 15-card booster packs. From there, it's just like any other Booster Draft. Normal Limited rules apply; players must use 40 card decks and may include any number of Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains and Forests to their decks.

Cards from older sets that used the "Uncommon 1, Uncommon 2, and Uncommon 3" rarity method, for all purposes "Uncommon 1" counts as rare.

Restrictions:
 * No foreign language cards
 * Players may submit cards from the sets Unhinged and Unglued (unless house rules say otherwise). Players may not submit the Unhinged cards Rare-B-Gone and Richard Garfield, Ph.D. for power concerns.
 * Players may not submit cards that require an ante in the card's ability unless the players are playing for ante.
 * Players may not submit more than one of a single copy of a card in their 45 card donation. It is okay if two different people submit the same card, but each player's submission must be 45 different cards.