Glimpse Draft for Cube: Burn Two, Keep One

Glimpse draft is a pack-passing format for small groups where every pick costs the pack three cards: you keep one and remove two from the draft face down. The burned cards never come back. With two to four players, that single rule turns a thin draft into one that feels like a full pod, because the cards you pass are the cards you chose to let through.

This article gives the procedure, the pack math for two, three, and four players, and the decisions that make the format interesting. It is the format we reach for when a cube night draws four people instead of eight.

Where does Glimpse draft come from?

Glimpse grew out of the cube community rather than Wizards of the Coast. The name and the common two-player version were worked out on the MTG Salvation cube forum, where, in a 2014 thread, a poster named wtwlf123 merged an earlier “Burn Four” variant with his own nine-by-nine variant, and the result was named after the card Glimpse the Future. The MTG Wiki does not have a dedicated page for it as of this writing; its pages on Grid draft and the other small-group formats are the closest references.

The family name is “burn draft.” Burn Four burns four cards per pick; Glimpse burns two. Both exist because passing a 15-card pack between two people with no burn makes every pack wheel seven times, which is dull.

How does Glimpse draft work with two players?

This is the standard version. It uses 270 cards from the cube, which is half of a 540 and three-quarters of a 360.

Setup

1. Shuffle the cube and deal 18 face-down packs of 15 cards.
2. Give each player 9 packs. Set the rest of the cube aside.
3. Both players open one pack at the same time.

A pick

1. Look at your pack. Take one card and put it face down in your pick pile.
2. Take two more cards from the same pack and put them face down in a shared burn pile. They are out of the draft.
3. Pass what is left to your opponent.
4. Repeat with the pack you receive. Each pack shrinks by three per step: 15, 12, 9, 6, 3, 0.

End

Each pack yields five picks, split three and two between the players depending on who opened it. Nine packs each means 18 packs total, 90 picks, 45 cards per player. Build a 40-card deck with basic lands.

That 45-card pool is the same size as a full eight-player draft produces, which is the point: the format gives two players real deck-building choices instead of 30 cards and a prayer.

How do you scale it to three or four players?

The two-player version is the one with a settled procedure. For three and four, the following are house guidelines that keep the pool near 45 cards. They are our suggestions, not a standard; adjust them after a night or two.

Four players with 9 packs each uses an entire 540 cube and produces a 45-card pool per player. Four players with 6 packs each fits a 360 cube and produces 30, which is tight; cut the burn to one card per pick for the last two steps of each pack to recover a few more playables.

Three players is the awkward count. With 6 packs each you draft 270 cards and end with 30. With 9 packs each you need 405 cards, which a 540 provides. Pass left for odd-numbered packs and right for even, as in a normal draft, so each player receives from both neighbors.

For four players, Grid draft is the main alternative, and the MTG Wiki’s Grid page describes a version for three and four. Our comparison is in Grid draft for three and four players.

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What makes the burn decision interesting?

In a normal draft you take the best card and pass the rest without much thought about what you are passing. In Glimpse the pass is half the pick.

Burning the second-best card. The obvious play: take the best card, burn the next two best, pass junk. Against one opponent this is strong. Against three it is weaker, because the pack goes through two other players before it returns, and they burn too.

Burning your own colors. Once you are settled in blue-black, the cards that hurt you most are the blue and black cards you are not taking, because they go to the opponent who might move in. Burning them keeps your lane open. It also means a four-player Glimpse table rarely sees two players in the same colors, which is different from Winston, where lanes collide constantly.

Burning removal. When the pack has two mediocre playables and one good removal spell that is not in your colors, burn the removal. It will not be in your deck, but it will not be pointed at your creatures either.

Late in a pack. With three cards left, you take one and burn two, so the last pick of every pack is a choice among three with nothing passed. Players learn to count: a pack opened by your opponent gives them picks one, three, and five; you get two and four.

How does Glimpse compare with Winston and Grid?

Glimpse is the small-group format that feels most like drafting. You hold a pack, you read it, you pass it. Players who want a two-player night that still trains their normal draft instincts should pick it. Players who want the mind games should pick Winston, and the full breakdown of the two-player classics is in Winston, Grid, and Winchester.

The cost is cube wear. A two-player Glimpse touches 270 cards, three times what Winston uses, and burns 180 of them. If you want to draft twice in a night from a 360 cube, Glimpse cannot do it; Winston can.

What house rules do groups add?

• Face-up burns. Some groups burn face up so both players see what left the draft. It speeds the format up and adds a little table talk. The standard version burns face down.
• Burn one in the last step. With three cards left, take one and burn one, passing the third. It adds a sixth pick per pack and raises pools to 54.
• Shared burn pile as a sideboard. After the draft, each player may take up to three cards from the burn pile, alternating picks. It rescues decks that came up short on lands or a second color.
• A pick clock. Thirty seconds per pick for a 15-card pack, dropping as it shrinks. Two players rarely need it; four sometimes do.

FAQ

How many cards do you need for a Glimpse draft?

Two players use 270 cards: 18 packs of 15, 9 per player. Each player ends with 45 cards and builds a 40-card deck.

What does “burn” mean in a Glimpse draft?

To remove a card from the draft face down. Each pick you keep one card and burn two, so no card you pass is one you wanted to keep away from your opponent.

Can you play Glimpse draft with four players?

Yes. Nine packs of 15 per player uses 540 cards and produces 45-card pools. Six packs each fits a 360 cube and produces 30-card pools, which is tight but playable.

Is Glimpse draft better than Winston?

For players who want the feel of a real pack-passing draft, yes. Winston is better for bluffing and uses a third of the cards, which matters if you want two drafts from one cube in a night.

Four people and a box

Some of our best cube nights had four players, not eight. Glimpse is the reason those nights produced real decks instead of consolation piles. The game is the reason. The people are the point.

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