Updated: 21st October 2025
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Magic is a collectible trading card game of fun-filled, strategic games to play with friends old and new. Welcoming worldbuilders, narrative lovers, and gameplay enthusiasts alike, Magic has something for everyone and countless ways to play. Whether you’re sitting at the kitchen table, playing online, or battling in a high-stakes competition, there’s a place for you in the world of Magic: The Gathering …

Magic the Gathering: Friday Night Magic

Friday Night Magic runs every Friday evening at Clifton Road Games, Exeter. From 7pm until 11pm.
The shop is open from 10am and players are also welcome to arrive and play ahead of the advertised start time. Booster Draft begins at 7

Friday Night Magic runs every Friday evening at Clifton Road Games, Exeter. From 7pm until 11pm. The shop is open from 10am and players are also welcome to play ahead of the advertised start time. Booster Draft begins at 7pm.

What is Booster Draft?

Unlike constructed formats, where you arrive with a constructed deck ready to play, limited formats – Booster Draft and Sealed Deck – offer a level playing field, where you to build a deck from new cards as part of the game.

Rules

Players each have 3 booster packs. Players open one booster pack and choose one card from the pack and then pass the remaining cards to player on their left. They will continue until all cards have been chosen from the first booster pack. (Repeat this process for the remaining two booster packs: passing cards from the 2nd pack to the right, and from the 3rd pack to the left).

At the end, each player will have about 45 cards, along with whichever basic lands they require, to build a 40 card deck.

  • All drafted cards that were not put in the main deck for your sideboard, from which you may adjust your deck between games.
  • There is no limit to number of individual cards that can be played. For example, having 5 or more copies of an individual card is permitted.

Players keep all of the cards that they draft.

WhY Booster Draft?

Booster Draft is a level playing field and makes for a relatively cheap evening out for people who want to play Magic the Gathering. There is plenty of scope for skill – both in terms of your background knowledge of the cards, and the decisions you make while drafting and playing – but nobody is buying their way to victory in a draft. Every deck in the room cost the same entry fee to assemble.

A level playing field helps to create an environment where the focus remains more on the overall experience that players were looking for when they first embraced the game and the fantasy world in which is set.

Players pay for the event and, as a side benefit, gain cards which can then be played in other (constructed) formats, and which can be collected, traded or sold.

Booster Draft is one of the few formats that directly contributes to the long term survival of the store.
Too much of “Organized Play” relies on games stores providing subsidised gaming space for players who shop elsewhere/online.
LImited Format play – Sealed Deck / Booster Draft – is an all-in-one package of: product, event, and venue.
Believe it or not, Wizards of the Coast remain one of the best companies in terms of store support, but running in-store play for any trading card game that becomes increasingly dependent on its market for single cards, does not make sense at store level.

Magic the Gathering: Prerelease

PRERELEASE is the first opportunity to get your hands on the newest Magic: The Gathering release and explore what the set has to offer.

Open a Prerelease Pack – typically this consists of 6 Booster Packs, a special prerelease promo card, and a 20-sided Life-Counter die (although some sets may vary the format) – build a 40-card deck, and try out the new set.

Magic the Gathering TCG Prerelease events at Clifton Road Games, Exeter:

Magic the Gathering: Launch Party

LAUNCH PARTY events are various in-store activities held on the launch day (or during the launch week) for a new set.

Magic the Gathering: Universes Beyond

UNIVERSES BEYOND is a series that combines the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering with worlds, characters, and stories that are cherished by millions of fans around the world.

Clifton Road Games – Exeter

Venue Information

Clifton Road Games (Exeter) - Street Map
Clifton Road Games, 16 Clifton Road, Exeter, EX1 2BR

Clifton Road Games
16 Clifton Road
EXETER
EX1 2BR
Tel. 01392 259 988
www.cliftonroadgames.co.uk

Transport

Cars: The Triangle Car Park is at the end of Clifton Road. In addition, there are 30-minute parking bays just up the road near Newtown Stores convenience shop, as well as 2-hour bays in each of the side roads off of Clifton Road (Clifton Street, Chute Street, Sandford Walk, etc). If you have an electric vehicle, there are charging points in Belmont Road (along the front of Belmont Park), on the left from the end of Clifton Road.

Bus: The nearest bus stop is Lower Summerlands at the junction of Clifton Road and Heavitree Road. The new Exeter Bus Station is only a few yards further away, by St. Sidwell’s Point Leisure Centre and the VUE Cinema (walk down past the VUE cinema, across Western Way, between the Leonardo Hotel – formerly Jury’s Inn – and Belmont Chapel to the Triangle Car Park and then turn left past The Clifton Inn).

FOOD & DRINK

Clifton Road Games do not provide or sell food and/or drinks on the premises, but customers are welcome to bring their own.

We generally advise that gamers take specific breaks for food and drinks, rather than snacking throughout. It’s safer for the games components!

Newtown Stores is just up the road (on your left as you exit the shop), The Clifton Inn, and (across the Triangle Car Park) Dee Yi and Exe Coffee Roasters are a short distance to the right of the shop. Waitrose is at the top of the hill, directly opposite the shop entrance.

Customer toilets (wheelchair accessible) are available.