You've got 21 players for draft.

Two Questions -

#1 - Are there rules/policy out there regarding how to set this tournament up?

#2 - What's the philosophy regarding this? Go with 10/11 play in pod or 3 pods of 7 and play across?

Thanks!

I think WER is gonna give you pods of 10 & 11, so go with that.

Pods of 7 can be problematic, especially if some players drop.

d:^D

I think 3 pods of 7 is always a worse experience and service than pods of 6, 7 and 8 respectively.

I also believe that for FNM, it's recommended to follow WER's sugested pods of 10 and 11, but to the best of my knowledge, you're allowed to overwrite that and manually create pods of 6/7/8 players instead. I always ask my players what they prefer, as after all, it's their event. Turns out, my local players strongly dislike drafting in a pod of 11 players. When we have 11 players total, we always split in 5 and 6 and never have a huge pod of 11, and I personally share that preference. However, YMMV, so please check with your TO and your players before overwriting WER's 10/11 split. In case of doubt (or tied votes): stick to what WER says :)

I agree with Dustin on the importance of checking with the players/TO and trying to keep them happy when possible. Every local area has different expectations.

At my game store, the players always want to play cross-pods, and would much rather play with 3 pods of 7 than any other possible configuration with 21 players. In other places, I've heard of players boycotting stores that paired players outside their draft pods. Settling the question of whether to pair within or across pods will help you decide how big each pod should be - if you're trying to have a max of 3 rounds, having pods of 9+ will get pretty awkward.