A friend of me told me that there´s a draft cube for the Star Wars CCG. I thought what a good idea, you get to use some of the old cards again and since you can rarely find booster packs for the game (and most of them aren´t very draftable) it was the only real opportunity if you want to have a fine draft.

Then it occured to me that the same is true for AGOT, with the new format LCG there aren´t any booster packs anymore (besides some of the old stocks) and some edition are better for a draft than others.

So i tried to adopt the concept for AGOT and squeeze some usage out of all the old cards that are covering dust in my collection binders and make a draft cube. I wanted to catch up the feeling of the books and so i decided that most of the charachters included should be uniques and that there should be plenty of different unques. I decided to first include only house Stark, Lannister and Baratheon in the cube and neutral cards for playability reasons (and nothing is keeping you from adding the missing houses or opening up a second cube with Greyjoy, Targ, Martell).

Every player needs an up to date draft pack to play, or an old draft pack (in that case either influence cards should be removed or gold can be used to pay for influence as an additional rule, the solution i would prefer). Before starting the draft, the cards in the cube are shuffled, every player now receives four random 11 cards booster packs. From this point on a usual draft starts.

Since there are 350 cards in the cube you can have a lot of different games with 4 players. You can also play with 8 players - in that case the fourth booster will only contain 10 cards (or you add two other cards to the cube and have four 11 card boosters again).

And here is what i came up with (350 cards):

www.tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php

I hope you like the concept, ideas and suggestions are welcome. I haven´t yet tested the whole thing, but i´m really looking forward to a draft.

I like the concept. For me, I'd be interested in more of a "poor man's" cube that was built using the more current sets and probably fewer rares, that way it would be easier for more people to assemble.

If you want to mirror the draft experience of the past, it might be worth trying to make a cube with a 7:3:1 ratio of C:U:R cards from the pre-LCG sets.

LetsGoRed said:

Yes, i thought about that too. The major problem is that a lot of the unique charachter/locations/attachments are rare cards. Of course you could easily remove a lot of rare cards and include the 7:3:1 ratio Ktom suggested, but that might be not so flavourful in the end.

Probably a cube could be made out of 5KE and LCG format, with only a few rare cards from the 5KE.

I am also working on a draft cube as well ( http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=15677 ). I intend to incorporate all six houses and a little bit of some of the neutral fun stuff, such as Wildlings, Night's Watch, etc. Players will also bring resource-providing locations as a draft supplement. (I have yet to decide which of those will be included, but they will probably include the seas and various other influence/gold producing locations.) I will also make a second draft list of plots, with various resets, search plots, etc. (I think this will be more fun than the standard "draft pack" boringness.)

A quick note...I have intentionally left out what I consider "annoying" or "unfun" mechanics, such as deck-discarding. In general, when possible, I have tried to create synergy among the houses and even between houses--knowing that many people will choose to treaty. I also want each pack to be filled with great cards that make choosing the right ones difficult.

The following draft list is not quite complete, however. I still need to add a few characters, locations, and lots of events. I also need to balance out some of the costs--I haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if the current gold curves are a bit whacky. As I am making these changes, I realized others might have great insight into what a good draft would include.

Please offer any suggestions, constructive criticism, etc. and I will make changes according. Thanks a ton!

http://tzumainn.com/agot/decks/deck.php?current_deck_id=15677

Well done, and keep the ideas coming.

My suggestion would be to keep it down a little with the uniques. In my perception draft is mostly about only half-usefull non uniques that somehow still win some games. With a few uniques standing out as power cards. But that only worked because you could get 3 or more of the same (common) card in draft, or even develop a little theme or combo (nothing powerfull or very special obviously).

I don´t know it the above would be even possible in a draftcube, but maybe it would make sence to keep a unique/nonunique ratio of 1 to 1 or even up to 1 to 3.

But mabye the new draft should be all about flavorfull cards from the old times, who knows?

My problem is when the designer of the cube purpiosefully starts editing things that they consider unfun. It is one thing to ignore a mechanic because it can not be easily supported or incorporated without severly unbalancing things (face-down attachments, doomed etc.) but when you ignore a theme of a House because of personal bias you start treading on dangerous ground.

dormouse said:

Well, but that´s one of the points of your own draft cubes, you can pick the cards that you want.

Also I don´t see why you would need the draft packs, just design the Cube right.

CATS said:

Everyone needs to have at least 5 plots and some basic resources to play. With only 3-4 "boosters" it´s hard to obtain the necessary number for each player and the players should have the freedom to choose and draft interesting cards. It´s somehow dull to draft as your first fifteen picks locations and plots everyone needs. That´s why the draft packs or a draft pack in general should be used.

CATS said:

What about the cards that the other people in your draft game want? I mean it is one thing if you all decide that the Loyalist and Broken Arm should be removed... sure it starts to hamstring one specific house but at least everyone agrees. It is a different thing entirely to make that decision for your play group when they will be expecting an equal representation of each Houses cards/mechanics.

Thanks for the comments and the constructive criticism! I'm going to finish this and hope to test it out at some point soon.

Just a few thoughts I had while I read this board....

The thing I like about classic is that I can pick good cards from each house while also ensuring that things are properly balanced and fit the playgroup's style. If I know some Greyjoy players like discard, I will include those, and I will focus more on unopposed if they like that. In building the first version of this deck, however, I'm going with my "gut instincts" of what will appeal and be most fun for others. For example, saves are always good in a limited format and also capture a big part of the "Greyjoy feel."

In terms of power cards and uniques vs. non-uniques, I thought about this and I prefer to take a middle-of-the-road approach. On one hand, I want every pack to be full of desirable cards, which means fun mechanics and more uniques. (It isn't fun when you walk away from the draft thinking that other people got all the good cards and you're going to get smashed.) On the other, I want to avoid mechanics that become boring. For example, character abilities are a huge part of this game and I don't want cards like Prince's Loyalists taking away from that. That doesn't mean Martell needs to be handicapped though, and I don't think it will be in my cube.