So I've been thinking about some different ways to run tournaments/leagues that would spice things up a bit, and I've been thinking about a draft format. Here are my thoughts on how to run it.

How It Would Work

1. Players in attendance group into random groups of 3. If there are not enough players to have 3 in each group, a "ghost" drafter will draft for the empty spot (2 empty spots would likely not be a good option, so it would be beneficial if there were two TOs ready to jump in and draft in that case as the ghosts).

2. TO picks a number: 1,2, or 3. Each player in the group then does the same. No player can pick the same number. The TO announces the selected number. The player in the group who picked the selected number chooses the drafting order for the players. The drafting is snake style (1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3 etc.)

3. The TO presents the first faction to the players after they have determined their draft order. Rebel, Scum, or Imperial.

4. Players from each group draft ships one by one from the selected faction for the first round. These ships are the only ships the player may field in their list for the tournament/league (in league play, it could be just for the day, week, or month, or full length of the league). They may field more than one of their drafted ships.

5. After drafting the first faction, the TO reveals the second faction. The drafting order is adjusted so drafter 1 (from the previous round) is now drafter 2, drafter 2 is now drafter 3, and drafter 3 is now drafter 1.

6. Final faction is revealed. The players draft in the position they have yet to draft in.

7. Players take 20-30 minutes to create/build lists, or, alternatively, return another day to compete with their list ready.

8. Game on! Pairings would not be influenced by groupings.

Additional Options/possibilities

- Players could create a list from each faction, and do a hidden reveal before the match. Before the game begins, both players would put a 1, 2, or 3 speed maneuver on a hidden dial and reveal at the same time. Each number would be aligned with a faction.

- Have an additional draft after the first, where players draft upgrade cards in the same way. This could be done a couple of ways.

1. Have the draft be by ship expansion, faction by faction in the same way the original draft was done. Players may only use upgrade cards available in those expansions. Alternatively, you may just have this included within the initial draft, and force players to only use the upgrades within their selected ship's expansion. Dealing with Aces packs would make this a bit difficult.

2. Have players, in the same snake style, draft individual upgrade cards until each player has a specified amount of upgrade cards. Upgrades would probably need to be randomized in some sort of way and cut up into 3 rounds of draft here as well.

3. A draft format similar to those done in Magic the Gathering could be possible here as well, with each player beginning the upgrade draft with a random pack of, say, 8 upgrade cards. They would select 1, place it face down in front of them, then pass the remaining cards to the player on their right. Picking would be done until all upgrades have been selected. Then, 2 more rounds of the same would be done.

Issues

-The necessity of a large collection makes this pretty exclusive to the most dedicated of players. Having a pool of ships where all players share their ships freely would be nice, but unless you know your group really well, not sure how comfortable that would be.

- Time. We all know there are already a healthy number of delays in tournaments. Having to draft, then create a list, then put it together, would add a lot of time to the tournament.

-The upgrade draft hits a number of hiccups. Dealing with aces packs could be an issue for option 1, and dealing with ship specific upgrades could be an issue for the other draft forms, especially for ships which are dependent on those upgrades such as A-wings, Tie Advanceds, or Tie Interceptors. Tie interceptors are especially troublesome, as they are largely dependent on Autothrusters, which a) doesn't come in their ships expansion, and b) is not specific to them, so any clause about ship specific upgrades being available to all would not cure the issue. Also, there is a pool of upgrades which see far more use then others, so if you are unlucky enough to not ever see one of those upgrades, you'd be at a pretty heavy disadvantage.

So what do you guys think? Is ship drafting a possibility? And if so, do you think you'd enjoy it and want to try it out?

Why not create ships (lists) in advance (TO), fully loaded, and have the participants draft from these selections? Saves a lot of time... for finetuning you could also create random lists of upgrades (like 4 upgrades each lists to pick from), also prepared by the TO (come on, they are not supposed to have a life, right :-) ). After all ships are drafted people may draft upgrades (make like 3 draft rounds here) to fill points/slots not spent on the prepared ships. No exchange of upgrades, just add if possible.

Sounds like fun (except for the TO of course, sounds like work for those folks).

We had a tournament where every player brought 3 lists, same faction, no shiptype duplicated among the different lists (you could play 8 TIE Fighters in one list, but then no TIE fighter in any of the other lists). Before each game the player secretly selected a list not previously selected (we had 3 rounds, for more rounds just have the player select a list among the ones that got selected the least so far), knowing only the faction of his opponent. Was a lot of fun, with quite unique lists (overall winner had 5 interceptors (list 1 - vs Palp shuttle+vader+soontir), Deci + Vader (list 2 - vs ion stresshog+tlt hwk+tlt y+can't remember), 8 Tie Fighters (list 3 - vs Redline + 4 TIEs)).

I see no problem with running this using vassal and voice, as long as all players are familiar with the draft rules.

So I may be forced to play a faction I have zero interest in because of luck of the draw? No thank you.

I like it a lot. Playing something you have never played, or almost never, can be a very nice challenge.

I would suggest running a different point limit, though - say, 85 - to run away from known lists. Maybe.

I think something like a Magic draft would be a lot funner but I'd have more than 3 in a group I'd have somewhere from 6-10.

Take every upgrade card and pilot in the game, split them up into 6-10 stacks, give one to each player, they pick 1 upgrade card or pilot then pass it to the right.

So I may be forced to play a faction I have zero interest in because of luck of the draw? No thank you.

Perhaps a draft is not for you.

I have actually been considering making a MTG style draft set for the game but how best to implement it is the key without it being unbalanced or a logistical nightmare for newer players without much access to ships.

I was thinking that the first rule would be that you can "Fly what you draft", i.e. no faction restrictions.

Not only would this create vastly more interesting squad lists, but it would also make all the cards you can potentially draft useful rather than say drafting a pilot card you really want to fly but it's not in your faction. Additionally you get the chance to play some otherwise unplayable combos if you draft the right cards.

Draft packs would be made up of a mix of pilots and upgrades, creating interesting situations like "should I draft this Han Solo or should I take the Predator upgrade?".

more "powerful" pilots that rely on specific upgrade cards in standard play become double edge swords, you might draft a Soontir Fel, but if you don’t pick up a PTL later in the draft he's really not that great.

I think I would look at constructing draft packs in lots of 12 - 4 unique pilots, 4 generics and 4 upgrade cards, with no unique pilots or upgrades being duplicated across all the packs.

Each player gets 2-3 "boosters" each, anyone familiar with how MTG drafting works will understand the rest, for the uninitiated, here is the basic premise of drafting:

http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Booster_draft

I think I might have to go away and design some Draft packs now!

So I may be forced to play a faction I have zero interest in because of luck of the draw? No thank you.

You only fly 2 ships from your favorite faction? That's odd.

If I'm misunderstanding you though and that's not the case, you should be more than capable of building a quality list with your favorite faction with this draft format, no matter your position in the draft. The benefit of a snake draft format is no position really "loses". The player who picks first doesn't pick again until 4 other ships have been picked, but he gets the first pick. The player picking second gets to react to the picks from both sides, and gets a good middle ground between the benefits of the first player and the last player. The player with the last pick gets to pick 2 ships back to back the first round of picks to make up for the handicap of picking last. There are benefits to each position.

And while I understand that players who prefer to fly specifically one faction would be turned off by the format, I would be willing to say the majority of players enjoy playing every faction. Yes, they may prefer one faction over another, but what they really enjoy is the game itself and the main mechanics of it. Factions are just a little extra flavor.

I think something like a Magic draft would be a lot funner but I'd have more than 3 in a group I'd have somewhere from 6-10.

Take every upgrade card and pilot in the game, split them up into 6-10 stacks, give one to each player, they pick 1 upgrade card or pilot then pass it to the right.

This is likely what would work the best. The issue about titles and ship specific upgrades will still be a problem, but maybe just throw those out of the draft and allow them universal use. Autothrusters are still in a weird spot, because it's semi-ship specific, so I guess it could see universal use? But then EVERYONE will be running it. But without universal access to it, it really limits the use of Tie interceptors, and to a lesser degree, Starvipers, T-70, and the A-wing.

I think something like a Magic draft would be a lot funner but I'd have more than 3 in a group I'd have somewhere from 6-10.

Take every upgrade card and pilot in the game, split them up into 6-10 stacks, give one to each player, they pick 1 upgrade card or pilot then pass it to the right.

This is likely what would work the best. The issue about titles and ship specific upgrades will still be a problem, but maybe just throw those out of the draft and allow them universal use. Autothrusters are still in a weird spot, because it's semi-ship specific, so I guess it could see universal use? But then EVERYONE will be running it. But without universal access to it, it really limits the use of Tie interceptors, and to a lesser degree, Starvipers, T-70, and the A-wing.

All those are good points but I think that would just be even more added incentive for people to try and play something different for a change.

That said it wouldn't be a terrible idea to duplicate popular cards and have 2 of them in the 6 or so stacks.

Play testing helps figure these things out maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to do a lil test run and see how it goes.

How about this for an even simpler draft:

A number of players agree on a faction. Once the faction is selected, all of the pilot cards for that faction are shuffled together and placed in a pile at the center of the table. Each draft round consists of a number of cards equal to the number of players being placed face up in front of the players. Players take turns picking one pilot card each. There are as many rounds as there are players. Each player gets an opportunity to pick first. After the draft, the player may only play the ships/pilots they have drafted. Standard rules apply. Only one copy of a unique pilot may be flown in a single list and any number of generics may be flown.

I've thought about a Rotisserie draft. The problem is there's 150+ Pilot Cards and 150+ upgrade cards in the game.

So let's say you gather all that together. How do you go about deciding on stuff, like is there's only 1 of each unique pilot for instance, that's a given, but only 1 of each upgrade? Only 1 EU, 1 AT, 1 TLT? That not only seems unfair, but also really difficult to make lists with.

The same issues comes up with generic pilots too.

Then there's just the fact that, you're going to need each player to make at least 10 picks or more. Even if each pick is limited to 1 minute. That's a lot of time just for the draft.

Plus you probably want to allow people to be able to draft more cards than they'll use, so they have a bit of wiggle room when it comes to list building.

We did a store draft with one of each pilot. We provided all the ships but players had to provide their own upgrades. People could mix factions with the ships they drafted. But upgrades stayed within factions. It was fun, I ended up with Biggs, Rear Admiral and a Z Pirate.

Draft order was random. Once everyone had drafted a ship then the player with the lowest squad total drafted next. Then the new lowest squad would draft. That went on until everyone either passed or couldn't fit anymore ships in their 100pt limit. You also had to play every ship you drafted. It was a ton of fun.

Ok

Hands up how many people DONT play magic but DO want drafting rules?

My guess is somewhere between 0 and 1%

Playing random lists really shows how good you can grasp the effectiveness of ships and the way they perform best together. We ran several random squad games in the past, each player deciding which faction he wants to play, then all ship cards from that faction were shuffled and placed in front of the player. One player starts drawing the top card and add it to his squad. Then the player with the lower total squad points draws a card (same pile if both play same faction, or own card pile for different factions). There are 3 rules for the drawing of cards:

1. You may discard once during the whole process, drawing the next card which you must keep then

2. Once your squad is above 50 points you may discard any large ship and draw the next; repeat until no large ship is drawn. This does not count toward your one free discard.

3. If you draw a pilot card that brings your squad total over 100 (and it's not a large ship, since you may discard that one immediately) then your drafting ends. You discard the last card that brought you over 100 points. Now equip your squad with whatever upgrades you like, up to 100 squad points total

Bear in mind that we have several copies of each pilot card (like 8 Academy pilots, 6 Rookie pilots etc), so the draw pile is quite large for each faction and you don't get to see the Aces very much (never saw Soontir, Luke was around once, Ibti once, the PS 5 phantom, etc). So the games tend to be with a lot of generics; also even if you draw an Ace there's no guarantee that you will have enough points left over in the end to equip him really good.

I'd say we did like 10 of such games so far, each except one were great, that one game was very one sided (3 Y Wings and a X Wing with close to no points left for upgrades vs 2 interceptors, some TIE fighters and a Tie Advanced - the y wing squad went down really fast, but the player wasn't really trying hard either I'd say).

It really is a different experience.

Ok

Hands up how many people DONT play magic but DO want drafting rules?

My guess is somewhere between 0 and 1%

o/

And I know many more.

Must. Remember. Not. To. Feed. Must. Remember. Not. To. Feed.

Ok

Hands up how many people DONT play magic but DO want drafting rules?

My guess is somewhere between 0 and 1%

o/

And I know many more.

I would think there would be a decent number as well.

And just for the record, drafting isn't inherently a MTG thing. Heck, why do fantasy sports do so well? And why is the NFL draft one of the most watched American sporting events?

Because people seem to reaaaalllly like drafting things.

No need to add more imbalance to the game and cause less games to be played (time).

No need to add more imbalance to the game and cause less games to be played (time).

How would this add more imbalance to the game? Just curious what your thoughts are.

And yes, the reduced play time could be an issue, but for many players, the drafting is just as fun as the actual game play.

No need to add more imbalance to the game and cause less games to be played (time).

Drafts are very good about being self correcting.

Especially in drafts where all information is public, rotisserie style.

Drafting is about getting an advantage before the game even starts. It takes balance and throws it out the air lock.

Drafting is about getting an advantage before the game even starts. It takes balance and throws it out the air lock.

You clearly are pretty bad at it

Drafting is about getting an advantage before the game even starts. It takes balance and throws it out the air lock.

I take it you won't take part?