I’d like to preface this post with my background as an avid Magic: the Gathering player. This exercise approaches Star Wars: Destiny from a Magic mindset and attempts to replicate the Sealed format of that game. That is, players open a certain number of booster packs, make a deck that obeys regular deckbuilding rules from the contents, and play against other opponents doing the same. I was introduced to Star Wars: Destiny by my brother, who went to a Launch event and bought both Starter Decks and a box (maybe two?). This game is wonderful and I intend to purchase product myself as soon as my FLGS gets it back in stock. That said, I am very new to the game, and this post relies on a few hypothetical assumptions about deckbuilding that may just be completely false. These are as follows:

(1) A hypothetical Sealed Pool will need at least 3 Character cards of the same Faction in order for deckbuilding to be viable.

(2) Above some minimum threshold, the number of packs in the pool will be sufficient to provide enough non-Character cards to build a 30-card deck that follows deckbuilding rules based on Character choice.

Assumption (1) informs the rest of this exercise and is the basis for determining the appropriate number of packs with which to play “Magic-style” Sealed Star Wars: Destiny.

First, let’s look at the distribution of card types that are available in booster packs. In the Awakenings set, there are 17 Legendary cards and 43 Rare cards that are available in packs. Of these, 6 Legendaries and 15 Rares are Character cards. Let’s assume that all Legendaries are equally likely to appear and that all Rares are equally likely to appear. So a Legendary card has a 6/17 = 35.3% chance of being a Character. Similarly, a Rare card has a 15/43 = 34.9% chance of being a Character. To simplify, we can say that each pack has a 35% chance of containing a Character. For the full distribution of Rares and Legendaries (in terms of Faction, Color, and Character/Non-Character), please refer to Figure 1. The odds that any given pack contains a Rare or Legendary with particular characteristics are displayed in Figure 2.

From this, we can calculate the odds that a Sealed pool of N packs will contain 3 or more Character cards of one Faction, which is our criterion for Sealed pool viability. I did the calculations in an Excel spreadsheet that I unfortunately can't post here because it's an Excel file. I can explain the math in a subsequent post if anyone would like to see it. Figure 3 shows that 21 packs is the minimum necessary such that we have a ~95% chance of having a viable Sealed pool. If we buy packs at $3 each, that’s $63 for a Sealed event. Ugh.

However, let’s consider another option! Instead of building a 30-Card, 30-Character-Point deck, what if we were to build a 20-Card, 20-Character-Point deck? There’s precedent for this in Star Wars: Destiny in that the Starter decks are only 20 cards. There’s precedent for this in Magic in that Sealed decks have a 40-card minimum, not 60. This lets us relax Assumption (1) to only need 2 Character cards instead of 3. Figure 4 shows that with 14 packs, we have a 94.8% chance of a viable Sealed pool. At $3 per pack, this costs $42, which is still high but much more palatable than before. If we lower the acceptable viability rate to 90%, we can reduce the pool size to 12 packs, for $36. This is even more appealing because 12 packs is exactly one-third of a booster box.

This looks good, but now we are at the point that a full tenth of Sealed pools will open 0 Characters, only 1 Character, or 2 Characters of opposing factions. What do these players do? Fortunately, the change to Assumption (1) provides a satisfying answer: the Starter Decks. In the case that a player’s Sealed pool does not contain at least 2 Characters of the same faction, that player must choose one Starter Decklist and play that. This is not as exciting as getting to build one’s own deck, but at least the person gets to play. It might even benefit the player, in that the starter decks are already built with consistent strategies in mind and the Characters happen to sum to a little over 20 points (eKylo + Nightsister = 21, Rey + Finn = 22). Perhaps the solution to the “insufficient Characters in Sealed pool” problem is simply to pick Starter Characters and to build the deck from the pool that was opened. This pool will be actually be a little better than the other players’ pools, due to having more non-Character Rares and Legendaries.

Star Wars: Destiny and Magic are truly different games. Perhaps attempting to apply one’s formats to the other is a futile effort. However, I'd like to think that some form of Limited play is out there, and that the value of players’ packs is more than simply the sum of the value of the contents. When I can finally get my hands on a box, I’m definitely going to try out 18-pack, 30/30 Sealed with my brother! Thanks for reading!

Considerations after-the-fact:

(1) I didn’t take into account the possibility of opening multiple copies of the same Unique character. This would further reduce the likelihood of a Sealed pool being viable.

(2) I didn’t take into account the possibility of opening 2 characters (or 3, in the first case) whose non-elite values sum to more than 20 (or 30). Consider the Sealed pool whose only characters are Luke Skywalker and Poe Dameron.

a. Do we relax the 20-point rule? “Wow, that pool’s amazingly good.”

b. Do we enforce the rule? “Wow, that pool’s terrible,” or perhaps “You get the starter deck/Characters.”

(3) I’m not sure how safe Assumption (2) is. This assumption is further strained by the change to Assumption (1), as we’d be opening fewer packs, which means we’d be less likely to get on-color, on-Faction cards to play with the characters we do open. Not to mention opening at least one Battlefield.

TL;DR 12 packs, 20 cards, 20 character points seems to be the best option if this is ever going to work.

I like the idea, I would probably make the point limit 21 points, that way elite Vader is possible, if you manage to get that lucky. Starter decks are probably a good way to make sure everyone gets a decent pool of cards aside from the boosters, to fill out the deck, and to prevent getting character screwed. I would make it BYOD though, the starters are still in limited supply.

I also think going back to a 20 card deck is a smart idea for sealed...and if a draft format is possible, would almost be required.

Starter decks as base would be great, and let people pick Rey or Kylo after opening packs.

Also do 5 packs and pick characters/gray cards from a pool.

For example:

Pick Two Non-uniques:

First Order Stormtrooper

Hired Gun

Night sister

Padawan

Rebel Trooper

Tusken Raider

Pick six neutral gray:

Block

Dodge

Take Cover

Guaranteed characters for drawn cards, and can fill out deck with six non character cards if all they draw are characters.

Star Wars: Destiny and Magic are truly different games. Perhaps attempting to apply one’s formats to the other is a futile effort.

THIS! I understand the want to get a MTG like experience out of this game... but it's distribution model doesn't lend itself very well to these formats. FFG has created "draft packs" for Android Netrunner. This is one solution. I personally like the a more hybrid approach.

Each player brings 30 points worth of characters, a battlefield and 15 main deck cards. Before play begins, each player will open 3 boosters and create a 20 card deck. Trading amongst players is encouraged before the start of the first match.

Personally, I hope FFG comes up with a unique way of playing this game (outside of constructed) that further separates it from all the other CCGs out there.

Here's my play on sealed (and draft format) for this game.

Each person gets 3 booster packs. They open them. They set aside the 3 cards/dice. They then mix the remaining 12 uncommon/common cards together to form their "draft pack". They then can choose 0/1 of the 3 dice/cards they drew. Then the remaining dice go to the TO who puts them in 3 bags according to what they are. A villain bag, a hero bag, and a neutral bag (non-visible). Then there's a determining order of selection going from first to last for first dice, then last to first for second dice. Then if any one needs to choose a 3rd dice, then they can randomly select from whatever is left over in the bags. Then divide the group up into pods of 3 or 4. Then each person takes their "draft pack" and then you follow normal draft rules of taking one card from your draft pack and passing it to your left until all 12 cards are selected. Then afterwards that person chooses either a Rey or Kylo deck to make their 30/30 deck as close as possible following guidelines. *IF* you want to do 6 booster packs, follow the same guidelines but players get to keep 2 out of the 6 cards/dice they opened and form TWO "draft packs". When the first pack of 12 cards is gone through, do the 2nd pack of 12 cards, but go to the person to your right this time.

Enjoy!
~D

We used 26 points for a draft last weekend. We wanted to reduce the available points for characters in case a player didn't draw any characters in the draft, but I also wanted to allow the possibility to play three characters is able.

edit:

I ran a draft tournament today with modified rules. This is what we ran with:

1. 2 pods of 6 for drafting
2. 6 packs for drafting
3. Players choose a starter deck after drafting
4. After drafting combine pods into a single Swiss tournament
5. 20 card decks.
6. 26 points for characters
7. 45 minute rounds, best of 1
8. Tie breaker was points destroyed

After running this, I found that a deck size of 20 cards is too small and will increase deck size to 25 cards for draft and sealed for the next tournament. I'm also considering reducing the pod size, but I'm unsure of what I want to reduce the pod size too.

There is never going to be enough stock of this game to have sealed play. FFG only makes enough to wet your appetite!

There is never going to be enough stock of this game to have sealed play. FFG only makes enough to wet your appetite!

I'll remind you of this in February

Magic drafts supply basic lands in order to play, as all decks needs lands as a baseline to run.

In Destiny the baseline is characters. If Destiny releases a non unique per-colour, per faction in each of its expansions it'll be quickly more accessible for stores to build a pool of non-unique characters.

They become your provided cards to make your deck flow.

20 character points, 25 card maximum. 6 packs.

Open your packs, pick a single card from each, put the rest in a face down pile of hero, Villian, neutral. Split the group in a hero and villain pod, trade off piles, and start a rotating draft?

The TO would have to take all dice from rares that were placed face down to hide if there are some in a pile. Sounds complicated but I'm going to try with friends when the next expansion hits.

Magic drafts supply basic lands in order to play, as all decks needs lands as a baseline to run.

In Destiny the baseline is characters. If Destiny releases a non unique per-colour, per faction in each of its expansions it'll be quickly more accessible for stores to build a pool of non-unique characters.

They become your provided cards to make your deck flow.

20 character points, 25 card maximum. 6 packs.

Open your packs, pick a single card from each, put the rest in a face down pile of hero, Villian, neutral. Split the group in a hero and villain pod, trade off piles, and start a rotating draft?

The TO would have to take all dice from rares that were placed face down to hide if there are some in a pile. Sounds complicated but I'm going to try with friends when the next expansion hits.

I think the store would have to provide all non-unique characters of the current set AND all Common Battlefields.

6 boosters is almost $20 MSRP. That's just too expensive for casual once a week draft play. Furthermore, all the ideas given for drafting out of boosters is just too complicated. ANY system that requires players to open packs and then give up cards in advance is going to lead to trouble and cheating. (Look! I opened a Vader! I don't want to play anymore....) or worse ( Player opens Vader and then switches it out with a Stormtrooper they hid in their pocket.)

A solution to this IS NOT to have store employees open packs and run the drafts. The reason why stores like MTG drafts is that they basically run themselves.

Furthermore, all the ideas given for drafting out of boosters is just too complicated. ANY system that requires players to open packs and then give up cards in advance is going to lead to trouble and cheating. (Look! I opened a Vader! I don't want to play anymore....) or worse ( Player opens Vader and then switches it out with a Stormtrooper they hid in their pocket.)

A solution to this IS NOT to have store employees open packs and run the drafts. The reason why stores like MTG drafts is that they basically run themselves.

I like where one guy was going with basic lands being the baseline in magic where if you open non basic lands you can add them to the deck.

DBZ Draft and sealed format is called "rainbow" because it gets rid of the color/race restrictions.

How about something like:

1) Everyone has access to the Rey/Finn and Kylo/Stormtrooper characters.

2) 20 card decks. Decks ignore Villain/Hero restrictions.

3) Open 3 packs, put all dice in the center (ala dicemasters). Open the other 3 packs, putting the dice in the center but not mix the two piles.

4) Draft left with the first 15 cards, right with the next 15.

5) Pull all the dice for any card you drafted.

6) Build decks.

Optionally you could keep the Hero/Villain restriction on the main characters, so you couldn't play Kylo and Finn together. Could be fun to mix them though.

This is why my original intention was to mirror the structure that Magic has. Both its Draft and Sealed formats are set up so that the players keep what they open. In very rare occasions, a Magic player will open two cards that he or she really wants to keep and so will drop from the draft. In my experience, the other drafters completely understand, and often the TO will allow that player to stay in the draft and purchase a replacement pack to use (even though this is disallowed by WotC).

That being said I agree with the people who say it most likely wouldn't work to draft destiny. It's too expensive with too few a cards gained in packs that matter to each other. Heck these forums were alive with people livid oh I got this sweet character but no cards for my deck that color. It's just gonna be too hard to level a field.

This is why my original intention was to mirror the structure that Magic has. Both its Draft and Sealed formats are set up so that the players keep what they open. In very rare occasions, a Magic player will open two cards that he or she really wants to keep and so will drop from the draft. In my experience, the other drafters completely understand, and often the TO will allow that player to stay in the draft and purchase a replacement pack to use (even though this is disallowed by WotC).

Seems like a really d*** move to do that in a draft. You play draft for randomness and ability to strategize with what you are given. If a player bailed because they cracked gold and wanted to smeegle it in my opinion should be suspended from drafting there for a set time.

That being said I agree with the people who say it most likely wouldn't work to draft destiny. It's too expensive with too few a cards gained in packs that matter to each other. Heck these forums were alive with people livid oh I got this sweet character but no cards for my deck that color. It's just gonna be too hard to level a field.

It's not at all a jerk move. You paid for those cards, and they are yours until you pass them. Like I said before, this only happens very rarely in Magic, and all of the other drafters congratulate that player on his or her luck and then carry on drafting. This would happen even less frequently in a hypothetical Star Wars: Destiny draft, since there's really only one "money card" per pack.

I think a Draft format would work, with the small caveat that they would probably need to craft a "draft" pack.

For instance, a Draft pack would always include 1 Character card and 2 dice (So you can run the character either at say, 10 or 16 points)

Then 4 other neutral cards.

You'd draft 4 more packs of whatever set(s) you wanted.

Few Deck Construction Rule Tweaks would be needed though.

20 card Deck. 20 Point character limit.

Players can build using any faction cards they want.
(other idea: Players pick a faction (villain/hero) and cards not in faction cost 1 more resource to use. Nonfaction characters could cost 2-3 more points to use as well.)

This way you'll always get a character to run, your deck building options are more versatile, the open ended faction nature will lend the format to its own "feel" outside of constructed games to give players a new experience.

Just a thought.

This is why my original intention was to mirror the structure that Magic has. Both its Draft and Sealed formats are set up so that the players keep what they open. In very rare occasions, a Magic player will open two cards that he or she really wants to keep and so will drop from the draft. In my experience, the other drafters completely understand, and often the TO will allow that player to stay in the draft and purchase a replacement pack to use (even though this is disallowed by WotC).

Seems like a really d*** move to do that in a draft. You play draft for randomness and ability to strategize with what you are given. If a player bailed because they cracked gold and wanted to smeegle it in my opinion should be suspended from drafting there for a set time.

That being said I agree with the people who say it most likely wouldn't work to draft destiny. It's too expensive with too few a cards gained in packs that matter to each other. Heck these forums were alive with people livid oh I got this sweet character but no cards for my deck that color. It's just gonna be too hard to level a field.

It's not at all a jerk move. You paid for those cards, and they are yours until you pass them. Like I said before, this only happens very rarely in Magic, and all of the other drafters congratulate that player on his or her luck and then carry on drafting. This would happen even less frequently in a hypothetical Star Wars: Destiny draft, since there's really only one "money card" per pack.

I tend to agree that it is not a jerk move to drop out of a draft because of a pack you opened that contains cards you've really wanted. I can think of 3 opening night MTG events alone where my draft pool went down to 7 players before all the cards were handed out for this very reason. This is also why I'm against the entire MTG draft mechanic for Destiny. These games are just too different.

This is why my original intention was to mirror the structure that Magic has. Both its Draft and Sealed formats are set up so that the players keep what they open. In very rare occasions, a Magic player will open two cards that he or she really wants to keep and so will drop from the draft. In my experience, the other drafters completely understand, and often the TO will allow that player to stay in the draft and purchase a replacement pack to use (even though this is disallowed by WotC).

Seems like a really d*** move to do that in a draft. You play draft for randomness and ability to strategize with what you are given. If a player bailed because they cracked gold and wanted to smeegle it in my opinion should be suspended from drafting there for a set time.

That being said I agree with the people who say it most likely wouldn't work to draft destiny. It's too expensive with too few a cards gained in packs that matter to each other. Heck these forums were alive with people livid oh I got this sweet character but no cards for my deck that color. It's just gonna be too hard to level a field.

It's not at all a jerk move. You paid for those cards, and they are yours until you pass them. Like I said before, this only happens very rarely in Magic, and all of the other drafters congratulate that player on his or her luck and then carry on drafting. This would happen even less frequently in a hypothetical Star Wars: Destiny draft, since there's really only one "money card" per pack.

I tend to agree that it is not a jerk move to drop out of a draft because of a pack you opened that contains cards you've really wanted. I can think of 3 opening night MTG events alone where my draft pool went down to 7 players before all the cards were handed out for this very reason. This is also why I'm against the entire MTG draft mechanic for Destiny. These games are just too different.

Magic dosent do that anymore... you keep the cards you open but your oppent for first round watches you open so no adding cards from outside packs.

I think the way to do sealed would be every person brings 20 points of character. you then open packs and set dice aside. if you pick a card with dice you get dice when all draft is done. you can also choose to switch chacter based on what you drafted, if you drafted a character, This would make it interesting as you would have to choose cards for charcters you brought or draft a new chacter and hope to get good cards. The locations should all be same unless you draft another. After typing this and reading it im not sure that's a good plan.

I like where one guy was going with basic lands being the baseline in magic where if you open non basic lands you can add them to the deck.

DBZ Draft and sealed format is called "rainbow" because it gets rid of the color/race restrictions.

How about something like:

1) Everyone has access to the Rey/Finn and Kylo/Stormtrooper characters.

2) 20 card decks. Decks ignore Villain/Hero restrictions.

3) Open 3 packs, put all dice in the center (ala dicemasters). Open the other 3 packs, putting the dice in the center but not mix the two piles.

4) Draft left with the first 15 cards, right with the next 15.

5) Pull all the dice for any card you drafted.

6) Build decks.

Optionally you could keep the Hero/Villain restriction on the main characters, so you couldn't play Kylo and Finn together. Could be fun to mix them though.

In my opinion,

I really think Destiny does not need a draft format. Never have I thought while playing/deckbuilding I would want to draft this game, especially if you have to break some rules to allow it to happen. I am really enjoying constructed play, and don't see the need to stray from that. the next format I want to try is 2 vs 2 free for all. 3 player free-for-all is just okay in my opinion (having played 2 games of it. I think team games could be quite fun and allow for some interesting deck combo's.

An important consideration when thinking about this is "what is the minimum point total of characters that is considered an acceptable pull?"

For example, obviously, if in the sealed packs opened for the event, 7 points of characters (1 Stormtrooper) was opened, that would be deemed unacceptable. But if the event were 20 points and 13 points of heroes or 14 points of villains was opened, that should be considered a playable/acceptable team in my opinion. Likewise, in a 30 point format, if 23 points of heroes or 24 points of villains was opened, I would consider that playable/acceptable.

Additionally, in other games with point systems, like Netrunner or Heroclix, in a draft, your deck/army is not considered unplayable if there exist other game elements you could have pulled that being you closer to the build total. For example, in Heroclix, if you pull only combinations of characters that add up to 270 points or greater than 300 points in a 300 point sealed event but there exists a character in the set that is 30 points or less, your pulls are not considered unacceptable and you are able to play with the 270 point team (which in some cases can be so good it will still easily defeat most other teams). Given this, it may be acceptable to open even fewer than the 13 or 23 points worth of characters and still be considered acceptable (I recognize SW Destiny is different in some ways from both Netrunner and Heroclix, so it may be less playable to be 8 or more points underbuilt in Destiny, so this theory may not work as well), but at the very least, if they relax the deck restriction to maximum 20 or 30 cards rather than exactly 20 or 30 for sealed, it can make deckbuilding easier and building a deck that is 3 cards short may just be acceptable for sealed play or in fact may even be advantageous. If this underbuilding were allowed by the rules and accepted by the players, it makes sealed deck building much easier.

I find it interesting that in Magic, some players open packs and drop from the tournament to keep those packs. I guess it is just a different mindset. In Heroclix, the players pay a fee to enter the tournament and at completion of the tournament, product opened is awarded to them for participating, so nothing opened is legally owned by the players when it is opened (so if they drop, they don't get to keep anything). I don't see why Magic doesn't adopt the same approach. If someone really can't wrap their head around it, think of it this way: you pay $15, a judge opens 1 booster and tells you that you get one pick from the booster, he then collects the booster from you and hands you a different booster with 1 less card in it and tells you that you get 1 pick, this continues until you have 15 cards and then he opens a second booster and begins the process again. Why is it acceptable when there are 15 cards in the pool you pick from to walk away from the pod and say these cards are yours but it is not acceptable to do so when the pool has 7 cards? Now, take that scenario with the judge, and for the sake of time-saving on the tournament's part, remove his presence and let the players do the opening and passing for the judge: why did this change the scenario enough to make it more acceptable to walk away with the pool of 15 cards you get to pick 1 from? Why is it still not acceptable to walk away with the pool of 7 cards then? The minor difference between Magic and Heroclix here is once you have finished drafting your 45 cards, the tournament could just award each player those 45 cards as participation prizes before continuing the tournament, so they could drop at that point, unless this is a rare draft at which point, those cards are still not owned by the players until completion of the tournament and dropping to walk away with the 45 you drafted would then be blatant theft.

I find it interesting that in Magic, some players open packs and drop from the tournament to keep those packs. I guess it is just a different mindset. In Heroclix, the players pay a fee to enter the tournament and at completion of the tournament, product opened is awarded to them for participating, so nothing opened is legally owned by the players when it is opened (so if they drop, they don't get to keep anything). I don't see why Magic doesn't adopt the same approach. If someone really can't wrap their head around it, think of it this way: you pay $15, a judge opens 1 booster and tells you that you get one pick from the booster, he then collects the booster from you and hands you a different booster with 1 less card in it and tells you that you get 1 pick, this continues until you have 15 cards and then he opens a second booster and begins the process again. Why is it acceptable when there are 15 cards in the pool you pick from to walk away from the pod and say these cards are yours but it is not acceptable to do so when the pool has 7 cards? Now, take that scenario with the judge, and for the sake of time-saving on the tournament's part, remove his presence and let the players do the opening and passing for the judge: why did this change the scenario enough to make it more acceptable to walk away with the pool of 15 cards you get to pick 1 from? Why is it still not acceptable to walk away with the pool of 7 cards then? The minor difference between Magic and Heroclix here is once you have finished drafting your 45 cards, the tournament could just award each player those 45 cards as participation prizes before continuing the tournament, so they could drop at that point, unless this is a rare draft at which point, those cards are still not owned by the players until completion of the tournament and dropping to walk away with the 45 you drafted would then be blatant theft.

But it is acceptable to drop at any point in a Magic draft and keep whatever you have drafted thus far, the remainder of the pack you're about to draft from, and any undrafted product you have. This is permitted by and described in WotC's tournament procedure documentation.

Since it really only ever makes sense to do this if there's more than one high-value card in the pack, which is apparent as soon as it's opened, that's the only time people do it. I guess if someone needed to leave due to time constraints or an emergency there could be reason to drop mid-pack, in which case there is a structure in place to describe what to do.

I understand your "implied judge owns all the product until the end of the event" paradigm, but that's not the choice WotC made when they set up their tournament procedure. (I happen to agree very much with WotC's decision.) "Rare redrafts" are actually explicitly disallowed by WotC for sanctioned events for this reason, and I read an article recently that had compelling arguments why rare redrafts shouldn't ever happen, even in casual circles. I can find it for you if you like.

I also do not think this game lends itself well to drafting or sealed at all.

The more I play, the more I totally agree that drafting simply will not work at this point in time.

Maybe if FFG comes out with some type of "Draft Pack", or changes the structure of boosters... then it might be possible.