Saturday afternoon our local shop held the EaW Launch Party.

We decided to try a draft format out.

Here you are the ( slightly modified, based on afterthoughts and feedba cks) the rules we enforced .

(We were 8 players. These rules work good with any even number of players. I would strongly suggest to set 2/3 tables up if you have 12/16 players).

Draft:

• Each player purchases 6 booster packs of the same expansion/s
• Each player opens one pack, set the die and the associated card aside (not peaking at the other 4 cards) and leaves the other 4 cards in the booster.
• Once all packs are opened, players at the same table (ideally 4) draft the 6 die cards they collected earlier, picking one and passing the others to the left (do not distribute dice now, do it at the end of the draft).
• Once dice draft has ended, players pick one of the previously opened booster and proceed to draf within those 4 cards: they pick one and pass the remaining cards to the right.
• Proceed with the other 5 opened packs alternating the orientation of the draft.
• Players wil have 6 dice and a total of 30 cards .

Deck construction rules:

• Characters points upper limit: 23 points * ( more on this later )
• No Villain/Hero separation (you can mix Villain and Hero cards)
• Colours restrictions apply (you can play cards only if they match your characters colours)
• Deck size: 20 cards
• Battlefield: players may play drafted battlefields OR borrow one from a reserve consisting of all common bf of the game (the shop may set a draft kit up for this purpose)
• IF a player does not have enough cards to reach the 20 cards minimum (they have to show that eventually), he will add off-colour cards but will be able only to discard them for reroll.
• IF a player does not have at least 2 characters, may borrow one non unique characters (the shop may set a draft kit up for this purpose)
• IF a player has drafted 2 or more playable characters, he will be enforced to play at least one of them.
• IF a player has drafted 0 characters, he can borrow 2 different non unique characters.
• IF the participants are quite a few, the "draft kit" may include just 2 copies of each non unique character and players may set an auction for them** ( more on this later )

20/30 minutes for deck-building

Games of 35/40 minutes.

I would strongly suggest at least 4 Swiss rounds for 8+ players .

If more than one draft table has been created, the first 2 rounds will be vs players of the same table, and the rest vs all the others.

Prizes

• After the draft players may keep all non-dice cards drafted.
• All dice will be picked accordingly to the final standings : 1st player will pick a die, 2nd player will pick one....and so on for their first die. The second round will be done in reverse standings order. The third again in the regular order and so on till each player will have exactly 6 dice.

*Character points limit

Due to the strength of some characters we set a point limits to deck construction.

We choose 23, adding the most expensive character points (Windu, 16) to the cheapest one (non unique, 7).

If a player drafts a pair with a higher points value (this won't happen if all players are informed of the limit unless they are counter drafting), he will have to choose one of them and borrow a non unique to construct the deck.

This same limit works fine with Awk and SoR and furthermore would allow a super lucky player to play one elite single character if he was lucky enough to draft 2 of the same dice.

**Variant: non unique characters auction

Arrange 2 copies of each non unique character on the table.

Select players who will join the auction.

Starting with the player will less characters / less character points, he may bid for a card he desires. 0 is a legit number. Players are bidding damage counters.

When they win the bid, the judge/shop owner keeps track of the amount he bid. This amount is the amount of damage counter he must distribute among his characters at the start of each game, ignoring shields.

Example: Jane won a Deathtrooper on the auction with bid of 2. At the start of each game she will have to choose and put 2 damage on her characters (one on each of her characters or 2 on the same one).

Our shop uses a system close to this.

there is a communal pool of non-unique characters. You randomly get dealt one before you open your packs. Then you open two boosters. Hiding the dice in the booster(until deck construction time), you take one card and pass the rest to the left. This is repeated until all the cards are drafted. Then open two more boosters, take 1 card, then pass to the right. Then once more until you've open all packs and passed the cards.

after you've drafted your cards, you can choose to use your non-unique or use your other characters. 25pts for characters max. 25 card deck(any excess characters can be placed in a deck as a blank card to reroll by discarding). If you don't draft a BG, then you lose the rolloff against your opponent automatically. The opponent with the BG plays theirs and chooses to go first or get shields. During the game ignore any color words and ignore hero/villain keywords. Yes, this means you can play K-2SO with a guavian enforcer.

for prizes, each win in the 3 round Swiss wins you a booster pack.

Drafting dice cards with non dice cards do not work fine .

And if people will keep what they draft, ther will always be at least one player drafting 2 legendaries and going away after the first round. 15 years of Magic has taught me that.

Why build a good deck if I can take good dice during the draft, and build future constructed decks with what I acquired?

Furthermore 25 cards out of 5 packs means playing all the cards you acquired so your drafting and deck-building skills are neglected or quite meaningless...

I know many Destiny fans greatly want this game to be draft compatible. Other than "friendly rules" that break the game, it just can't happen with the current product. Perhaps FFG will make draft kits in the future, but if they cost anymore than $10 or $15 a player it will be over priced compared to other draft friendly games.

I do think a 20 card deck (as seen in starters) is one change that could be made. The characters are the hard part though and the 30 point cap should stay in place. Unless everyone has access to all of the non-unique characters, there won't be much room for diversity (or fairness). Also, there should be something different about drafts for this game. This is not MTG.

• My idea for a draft currently starts with a yearly "Draft set" which every player will need (and can reuse throughout the year long season) that includes a rainbow of 40 neutral cards and 10 character cards (2 unique heroes, 2 unique villains, 3 non-unique villains, and 3 non-unique heroes). This gives every player a fair base.
• The actually drafting requires 4 or 8 players and each player to purchase 3 boosters. Packs are opened and the players KEEP the rare or Legendary cards and dice in their own packs.
• All common and uncommon cards are shuffled together and then stacks of 4 are created. Each player gets an equal number of draft stacks (3 stacks of 4 cards). 1st round: Players pick a card and pass to the right, 2nd round: players pick a card and pass to the left, 3rd round: players pick a card and pass to the right.
• Before play beings, there is 15 minutes of Trade Time; players may trade drafted cards among the players involved in the draft.

The 23 points limit was inspired (apart from the maths I explained earlier) from the points of 2players starter (22/23 points per team).

Our goals (all easily obtained through the set of rules I shared) were:

• Fastest setup (especially without the auction and giving each player any non unique character he/she desires or better a couple of them randomly dealt): you will need a hour for the draft and the deckbuilding at most.
• Cheapest deal : 6 boosters for 15/18$ is quite affordable (and you can barter with the shop owner a bit). With 6+ players you can acquire an entire booster box and be sure to have 6 legendaries in the pool and get a better deal too.
• Saving a few original rules (colours of cards in this case, and all the cards work as intended)
• Enjoyable by players of any level (in the last draft the top 4 were all players that have been playing the game since just a month ago!)

Our drafts (we've done 6 of them so far) have worked perfectly. $20 entry fee for 6 packs, plus a free pack for every win you get. Sure, sometimes someone might have to pass a legendary. On Monday someone drafted 3 legendaries, because someone passed them one.

typically you'll have 3 or so cards that you won't use, because the skill comes with drafting, not deck-building.

The real problem with draft is you need characters and there is no guarantee you will get any even in 6 or 8 packs.

Really you have to start with one of the starters and draft from there. It is pricey unless you can sort out your old starter.

FFG may at some point come out with a cheap draft box with a couple characters, a few staple cards and two upgrades for 4 dice total priced at $12. Then draft another 6 packs and keep the total cost at $30. Without some form of draft base it is hard to make this game draftable.

13 hours ago, robguyday said:

typically you'll have 3 or so cards that you won't use, because the skill comes with drafting, not deck-building.

To craft a good deck (aka deck-building) you need to be good at drafting. And to draft the right cards you need to have a good idea on how you want to shape your deck.

They are somewhat co-dipendent, but both necessary.

Giving characters beforehand and playing with 95% of what you got, make both skills less valuable.

In that istance why bother with a draft? Do a sealed event and go ahead in half of the time.

My biggest gripe with drafting is that it seems to favour the veteran players at the expense of the newbies.

A newbie generally has limited funds and if they get really lucky and pull 2-3 legendary cards in their 6 boosters then they will most likely loose them all to more experienced players.

This leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Drafting is something that should only be done by hardcore players who like to gamble and have money to throw around.

For the newbies I would suggest a structured event based on a starter deck that can be enhanced with 6 boosters. You keep all your cards and tweak your deck.

Play a round robin with no eliminations and let the store give a prize to the winner.

16 minutes ago, Alphastealer said:

My biggest gripe with drafting is that it seems to favour the veteran players at the expense of the newbies.

A newbie generally has limited funds and if they get really lucky and pull 2-3 legendary cards in their 6 boosters then they will most likely loose them all to more experienced players.

This leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Drafting is something that should only be done by hardcore players who like to gamble and have money to throw around.

For the newbies I would suggest a structured event based on a starter deck that can be enhanced with 6 boosters. You keep all your cards and tweak your deck.

Play a round robin with no eliminations and let the store give a prize to the winner.

It is the other way around, actually.

Cards value change drastically from a constructed deck to a drafted one.

There are quite a few common and uncommons that are quite unplayable in constructed and are possibly first pick in draft.

Knowing and playing against cards you know everybody plays helps veteran, clever builds in draft/limited formats are a huge boost to newbie chances to win.

Just to give you an example: in the last 8-players draft the 4 veterans finished 4th 5th 6th and 7th.

Two rookies got to pick dice first and got very good legendaries. But nobody got bad staff selecting dice one by one as described.

The best thing was that nobody complained/whined about anything at the end while sealed booster prizes (that usually veterans got in the constructed format) have not the same appeal lately. We are indeed thinking about doing final dice picking even for constructed format because your pulls are less luck based.

Finally, dice picking as prizes is a huge incentive to build a good deck instead of taking Legendaries home and crafting a bad/unplayable deck during the draft tournament.