Hey guys,
For those of you who have dismissed the drafting option of play, I would encourage you to give it a try. And not only that, play with it a bit; the challenges this kind of game play offers can be very cool.
My buddy and I got together today and played three draft games.
Game 1:
Was done exactly as the rules outline it. We didn't like this version as much. Here's why, unless we totally misunderstood how the drafting was intended to be executed, each player can only end out with a maximum of 40 cards, but if any player uses one of the special draft format cards during the draft, (not including the Reinforcements card), then that player's end play-deck will be less than 40 cards.
Regardless, we did play Game 1 by the book, and I won. I was Order with a mostly Dwarf/Empire deck with a Dwarf capital board. My buddy had a pretty even Destruction deck with the Orc capital.
Game 2:
We changed the draft rules slightly. Instead of only drafting 5 "packs", we drafted 7 "packs". This afforded us a possible maximum play-deck of 56 cards. In addition, we also ruled that once the drafting processes was over, each player would trim their play-deck down to a 50 card deck. This afforded us the ability and incentive to draft and use the special draft format cards. It is very fun to use Reinforcements or Cut Supply Lines. Neither of us had the balls to use Shifting Tides.
This was a much better game that the first game. I was Order again, with a pretty balanced deck, so I used the Dwarf capital again. My buddy, (Jason), used the Dark Elves capital. Jason won.
Game 3:
We changed it up even more just for the challenge! We removed all Unit cards with a base resource cost of 2 or less. Wow! Did we removed a ton of cards!! Without cheap Units, you really depend on strong Tactic and Support cards. We also discovered another side effect of drafting with this particular set of restrictions, you need to choose your capital board very very VERY carefully.
We switched sides, so now I was Destruction. I thought I drafted a fairly balanced deck, so I chose to use the Orc capital. I was totally hosed!!! I got only one Orc card that I was able to cast, and like an idiot, I put it in the Battlefield instead of my Kingdom. I was hosed for the rest of the game. I am not kidding. Jason was playing tons of cards in all of his zones, but I was locked down because I made a poor choice in which capital I was going to use.
We both agreed that we would draft again, and we look forward to trying out a variety of different drafting options.
I hope you guys do give the draft option a try, and play with the drafting rules; it really enhances the game.