Hello ! Im about to buy this game with a few expansions but im still not sure...

I loved MtG, especially booster drafting. Is there something similar in W:I ?

Can i enjoy the game without buying some packs more than once ? Im really mostly interested in drafting games rather than pre built decks

Thanks in advance

Yep, just buy 1 copy of the core set and do 2-player drafts. It's very good.

One particularly interesting thing is that part of the draft ruleset are "meta-draft" cards - you draft them but play them _during the draft_.

i just ordered the base game and assault on uluth ...

i hope this was a good choice and me and my friend will be able to get some nice deck building options. My idea was that each player gets order or destruction and then can build whatever he wants from the cards. after that drafting from the neutrals

what do you think ?

Before doing that, I'd try the actual draft structure in the rulebook with just the core set first. I drafted the game this way at Gencon and loved it. Very skill intensive and fun.

It is also pretty easy to swap in the stuff from Assault when drafting for a nice change.

TL

What unifiedshoe said. I think the core set is very balanced between Order and Destro for drafting - I haven't tried with AoU.

I have had people tell me that I am wrong and Order is better or Destro is better - all I know is, I've done about 10-15 drafts and I haven't lost yet, having played both sides about equally. The biggest issue with it is simply that like most drafts, the player with the most experience has the advantage they already have magnified.

I've been trying to come up with a simple version of draft that would let you use any cards. I liked the proposal to switch out cards 1 for 1 from the core set configuration, but it just seems that it would be to complicated as a tournament format. I tried something last night that worked ok, we used 19 cards from each faction, the 4 alliance cards, 9 other neutral cards and the 10 draft cards. We then drafted 4 'packs' and built 40 card decks. Only one copy of any card was allowed.

The biggest issue was probably that deck building didnt involve much of a choice, we each had 43 cards in our pool to pick 40 from. I'm thinking about increasing the card pool and drafting 5 'packs' next time. Does this sound too complex or unbalanced?

You should be just fine with 5 packs and an increased card pool. My suggestion is to balance the infusion of new cards among races and card types (1 or 2 units from each race, a couple supports, etc.). Pay attention to card cost and effect, e.g. you don't want 1 or 2 mass destruction cards for Dest. only and nothing like that for Order.

Sadly, you're likely to find drafting in this way an endeavor of diminishing returns. The charge you get at first begins to fade over time, and there often starts to be a bit too much familiarity to really hold your interest for the long haul, particularly if you're accustomed to Magic. The proportionate depth just isn't quite there. Still, drafting is a far more balanced way of playing this game, and avoids the tragic pitfalls of imbalance and boring card combos that bled the soul out of the game as a whole.

I've been thinking about diving into some draft play since I don't really have any constructed opponents and haven't kept up with expansions of late. I just can't quite get excited about it.

It's a shame that this game is so fun to play with bad cards but so hard to design a draft format around. Anybody tried doing a 4+ player draft without the all-Order/Destruction restriction?

this weekend me and a friend will try the following:

1 core set, 1 assault and one of each of the battle packs from the first cycle. Everyone picks a race, builds a deck from the available cards and then all neutrals get drafted (format not decided yet)

curious how it plays out

Here's what I've been planning: 3 of every order card in an order cube, same for destruction. Players draft in a circle MTG style, with players taking order or destro in alternation order. Each player takes a card from their first pack and passes it to the player next to them who is of opposite alignment. That player anti-drafts a card and passes. 5 packs of 16 cards for 8 players. 10 packs of 8 cards for 4 players. No "draft rules cards". Nuetrals would be limited to one copy of each in each alignment stack. Number and size of packs is optional, of course.