One of the things that was great about MtG was how easy it was to draft. You would literally just crack a bunch of packs and pass them around and then make decks. I watched the preview of Hearthstone from Blizzard. It's a digital TCG and was absolutely astounded at how simple that game will be to draft. You will literally go into the game and have to choose a 40 card deck from 40 separate 3 card combinations and they will all already be logically combined and randomized for whatever class you intend to play because it's all on a computer.

How can AGoT be draftable? I know the cube draft format, but that requires dedication of resources from one player or a whole meta. Is there a way that a bunch of people can walk into a store, grab a bunch of chapter packs, and have a draft tournament?

I'm thinking buying a cycle of Chapter Packs and just shuffling up the cards is the only way to do it right now. That's $90+ split over the number of players, but the problem comes from the lack of core set cards. People would have to bring their own reducers and maybe make all reducers universal. Then there's no real prize. In MtG, the winner would get first dibs on rares (I think it was essentially a second draft in the order of placement). How could you get people to actually drop money on cards they probably already own. Is drafting out the cards again valuable enough because certain cards are worth having more than three of?

I how I miss drifting. Limited play is the best.

I don't really see this as a viable option in an LCG like this. First, having a complete playset of each card in every chapter pack (except for the out-of-print ones, which are being reprinted to include 3-of's) is not ideal for a limited format like draft. Maybe a sealed where each person gets a certain cycle of cards and must build a deck on the spot from those, and can choose neutral gold/reducers from a store pool… but even that's kinda pushing it. There's no benefit of owning more than 3 of each card, unless you plan on making multiple decks using some of the same cards.

Second, there's the inherent downfall of "splashing." Perfectly viable in a game like M:tG or Spoils, but not so much in a game like AGoT, where you have to pay penalties for playing cards that fall into a specific different house than you're running. Sure there's options like alliance plot, or alliance/treaty agendas… but what happens if that's not the cycle you're running. Are you really gonna pull that 4 cost unique from a draft when there's a good chance you won't end up being able to play that house, making him/her/them a 6 cost?

Limited in general, possible. Draft… nigh impossible.

You can try looking into how original CCG boster drafts worked (not sure if you can find more details online, but there are still people around who drafted in those times and can tell more about that) and try to make booster packs based on original draft concept. After that you will still have a lot of work to do (and enough people willing to stick to drafting for 2-3 drafts before things get balanced and proper draft pool is developed).

PS. You can also find booster boxes from various editions of CCG blocks on ebay (or maybe in your local store) for about 50-60 bucks for 36 boosters and those can provide some direction, ideas or can be used for drafting.

That's the exact problem I'm trying to consider if there is a solution for. That an LCG is so complete it actually ruins one of the coolest aspects of a CCG… And I don't want to do anything pre-set. Obviously I could cube draft if I wanted to. I wanted something where I could have 10 strangers walk into the store, crack packs, and draft up a tourney.

Okay, so let's just go down a different path and assume that people actually are interested in a draft. What would the format be? I was thinking that first off, why not just do away with house loyalties? Why not, rather than make the cards the point, make the format itself the point. Wouldn't it be cool to play the game with no house limitations and yet have it be balanced because it's a limited format? Am I crazy, or does this seem viable for drafting because of the unpredictable nature of drafting?

On the cost side, let's say you did wanted to draft a tourney. What is a reasonable cost to pay? Like, you could care less about the cards you win, you just want to play a draft tournament. A chapter pack costs $15. If you made the deck sizes 40 cards (I think that's what Magic is) you could create 3 decks out of 2 packs. Then people would add in accelerators like +1G, kneel to reduce by 1, and streets, etc. That would make it so you're really drafting a deck of maybe 28 - 31 cards and will have 9 cards to play with. If you gave out no prizes, that would be $10 per person. I think that's way too expensive. How could you get it down to $5 per person? Make it 20 drafted cards and then allow people to pick from preset lists? Then you would get a 20 round draft for maybe $6 (with tax).

Man… it sucks because I know Magic drafts are like 45 card drafts and this just seems tiny compared to it… I'm going to have to think on this more.

Of course, MTG drafts aren't going to get the price down to $5 either…

But I think there's some room to work with some kind of Chaos draft. Have everyone buy one random chapter pack of whichever set they want. Shuffle them up and deal them out into random "packs" of 15 cards each. Then those could be divided among the players for a more realistic draft environment.

Kennon said:

Sorry, have been away from the boards for a few days. I love this idea and am going to see if I can get my meta to test this out.

I wonder what the standard MTG draft cost is right now. The unfortunate difference is you feel like you actually get something from an MTG draft once the draft is done whereas in AGoT you don't. That's why I think $5 is the right cost and I need to figure out what prize support would be, it might not even be necessary if the format is fun and legitimate enough. Maybe just sleeve all the cards as you draft them and keep the sleeves. OOOOOOO!!! I LIKE IT!!!!

I think it's somewhat viable as a format. I'd recommend (for 6 players) to take all your cards, two copies each, and divide them based on their house in 6 stacks and another one for the universal cards. I'd use 2 house cards each booster and 3 universal cards, having 15 cards in total. You'll have 40-card decks which is fine. You'll need at least 2 starters though as you need the cheap money-producing .

You'll know soon enough which house isn't "taken" yet because you 'know' there's 2 of each in the boosters. Unless people start splashing the good cards of course in which case it might be a tad chaotic. Someone should try this and report. I'd do it, but there's no way I can get 6 people together for this game.

How about everyone gets to draft 2 houses 'for free', meaning you don't have the pay the out of house-cost of 2G?

That way everyone can get a decent-sized pool without having to go out of your way to obtain outofhouse-powercards.

Or, following WoW's example: you can gather all agenda's and players can pick any one of them. The Alliance-agenda, the themed ones, etc.

There's always the option of disabling the OoH-cost, but that would just make it a total chaos, which isn't what we want.

Marginal0 said:

Actually, total Chaos in a draft is kind of the point in some ways. I think both ways need to be tested. With no house restrictions and with multi-house restrictions. I want to know which is more fun, haha.

And HOLY NECRO, BATMAN!!

In a way, the Civil War scenario is also totally chaotic. It's supposed to be house-specific, but it seems it's more fun with all the houses, as in the books they scheme in-between houses too.

I tried draft with some friends as the following:

We chose three cycles we liked. Then we took out all agendas and plot cards and mashed the cards together. Then everyone drew 12 cards, took one and then passed it to the neighbor. We repeaded this four time and then we built our decks with the ressource locations from the core set and the removed plot cards and everyone could chose 2 house cards. We played without agendas.

I tried draft with some friends as the following:

We chose three cycles we liked. Then we took out all agendas and plot cards and mashed the cards together. Then everyone drew 12 cards, took one and then passed it to the neighbor. We repeaded this four time and then we built our decks with the ressource locations from the core set and the removed plot cards and everyone could chose 2 house cards. We played without agendas.