Booster Drafts

The concept of Booster Drafting is essentially simple. A group of players gets together to play a game with a very small card pool. This allows newbies to compete with experienced players on a basically even playing field.

What a booster draft does is takes the "economic warfare" element out of the CCG. Skill and card knowledge still matter a good bit, and in fact can be critical in all stages, drafting, deck construction, and play

Booster drafting also encourages new or casual players to accumulate cards and allows them to check out how the game plays without putting down a hefty financial investment.

The "classic" booster draft in Magic involves pods of either four or eight players players each buying three bosters. All players each open one of their boosters, choose a card, and pass it to the left. This process is repeated until all the cards are gone, then the next booster is opened, and so on.

It's also possible to simply break open boosters and play with them.
Technically, this is probably more like a sealed deck variant.

Here are a few Booster Draft-like playstyles that you folks might be interested in.


Type 1 - Dave Williams style
Created (or at least posted by) Dave Williams, the designer of Warlord, for pickup games around the AEG office.

Draft style: Sealed. No passing of packs, just break open your booster.

Number of Packs: One per player.

Special rules: Start with all the characters you get in play in the proper ranks, waiving loyalty requirements, then legalize your ranks (by bowing or stunning).
Choose one of your in-play character as your Warlord. Your hand is the remaining cards.

Optional rules: Play all actions as if they had no class requirment, only a level requirement.
Pass packs back and fourth between the two players, draft style.

Outcomes:
Winner keeps both packs. (optional)

Comments: Ideal for ultra-quick two player action. All you need is two packs and a D20. The downside is that it's very random, and skill might not play quite as big a part in this variation as some others.


Type 2 - "Classic" draft.
Based on Magic-style drafting, designed for groups of 4 or more.

Draft style: Draft - open your pack, pick one card, then pass it on.

Number of Packs: Three per player.

Special rules: Standard Faction penalities _do_ apply, both during play and during your start.
Level 5 and above characters may not be drafted or played.
You must select one of your characters to be your warlord, and he must be part of your starting army.
If you do not draft enough characters of your faction to start with a standard army, you may start with a reduced army.
Deck size is thirty, including your starting army.
Standard restrictions on deck construction _do_ apply.

Optional rules: Waive loyalty penalites for characters of the same alignment as your warlord or waive them all together.

Outcomes: Random pairings, double elimination.
Best 2 of 3.
Play continues until there is one winner, rankings then determined by round of elimination and strength of schedule.
Byes are not considered losses.
After the games end, cards are pooled. The winner chooses one card, then choice passes to the player who finished 2nd and so on until all cards are claimed.

Comments:Designed for greater strategy and more deck design options.


Type 3 - "Sealed Pack"
Essentially a "modified sealed deck" variant.

Draft style:Open your packs, remove your rares. Rares are pooled.

Number of Packs: Four per player, two SotS, two AS.

Special rules: No faction penalties, in play or during start.
Standard starting army.
You must select one of your characters to be your warlord, and he must be part of your starting army. He is started in the 3rd rank, regardless of his level.
Deck size is 25, including your starting army.
Stadard deck contstruction rules.

Optional rules:Play with rares instead of pooling them.

Outcomes: Three rounds, random pairings, no elminination.
Best 2 of 3.
The every winner in every round recives a random rare. The remaining rares are delt out randomly to the players.

Comments: Could potentially go to a double elim or swiss format. Then rares could be given as prizes to the top eight or four. Currently working on a backgammon style betting and doubling variant.


Comments, suggestions? If you try one of these or any other sealed play style, please, let me know how it turns out.

Ryan Frazier

From Christopher Ugo

The way we do them are as follows:
Everyone gets 5 packs. We open one, take a card, and pass the remainder around the table to the right, take one of the remainders etc. Then we open the second pack and do the same to the right. We usually do this with 3 of the 5 packs, and keep the full second packs.
We can then make up to 2 trades from a "stock" of level 1 and 2 characters. We then use a Warlord we have or proxy one. You have to start with a legal army. In play, we use no faction penalties, but all Item/Action rules apply.

Christopher Ugo