Drafting Feedback

[Chromatophore]

As far as the snake vs rotational draft system one possible solution might be to rotate instead of reverse the drafting order each round.  I.e. instead of

Round 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Round 2: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Round 3: 1 2 3 4 5 6
...

you could have

Round 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Round 2 : 2 3 4 5 6 1
Round 3: 3 4 5 6 1 2
...

Just a thought.

[QuantumT]

As far as the snake vs rotational draft system one possible solution might be to rotate instead of reverse the drafting order each round.  I.e. instead of

Round 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Round 2: 6 5 4 3 2 1
Round 3: 1 2 3 4 5 6
...

you could have

Round 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
Round 2 : 2 3 4 5 6 1
Round 3: 3 4 5 6 1 2
...

Just a thought.

Poor team 456...

[MrBlonde]

Yeah that is absolutely horrible. There is a reason why snake drafts are the most popular. They are easier and one of the fairer versions of drafting. Picking last is hardly ever better even with the turn. There has been research done on how the higher you draft the better (i have and do play a lot of fantasy sports). This version would give the top picks such a strong advantage it would pretty much be ridiculous. Having higher picks later in the draft is never better since the relative strength of the cards goes down significantly.

Honestly the best way to go is to have an auction with a set amount of "money". Getting everyone together to do this may be a bit difficult but making a separate chat (typewithme anyone?) and setting a set time where representatives of each team can all get together may be feasible.

[Chromatophore]

Having higher picks later in the draft is never better since the relative strength of the cards goes down significantly.

This is a fair point.  Not saying you should like my version but to make it a bit more fair you could throw a reverse action in there:

1 2 3 4 5 6
2 3 4 5 6 1
3 4 5 6 1 2
4 5 6 1 2 3
5 6 1 2 3 4
6 1 2 3 4 5
6 1 2 3 4 5 <-- reverse action
5 6 1 2 3 4
4 5 6 1 2 3
3 4 5 6 1 2
2 3 4 5 6 1
1 2 3 4 5 6

remaining rounds ??

Through 12 rounds this gives everyone 2 picks at each postion (1 through 6 in the round) and teams that pick lower earlier (team 6) are compensated with higher picks in the latter half of the draft.  Admittedly team 3 looks like a pretty desirable position, but this system does avoid the consecutive picks of the snake system for the first half of the draft.  Every team but team 6 would get two in a row in the latter half though    There is probably a more fair system that no one has thought of yet.

An auction seems to circumvent the whole idea of a draft or how would the auction work?

[QuantumT]

That still doesn't work because the difference between 1st pick and 6th pick is quite large. The difference between the 51st pick and the 56th is almost nonexistent.

[Mithcairion]

Yeah that is absolutely horrible. There is a reason why snake drafts are the most popular. They are easier and one of the fairer versions of drafting. Picking last is hardly ever better even with the turn. There has been research done on how the higher you draft the better (i have and do play a lot of fantasy sports). This version would give the top picks such a strong advantage it would pretty much be ridiculous. Having higher picks later in the draft is never better since the relative strength of the cards goes down significantly.

Honestly the best way to go is to have an auction with a set amount of "money". Getting everyone together to do this may be a bit difficult but making a separate chat (typewithme anyone?) and setting a set time where representatives of each team can all get together may be feasible.

Like you, MrBlonde, I am a veteran of many, many fantasy sports seasons and am familiar with both the Auction and Draft formats in pretty much all permutations thereof.  That being said, I highly doubt that a live auction is feasible given the constraints of so many different time zones and adjusting strategies on the fly.  Just like in this format teams have to adjust strategies and picks as they go, the same thing happens with an auction.  The big difference is that with a draft, teams have the ability to converse and reach a consensus of sorts when it comes to picks, whereas with an auction it is much more on the fly.

The only way I could see an auction being feasible would be if it was done War-style, with the captains being the ones placing the bids and then every day any card that hadn't been bid on for X number of hours would be 'sold' to said team.  This way, there could still be some discussion regarding which cards to bid on within a team, but it would be much more 'fair'.  Obviously, this changes the event a lot, though, so it may not be the way to go.

[MrBlonde]

Yeah i agree having an auction likely is not very feasible. But in reference of it being the "most" fair,auctions are the way to go. Snakes have their inherent weaknesses but as of yet haven't seen a remedy to the solution especially since in this type of event many cards aren't interchangeable (like for instance baseball outfielders in the 6th or 7th round). I do think an auction would be fun though.

[Rainbowninja]

Snake actually gives the first and last team an advantage for double picks.

[ddevans96]

You can make that argument. But they also have the widest margin the other way.

[bucky1andonly]

But double picking in a card game can guarantee combos if the cards are there on their turn, where if anyone else wants a combo, they need to wait til their next turn, and since every can see what other teams have picked, another team can pick a card to ruin another teams combo on purpose and use it as trade leverage.  Can't prevent combo cards being picked by the 2 teams getting 2 picks in a row.

It is quite different when dealing with sports, as players don't make combos. 

[QuantumT]

But double picking in a card game can guarantee combos if the cards are there on their turn, where if anyone else wants a combo, they need to wait til their next turn, and since every can see what other teams have picked, another team can pick a card to ruin another teams combo on purpose and use it as trade leverage.  Can't prevent combo cards being picked by the 2 teams getting 2 picks in a row.

It is quite different when dealing with sports, as players don't make combos.

I'll tell you from personal experience, 10 cards is a LONG time.

Basically it goes both ways.

[Rainbowninja]

But you also need to realize that denial picks come later than purposeful ones, make your combos early middle teams.