Booster Stack Draft

[Scaredgirl]

This started out as feedback for plastiques Draft event (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/board,275.0.html). However my "feedback" started to look too much like me redesigning the whole event, so I decided to post a new topic. I think that drafing events are one major things that make CCG's fun, but for some reason we've only had one. It would be cool to have all kinds of different drafting evetns, so feel free to post your own ideas on a new topic, as long as they are unique enough. In the end we'll see what we have and pick 3-4 that look most promising.

Ok, here's the idea.


BOOSTER STACK DRAFT

8 teams, each with 4 players, total of 32 players.

PREPARATION
1. We have a total of 192 cards. We have 12 Relics which are special cards. For each Relic, all your team members can use one upgraded card during duels. All other cards have one copy each. Pillars, Pendulums and Shards are not included in the list.
2. Cards are randomly organized into groups of 3. These are called Stacks.
3. Cards are randomly organized into 8 Booster Packs, each with 8 Stacks (total of 24 cards).
4. Booster packs are posted on a forum topic. This means images of the cards, not just names. All cards are visible to everyone, at all times.

Here is an example of what the Booster Packs could look like. They were picked from the 192 cards using a randomizer.

Booster Pack 1

Stack 1

Stack 2

Stack 3

Stack 4

Stack 5

Stack 6

Stack 7

Stack 8

CARD PICKING ROUNDS
1. We will have a total of 8 rounds of picking cards.
2. Each team gets assigned a random Booster Pack.
3. During each round, teams pick one Stack from the Booster Pack they are currently holding. This is done by team leaders that have moderator rights and can edit topics. They will simply edit the post, Cut the Stack they like, and Paste it in the deck of their team.
4. After picking a Stack, they will give the Booster Pack to the next team.
5. Teams have 24 hours to make their pick. Failure to do so will lead to the next team picking the Stack for them. Example: Team A fails to pick a stack. Team B then gets the Booster Pack and picks Stacks for both teams. If both Team A and B fail to pick decks (during those 48 hours), Team C picks Stacks for both teams plus for themselves etc.
6. This goes on until each team has picked one Stack from each of the Booster Packs, giving them a total card count of 24. Last round happens instantly because all Booster Packs have only 1 Stack left.

DECKBUILDING
1. Each team has 24 cards.
2. Teams "own" these cards, meaning they can use any number of these cards, while other teams cannot use those cards at all.
3. Pillars and Pendulums are free. Teams can use any number of Pillars or Pendulums they want.
4. When players build their decks, they can use any number of any of those 24 cards, regardless of what cards their team members are using.

FIGHTING
1. We have a total of 32 players which makes a nice little single-elimination tournament.
2. Players are randomly seeded so that team members do not face each other.
3. Duels are best-of-5. You can change decks between duels.
4. If you lose, you are out.
5. You can switch decks between rounds, but the same deckbuilding rules apply.
6. The team that has the last player standing, is the winner.
7. The whole team gets recognition for winning the event (Hall-of-Fame), but only the last surviving player gets an award icon.

[kobisjeruk]

you know what would be awesome? netdraft
i just cant get the darn thing to work on custom set (custom set being EtG of course)

[TStar]

At initial glance it looks great!  The one potential problem I see could be allowing 8+ people moderator rights to edit a single thread.  That's a lot of hands in the cookie jar and could cause a ton of headaches if say, for example, a team selects a booster then a few hours later changes their mind and wants another one instead.  Considering all the issues in the past with post editing in events at least initially it seems like a better idea to just limit the editing to the PvPO for the event.  This would also eliminate any headaches that might arise from someone trying to cheat by editing the contents of a booster pack (swapping cards with another for example) or sabotage (changing the stack a team takes) or people who screw up and want to claim sabotage.  I'm not saying that our members are not trustworthy, but if past events have proven anything it's that arugments will definitely arise from post edits, and having 9 or more people with access to the list looks like a red flag for controversy and drama.

It might be easier if each team leader simply PMs their choice to the PvPO and let's them update the list.  Maybe put a 24 hour timer (or 48 or some other amount that we agree on) on each round where a team has to PM before the deadline.  Failure to do so means they get skipped for that booster and will be assigned whichever of the packs is the last one remaining from it at the draft.  This way there will be a penalty for not meeting the deadline, but it shouldn't be anything terribly crippling plus the deadline will keep the event moving along instead of having to wait days for a team if they suddenly go inactive during the draft.

I also think that because of the tournament style format the event should move fairly quickly so substitutions should not be allowed for this.  If your team picks an inactive member that's too bad.  Also any person who drops out will not be eligible for the Hall of Fame if their team wins the event.

For the tournament I'd recommend a Best-of-5 format because of the limited number of matches.  Since there will only be 5 "rounds" of tournament play the extra 2 matches per round shouldn't be too much of a burden.  Additionally it will allow teams to make greater use of their 24 cards.

One more rule to consider that will promote diversity and creativity in decks is a 50% rule, where a player cannot play two decks in the same round that have at least 50% of the same cards as another one of their decks.  This will stop teams from simply finding 1 or 2 decks to use the entire time and instead force them to fully explore their entire 24 card set.  It will also make drafting more important since you cannot just focus on a single combo like novagrabby, immo rush, mono life/aether, etc. but instead must consider several options.  This will force teams and players to be very creative at times and should lead to some very fun and interesting decks to play.  It rewards teams with good depth as well and can eliminate potential "godly" boosters where you might randomly, for example, have a pack that has Graboid and Nova or Immolate, Phoenix/Lava Golem, and Photon or even Discord, Nova, Immolate for example.  Since the packs are completely random and balancing issues aren't being considered this rule would at least help offset potentially imbalancing combos that happen right off the bat from luck.

I'd consider using something other than dragons as your double up cards.  Maybe doubling up on some of the PC cards (Steal, Deflag, Pulverizer, Butterfly Effect) and/or some of the more powerful unupped PvP cards (Discord, Nova, Immolation) would at least help balance out the distribution and allow most of the teams to operate from a level playing field.  With only 4 PC cards currently in the game and the chances that 2, 3, or theoretically all 4 can be in a single 4-card Booster Pack that can create a huge competitive imbalance.  Knowing that 4-7 teams out there have no form of permanent control when you do really takes alot of the challenge and creativity out of building decks.

I noticed you mentioned Shards were not included, does that mean this is intended to be an upped event instead of an unupped event?

P.S.: I'd run this thing in a heartbeat.  It looks like amazing fun!  Plus you can probably have it running on a 3 month continuous cycle (10 weeks draft/play and 2 weeks down time for signups for the next one).  That timeframe might be a little too ambitious but it seems like it should be able to turnover quickly.

[The_Mormegil]

This seems very good. Anyway, as the first Draft demonstrated, you should add a policy for substitutions. There were problems for people who dropped the event midways... You may want to add penalties or something to keep people focused. Just like in War.

[kobisjeruk]

This seems very good. Anyway, as the first Draft demonstrated, you should add a policy for substitutions. There were problems for people who dropped the event midways... You may want to add penalties or something to keep people focused. Just like in War.

a revamped warning system is being discussed and might go live very, very soon

[Scaredgirl]

you know what would be awesome? netdraft
i just cant get the darn thing to work on custom set (custom set being EtG of course)

Doesn't that require people being online at the same time? I was kind of going for a more slower and tactical event, kind of like email chess or something.

At initial glance it looks great!  The one potential problem I see could be allowing 8+ people moderator rights to edit a single thread.  That's a lot of hands in the cookie jar and could cause a ton of headaches if say, for example, a team selects a booster then a few hours later changes their mind and wants another one instead.  Considering all the issues in the past with post editing in events at least initially it seems like a better idea to just limit the editing to the PvPO for the event.  This would also eliminate any headaches that might arise from someone trying to cheat by editing the contents of a booster pack (swapping cards with another for example) or sabotage (changing the stack a team takes) or people who screw up and want to claim sabotage.  I'm not saying that our members are not trustworthy, but if past events have proven anything it's that arugments will definitely arise from post edits, and having 9 or more people with access to the list looks like a red flag for controversy and drama.

It might be easier if each team leader simply PMs their choice to the PvPO and let's them update the list.  Maybe put a 24 hour timer (or 48 or some other amount that we agree on) on each round where a team has to PM before the deadline.  Failure to do so means they get skipped for that booster and will be assigned whichever of the packs is the last one remaining from it at the draft.  This way there will be a penalty for not meeting the deadline, but it shouldn't be anything terribly crippling plus the deadline will keep the event moving along instead of having to wait days for a team if they suddenly go inactive during the draft.

I also think that because of the tournament style format the event should move fairly quickly so substitutions should not be allowed for this.  If your team picks an inactive member that's too bad.  Also any person who drops out will not be eligible for the Hall of Fame if their team wins the event.

For the tournament I'd recommend a Best-of-5 format because of the limited number of matches.  Since there will only be 5 "rounds" of tournament play the extra 2 matches per round shouldn't be too much of a burden.  Additionally it will allow teams to make greater use of their 24 cards.

One more rule to consider that will promote diversity and creativity in decks is a 50% rule, where a player cannot play two decks in the same round that have at least 50% of the same cards as another one of their decks.  This will stop teams from simply finding 1 or 2 decks to use the entire time and instead force them to fully explore their entire 24 card set.  It will also make drafting more important since you cannot just focus on a single combo like novagrabby, immo rush, mono life/aether, etc. but instead must consider several options.  This will force teams and players to be very creative at times and should lead to some very fun and interesting decks to play.  It rewards teams with good depth as well and can eliminate potential "godly" boosters where you might randomly, for example, have a pack that has Graboid and Nova or Immolate, Phoenix/Lava Golem, and Photon or even Discord, Nova, Immolate for example.  Since the packs are completely random and balancing issues aren't being considered this rule would at least help offset potentially imbalancing combos that happen right off the bat from luck.

I'd consider using something other than dragons as your double up cards.  Maybe doubling up on some of the PC cards (Steal, Deflag, Pulverizer, Butterfly Effect) and/or some of the more powerful unupped PvP cards (Discord, Nova, Immolation) would at least help balance out the distribution and allow most of the teams to operate from a level playing field.  With only 4 PC cards currently in the game and the chances that 2, 3, or theoretically all 4 can be in a single 4-card Booster Pack that can create a huge competitive imbalance.  Knowing that 4-7 teams out there have no form of permanent control when you do really takes alot of the challenge and creativity out of building decks.

I noticed you mentioned Shards were not included, does that mean this is intended to be an upped event instead of an unupped event?

P.S.: I'd run this thing in a heartbeat.  It looks like amazing fun!  Plus you can probably have it running on a 3 month continuous cycle (10 weeks draft/play and 2 weeks down time for signups for the next one).  That timeframe might be a little too ambitious but it seems like it should be able to turnover quickly.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't see giving mod rights as a big problem. Teams are still required to post what stacks they pick, so there isn't really any chance of foul play. We'll of course save the original list of cards, so tweaking stacks won't be possible either.

I am very strongly against players having to PM the organizer. I think that this is a highly ineffective way of running things, and should only be used as the last resort if everything else fails. There's no reason to use the organizer as the middle-man unless we absolutely need to. And because of mod rights, we don't. When we have mod rights, the whole process is much more natural. When teams make their selection, Booster Packs get updated in real time, instead of having to wait for the organizer to do something.

I agree that there shouldn't be any substitutions. I will probably make this "Jr. Member+" event to limit people quitting. We will also have the upcoming warning system that will hopefully decrease the number of quitters.

I agree, best-of-5 sounds good. Best-of-3 might not be enough since this is a single-elimination tournament. I also think that players should be allowed to change decks between duels.

50% rule.. hm.. not a big fan actually. I don't generally like any kind of limitations like that, unless they are absolutely necessary. Players using 1 or 2 decks for the duration of the whole event is of course a possiblity in theory, but I'd rather run one event first and fix then problems as they come up, then assume there is a problem and fix it before it even happens.

I was also thinking about the Dragon thing.. not taking 2 of each Dragons would definitely be better. Extra Dragons are not a bad thing, but having 1 of each card would be cooler. Adding more PC cards is of course an option, but like I said in that previous paragraph, I think that PC's deciding the winner of this event, is just a theory that is not tested, and I would prefer to fix problems only if they turn out to be problems. There are tons of decks out there without any kind of PC, and I would be amazed if you couldn't win this even without one. I'd like to have one event first, and if it seems some cards are needed more to make it more balanced, then add them to the next event.

As for this "missing 12 cards" problem, I came up with one solution. Instead of doubling the amount of some cards, we could simply create new ones. Here's an example:



We could have 12 of these, randomly mixed in with the other cards. Each Pirate Treasure lets you use 1 upped card. The disadvantage being of course that for each Pirate Treasure, you have one less real card in your card pool. I don't know if this would work, but it's one option.

Answer to the last question: Yes, this is an unupped event.

[TheIdioticIdiot]

^^
card grammar problem...
"You find a lost treasure! All members of your the team can use one upgraded card in their deck. Stacking."

minor problem,

I like the event, even though I don't get it completely...

[Scaredgirl]

Updated the first post with an example of what the Booster Pack could look like.

I also replaced the "Lost Pirate Treasure" with a "Relic". No need to get too creative when the game itself provides an answer. You sell a Relic, you get cash to upgrade. Simple.

[Scaredgirl]

I moved this idea here: http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,24113.0.html

Please post any further comments and ideas there. Thanks.


Locking topic.