tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post1520244168024813430..comments2024-03-11T02:32:15.295-04:00Comments on Goblin Artisans: Live Booster DraftUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-81156603257321686262019-04-19T11:11:34.679-04:002019-04-19T11:11:34.679-04:00Yea scry! Thanks for sharing, hki.Yea scry! Thanks for sharing, hki.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-12128639839958097002019-04-19T11:10:56.473-04:002019-04-19T11:10:56.473-04:00I love the intent behind this suggestion. Being ab...I love the intent behind this suggestion. Being able to shift a card or two between packs could make a big difference and is an impressively faithful analog to what scry does elsewhere. The details of the execution sounds pretty cumbersome and would hurt the pace of play, but if an iteration of it were fast to execute, I'd try it out in a heartbeat. Nice.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-1338970455279374172019-04-19T11:08:06.372-04:002019-04-19T11:08:06.372-04:00Scrying does phenomenal work in normal Magic, miti...Scrying does phenomenal work in normal <i>Magic</i>, mitigating a huge issue. It's not as necessary in LBD because the format erases that issue almost entirely. Crutches are vitally important to a person with a leg injury, but aren't needed at all once the leg is healed. The argument that LBD needs scry to always do something because scry does so much in other formats is like arguing that we should keep the crutch after we're better.<br /><br />It is fair to say, though, that a card with scry loses value in LBD. Fundamentally, that's fine because everything's value shifts in LBD. But if we were designing cards for LBD, or a new game around LBD, it's certainly true that we'd never put a mechanic on them that rarely does anything. In that light, it's understandable to want scry to do something.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-28678504065517087312019-04-18T23:03:42.639-04:002019-04-18T23:03:42.639-04:00edit: I worded my description of "scryswap&qu...edit: I worded my description of "scryswap" badly. The same number of cards is moved into and out of each pack, so for each card you put from one "top pile" one card from the other "top pile" replaces it. hkihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03746992375694731883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-38956806083180642882019-04-18T22:54:22.797-04:002019-04-18T22:54:22.797-04:00tl;dr
scrying is cool because reasons
I wish scry...tl;dr<br /><br />scrying is cool because reasons<br />I wish scrying did something in live draft :/<br />Scrying should do: to scry x look at x many cards from the top of each pack, then swap any cards from one pack with an equal number of cards from the other<br />now scrying is cool again :)hkihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03746992375694731883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-69128511043456310962019-04-18T22:35:08.463-04:002019-04-18T22:35:08.463-04:00Therefore as a starting point to think about, my f...Therefore as a starting point to think about, my first proposal is as follows: to scry x, shuffle both packs, then you look at that many cards from the top of each pack. You may exchange any number of cards from the "top-pile" of one booster pack with a card from the "top-pile" of the other pack.<br /><br />This is a significant increase in complexity and interaction from having no effect at all. Now you're interacting with information by thinking of hatedrafting and what your opponent might prefer or what you might prefer, or how the packs will get picked away from by the time the cards you rearranged will be the strongest picks left in the pack- for instance, will my opponent have the stronger of the two, assuming the order doesn't change? Sure, there will be many meaningless scry decisions when you reveal two chaff cards that are equally useless, but an analogous situation happens quite frequently with normal scry. In that sense it can be said to faithfully recreate the spirit of scry. It's not a perfect solution by any means, but I wanted to start somewhere.<br /><br />If you got this far then thanks for reading my insanely long essay.hkihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03746992375694731883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-10839259239205316202019-04-18T22:34:49.030-04:002019-04-18T22:34:49.030-04:00First things off, I really, really like the idea o...First things off, I really, really like the idea of this format. I think it's fun and filled with lots of interaction. I'm only bothered by one small detail, and that's that scrying has no effect during a draft match.<br /><br />Scrying is, by all accounts, an important mechanic, and for many key reasons. By existing, it passively minimizes the effects of "bad" variance while increasing the effect of player skill, since a player is making decisions about what to keep on top and on bottom- sometimes this is as trivial as getting rid of two lands in the lategame, while sometimes you're stuck thinking about which of two similarly powerful cards you'd rather have at the moment (or how good they are versus the value of a new unknown draw from your remaining library). It occupies a valuable design niche that isn't as strong as card draw but is strong enough to be useful; this, in turn, allows it to be used by colors that aren't usually given raw card draw, such as green and red. In Limited, it's a fine way of giving some power to cards that would be too broken with draw but unexciting without it, which gives skilled game designers options and tools to work with. Lastly, it has deckbuilding synergies with effects that care about the top of your library- these effects are more commonly seen in powerful eternal formats, but we had one in a Limited set recently with Dryad Greenseeker in Core 19, and that card was widely evaluated as being powerful and exciting for draft.<br /><br />Now that we've established that scry is important and popular in the current era of design philosophy (after all, it was made evergreen after Origins), we see the problem: Live booster draft straight up cuts-out a key mechanic from many Limited environments. This argument seems a bit silly at first because of course live booster draft is a distortion of normal Magic: for example, heavy color requirements are much worse than they would normally be, and card draw is much stronger than it normally is. But the key difference here is that these changes are still a reflection of what Limited magic fundamentally is. In normal magic, these downsides are downsides and these upsides are upsides. There's a difference between having flying be unimportant in a draft set versus not having flying at all in a draft set. Does having no flying creatures make that format more fun to play, or has something that we love and know about Magic been completely removed? I'd argue the latter.<br /><br />Now you see where I'm going with this: Scry should have some sort of replacement effect. It's just too ubiquitous and useful as "that effect that gives soft card advantage" to be straight-up removed from live draft, since that means a not-insignificant number of cards from modern-design sets will be unnaturally weaker than usual. I don't know what this effect should ideally be, but I know that I wish it existed. To design this effect, it should be a reflection of what scry is: it involves potentially important decisions, it's weaker than draw but still very useful, and there's a meaningful difference between scry 1 and scry 5.hkihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03746992375694731883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-28992914539445971282019-03-04T09:14:54.934-05:002019-03-04T09:14:54.934-05:00You can totally Live Cube Draft.
Dual lands will b...You can totally Live Cube Draft.<br />Dual lands will be of slightly less value given the basics we add in, but still relevant.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-68693199813404614132019-03-03T22:06:02.303-05:002019-03-03T22:06:02.303-05:00Props for coming up with this really cool format! ...Props for coming up with this really cool format! Name suggestion: Hybrid Draft Format. <br /><br />A question i have is would this work with my cube list? There's a lot of dual lands in there, which are prob less common with boosters.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02156897288006965452noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-20021884311779510492018-07-02T17:09:51.462-04:002018-07-02T17:09:51.462-04:00Watch it played!<a href="https://youtu.be/kYB9jIeFm38" rel="nofollow">Watch it played!</a>Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-73014616173684830472017-10-05T17:03:24.607-04:002017-10-05T17:03:24.607-04:00While I haven't tried the official method of d...While I haven't tried the official method of drafting DM, this experience leaves me skeptical. Colors and archetypes matter much less and you almost always take the rare. Too many automatic or inconsequential decisions.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-30441086498327463622017-10-05T17:01:04.100-04:002017-10-05T17:01:04.100-04:00I just tried this with Duel Masters / Kaijudo.
Ehh...I just tried this with Duel Masters / Kaijudo.<br />Ehhh.<br />The first 9-card pack fed our shields (which we randomized the order of) and then then first 4-cards of our hand. The next 9-card finished our 5-cards hands so we could start.<br />We ended up opening one more booster for each of our drafts because we ran out of cards before the game was fully decided.<br />It was fine. Very different from Magic LBD, since half the cards you take end up upside down in your mana zone, and you have to wait for your opponent to attack to get access to your first picks.<br />The first combined pool we just played all the cards we drafted. The second we had enough to pare down to 40 card decks.<br />Ultimately, the games with shuffled decks were better. Because threats and answers are very binary in this game, the chessier version was too chessy. Just being able to double-block, much less cast auras or instants gives Magic the depth to thrive in LBD, where DM sputters out.<br />Ah well.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-15617314185732197412017-08-24T18:32:41.400-04:002017-08-24T18:32:41.400-04:00Well, there's Merchant Draft, after the game y...Well, there's Merchant Draft, after the game you mention at the top :)<br /><br />Other suggestions from Reddit: <br />"Concurrent Booster Draft"<br />"Rotating Booster Hand"<br />"Sushi Go - MTG Style"<br />"2 Player Draft 'n' Play"Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07637475454134271145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-86462760915246037292017-08-24T11:18:02.918-04:002017-08-24T11:18:02.918-04:00Thanks, Chris. I'm glad to see people are hear...Thanks, Chris. I'm glad to see people are hearing about the format. <br /><br />As of today, I'm finding that "live booster draft" puts this page on the top in Google and in Bing; quite possibly <i>because</i> of all the redditors searching for it. <br /><br />That said, I'm open to suggestions for a better name.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-15982316283205603682017-08-23T18:43:29.779-04:002017-08-23T18:43:29.779-04:00I found this format on Reddit a couple of months a...I found this format on Reddit a couple of months ago and it's a blast. When I tried to look up this page again, though, it took nearly an hour of Googling! "Live draft" usually brings up Pro Tour drafts and NFL events. <br /><br />I'd like to suggest you rechritsen this format to a more Google-able name, so that when it takes the Magic world by storm and has a huge following, folks like me can have a very specific search term when we try to find footage on YouTube or Twitch. <br /><br />How about Stream Drafting? (No, definitely not that.)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07637475454134271145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-17318509633745861342017-05-31T13:13:53.680-04:002017-05-31T13:13:53.680-04:00We've moved to just one basic land each. Two d...We've moved to just one basic land each. Two drastically reduced the value of land, but starting with one random basic keeps land-drafting relevant (but still not quite as cutthroat as without).Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-14456641040782822522017-04-27T09:08:07.773-04:002017-04-27T09:08:07.773-04:00A tweak:
Shuffle up five (more) basic lands and gi...A tweak:<br />Shuffle up five (more) basic lands and give two to each player (hidden) to start their hands.<br /><br />The existing land allotment is very tight, and we've found that there's room to loosen it up a bit. This also makes cutting a color of land more of a gamble, which allows players to focus on drafting spells a little more.<br /><br />Try out his tweak, and let me know how you like it.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-91073607831548242942017-01-13T18:20:41.390-05:002017-01-13T18:20:41.390-05:00Great idea, Jay. I hope it catches on.Great idea, Jay. I hope it catches on.Dukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00398510035795994872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-55953565462994981712017-01-12T16:17:24.431-05:002017-01-12T16:17:24.431-05:00Yesterday was the first time I opened an additiona...Yesterday was the first time I opened an additional booster pack. We were drafting RtR and my opponent went turn 1 <a rel="nofollow">Urban Burgeoning</a> (I know, right?), turn 2 <a rel="nofollow">Chronic Flooding</a>, allowing him to put 6 random cards from our packs into his graveyard (and thus card pool) each round. Fortunately, I got a turn three <a rel="nofollow">Keening Apparition</a> to stop him, but he'd already nabbed 9 cards.<br /><br />I had <a rel="nofollow">Inspiration</a>, <a rel="nofollow">Runewing</a>, and <a rel="nofollow">Righteous Authority</a>, so I really wanted to keep drawing cards when the packs ran out. He agreed, and I opened the pack to find <a rel="nofollow">Vraska the Unseen</a>. And then I started drawing even more cards from it. I won that game, but…<br /><br />It felt a bit off that I got first crack at our collective third booster pack. The rules above give players the tools to ensure that either everyone gets a new first pick/pack or no one does, and that's good enough for now, but I'll be keeping an eye out to see if we shouldn't codify it so that's the only way new boosters can be introduced.<br /><br />Let me know if you open a single extra booster and see a problem with that.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-19093440604691389072017-01-10T10:06:25.436-05:002017-01-10T10:06:25.436-05:00Awesome!
Attune with Aether searches the booster ...Awesome!<br /><br />Attune with Aether searches the booster pack that you would draft from next (rule 4).<br /><br />If the three-player-ness of it was alright, cool. If that felt off, you could try <a href="http://goblinartisans.blogspot.com/2016/11/three-headed-in-fighting.html" rel="nofollow">Three-Headed In-Fighting</a> (but I have no idea how that does with Live Draft).<br /><br />A 30-card deck is usually 17 spells and 13 lands; it shouldn't be hard to draft 17 spells from two booster packs. I suggest you aim for 30-card decks and if everyone agrees while building that's too much, then try smaller ones.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-51621182110095979642017-01-10T06:06:41.387-05:002017-01-10T06:06:41.387-05:00We tried this out last night. As things worked out...We tried this out last night. As things worked out, we played a 3-player game, live-drafting 3 packs of Kaladesh. <br />We wondered what to do with landsearch spells (in this case Attune with Aether). We decided to play it that you just get a basic land out of the box, not that you search a 10-card booster for whatever lands might be left in there, but I'm not sure that was the right choice. Between one player having two Attune with Aether and someone else having a Prophetic Prism, colour wasn't much of an issue.<br /><br />I first-picked Panharmonicon, and was able to draft combos with it such as Hightide Hermit plus Architect of the Untamed :) The format lends itself to drafting combos rather nicely: you can preemptively pick up the more-useful-on-their-own pieces, and then draft the final pieces the moment that you want them. <br />I still died first, due to tapping slightly too many of my big guys attacking, and not playing around the RW player having Hijack for my other big blocker (and not leaving mana up for my Dramatic Reversal).<br /><br />The game was very interesting and cool, and we're quite looking forward to playing the second live draft in a week or two (hopefully with Aether Revolt prize packs from the prerelease) and then playing the first prebuilt-deck league game. I'm more inclined to tell people to build a 20- or 25-card deck from 2 packs' worth than a 30-card deck.AlexChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05674122775216494431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-1791739941968596082016-12-24T11:25:58.423-05:002016-12-24T11:25:58.423-05:00There's one piece of unknown information per o...There's one piece of unknown information per opponent—the first o cards they draft. But yes, having almost all of the information makes the game much chessier than usual. Originally, my buddy and I were using the public-knowledge-stays-face-up courtesy but we stopped and it was just more fun to forget every last pick they'd made.<br /><br />I actually tried an access draft (not live) where players have very little information about the content of packs and gain more over time. It was not good. But please do try your idea and without, and let me know how it goes.Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-37104352269659143512016-12-24T01:47:47.953-05:002016-12-24T01:47:47.953-05:00One thing that I am worried about is that having 0...One thing that I am worried about is that having 0 unknown info makes this a bit prone to analysis paralysis. One option would be to only draft out of the top five(?) cards of a pack, starting with the basic lands. That way you're always seeing at least one new card on your turn and you feel less compelled to have perfect knowledge of you're opponent's hand. It also makes shuffling the pack more exciting, because it can totally change the options. I look forward to trying it out!Wobbleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11494097707732649864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-52265013873325727012016-12-22T11:46:45.719-05:002016-12-22T11:46:45.719-05:00I hope you try the 20- and 30-card decks, and let ...I hope you try the 20- and 30-card decks, and let me know how that goes. I've been playing best-of-three matches with my decks and 30- and 40- have felt right so far (but I've only done those three times each, so I can't guarantee that's optimal).<br /><br />It's a good point that decks will be better the more players are drafting / packs being opened. I've only done this two-player so far and I can imagine an 8p experience being significantly different. (I had been thinking a group of 4, 6, or 8 would do simultaneous unlinked two-player LBDs, but you certainly could keep the packs flowing around the whole table, with just a bit of awkwardness. Worth trying.)Jay Treathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09428861685923241850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5479847193762153273.post-33314847904993499832016-12-22T11:29:05.634-05:002016-12-22T11:29:05.634-05:00This sounds awesome. I'm really looking forwar...This sounds awesome. I'm really looking forward to trying it out!<br /><br />I have one suggestion for the league play: instead of 30 and 40 card decks at the two stages, I suggest trying 20 and 30, particularly if you are only going to play single matches/games.<br /><br />This is an armchair recommendation in this context so far, so take with a pinch of salt, *but* it is based on both theory and experience in finding good deck size requirements for different formats.<br /><br />There are two main pressures on deck size for a format: producing enough variation between games, and providing players with an appropriate amount of selection power over cards (in some formats it's easy to tweak this directly without changing deck sizes, but that's not easy here). <br /><br />On variation: 20-card decks happily provide enough variation for maybe three games, and start to feel kind of repetitive after. The 40-card decks which are standard in limited have much more longevity -- which makes sense, as they're often used for in the vicinity of five rounds of matches.<br /><br />The other factor is how much selection power people get. This depends on how big the total card pool is, what proportion each player ends up with, and potentially in some fiddly way on the actual selection mechanism. As a motivation for thinking about this, note that sealed generally produces less powerful decks than booster draft, despite having twice as many cards-per-player. When splitting a card pool between two people, I think the number of cards-per-eventual-deck-slot you want is something like 30% higher than in 8-player booster draft (that's an empirically judged number; I'd believe anything between 20% and 50%). That fits pretty well with 20-card decks after two rounds of live draft. If you're feeling conservative you could try 25 and 35 instead.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04859843425566999305noreply@blogger.com