Finally!
The first test of our ”draft cube” has been played, and there was much
rejoicing.
The cube
isn´t really a cube in the traditional M:TG-style, but a collection of cards
that can be used for booster draft. It currently look like this:
Vampire
the Eternal Struggle: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all
commons x3
Ancient
Hearts: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
The
Sabbat: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Sabbat
Wars: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Final
Nights: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Camarilla
Edition: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Third
Edition: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Lords of
the Night: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
Keepers
of Tradition: All rares x1, all uncommons x2, all vampires x2, all commons x3
The
draft works like this:
1)
Choose which sets that will be drafted. Choose minimum deck and crypt size, and
if recursion will be used (we played with 7 boosters, deck size 45, crypt size
7 and 1 recursion)
2) Seat
the players. If you are 8+ players, use multiple pods if you like.
3) Pick
a set.
4)
Shuffle all rares. Deal 1 rare per player.
5)
Shuffle all uncommons. Deal the appropriate number of uncommons (see list
below) for each player.
6)
Shuffle all vamps. Deal the appropriate number of vamps (see list below) for
each player.
7)
Shuffle all commons. Deal the appropriate number of commons (see list below)
for each player.
9)
Repeat step 4-5, or step 3-5 if you swap sets.
10)
Build decks.
11) Do
table seatings and play!
Card
distriution in boosters:
VTES: 11C, 4V, 3U, 1R
AH: 6C, 4V, 2U/R
Sabbat: 16C, 5V, 5U, 2R
Sabbat
War: 4C, 3V, 3U, 1R
Final
Nights: 7C, 3U, 1R
Camarilla
Edition: 5C, 3V, 2U, 1R
Third
Edition: 5C, 3V, 2U, 1R
Lords of
the Night: 7C, 3V, 1R
Keepers
of Tradition: 5C, 3V, 2U, 1R
Note:
The method used here can result in duplicates of a card in a single booster. If
you think this is stupid (it is!), just swap the duplicate for the appropriate
card type from the cube stacks. This problem can be avoided by keeping separate
stacks of cards (ie, 3 stacks with one of each common etc) to deal from, but
this makes it a bit more complex to sort the cards after each draft.
We tried
a Camarilla-exclusive variant this first time, with 3 boosters of Vampire the Eternal
Struggle, 2 boosters of Camarilla Edition and 2 boosters of Keepers of
Tradition. In hindsight I can say it might have been smarter to use 3 KoT and 2
VtES, as KoT has draftferior effects.
When we
drafted now, everybody sleeved their cards with cheap ass-sleaves, that after
the draft are left on the cards. Eventually all cards in the “cube” will be
sleaved.
We
played only one game + final this time, because it got late. Of course you can
choose freely how many games you want to play in each draft. You might even just
play one game per draft if you like the draft moment a lot!
First
game:
Ober
(Toreador with votes and Cel-combat and stuff) > Jens (Nosferatu wall with
lots of Potence and stuff) > Randy (Ventrue and other titled vamps and
stuff) > Henrik (Malkavian sb and stuff) > Donk (Toreador with votes and
stuff)
Donk got
first turn Zillah´s Valley and Anson + second turn Information Highway and Sir
Walter Nash, looked kind of constructed.
Henrik
(me) got first turn Powerbase Montreal and Normal and Dieter Kleist, second turn
Muddled Vampire Hunter, Vast Wealth and Deer Rifle on Dieter, and a bit later
the hunter got Jackie Therman and Dieter the (sadly errated!) Hawg.
No one
bothered to take the Powerbase from Henrik, so he emtied his crypt and swept
the table.
Henrik 5
vp, 1 gw
Final:
Ober >
Jens > Donk > Henrik > Randy (This seating was based on the result of
the first game)
This
game wasn´t that funny for Henrik as the first one. His prey Randy got Maris Streck
(broken!) and his predator Donk Fame:d his first weenie, so his second weenie had to eat the
Fame:d one in torpor = bad start. Yet the game stalled out almost to full time
– Jens managed to oust Donk with just a couple of seconds left on the clock.
Jens 1
vp and tournament victory!
Draft cube pros:
Vampire is a BRILLIANT game, and at least in my personal opinion it´s even better
when you don´t get the typical decks that´s in tournaments and in our regular
Wednesday games. It´s always more interesting to play when it´s superhard to
guess what cards your opponents has on hand.
Draft cube cons:
It´s of course rather expensive, or at least kind of difficult, to gather cards
for complete sets. But as a long time player, I already had most of the junk in
storage, and traded and bought the rest. I have spent about $150 on completing
this cube, not including a handful of cards which I “borrow” from my other collection
(Enkil Cog, Monastery of Shadows, etc). Of course you don´t have to have
exactely all cards, especially not all rares, to be able to draft like this –
just assume those cards didn´t appear in the drafted boosters.
Also,
it´s a bit boring to sort the cards after each draft, but I think it´s worth it
:)
All in
all the draft was nice experience. I hope doing it again soon, perhaps with
other players, or the same :) The current cube holds cards to play as much as
10 players, perhaps even more if we don´t use that many boosters of each set.
