Underworlds Draft

[PlasticCraic]

Has anyone given any thought to, or implemented a draft system for Underworlds?

It could be a fun variant of the game, with a couple of different challenges. 

Deck building on the fly, forcing you to try something different if someone else takes your "crutch" cards. 

Roughly speaking, the idea would be to have one of each Warband and card available. 

Maybe roll off to pick Warbands, and you get access to all the faction exclusive cards for your Warband. 

Then take turns picking Universal cards to fill out your deck, maybe starting with the person who had last choice over Warband.

How many picks do you think each person should have to fill out their deck - maybe 6 Objectives and 8 Gambits?

Other than the BAR, would you restrict any cards that are available (perhaps to cut down on the trash and speed up the process)? 

Or just rely on people knowing what they want, and having popular cards ready to hand?

Or do you think that in practice, the whole thing would be a massive pita, and not worth the hassle?

[npe]

I don't know how a draft would work, if only because all the cards are tied to an individual warband which you'd need to buy (or risk losing your cards in the mess once the game was over).

On the other hand, a "limited" format that only allowed the current season's core cards and whatever comes with your warband would be a welcome change and would allow people new to the game to compete on a more even footing with people who have all the cards.

[Requizen]

I think this only works if you're talking about one person with a full set of everything playing host.

In Magic the Gathering there's a format called "Cube", where one has a collection of 360+ cards that are used for drafts. Players curate their cube and then bring them to a game night or event and  draft off of them. 

I believe something similar could be used for Underworlds - with the only caveat being that you would have to sort of do 3 different drafts, one for Upgrades, one for Gambits, and one for Objectives, otherwise you could easily end up with illegal decks. That aside, it could be a fun way to play with different deck constructions and see play for underutilized cards. I think it might look something like this:

 

Underworlds Cube: for 4 players

Select 12 Factions, 80 Neutral Objectives, 80 Neutral Gambits, 80 Neutral Upgrades, 5 of each Objective/Gambit/Upgrade, Faction Specific per faction.

Step one: draft factions. Separate the factions into four stacks of three (face down). Each player selects one Faction from a stack and then passes them, repeating until each player has 3 factions. Players then reveal which faction they will play simultaneously. Players gain access to their limited Faction Specific cards.

Step two: Draft Cards. Separate the Objectives into 4 stacks of 20. Each player picks a card from their stack and then passes it to the next player, until all players have 20 Objectives. Repeat this process for Gambits and Upgrades.

Step three: Deck building. Each player builds an Objective and Power Deck, using their Drafted Cards and Faction Cards.

Play games!

 

Curate the cards and factions involved to be interesting. Maybe no BAR or other currently very popular cards such as Hidden Paths or Inspiration Strikes. This gives you the capability to see cards that otherwise wouldn't see play and end up with crazy situations.

...Actually I might formalize this into a document and try to make some cube setups later this week. Would be cool to see something like this catch on.

[PlasticCraic]

Thanks @Requizen, that's excellent!

22 minutes ago, Requizen said:

I think this only works if you're talking about one person with a full set of everything playing host.

Yep agreed, this is the only way it would work.  But that's fine, in fact curating the Cube adds an element of fun.  You could take turns hosting etc.

You could also prepare the entire cube as an illegal deck in Deck Builder if you wanted, to circulate it amongst players before the day of the draft.  Just so people are already familiar with what is and isn't in there, to cut down dawdling on the day.

[PlasticCraic]

27 minutes ago, Requizen said:

Curate the cards and factions involved to be interesting. Maybe no BAR or other currently very popular cards such as Hidden Paths or Inspiration Strikes. This gives you the capability to see cards that otherwise wouldn't see play and end up with crazy situations.

Yeah that's a really good idea, would be good to see more off-kilter cards and combos see some use, find out who can think on their feet!

(FWIW I would probably leave Hidden Pathways in there, because I think it's good for the game.  It makes things happen and is good for the meta as a tool against overly defensive builds.  But that's the point of curator's choice, right? )