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Doing Research: Lets Talk Drafting Mechanics!

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kevnburg
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Joined: 05/02/2014

Hi everyone. I'm developing a simple Living Card Game called "Robot Ninjas: The Unpluggening." It's fairly early in development, with 47 unique cards so far, and I'm currently researching different card drafting mechanics to think about and experiment with in developing a good 2-4 player draft format. Mainly, I'm hoping for links to / explanations of other drafting formats, and I'll share some articles/games I've already found that have been pretty helpful.

Winston Draft: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/winston-draft-2005-03-25

Winchester Draft: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg%2Fdaily%2Fl...

Grid Draft & Tenchester Draft (I'll be testing these two for my game shortly): http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/cube-design-grid-drafting-and-more/

Drafting in Baseball Highlights: 2045 (I highly recommend checking this game out; its a very well designed drafting game that I'm constantly thinking about as I design Robot Ninjas): https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1134723/baseball-highlights-2045-previe...

Drafting in sports, Magic: The Gathering, 7 Wonders, and MOBAs: https://makeagameofthat.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/mechanics-drafting/

I'm interested in looking at every possible sort of card drafting mechanic for research purposes right now, even if the mechanic isn't a good fit for this game, but, to briefly describe the game in case that's helpful: Robot Ninjas is a 2 player battle game where players simultaneously play "action cards" to try and either kill or unplug the enemy robot. Players have 10 card decks, and players cannot have more than one copy of each unique card in their deck. Matches are played as a Best of 5 series, and there is potential for some minor drafting in between games and/or after each match (like in Baseball Highlights: 2045). Unlike Baseball Highlights and most CCGs/LCGs with drafting formats, there is currently no cost/resource system in the game; instead, action cards are balanced to all be around the same power level. Because resource management isn't a concern, giving each player 10 random cards could theoretically work, and I am inclined to develop a quick draft format that has players drafting exactly 10 cards (unlike Magic, where the import of resource management and cost balance necessitates that players draft a lot of cards and then dwindle down their draft picks to form a solid deck).

Here's a sample card image: http://i.imgur.com/ZKiGbLL.jpg

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