Drafting format that might actually work!

[Sailor Vulcan]

This format is played with 1 core set and 0-2 expansions.

1. Shuffle all the mage ability cards and deal them evenly to each player face down, clockwise.

2. Each player looks at the ability cards they've been dealt (no one else sees) and chooses 1 to keep, and the rest to pass to the player on their left. After every player has decided on 1 mage ability card to keep, any remaining mages are set aside. The mage whose ability card you chose is the one you will play as.

3. Shuffle all the creatures and deal them out evenly to each player face down, clockwise.

4. Each player looks at the cards that were dealt to them and chooses 1 to keep, passing the rest on to their left. Keep track of the number of spellbook points you're using. At anytime you can choose to pass on choosing a creature card, in which case you cannot get another creature card. You are not allowed to include mage/school only spells in your spellbook that your mage would not normally be permitted to cast.

5. Once either everyone has passed or there are no more creature cards left to choose, repeat steps  3 and
4 for all the other card types in this order: conjurations, equipment, enchantments, incantations, and attacks.

6. You can have as many duplicates of a non-epic card in your spellbook as you want provided that the card is legal for your mage to know and you have the spellbook points for it. Your spellbook cannot exceed 120 spellbook points. When you have reached 120 points, you cannot include any more cards. Period.

7. If after going through all the card types any players do not have exactly 120 spellbook points, they must spend the remaining points on Decoys. If there are not enough Decoy cards remaining for them to use, they must use proxies.

8. Time to play!




What do you think?

[lettucemode]

Makes sense and seems like it could work very well. Very similar to MtG's draft format. Do you have a reason for limiting the number of a given spell in a book? Usually in draft/sealed formats the usual restrictions on copies of a card are ignored.

[Sailor Vulcan]

I didn't know that. Now that I think about it, limiting the number of copies of a spell could cause problems with spellbook points, since opponents are using the same card pool and are not cooperating to make sure that everyone has the right leveled cards for 120 points... And there's no way to keep track of how many duplicates opponents have, since they're not registering their spellbooks before they start playing. And even if one just kept track of how many were cast, it might be a hassle for some people to constantly check the levels of spells being cast and counting copies in the discard.

I see what you mean, I should probably change that.

Although with mage/school only spells and epic spells, you wouldn't be able to tell if someone had included them in their spellbook illegally until after they cast them. I suppose that is why we are allowed to see the opponents' discard piles...

[Sailor Vulcan]

Original post edited: I realized that mage-class and school only spells are uncommon enough that the chances of being dealt an entire pile of school and mage-class only spells of the same type are EXTREMELY small if not downright impossible.