General Recording Paper Drafts

[Jason Waddell]

From the old forum:

After more thought, here's my plan for paper drafts:

1) Use a script to randomize my cube into 24 packs.
2) Print the contents of said packs onto 48 (24 x 2) pack slips.
3) Sort my cube by color and converted mana cost
4) Hand each player 6 pack slips (3 x 2), and have them build the packs
5) After all packs are built, put them face-down on the table w/ their pack slips and randomly redistribute packs
6) Give each other player a marker
7) Whenever you select a card, you cross it out from your pack slip(s) with marker
8) Whenever I select a card, I circle it on the slip and put the slip in a box.

Disadvantages are players possibly remembering pack contents, but I don't think that's really a huge issue. Another possible disadvantage of people sniffing markers.

Advantages:
very fast during the draft itself, as we frontload all the work. Crossing out a line with marker should be quick enough.
All the packs will be saved on my PC, eliminating the need to transcribe handwriting, decode from a card ID system (1-360), and making the article writing process faster

Well, the code took all of 2 minutes to write, so now everything is ready.

Only thing left to do is to find a way to get 7 other players around the table, which may be difficult considering it's prerelease season.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Alright, so we have a group of 8 scheduled to draft tonight, so I will be trying this for the first time. I have to say I'm a little nervous, more from the design side from the player side. Many of our regulars are not there, so the players will be less familiar with the unique archetypes I have and the best ways to draft them.

My worry is that
a) If I go for say, Zombies, and nobody else wants Gravecrawlers, then people are going to think the whole idea looks stupid. This doesn't happen with our regular drafters, but, you know...
b) If I don't go for some archetype and all that junk wheels and wheels, then people are going to think the whole idea looks stupid.
c) If I go for some 4-color deck (which is possible with inexperienced players around, but not really with my regulars), then I could be perpetuating some bad cube stereotypes.

Maybe it's stupid to worry about this, but when you show a draft from your own cube you open yourself up to a lot of (possibly accurate, possibly baseless) criticism as both a player and a drafter. And lord knows there are already enough comments on every draft vid on all the play mistakes even pros make. Is this whole idea just inviting a shitfest in the comments?

At the same time, although I am fairly proud of my cube's design, I always want to improve, and what better way to get feedback than for people to see it in action?

 

[tomchaps]

I'm looking forward to this; don't worry about looking stupid. Haters gonna hate and all that.

Your post did raise one issue I've been wanting to discuss--how resilient should your cube be to different abilities and play styles? If you play with the same people most every time, you can craft your cube to give them the best experience based on their feedback. But if you'll be playing with people who have a range of abilities and MTG interests, it can be harder to micromanage a list effectively. I'm never sure if I should provide the newbie 4-color goodstuff drafter cards like Chromatic Lantern so he has a chance, or if it's worth having tricky niche archetypes like UB Duskmantle Seer tempo, or if having an unintuitive card like Parallax Wave in is worth it if folks pass it without understanding it. Personally, I try to keep in mind that I'm the worst Magic player at the table most times, despite being the cube owner/manager, and try to throw enough interesting bits into the mix to see what comes out.

Sorry for the thread derail.

In the current iteration of your cube, with your regular drafters, does someone go for the Zombie deck every time, typically? In other words, how all-or-nothing is the archetype at this point?

Argh! Second thread derail.

If this article is for ChannelFireball, it will be really hard to keep it under a word count limit... Good luck.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Just got back from the draft. Went 2 - 1 with a WBr midrangy deck, losing to the eventual winner (UR Control). He killed me with Ludevic's Test Subject. I know I made some drafting mistakes, and wasn't in the best colors for my seat.

As far as Zombies go, the sacrifice effects are varied and integrated enough that we usually have 3-4 players with some degree of sacrifice elements, and no player all alone with the nut Zombie deck. I also play with a rotating cast of 25-30 players, so there's not really a playgroup to tailor to. I design it the same way I would design a cube for mass consumption.

In my cube, there is a very high correlation between "cube play skill" and win percentages. I've won (I think) 27 of my last 30 cube matches.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, the word limit will have to go straight to hell. I tried to keep it brief, but the match reports alone take up 1600 words. We'll see. A lot of that is card tags and other nonsense.