Booster Draft
Booster Draft is one of the two primary types of sealed deck event in the Players Committee's Alternate Format Tournament Guide (revised September 2015), beside plain sealed. Players pass booster packs around a table and pick one card at a time for their own side of the Force, then build decks from what they drafted.[1]
- Type: booster draft (rules used by several formats)
- Defined by: Players Committee (Alternate Format Tournament Guide, 2015); earlier Decipher draft formats
- Card pool: set by each draft format
- In use: 1999 (Decipher's Endor Draft) –
- GEMP: GEMP runs its own draft leagues; see Cube
Rules
The guide's booster draft procedure:[1]
- Players sit in groups of 4 or 6. With an odd number of players the Tournament Director drafts a dummy hand, so each group has equal numbers of Light and Dark players. The director always drafts in a group of 6, competitively.
- Group sizes: 8 players = 2 groups of 4; 9 = 1 group of 4 and 1 of 6 (with a dummy); 10 = 1 of 4 and 1 of 6; 11 = 2 of 6 (one with a dummy); 12 = 3 of 4; 13 = 2 of 4 and 1 of 6 (with a dummy); 14 = 2 of 4 and 1 of 6; 15 = 1 of 4 and 2 of 6 (one with a dummy); 16 = 4 of 4.
- Players are randomly assigned Light or Dark and never sit next to a player of the same side. In a group of 6 they sit Light, Dark, Light, Dark, Light, Dark.
- Everyone opens their first pack at once. With more than one type of pack, packs are opened in order of release (for example Premiere before A New Hope).
- Each player picks one card for their own side only, then passes the rest to the left. Nobody picks up the next stack until everyone has picked. Cards already picked may not be looked at once the next stack is picked up. Cards of the other side are simply passed on.
- The second pack passes to the right, and direction switches after each pack. After each pack players get 30 seconds to look through their picks.
- Deck building time is 10 minutes for 40-card decks and 20 minutes for 60-card decks (15 minutes for EPP Overdrive). Between games a player may re-customize the deck from their own drafted cards, but may not add cards from outside or trade.
Sealed deck games are timed at one minute per card in the deck. A tournament has at least three games and a Final Confrontation between the top Light and top Dark players, timed at 1.5 times the normal length.[1]
Formats
The guide lists these draft formats:[1]
- OTSD Booster Draft
- JPOTSD Booster Draft
- Death Star II Booster Draft
- Reflections Booster Draft (listed as Reflections II and Reflections III Booster Draft)
- Endor Draft (Decipher's rules, reprinted)
Watto's Cube events are also drafted, from "virtual packs" made from a fixed card pool; see Cube.[1]
History
Decipher's June 1999 Endor Rules Supplement introduced Endor Draft, in which players chose cards from a larger pool instead of trading with one opponent.[2] Decipher's "Sanctioned OTSD Booster Draft" rules (on Decipher's site by September 1999, preserved again from 2002) already had groups of 4 or 6, alternating seating, the dummy hand, picks from one's own side only and switching pass direction, as the 2015 guide does.[3][4][1]
Tournaments
2 tournaments on List of SWCCG tournaments used this format, newest first.
| Tag | Event | Dates | Site | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000-08 | 2000 European Championship Booster Draft | 12 August 2000 | Brussels, Belgium | Johan Haneveer |
| 2000-05 | RamapoCon II Booster Draft | 6 May 2000 | Ramapo College, New Jersey | Chris Erwin |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Star Wars CCG Alternate Format Tournament Guide (revised 09/2015), Players Committee. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Endor Rules Supplement (endorrules.pdf), Decipher (June 1999), "Endor Draft Tournament Rules". Preserved copy: Internet Archive. Transcription: Endor Rulesheet.
- ↑ Rules - Star Wars CCG Sanctioned OTSD Booster Draft, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Rules – Star Wars CCG sanctioned OTSD Booster Draft, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.