Draft Strategies

[sivousplay]

I thought this might be a cool thing to discuss both from the "general fun" perspective and it might give Marc a chance to see how people are evaluating things and make any changes if he saw something undesired taking place.

From my perspective, I think that the characters / portfolios are very cool and I will definitley focus on the Gems cards to try and get some of the cool portfolio enhancements. I also very much like the idea of being heroic and will therefore work to get some swords cards to increase my Hero Points. I would not be inclined to sacrifice either of these two for dragon stuff or for stat mods (stars) because I'm expecting to play an ECL character that's already had a number of stat mods.

What are the rest of you thinking?
jim

BTW, Marc brought up a very interesting point when he and I were discussing this offline ... if there are two suits that you're interested in then your MUST HAVE VERY FAVORITE CHARACTER has a 50/50 chance of sitting on a suit that you don't care about!!!

 

[Haltherrion]

I thought this might be a cool thing to discuss both from the "general fun" perspective and it might give Marc a chance to see how people are evaluating things and make any changes if he saw something undesired taking place.

From my perspective, I think that the characters / portfolios are very cool and I will definitley focus on the Gems cards to try and get some of the cool portfolio enhancements. I also very much like the idea of being heroic and will therefore work to get some swords cards to increase my Hero Points. I would not be inclined to sacrifice either of these two for dragon stuff or for stat mods (stars) because I'm expecting to play an ECL character that's already had a number of stat mods.

Please do let me know your thoughts on game balance and just your basic interests. While you may end up causing me to reduce something you think is very cool, be aware that imbalance issues can be spotted by several folks and you may not be the one to take advantage of it

Also, if something seems to be unpopular (such as a particular suit), I'll look for ways to make it more interesting.

BTW, Marc brought up a very interesting point when he and I were discussing this offline ... if there are two suits that you're interested in then your MUST HAVE VERY FAVORITE CHARACTER has a 50/50 chance of sitting on a suit that you don't care about!!!

To carry that further, if there are two suits you want to focus on and two figures you really want, the odds of both figures being on your preferred suit is only 1 in 4.

Therefore, you need to decide whether you are more interested in a particular figure or more interested in particular suits. In the latter case, I would recommend coming up with an ordered list of figures (from most to least desirable) and doing your card-peeks/picks in that order (strictly).

For instance, you'd peek at the cards under your first and second favorite figures the first round. If neither of them had the suits you wanted, then you pick the 3rd most favorite figure (so that you at least still have a chance of getting your preferred suit). (Also, don't forget that you might be able to partner up with someone who is looking for other suits: "if you tell me where gems are, I'll tell you where you can find a dragon card.")

Whereas if you are really interested in the figure, then you'll just pick the figure and take whatever card you get.

 

[Haltherrion]

My own suit preferences will depend on exactly what character concept I have in mind which will likely be strongly influenced by my first two peeks.

For instance, if I go with a human or elf, I'll probably look for more stats (Stars cards). If I go with a half-celestial, I may rely more on my stat mods and not go for any Stars.

If my first pick reveals a figure with a cool bonus card (like the -1 ECL card which is probably the best bonus card out there), I will likely try hard to make that figure work as a PC and that may shift my suit strategy dramatically. If I pick a cool card combo later in the draft, that could throw my whole strategy out the window and leave me with a very mixed hand of cards.

In general, though, my thoughts are to also favor the Swords and Gems suits. That tells me (as a ref) that I may need to beef up Dragons and Stars so I will take a look at that after I have Dragons worked up. I'll probably have Dragons done early tonight so I might try overhauling the cards and suit benefits sooner rather than later.

 

[SuperBeast]

I agree with Marc, if I plan on a Human character, I am going for star cards and hero points. Any other race will give me enough stat mods to not worry about star cards.

Amongst all this discussion, whatever happened to the idea of trading cards? If that is the case, then all will work out for the best. If I get a human without star cards, I am sure that there is someone with a high ECL race that did get stars I can trade with. Of course, this might be a reason to not allow trading, or at least limit the amount of trading.

 

[sivousplay]

About trading, my understanding is that you trade "card sets," meaning you don't just trade your suit card, but the figure/bonus card as well. So, the desire to keep a portfolio of certain characters will limit trading all by itself.

IF you don't care about the other members in your portfolio or are willing to work with whatever you get, then you are right, you should be able to trade more effectively. Still, with only 9 cards for a particular suit and 6 players, there will be multiple players trying to get the same cards making it difficult to get too much of any one suit without a certain amount of luck w/ your peaks and picks.

jim

 

[SuperBeast]

Oh, I see. So you have to trade your whole figure with someone else. I guess if you give up everything to make your main PC super tough, that might work...

It seems to me that the draft is going to be pretty complex, with some subtile stratigies involved. I look forward to have a practice draft.

 

[sivousplay]

And, don't forget there's the "poker hand" portion of the cards that gives you the chance to be firstborn, should you desire that. So, getting a lot of a suit or lots of a particular number may be something you try for to get the firstborn option.

The firstborn thing is pretty cool, but kinda dangerous for your PC, but if you decline firstborn (as the poker hand winner), you can still get a pretty nice reward. So, it also shouldn't be forgotten as something to at least consider when you're optimizing your strategy.

jim

 

[Haltherrion]

About trading, my understanding is that you trade "card sets," meaning you don't just trade your suit card, but the figure/bonus card as well. So, the desire to keep a portfolio of certain characters will limit trading all by itself.

IF you don't care about the other members in your portfolio or are willing to work with whatever you get, then you are right, you should be able to trade more effectively. Still, with only 9 cards for a particular suit and 6 players, there will be multiple players trying to get the same cards making it difficult to get too much of any one suit without a certain amount of luck w/ your peaks and picks.

jim

Jim is correct. You trade card triplets: figures, bonus and suit card all go together. That's why if your heart is set on a particular figure and you also want to get six Sword cards, then you are likely to be in a quandary because your figure is 75% likely to be on something other than swords.

To Jim's second point, it looks like Swords will be very popular which should make it very difficult for anyone to get more than four, at best. It might suggest a better strategy would be to focus on a different suit while picking up whatever swords cards you can manage.

 

[Haltherrion]

It seems to me that the draft is going to be pretty complex, with some subtile stratigies involved. I look forward to have a practice draft.

I agree it will be complex; hopefully in a good way where multiple strategies can work and subtle counts (as opposed to a bad way where it is too confusing to get a character you want and no body is happy ).

I think some practise runs would be in order. In fact, it is something we could try for some of the schedule-conflict weekends coming up. Jim has given me some placeholder pics to use so that I can do a full figure set fairly soon so we can practice whenever.

Trouble is, without six people, it might be hard to do some dry runs. We'd have to play double hands whichis very hard. Better than nothing though.

 

[Haltherrion]

And, don't forget there's the "poker hand" portion of the cards that gives you the chance to be firstborn, should you desire that. So, getting a lot of a suit or lots of a particular number may be something you try for to get the firstborn option.

The firstborn thing is pretty cool, but kinda dangerous for your PC, but if you decline firstborn (as the poker hand winner), you can still get a pretty nice reward. So, it also shouldn't be forgotten as something to at least consider when you're optimizing your strategy.

jim

Yep- still more factors (by design) to optimize for. Here's what players will have to consider:

Figure preference
Effects of specific suit cards of interest (for instance, you might really want dragon armor or estates or some such)
Effects of holding n-cards of suit (for HP, stats, etc.)
Bonus card effects which will likely dynamically change your strategy during the draft (that's the intent )

This is an over constrained problem (again by design). I think as a strategy, players should create a figure-pick-order list which is a guide for what figures to peek at to learn where cards are. They should then consider what specific cards they care about, what bonus cards are really interesting to them and what general mix of suits they want. The latter will have to be something like:

Stars cards: none needed
Gems: 1-3
Swords: 2-6
Dragons: if I can get the trueblood card, 2 Dragon cards, otherwise nothing