It's really difficult for me to pick anything over Cogwork Librarian. It's great, but not ridiculously overpowered.
We don't play with Canal Dredger, but I would assume it would be really imbalancing to the format as a whole -- I don't think the real issue is getting an additional last pick card as much as it is depriving your opponent from 9 total cards with a P1P1 Canal Dredger.
I just did a glimpse draft with a friend and we had a great time. Probably the two strongest decks we've had in a two player draft. The draft process did take longer than a Winston draft but if you have the extra 30 min i would glimpse draft every time.
I'll be doing 7 packs of 16 after trying 6 packs of 16, with pick 1 burn 2.
This is replacing my standby draft formats when I draft with people who don't have to read every card. This gets you 42 cards, 30 of which were in a pack of 7 or greater.
I just did a glimpse draft with a friend and we had a great time. Probably the two strongest decks we've had in a two player draft. The draft process did take longer than a Winston draft but if you have the extra 30 min i would glimpse draft every time.
When people get more familiar with the format, the drafts tend to speed up a good bit. The first one is always the longest.
I'll be doing 7 packs of 16 after trying 6 packs of 16, with pick 1 burn 2.
This is replacing my standby draft formats when I draft with people who don't have to read every card. This gets you 42 cards, 30 of which were in a pack of 7 or greater.
We did our first Glimpse draft about a week ago. We did 9 packs of 15. My first impression is that it's definitely more challenging than Winston, which was our previous two man format of choice. With Winston draft, you are almost mindlessly taking cards as you build toward what you hope to be a solid deck with a slight archetype focus. With Glimpse you really have to pay attention to what cards are missing from the pack when you get it back and what signals your opponent is sending. I'll admit that I'm terrible at draft signals and that I tend to force the decks that I see being passed early or try to force something based off my first few picks. Glimpse really puts those skills to the test. I found myself looking at the returned pack and realizing that I had no idea what three cards were missing. It was fun exercise, though, because it made me really think about it and make myself pay attention to what I was passing and what I was getting back.
It was also fun to go through the cards we both burned and show each other what we burned and discuss our thought process for not passing those cards. Is this something you guys do with your draft partners?
What do you guys do with the burned cards after the draft? By that I mean that when we Winston draft, we will usually just sort all the cards in the draft by color afterwards. We have enough cards in the cube to run four Winstons, so after four drafts the cube is completely sorted and ready for shuffling. With Glimpse, however, the cube is only big enough to do two drafts and we end up with quite a large burned stack at the end of the draft. Obviously that stack is likely missing quite a few key cards from certain colors, but it feels like a waste to just sort so many unused cards. Have you ever just drafted the burned cards? If so, what did those decks look like? Maybe I put too much thought into it.
You definitely need to pay more attention when Glimpse Drafting than when playing Winston, which I think is a good thing.
We review the burn cards, mostly to see all the amazing stuff that got purged because we were afraid to pass it.
No, I've never drafted the burn pile. It's usually missing some important stuff from the stuff we did use, so we prefer to shuffle everything together and get back at it.
I think reviewing the burned cards made for some really great discussion. It was fun seeing the cards that my opponent burned that I didn't even get to see at all. "You took my Recurring Nightmare. You ********!" That's a direct quote.
What do you guys do with the burned cards after the draft? By that I mean that when we Winston draft, we will usually just sort all the cards in the draft by color afterwards. We have enough cards in the cube to run four Winstons, so after four drafts the cube is completely sorted and ready for shuffling. With Glimpse, however, the cube is only big enough to do two drafts and we end up with quite a large burned stack at the end of the draft. Obviously that stack is likely missing quite a few key cards from certain colors, but it feels like a waste to just sort so many unused cards. Have you ever just drafted the burned cards? If so, what did those decks look like? Maybe I put too much thought into it.
So I just created this account to post an idea I've had and tried out with my wife, when I realized that after a standard glimpse draft, each person's burn pile will have 90 cards in it, which happens to be the standard size of a sealed pool. It was immediately obvious that we couldn't play our own burn piles as sealed pools (we'd be "drafting" two cards into our own pool each pick, which is just too much), but we could each play the other person's burn pile.
This has totally shaken up our glimpse drafting strategy and it carries shades of "backdraft" which we found enjoyable for a while. It also has the advantages of being able to get two different matches out of the same 2-player draft. I figured some of y'all might enjoy giving it a spin.
That's actually a really good and obvious idea that I can't believe we didn't think of doing already. We'll definitely give that a shot the next time it's just two of us.
How does that change everything about it? I feel like it changes nothing unless you actively put thought into that during the draft and make choices based on that. As in you start taking cards that you would have otherwise burned just to keep them from having them in either match. I think swapping burned stacks and attempting to build a sealed deck from them instead of just sorting and shuffling it all gets more mileage out of my shuffle, which is something I'm definitely interested in.
In our play I found myself taking bigger risks in the draft (leaving cards in that I might have otherwise cut), in the hopes that my opponent wasn't in those colors and might cut them herself. Also, whenever there were "close" cuts, where I had 3+ cards I would consider cutting, I made some decisions based on what I had previously cut.
Also, after the first iteration, when my sealed pool ended up with basically no usable fixing, I tried to avoid cutting lands at all on the second try, where I had previously been cutting off-lands sometimes to ensure that multiple on-color cards would come back to me.
However, after doing it several times, I think the next one I'm going to let the sealed part influence me less. The sealed decks are just weaker and less consistent anyway, in part because we're trying to take the most ridiculous cards for our initial draft, I think it'll be fine to just cut what you'd normally cut for the most part.
Pretty obviously, purging the best cards from the pack becomes a much worse idea when they drop directly into your opponent's next Sealed pool...
I didn't say it isn't interesting or it won't work, but you have to change basically everything about a regular Glimpse Draft strategy to play this way.
Pretty obviously, purging the best cards from the pack becomes a much worse idea when they drop directly into your opponent's next Sealed pool...
I didn't say it isn't interesting or it won't work, but you have to change basically everything about a regular Glimpse Draft strategy to play this way.
If you're dropping a bunch of best cards for a variety of different archetypes and across a wide range of colors, it's not actually that big of a deal. Sure, your opponent will get to play some great cards. This is cube! But so far the sealed pools have just been much weaker than the glimpse-drafted pools anyway, just because they aren't drafted with any kind of synergy in mind.
Of course, my cube is a pretty far shot from many of the lists I see here, so everyone's mileage is likely to vary.
All I was pointing out is that it changes the way you Glimpse the initial draft. We've looked through burn piles before; there's no way I'd want to hand that pile over to my opponent as a Sealed Pool.
wtwlf123's right, it does change the format a lot. If everyone is just playing casually and not worrying about the burn-sealed portion, it definitly doesn't change things. But if you want to get the best chances at winning both formats, you have to always be mindful of spreading your burn cards across many colors/archetypes - and at the same time, keeping a balance of burning the strongest card to keep them from your opponents draft-decks. To me, this draft+sealed format seems absoloutely exhausting, not only do you need to keep track of all the cards you've drafted, but also your entire burn pile. If the players don't get to look at the burn-piles while drafting, it is tireing to remember that many cards, and if you _do_ let players look at the burn piles while drafting, the draft is going to take ages more to finish, as players now have incentive to look through the burn pile very often to burn correctly.
The main argument here isn't wether or not the burn piles are good sealed pools in a vacuum, or compared to the draft pools. It is that you want your burn pile to be the weakest sealed pool at the table, so that your odds of winning the sealed matches is the best.
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My playgroup have had a lot of success drafting glimpse with 4 people, using a 540 pool. We're quite happy with how that turns out. My only complain is that wheeling things becomes harder than it is in a normal 8-person draft. Once we glimpsed with 4 people after having drafted a 360 cube with 8 people - only halfway through did we realize everyone was lacking 3 packs. We solved it by drafting the first 6 packs. Then shuffling together all the burned cards to 3 new cards per head, it sure was an interesting draft, not sure if I would reccomend it.
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How is everyone managing their burn piles? Everyone has their own separate burn piles, or one gigantic burn pile? Visible or not visible?
Personally we use a single burn pile face up in the middle of the draft, so both players can see who burned what each pick. Our personal play is more casual though (obviously everyone wants to win regardless), so I'm not sure how that amount of information lessens or strengthens the drafting process if you were to play in a more competitive atmosphere. I will say its interesting to see the burns, you usually get someone wondering out loud "why did you get rid of that?".
Burn piles go face down, way to much information if it goes face up, it immediately let's you know what others are drafting.
We burn cards into seperate piles per person. The reason for this is twofold. We usually glimpse with 4 people, so the burn pile ends up being 360 cards, if we just pile those in the middle, the stack eventually falls over and everything becomes disorganized. If everyone has their own burn pile, all the cards also go the right way, so after drafting you can just put all the burn piles straight into the cube box without having to organize anything.
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How big of a change would it be if the burned cards were randomly chosen? I have a feeling choosing 2 cards to burn every pick will be overwhelming for my group.
I could see Cogwork Librarian being too good because you can auto-burn him after using.
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We don't play with Canal Dredger, but I would assume it would be really imbalancing to the format as a whole -- I don't think the real issue is getting an additional last pick card as much as it is depriving your opponent from 9 total cards with a P1P1 Canal Dredger.
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This is replacing my standby draft formats when I draft with people who don't have to read every card. This gets you 42 cards, 30 of which were in a pack of 7 or greater.
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When people get more familiar with the format, the drafts tend to speed up a good bit. The first one is always the longest.
Sweet! Let us know how it goes.
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It was also fun to go through the cards we both burned and show each other what we burned and discuss our thought process for not passing those cards. Is this something you guys do with your draft partners?
What do you guys do with the burned cards after the draft? By that I mean that when we Winston draft, we will usually just sort all the cards in the draft by color afterwards. We have enough cards in the cube to run four Winstons, so after four drafts the cube is completely sorted and ready for shuffling. With Glimpse, however, the cube is only big enough to do two drafts and we end up with quite a large burned stack at the end of the draft. Obviously that stack is likely missing quite a few key cards from certain colors, but it feels like a waste to just sort so many unused cards. Have you ever just drafted the burned cards? If so, what did those decks look like? Maybe I put too much thought into it.
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We review the burn cards, mostly to see all the amazing stuff that got purged because we were afraid to pass it.
No, I've never drafted the burn pile. It's usually missing some important stuff from the stuff we did use, so we prefer to shuffle everything together and get back at it.
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So I just created this account to post an idea I've had and tried out with my wife, when I realized that after a standard glimpse draft, each person's burn pile will have 90 cards in it, which happens to be the standard size of a sealed pool. It was immediately obvious that we couldn't play our own burn piles as sealed pools (we'd be "drafting" two cards into our own pool each pick, which is just too much), but we could each play the other person's burn pile.
This has totally shaken up our glimpse drafting strategy and it carries shades of "backdraft" which we found enjoyable for a while. It also has the advantages of being able to get two different matches out of the same 2-player draft. I figured some of y'all might enjoy giving it a spin.
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Also, after the first iteration, when my sealed pool ended up with basically no usable fixing, I tried to avoid cutting lands at all on the second try, where I had previously been cutting off-lands sometimes to ensure that multiple on-color cards would come back to me.
However, after doing it several times, I think the next one I'm going to let the sealed part influence me less. The sealed decks are just weaker and less consistent anyway, in part because we're trying to take the most ridiculous cards for our initial draft, I think it'll be fine to just cut what you'd normally cut for the most part.
Pretty obviously, purging the best cards from the pack becomes a much worse idea when they drop directly into your opponent's next Sealed pool...
I didn't say it isn't interesting or it won't work, but you have to change basically everything about a regular Glimpse Draft strategy to play this way.
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If you're dropping a bunch of best cards for a variety of different archetypes and across a wide range of colors, it's not actually that big of a deal. Sure, your opponent will get to play some great cards. This is cube! But so far the sealed pools have just been much weaker than the glimpse-drafted pools anyway, just because they aren't drafted with any kind of synergy in mind.
Of course, my cube is a pretty far shot from many of the lists I see here, so everyone's mileage is likely to vary.
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The main argument here isn't wether or not the burn piles are good sealed pools in a vacuum, or compared to the draft pools. It is that you want your burn pile to be the weakest sealed pool at the table, so that your odds of winning the sealed matches is the best.
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My playgroup have had a lot of success drafting glimpse with 4 people, using a 540 pool. We're quite happy with how that turns out. My only complain is that wheeling things becomes harder than it is in a normal 8-person draft. Once we glimpsed with 4 people after having drafted a 360 cube with 8 people - only halfway through did we realize everyone was lacking 3 packs. We solved it by drafting the first 6 packs. Then shuffling together all the burned cards to 3 new cards per head, it sure was an interesting draft, not sure if I would reccomend it.
Personally we use a single burn pile face up in the middle of the draft, so both players can see who burned what each pick. Our personal play is more casual though (obviously everyone wants to win regardless), so I'm not sure how that amount of information lessens or strengthens the drafting process if you were to play in a more competitive atmosphere. I will say its interesting to see the burns, you usually get someone wondering out loud "why did you get rid of that?".
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We burn cards into seperate piles per person. The reason for this is twofold. We usually glimpse with 4 people, so the burn pile ends up being 360 cards, if we just pile those in the middle, the stack eventually falls over and everything becomes disorganized. If everyone has their own burn pile, all the cards also go the right way, so after drafting you can just put all the burn piles straight into the cube box without having to organize anything.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!