Each player supplies 45 cards worth of sealed product (either three booster packs or a tournament pack minus the lands).
Shuffle all 90 cards together in one big deck without looking at them.
Choose someone to draft first, then put the top three cards from the deck face down next to it as three new small piles of one card each.
The first player looks at the first small pile. He may choose to draft that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with a new face-down card from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he puts it back, adds a new card from the deck face down, and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and decides to draft it or not, replacing it with a new card if he drafts it, adding a new card to it and moving on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he adds a card to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
Continue until all 90 cards have been drafted. Construct 40-card decks and play.
I was thinking about ways to modify Winston draft by introducing the element of removing cards from the draft. Part of the motivation is to make it possible to see more of the cube in a two-man draft.
Option one: Whenever a card would be added to a pile, instead two cards are added. Whenever a player declines to pick up a pile, he or she takes one card from the pile and removes it from the draft face down before adding the two new cards. If a player picks neither pile, he or she takes a single card from the deck as normal.
Shuffle all the cards together in a single deck.
Make three small piles of two cards each.
The first player looks at the first small pile. He may choose to draft that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with two new face-down cards from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he removes one card in that pile from the draft face down, puts the rest of the cards back, adds two new cards from the deck and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and decides to draft it or not, replacing it with two new cards if he drafts it; or removes a card in it from the draft and adding two new cards to it and moving on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he removes a card from it, adds two cards to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
I am unsure about how this would pan out in practice. If a pile is first picked, then 100% of the cards seen end up in either player's cardpool. However, if it is picked later, then some percentage of cards end up removed from the draft. I am unsure about how to take this into account when selecting the stack-size. Let's say piles are taken on average when they have 4 cards in them, in that case 1/3 of cards are being removed from the draft, so perhaps go from 90 to 135 cards?
Option two: Whenever a card would be added to a pile, instead two cards are added. Before a player decides whether to pick up a pile, he or she must choose a card from the pile and remove it from the draft face down.
Shuffle all the cards together in a single deck.
Make three small piles of two cards each.
The first player looks at the first small pile and removes one card in it from the draft face down. He may then choose to draft the remaining cards in that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with two new face-down cards from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he puts it back and adds two new cards from the deck and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and removes a card in it from the draft face down before deciding whether to draft it or not. He replaces it with two new cards if he drafts it; or adds two new cards to it and moves on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he removes a card from it, adds two cards to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
In this case there is always a card removed from the draft for every two cards added to the piles. Excluding the random draws from the deck, there should be twice as many cards seen as in a normal Winston draft, so perhaps a 180 pile could work.
Any thoughts on these ideas, ways to improve them, or other suggestions? A third option I was considering but I don't know if I like is that only one card is added to each pile as normal, but the active player looks at two cards and chooses which would go into the pile (the other is removed from the draft).
In my opinion, Winston is the worst way to get decks together. It's like pseudo sealed, only one that takes longer which makes me just prefer sealed.
I prefer some variant on glimpse drafting or 4x4 grid drafting, or anything else.
But, as far as this goes, I think you need to address the most important problem: the "something in my general strategy? Gotta take this now" feel. Winchester drafting sorta does that, but like grid drafting you have no hidden information. But that's why when I Winchester, every pile starts off 2 cards deep, with a face down (and each player can see half of the face downs) and when I grid draft, if you take the "short side" as player 2, you get an extra, random card (so no matter what, you end up taking the same amount as player 1)
As for improving Winston specifically, your method will probably start to erode that feeling a little, since the future piles aren't going to be so barren. But I would suggest to append the rule I applied: add a fourth pile. That inability to be subtle with your choices in Winston is a problem. But in fact... It may continue to be hard to pass up marginal cards because now your opponent will have an extra chance to burn it out of the draft. So... Hm..
Shuffle all 90 cards together in one big deck without looking at them.
Choose someone to draft first, then put the top three cards from the deck face down next to it as three new small piles of one card each.
The first player looks at the first small pile. He may choose to draft that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with a new face-down card from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he puts it back, adds a new card from the deck face down, and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and decides to draft it or not, replacing it with a new card if he drafts it, adding a new card to it and moving on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he adds a card to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
Continue until all 90 cards have been drafted. Construct 40-card decks and play.
Option one: Whenever a card would be added to a pile, instead two cards are added. Whenever a player declines to pick up a pile, he or she takes one card from the pile and removes it from the draft face down before adding the two new cards. If a player picks neither pile, he or she takes a single card from the deck as normal.
Shuffle all the cards together in a single deck.
Make three small piles of two cards each.
The first player looks at the first small pile. He may choose to draft that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with two new face-down cards from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he removes one card in that pile from the draft face down, puts the rest of the cards back, adds two new cards from the deck and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and decides to draft it or not, replacing it with two new cards if he drafts it; or removes a card in it from the draft and adding two new cards to it and moving on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he removes a card from it, adds two cards to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
I am unsure about how this would pan out in practice. If a pile is first picked, then 100% of the cards seen end up in either player's cardpool. However, if it is picked later, then some percentage of cards end up removed from the draft. I am unsure about how to take this into account when selecting the stack-size. Let's say piles are taken on average when they have 4 cards in them, in that case 1/3 of cards are being removed from the draft, so perhaps go from 90 to 135 cards?
Option two: Whenever a card would be added to a pile, instead two cards are added. Before a player decides whether to pick up a pile, he or she must choose a card from the pile and remove it from the draft face down.
Shuffle all the cards together in a single deck.
Make three small piles of two cards each.
The first player looks at the first small pile and removes one card in it from the draft face down. He may then choose to draft the remaining cards in that pile or not.
If he drafts it, he replaces that pile with two new face-down cards from the deck.
If he doesn't draft it, he puts it back and adds two new cards from the deck and moves on to the next pile.
He looks at that pile and removes a card in it from the draft face down before deciding whether to draft it or not. He replaces it with two new cards if he drafts it; or adds two new cards to it and moves on if he doesn't.
If he doesn't want to draft the third pile, he removes a card from it, adds two cards to it, then drafts a random card from the top of the deck.
Any thoughts on these ideas, ways to improve them, or other suggestions? A third option I was considering but I don't know if I like is that only one card is added to each pile as normal, but the active player looks at two cards and chooses which would go into the pile (the other is removed from the draft).
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I prefer some variant on glimpse drafting or 4x4 grid drafting, or anything else.
But, as far as this goes, I think you need to address the most important problem: the "something in my general strategy? Gotta take this now" feel. Winchester drafting sorta does that, but like grid drafting you have no hidden information. But that's why when I Winchester, every pile starts off 2 cards deep, with a face down (and each player can see half of the face downs) and when I grid draft, if you take the "short side" as player 2, you get an extra, random card (so no matter what, you end up taking the same amount as player 1)
As for improving Winston specifically, your method will probably start to erode that feeling a little, since the future piles aren't going to be so barren. But I would suggest to append the rule I applied: add a fourth pile. That inability to be subtle with your choices in Winston is a problem. But in fact... It may continue to be hard to pass up marginal cards because now your opponent will have an extra chance to burn it out of the draft. So... Hm..
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
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