Feedback: Auction Draft format

[mtvcdm]

I've mentioned this in chat a couple times, it seems like it's been received all right in there, so I decided I'd bring it into the boards and see what feedback it gets.

I was looking through the various Magic play formats- I don't play, but it was interesting to look- and of all the draft formats, there was one format familiar to me from fantasy sports that I didn't see represented in Magic: the auction draft.

Now, understand first off that a fantasy sports draft is intended to be the focal point of an entire evening: the season doesn't start right then and there, unlike in Magic, where you draft a deck and immediately run it. In sports, you draft and that's the end of the day. The actual games you use your fantasy team for come later. As such, a league's draft can be done as a social event in its own right. Everyone can see exactly who everyone else has drafted, as they're all taking turns working off of a single draft board as opposed to passing 6-8 draft boards around simultaneously (aka the cracked packs).

Here's what I envision an auction draft in Magic looking like, knowing that.

You'll want significantly more cards in play than are actually going to be drafted. I would say at least 500 cards. You'll also provide a budget to each drafter, which I'd suggest should be about $10 per card in your final draft- a normal three-pack draft supplies 45 cards, I see no reason to alter that, so $450 budget... oh, hell, bump it to an even $500. That's all the money you get to draft your entire deck. The post-draft basic lands come free; everything else costs a minimum of $1. Whole dollars only.

All 500 cards are laid out in a spread for all to see. When the draft begins, at any time, any drafter may call out a card, and a dollar value. This triggers an auction for that card. The high bid wins the card, remembering that you must leave at least $1 in your budget for each card you have yet to acquire (so if you only have 39 cards and you're trying to bid for card #40, you have to have at least $5 left afterwards so you can buy your last five cards for a buck each). Only one auction gets to occur at a time.

And then you go off, build your main and sideboard, and come back in the morning for matches.

If you choose, you can stop there, but you can also advance to part 2 of a fantasy sports league: the waiver wire.

As normal, between games in a match, you swap cards between your main and sideboard. Between MATCHES, though, all those undrafted cards resurface as a community sideboard that I'm calling the waiver wire. First, you need an initial 'waiver priority' that you can determine any way you wish; I'd suggest going in order of when players completed their decks (the last deck to complete gets first priority). The player with first priority, between matches, has first rights to take one card from the waiver wire, but in exchange, they must cut one of their current cards and place it on the waiver wire, where it can be potentially taken by someone else. If they opt not to, control passes to the next player in the priority line (if the player with last priority passes, the waiver phase ends and the next matches start). If a player does make a transaction, though, they move to the back of the priority line and the process begins again with whoever now has first priority. A player may make a maximum of three transactions between matches; after they make their third, should they come up in line again, their turn is simply skipped.

Thoughts?

[SixFootTurkey]

You may want to look into rotisserie drafts (link below). You snake draft face up, one pick at a time. Whether or not you like particular aspects of it, the discussion around it is definitely worth looking into for inspiration.

http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Rotisserie_Draft

[Antitonic]

Funnily enough, I saw this pop up on my Tumblr feed. Wizards just put out an article about this very thing: My Favorite Draft Variant

[mtvcdm]

Oh, you've GOT to be kidding me.

I still claim the waiver wire! OC do not steal

(Also the Wizards variant only shows one 3-card set at a time; mine shoves the whole pool in front of you at once.)