Lyrics of the Night : Draft

Just had the chance to play the Anarch and Alastor Storyline draft tournament, and boy it was fun. The 10 of us went through the first and second round of the draft, with a total of 4+1 packs, and I pretty much had a great time with this draft format. Each of us gets to choose which expansion we wanted to draft, and how many packs of it, plus the order of the drafting, AFTER we know our table positions. We also have to take into account the issue of the cards up for auction. It was great fun. I will write a tournament report. (Eventually) I was never good at drafting. Too darn stupid and rigid to be a good drafter. I tend to stick to a strategy and become rather inflexible, I don't read the table well, and I hardly counter-draft (unless I really have nothing else to take to enhance my draft deck) I tend to do these things in my draft, in this order: 1. Get the most expensive card, usually the rare, or sometimes an immediate card that I wanted, out of the game. Granted, these are normally very powerful cards - such as Heart of the City, Heart of Nizchetus, Powerbase : Montreal. But sometimes, cards that are expensive have absolutely no purpose in a draft environment, especially if you've committed to a particular strategy, or is not using that particular discipline. Heart of the City can be such a case. (Or Preternatural Strength for that matter). In these cases, my instinct of $$$$-sense will still take over and I'll take that card anyway. 2. Get the card that is most flexible, either a card that most of my drafted vampires can use, or a generic card that can be used in any decks - such as equipment, masters etc. This leads to me forgoing opportunities to counterdraft - for example, I will most probably take a Camera Phone instead of a Spell of Life. 3. When that is all done, get cheap and small vampires even if they have absolutely no discipline spread that I can use. Cheap bodies are always good in a draft environment. 4. When these are all done, only then will I try to take away cards that might counter my strategy or endanger my survival - say, an aggravated damage combat card if I'm using a combat deck, or intercept cards if I'm primarily stealthing with my Vampires. Most of the time, by the time we're done, I have absolutely no idea what is going on the table, and is completely focused on my own deck-building. Hardly the best drafter in the market. But, hey, I'm usually pretty good at getting an efficient deck running, which (usually) has good library ratio and good vampire crypt. However, I also lose most of these games. I'll need a lot of practise. (o.o)y