What happens when you combine a bidding system with grid drafting? Well, that's what I was trying to figure out. I came up with the mash up on the airplane, so it's only a rough idea at the moment.
How it works:
- Create a 4x4 grid of cards.
- Starting from the top left corner and moving across the top, number them 5, 10, 15, and 20.
- Do the same moving down the left side.
- Now, to see how much a group of cards costs, your start at the most left card of a row, or the most top card of a column, and move across/down as many cards as you want, then multiply the number of cards you took by the value of that row/column.
- For example, there's an Umezawas Jitte three spaces from the left and three down, so I grab that card, and all cards before it (either above or to the left), then pay points equal to (number of cards taken) x (point value of row/column). In this instance, it'd be 45 points.
- Finally, the player ends their turn by sliding all cards in a row or column to the left or top respectively, then replacing the taken cards from the cube.
The point system: Everyone starts with 300 points, and goes through 20 rounds, gaining 10 points per round, then builds their deck.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts/questions/concerns, as I'm sure this isn't perfect. I do think there's the seed of an engaging 2-4 person draft format though.
Interesting. It would probably take some tweaking of the row/column costs and the starting points to get the right tension. But I can see some great decision points. Like say your above example comes up mid-draft when people are fairly low on points, enough so that they can't pay 45 points for Jitte. Nobody wants to hand a cheap Jitte to their opponent though either so everyone would refuse to take the cheaper cards in the same row/column.
Could be pretty fun. Please - someone with more cubing time than me test this, tweak it and report back.
How it works:
- Create a 4x4 grid of cards.
- Starting from the top left corner and moving across the top, number them 5, 10, 15, and 20.
- Do the same moving down the left side.
- Now, to see how much a group of cards costs, your start at the most left card of a row, or the most top card of a column, and move across/down as many cards as you want, then multiply the number of cards you took by the value of that row/column.
- For example, there's an Umezawas Jitte three spaces from the left and three down, so I grab that card, and all cards before it (either above or to the left), then pay points equal to (number of cards taken) x (point value of row/column). In this instance, it'd be 45 points.
- Finally, the player ends their turn by sliding all cards in a row or column to the left or top respectively, then replacing the taken cards from the cube.
The point system: Everyone starts with 300 points, and goes through 20 rounds, gaining 10 points per round, then builds their deck.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts/questions/concerns, as I'm sure this isn't perfect. I do think there's the seed of an engaging 2-4 person draft format though.
(CubeTutor & MTGS)
360 Peasant Cube!
Custom Cube
RWU Miracles RWU
Could be pretty fun. Please - someone with more cubing time than me test this, tweak it and report back.