How to play draft

[Spoof]

Title. I've gone 0-3 6 times in a row already.

[air]

I've been trying to tackle it since official release; still terrible at it despite doing well in Battle.

Your random deck will almost always be unbalanced. Too many bombers without guard cards or units to take the front line. Too many guards with low attack and no attack buffs. Even when you pick nations that should come with more guards or draw orders, such as Britain, it's still 50/50 that you could end up without a single guard or draw card. Very often, you can't even build a straight forward deck around simple stats (high attack, high defense, low Kredits) and mechanics (a couple of draws and removals), because many random cards are useless in a match or do not work with one another.

Draft also likes to give you all copies of the same card. Would you like 4 copies of a buff that relies on the number of British air units, which you have none (because Draft gave you only non-British air units)? Or 4 copies of a draw card that requires Japan or USA's units in the front line, but Draft would give you only bomber or artillery units from that nation? Would you like 3 copies of a suicidal card, which destroys your unit or discards a random card from your hand? Or 4 copies of a card that lowers operation costs, even though your units are already cheap fodders, and lowering the operation cost only hastens their demise? Or 12 different kinds of heals and retreats while it's given you only low attack, low defense units or support units for the rest of your deck?

A lot of good ladder/ranking players do not play Draft exactly because you have to spend a lot of money or gold to re-roll your deck just to keep up with those players who do so, but in the end, you don't even get to keep your Draft deck.

[Warchild698]

Agree with every word. Building a reasonable Draft deck? Ok, here you are: three shovels of dung. Choose one.

[Zeon Did Nothing Wrong]

Why do you guys expect to play draft and win a lot? Bad for business because people will just grinding from draft instead of buying things also after resistance update it's just pointless to do draft, 10 golds pack is more worth instead spending another 5 for literal random cards.

[juanval]

I always play on draft and it's not so difficult once you understand there are cards that work very well in drafts. I win aprox 66% of matches in drafts and many times I've won the entire draft.

Try to play with US deck as main. It has lots of great cards.

[Thomas]

You raise a good point there! Have you had a look at some of the great community guides about Draft?

For example, there are two good guides on PlayKards (Draft Guide Part 1[playkards.com], Draft Guide Part 2[playkards.com]) and a fun and informative Draft coaching session with developer Olikrummi and expert player Blue Blast.

[air]

The guides and coaching session are nothing like what's going on in reality. I just went back to see whether anything has changed with Draft. It's the same as before (besides the inclusion of preview cards for this winter).

Most Draft decks you face will be as complete and as organized as constructed Battle decks, if not more so. If you face Japan, they will have rare cards such as the smokescreened 1st Signal (1 damage to HQ every time their unit dies), the smokescreened Ho-Ro artillery, the smokescreened Sendai, blitz & fury attack buffs such as Burst of Fire or Finest Hour (from Britain), a couple of either Jade Division, Last Man, Empire of the Sun, or Samurai. If you face USA, they will have many bombers that damage or destroy another unit upon deployment, Airacobra with -2 resistance against ground units including artillery, Greyhounds in combination with front line buffs, T19 Howitzers that suppress Guard, Priests that become 3-3 if they have the front line, Long Tom, Avenger, a couple of either High Altitude Bombing, Patriotic Zeal, Seaborne Invasion, or Torpedo Attack. A German deck would have Leopold, a full gamut of removals and discard cards, Panther As which erase 1 draw on deployment, Panther Gs which are immune to orders, fury bombers, etc. You get the idea. A majority of these decks are even better than the ones I see in Battle. Not only do they include Specials and Elites, of which some Battle players may not have access to, the units and orders are cohesive around the intended strategy of the whole deck.

On the other hand, despite my best effort at choosing cards, most of the time I could barely keep the # of order cards in my deck below 20. As frequently is the case, Draft would offer 3 copies each of 3 different orders, none of which would have been useful. In comparison, each of my Battle decks (except for Soviet removals) has 10 or fewer orders! As before, I again tried Britain for more guards and Soviet for more removals. I ended up being offered only 3 guards from Britain and 2 removals from Soviet. My Japan deck ended up with tons of pin orders, suicide orders, tiny buff orders, support tanks, but barely over 10 other units and only 1 draw card. The RNG has no idea what's good from which nation. The advice from the guides for making a generically functional Draft deck is simply inapplicable or, at best, ineffective against carefully re-rolled Draft decks that are going around.

[kingjames488]

if I told you it'd be harder to win...

in general you want to pick strong cards that don't rely on each other and other standard deck building guidelines....

[DARKCA5TLE]

In my experience it comes down to luck. You might get cards that complement each other well and are good value or you might have to pick between 3 equally useless sets of cards.

[Behemothus]

Guys you better learn something instead crying and complaining. I'm not a great draft-player but during draft-event I played 16-17 drafts got six 7-wins, few 5-6 wins. The others were worse. For sure it wasn't my first draft wins. Deck-building in draft and the whole approach to games are different to the lader. It takes time to get this science but it worth to do.

[Lucky_Star_Fan]

Originally posted by air:

The guides and coaching session are nothing like what's going on in reality. I just went back to see whether anything has changed with Draft. It's the same as before (besides the inclusion of preview cards for this winter).

Most Draft decks you face will be as complete and as organized as constructed Battle decks, if not more so. If you face Japan, they will have rare cards such as the smokescreened 1st Signal (1 damage to HQ every time their unit dies), the smokescreened Ho-Ro artillery, the smokescreened Sendai, blitz & fury attack buffs such as Burst of Fire or Finest Hour (from Britain), a couple of either Jade Division, Last Man, Empire of the Sun, or Samurai. If you face USA, they will have many bombers that damage or destroy another unit upon deployment, Airacobra with -2 resistance against ground units including artillery, Greyhounds in combination with front line buffs, T19 Howitzers that suppress Guard, Priests that become 3-3 if they have the front line, Long Tom, Avenger, a couple of either High Altitude Bombing, Patriotic Zeal, Seaborne Invasion, or Torpedo Attack. A German deck would have Leopold, a full gamut of removals and discard cards, Panther As which erase 1 draw on deployment, Panther Gs which are immune to orders, fury bombers, etc. You get the idea. A majority of these decks are even better than the ones I see in Battle. Not only do they include Specials and Elites, of which some Battle players may not have access to, the units and orders are cohesive around the intended strategy of the whole deck.

On the other hand, despite my best effort at choosing cards, most of the time I could barely keep the # of order cards in my deck below 20. As frequently is the case, Draft would offer 3 copies each of 3 different orders, none of which would have been useful. In comparison, each of my Battle decks (except for Soviet removals) has 10 or fewer orders! As before, I again tried Britain for more guards and Soviet for more removals. I ended up being offered only 3 guards from Britain and 2 removals from Soviet. My Japan deck ended up with tons of pin orders, suicide orders, tiny buff orders, support tanks, but barely over 10 other units and only 1 draw card. The RNG has no idea what's good from which nation. The advice from the guides for making a generically functional Draft deck is simply inapplicable or, at best, ineffective against carefully re-rolled Draft decks that are going around.

Bit of an exaggeration IMO. I haven't played Kards since the summer expack and I played again this weekend. In ten draft games I went 7-3(this was over 2 decks). I ran into exactly one opposing deck which felt like constructed, bicycle troop into 35t and snowball from there. And I still almost stabilized against it. Most draft opponents are gonna have a grab bag of random stuff that has limited synergy. I would not recommend drafting Britain for 'more guards' or Soviets for, 'more removals/orders'. Guards don't really win you draft games and Soviet orders aren't really the high point of the faction.

When drafting, aim for value, simple as. "What is value?" You ask, well that's eye of the beholder, but effectively since you have no idea what you will get later, adaptable cards and well statted generalists are very good. If you are struggling with draft I would always recommend Germany and USA as primary nations. Japan is a close third. For supporting nations, Brits and USA are the best, if you ask me. And sometimes, you may be offered 3 mediocre cards(or things you already have too much of) or one bad card. Take the one bad card. Likewise, take the amazing special card instead of 3 average/above average common/limited cards.

Some decks you draft are bad. Some decks you draft are amazing. Sometimes you will queue into somebody who has an amazing deck, or amazing luck or just an order of cards which counters your own. This happens, losing happens, the game is not rigged.

[air]

All these simplistic advice and guidelines have been tried, and they just aren't effective, because a majority of the times, Draft does NOT offer you cards that have value. If you happen to get a deck that works well, of course you can win, but how many times does it take to roll that? Before the Resistance nerf, there were many Resistance decks in Draft as well, with a full set of Exped. Corps, Vive La Resist., Arming the Resist., Liberation, Sabotage, and B-26, even though it was extremely difficult to assemble. Every time I picked France, for example, in average only about 4 types of Resistance-related cards were offered, the total # of copies falling way short of what a Resistance deck needs. It's beside the point for Draft fans to repeat how a Draft deck has to be adaptable, not rely on on synergy, etc., because the whole point is that even a straight forward deck is difficult to put together in Draft. And even if you were able to do so, it would have no chance against decks that have been re-rolled to the same quality as competitive ladder decks. If you haven't seen the well-constructed Draft decks that are out there, you're probably being queued against very different players than I have been.

[Zeon Did Nothing Wrong]

Stop playing draft Jesus Christ

[General E. Drunk]

Originally posted by air:

All these simplistic advice and guidelines have been tried, and they just aren't effective, because a majority of the times, Draft does NOT offer you cards that have value. If you happen to get a deck that works well, of course you can win, but how many times does it take to roll that? Before the Resistance nerf, there were many Resistance decks in Draft as well, with a full set of Exped. Corps, Vive La Resist., Arming the Resist., Liberation, Sabotage, and B-26, even though it was extremely difficult to assemble. Every time I picked France, for example, in average only about 4 types of Resistance-related cards were offered, the total # of copies falling way short of what a Resistance deck needs. It's beside the point for Draft fans to repeat how a Draft deck has to be adaptable, not rely on on synergy, etc., because the whole point is that even a straight forward deck is difficult to put together in Draft. And even if you were able to do so, it would have no chance against decks that have been re-rolled to the same quality as competitive ladder decks. If you haven't seen the well-constructed Draft decks that are out there, you're probably being queued against very different players than I have been.

Think about what you are saying here...

"It's almost impossible to make a good deck in draft, because all the other players' decks are op"

Umm.

We literally ARE "the other players", so it's clear that many of us have figured it out, and virtually all players who have "figured it out" gives you similar advice that you then chose to ignore when you make a deck consisting of 20+ bad orders and then you blame the game/the advice.

[air]

Originally posted by Vrezerch:

Stop playing draft Jesus Christ

I don't play Draft; that's the point which you didn't seem to have read.

[air]

Originally posted by General E. Drunk:

Think about what you are saying here...

"It's almost impossible to make a good deck in draft, because all the other players' decks are op"

Umm.

We literally ARE "the other players", so it's clear that many of us have figured it out, and virtually all players who have "figured it out" gives you similar advice that you then chose to ignore when you make a deck consisting of 20+ bad orders and then you blame the game/the advice.

Probably because you are lying and pretending players can control how their deck turns out, when in reality most of it relies on rolling your deck again and again. If Draft offers you 40+ orders, you will end up with a lot of them no matter how you pick and choose. You aren't even guaranteed the nations of your liking; it's all determined by algorithms. I had a round vs. a US/JP deck, 2 Sendais, 2 Deaths from Above, 1 Pershing, 1 Avenger, 3 units that retreat/bounce a target, all within the first 10 turns. There's no way your fake 'figuring out' could have made that deck on the first couple of tries or defeated that deck.

Do I win more often than not in Draft? Actually yes, probably around 65%. But Battle is a lot easier, less luck based, and less expensive. On top of this, Battle still attempts to match new players against one another; how well it does so is another matter of course. Achievements for rewards are also less demanding when a player is starting out. Finally, Battle experience is actually applicable to ladder and winning FM. On the other hand, even when I win in Draft, it's usually because of luck or because the other guy had an even worse deck. So I avoid it, since more often than not, it's a waste of time and resources.

I shared my experience and reasons with the thread author so that relatively new players, or those who are losing frequently, can know what they are getting themselves into and are not completely misled by so-called advice from folks like you. I've never started a thread complaining about Draft or advocated for it to be changed; the only reason I'm speaking out is because when I was new, I fell for the same load of crap that's still being peddled around, despite Draft having remained the same.