Free Online Drafting

[Thomas David Baker]

I've written some very alpha-quality software for doing online drafts and put it here:

http://draft.bluebones.net/

Basic run through:

* Sign Up (link at the top)
* "Start a New Draft"
* Set number of players to "1". Choose some boosters. Click "Create".
* You're in a one-person draft. Click on a card to pick it. (Yes, you get all the cards in each booster in a one-person draft.)

Getting a bit more advanced:

* Assemble one or more friends (or different browsers).
* One person clicks "Start a New Draft".
* Set number of players to "2" (or 3, 4, whatever). Choose some boosters. Click "Create".
* Everyone else refresh the homepage and click "Join" on the newly created draft.
* Draft!

Notes:

* There WILL be bugs. It may not work at all for you. If so please report what you see on this thread.
* The code is entirely untested in any version of Internet Explorer/Windows and may just not work there at all.
* For now you can choose any official WotC set to make boosters to draft from. (Drafting From the Vault: Dragons is particularly silly.) I will add the capability to draft my Pauper cube (amongst other things) later.
* There is no reporting of how many people have joined your draft and thus how close it is to firing, etc. If someone leaves there is no reporting of this, you just sit there.
* When you finish the draft there is no nice ending, it just takes you to "waiting" for Pack 4, Pick 1.
* You can download your picks at any time using the link at the bottom of "Picks". It's MTGO format for now because that is simple. MWS to come.
* Viewing a draft you are not part of has unspecified results at this time.

Please add bug reports and feature requests on this thread. Perhaps we can get online about 6pm UK time on Sunday and try it out for realz (meet in chat?)

[Julian Dale]

Says the page has moved :-( where to?

[Kieran Symington]

Just had a go with this and a few odd things happened:

1. It may just be in one-man drafts, but most times I picked a card the card I picked appeared for a bit in the "new" booster after it had loaded then disappeared. If it happens in multiplayer drafts as well you'll be able to see what the player passing to you has picked every time.

2. I got a Zendikar pack with two Journey to Nowhere in it. Though I thought it might have been a foil, the pack also had two mountains in it!

3. Not to be outdone, a pack I opened in Masters Edition III had THREE Wei Infantry and two Spirit Shackle in it.

3. There was an option to have Worldwake as a set in the draft, so obviously it was the first one I picked. Unsurprisingly, this then broke the draft.

[Paul Young]

In triple zen the download packs send u to an error message and I also find the refresh of packs to occasionally show the last pick, its the browser refreshing faster than it sending I think. Oh and i'm on firefox and no problems using that browser.

Also when is the timer going to be implemented, some people will need that to even get a draft going smoothly.

[Thomas David Baker]

@Everyone - If you're around this afternoon/evening hop on chat and we'll try and do a multiplayer test.

@Julian - what browser are you using?

@Kieran - (1) It's not the new booster appearing, it's the old booster reappearing (with your pick still in it), although the distinction is not very clear in a one man draft :) So there's no additional information appearing although it is confusing/annoying. (2) + (3) My booster algorithm is pretty noddy: "9 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare/mythic and 1 special which is usually a common but can be anything to represent foils". I'll add some code to prevent duplicates. (4) "Exception (No cards with rarity Uncommon in Worldwake)" :)

@Paul - I'll fix the deck link problem. No plans for timer at the moment but I'll put it on the list. Hopefully with groups of people you know drafting initially this is not an issue.