Team Rochester Drafts

[The Games Club]

Following the recent discussions about Rochester Drafts, The Games Club is prepared to run a Scars of Mirrodin Team (Trios Limited) Rochester Draft on the following dates:

16/10/10 (alongside The Games Club Monthly: Single Elimination Challenge)
20/11/10 (alongside PTQ Paris)

The tournament would be restricted to 4 teams (or multiples there of) with 3 players per team.

 

The structure of the tournament would be 3 rounds (Round Robin), with each round preceded by a Rochester Draft between the opposing paired teams.

 

Prizes would be awarded based on team / player wins (see below).

 

Entry fee options for this tournament are:

£37.50 per player (prize = 18 boosters / 1 per team win)

£42.50 per player (prize = 36 boosters / 2 per team win / 1 per team win + 1 per player win)

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Option 1

 

Change the structure of the tournament to 2 rounds (Swiss), with each round preceded by a Rochester Draft between the opposing paired teams.

 

Entry fee this option would be:

£27.50 per player (prize = 18 boosters)

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Option 2

 

Change the structure of the tournament to Single Elimination, with each round preceded by a Rochester Draft between the opposing paired teams.

 

Entry fee this option would be:

£17.50 per player (prize = 18 boosters)

 

[Dan Barrett]

Ohh, didn't realise it required doing 3 separate drafts and thus was so expensive...

Is there any way to do it (even if unsanctioned) with just the one draft?

[The Games Club]

Dan Barrett said:

Ohh, didn't realise it required doing 3 separate drafts and thus was so expensive...

Is there any way to do it (even if unsanctioned) with just the one draft?

Not really.

The whole point of Rochester Draft is the draft itself and the tactics employed during the draft are considerably more important in (Team) Rochester Draft than in (Individual) Booster Draft.

It would be significantly worse than playing across pods in an (Individual) Booster Draft, any matches after the first wouldn't reflect the skill of the drafters.

You might as well just do a (Team) Booster Draft if you want to keep the cost (£12.50) down, because that would save loads of time and essentially give the same play experience in the subsequent rounds, but the draw back is that it would be similar to a 12 player (Individual) Booster Draft.

The original post has been updated with a couple of alternative options.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Jason,

Thanks for working out some options, they look pretty interesting.

Is their any scope for 'pick-up' style Team Rochester. Essentially just 1draft and then the matches, no further draft or play? All that is required for this is basically 6 players, and the same number of boosters as for a 6-man booster draft with 9 boosters to the winning team?

After typing that I basically realised I was just re-phrasing Dan's question really, but I still think that just single round team rochester draft could work, just not as a full event.

[The Games Club]

sokeeffe said:

Is their any scope for 'pick-up' style Team Rochester. Essentially just 1draft and then the matches, no further draft or play? All that is required for this is basically 6 players, and the same number of boosters as for a 6-man booster draft with 9 boosters to the winning team?

Yes.

Although it would be a Casual Non-Rated event with 1 round for £12.50.

It just seem a little underwhelming compared to the other options.

[Paul Hodgson]

Would definitely be up for the full pearly king and queen team rochester, although at the moment my spare weekends are few and far between...

Approximately how long does it take to play it all out?

[Kieran Symington]

Would definately be up for the full 3-round triple draft experience, though I guess it would depend on finding two people for my team and at least another 9 people willing to play too!

[Glenn Goldsworthy]

I would be up for anything not to expensive, I don't give a monkies if it is sanctioned as that format is irrelevant. the key to team rochester is that you know who your opp is and your deck is only designed to beat them, the other option is after the first round redraft the same packs twice more or you are effectively a best of 1

[Benjamin Lei]

seems good, I am in.

[The Games Club]

Paul Hodgson said:

Approximately how long does it take to play it all out?

If I remember correctly.

A timed (Individual) Rochester Draft takes around 45 minutes, (Team) Rochester Draft certainly isn't going to be any faster but could be longer (depending on how much talking goes on during the draft).

Add to that 20 minutes deck construction, plus 50 minute rounds and you are looking at around 6 hours from start to finish (assuming no matches run too long for any extra turns).

[Thom Richardson]

I'd be up for this.

Am I right in thinking that you're not allowed to verbally communicate in Team rochester during the draft?

[The Games Club]

Thom Richardson said:

Am I right in thinking that you're not allowed to verbally communicate in Team rochester during the draft?

That used to bet he case when (Team) Rochester Draft used to be a supported format, however under the current policy team members would be allowed to communicate verbally.

[Thom Richardson]

Phew! I doubt many teams would have been able to work out an adequate sign language in time