Draft Primer
I’ve only done 3 drafts of Star Wars Destiny so far, so some
of this is subject to change as I get more experience, but here is a guide to
up your Destiny draft game.
Rivals Deck Characters
Lobot is only a step behind Ketsu and is still more than playable.
Jawa is obviously a “filler” character BUT Jawa combos well with Ketsu. You drop a weapon on the Jawa tempting your opponent to kill it and if they do, Ketsu’s ability moves the weapon to her. If you can net an extra use out of the weapon die that is a good advantage.
Anakin Skywalker is actually quite bad and difficult to play unless you draft really hard towards a deck that he can do good in. The special is a problem, since most of the time ½ to 2/3 of your deck is going to be neutral cards, which means the special could be blank. And even then, the hero/villain cards you do have are probably on a slightly higher power level than the neutral cards meaning you don’t want to discard them to Anakin’s special either. So frequently Anakin as 2 blanks AND a pay side which basically makes him a more expensive Jawa with more health. Not a place you want to be.
So, with those evaluations in mind, at the start of a draft
you must assume that you are on 2 decks:
Ketsu/Lobot/Jawa or Ketsu/Anakin/Jawa
Never be on Anakin/Lobot/Jawa – there’s very little reason
to be on the two worst characters in the draft pack.
So of those two decks, Ketsu/Lobot/Jawa is the much safer draft strategy and is the most maneuverable into other character builds should you get some other characters. Primarily you are looking at replacing Jawa with a 9 cost or less blue character, which gets you into rainbow meaning you can draft the best pick available. OR a 9 cost or less red/yellow character that is just better than Jawa. OR you find a 10-13 point red or blue character that is better than Lobot and replace him with it – like Qui-Gon or Grievous are amazing in this spot.
You can easily swap into those other builds either early pack one or early pack 2 with next to no repercussions. Or if you don’t see any characters that are good or fit, you just stay in the Yellow/Red faction and you will have a decent character team.
Now Ketsu/Anakin/Jawa can be good, BUT it’s riskier since you basically have to be aware of going for all the Hero/Villain cards you can right from pick 1, prioritizing them before neutral picks. If you don’t get a good amount of Hero/Villain cards, you are left with a subpar team. The maneuverability is a little worse since if you’re going for Hero/Villain you probably end up with a good number of blue cards and as such can’t swap out Anakin easily for Lobot or a red/yellow character. You can still swap out the Jawa for a 9 cost or less character of any color though and still be good though. This deck can have a good payoff though if you do manage to get a lot of Hero/Villain cards turning Anakin into one of the best characters you can have.
So of those two decks, Ketsu/Lobot/Jawa is the much safer draft strategy and is the most maneuverable into other character builds should you get some other characters. Primarily you are looking at replacing Jawa with a 9 cost or less blue character, which gets you into rainbow meaning you can draft the best pick available. OR a 9 cost or less red/yellow character that is just better than Jawa. OR you find a 10-13 point red or blue character that is better than Lobot and replace him with it – like Qui-Gon or Grievous are amazing in this spot.
You can easily swap into those other builds either early pack one or early pack 2 with next to no repercussions. Or if you don’t see any characters that are good or fit, you just stay in the Yellow/Red faction and you will have a decent character team.
Now Ketsu/Anakin/Jawa can be good, BUT it’s riskier since you basically have to be aware of going for all the Hero/Villain cards you can right from pick 1, prioritizing them before neutral picks. If you don’t get a good amount of Hero/Villain cards, you are left with a subpar team. The maneuverability is a little worse since if you’re going for Hero/Villain you probably end up with a good number of blue cards and as such can’t swap out Anakin easily for Lobot or a red/yellow character. You can still swap out the Jawa for a 9 cost or less character of any color though and still be good though. This deck can have a good payoff though if you do manage to get a lot of Hero/Villain cards turning Anakin into one of the best characters you can have.
Picking cards
Characters > Upgrades/Support die cards > Dice Removal/Manipulation
cards > Resource Generating cards > everything else >Battlefields
Characters are obviously the highest picks you can take if
they fit into your deck in the ways I’ve described above. Yellow characters have very low desirability because
of how good Ketsu already is. 9 cost or less blue characters probably have the
highest desirability since they put you into rainbow with Ketsu/Lobot/Blue Guy. 13 cost or less Red/Blue characters that can
take that Lobot spot with something more powerful would be second. 9 cost yellow/red characters that can replace
Jawa would be third.
Then for your other dice cards, obviously prioritize the colors you’re in over colors you’re not in, but they come next. You might have to do some evaluating on which dice card is better than the other dice cards – damage is better than no damage (unless you’re going into mill), 2 cost is better than 3 cost is better than 4 cost (but they’re all still playable). Even utility stuff like Jedi Robes, Holocron, Obi-Wan’s Journals are still more useful than non-die cards because dice give you options.
For removal, obviously anything you’ve seen played in constructed is top notch here, but you have to not be picky. I’ll take a Scramble or Disturbance in the Force over the lower priority stuff just because having ANYTHING that can save you is still better than nothing. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Resource generating cards (Truce, Enrage, Smuggling, Logistics) get a slight nod over the rest of the utility/damage type events because in draft you’ll often need to play multiple 3 cost or maybe even a 4 cost upgrade or support. These help you get there before your opponent can, but I still don’t pick them over removal cards.
What about drafting for mill? It’s high risk for high reward, but I don’t think I would try to force my way in there unless I got a “bomb” mill early on in pack 1. I’m talking about that early Nute Gunray, Force Meditation, Jedha Partisan, Unkar, Padme, Blackmail, Con Artist, etc. If you get something like that early – go HARD into it and hopefully another player doesn’t try to do the same so that you have to split stuff.
Battlefields should be picks in like the last 3 or so cards. I don’t know if there are any of them that are worth drafting any earlier and you have a couple choices from the Rivals pack. Super low priority.
Then for your other dice cards, obviously prioritize the colors you’re in over colors you’re not in, but they come next. You might have to do some evaluating on which dice card is better than the other dice cards – damage is better than no damage (unless you’re going into mill), 2 cost is better than 3 cost is better than 4 cost (but they’re all still playable). Even utility stuff like Jedi Robes, Holocron, Obi-Wan’s Journals are still more useful than non-die cards because dice give you options.
For removal, obviously anything you’ve seen played in constructed is top notch here, but you have to not be picky. I’ll take a Scramble or Disturbance in the Force over the lower priority stuff just because having ANYTHING that can save you is still better than nothing. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Resource generating cards (Truce, Enrage, Smuggling, Logistics) get a slight nod over the rest of the utility/damage type events because in draft you’ll often need to play multiple 3 cost or maybe even a 4 cost upgrade or support. These help you get there before your opponent can, but I still don’t pick them over removal cards.
What about drafting for mill? It’s high risk for high reward, but I don’t think I would try to force my way in there unless I got a “bomb” mill early on in pack 1. I’m talking about that early Nute Gunray, Force Meditation, Jedha Partisan, Unkar, Padme, Blackmail, Con Artist, etc. If you get something like that early – go HARD into it and hopefully another player doesn’t try to do the same so that you have to split stuff.
Battlefields should be picks in like the last 3 or so cards. I don’t know if there are any of them that are worth drafting any earlier and you have a couple choices from the Rivals pack. Super low priority.
Deck Construction
You have the option of playing 20-30 cards, but you want to
play 30 cards or as close to it as you can get.
Don’t cut yourself short to try to make your deck more “powerful”, it
doesn’t work. You just get milled out by
people with full decks a lot of the time.
It’s not even a surprise either, your opponent can count your deck right
off the bat and if you have 17 cards left after you draw your hand, they’ll
just go mill from the start even if they’re not mill and beat you that way. Even “garbage” cards just equal rerolls and
you’ll probably need a couple of those most turns anyways.
The needing 30 cards part makes deck construction relatively easy too, since you probably aren’t going to have much more than that in playable cards anyways. Just cut the junkiest stuff down to 30 and you’re good to go.
The needing 30 cards part makes deck construction relatively easy too, since you probably aren’t going to have much more than that in playable cards anyways. Just cut the junkiest stuff down to 30 and you’re good to go.
Conclusion
That's all I got for now - this is a very surface level primer. You could obviously have pages and pages of card vs card evaluations. But if you sit down for a draft an you are basically totally lost as to what you should be doing - this primer should give you a huge leg up into having a competent draft.
While Ketsu is the best character in rivals, I find myself ending up in Blue/red/yellow or Blue/red a lot. Basically if you take a 9 point character you are in 3 color anyway, while if you pick a 10 point blue or red character I think Lobot+anakin is better than Ketsu+Jawa.
ReplyDeleteAs an example I first picked admiral ackbar and that was it in terms of characters I got in the draft. So I could have gone Ackbar/Ketsu/Jawa Or Lobot/Anakin/Ackbar, I figured Anakin was the better choice, I also didn't draft many yellow cards and picked up quite a few blue ones intentionally.
So to me since you typically start with a character you should think of your deck as either Ketsu+(lobot/anakin)+8-9 pointer or Lobot+anakin+10 pointer. Deck 1 tends to be 3 colors or rather can sometimes become a 3 color deck even if you first pick (say) tusken raider.
ALso if the player to your left opens 2 characters and both of them are good, consider first picking a good weapon instead. In a different draft the person to my left had opened Tusken Raider and Admiral Ackbar, while I opened Darth Vader Sith lord, Holdout Blaster, and Jetpack, I don't know about you but I would pick Admiral Ackbar over vader every time. So I first picked Holdout Blaster and chucked it into my deck. Admiral Ackbar came to me and I got to play Acbar/Lobot/Anakin. (yea I really like admiral ackbar in draft, I think Ackbar/lobot/anakin is among the better draft decks, but obviously say Tusken Raider is a massive bomb compared to ackbar)
Couldn't be written any better. Reading this post reminds me of my old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. pool deck WellingtonPretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
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