Drafting vs buying cards. Which do you prefer and why?

[PleaseAGB1]

Indeed Magic TG is fun and drafting that game, and in T Mars, is much more fun; introduces another skill to the game (reading the packs, remembering what you passed, counterdrafting etc. ).

[FrankJones]

Now, if a player tells you that they won "80% of their games with non-draft" and "lost 65% of their games with draft" you might be tempted to assume that they were lucky with the draws in their "buy" games.

But what if they played 50 "buy" games and 30 "draft" games? That would mean they lost 10 games when playing non draft, and 20 when playing draft. Which means in return an overall 63% of victories, 37% losses. and brings us to 50% of victories without drafting, and 25% of losses with drafting.

But 80% puts them way above than the "fairness" level we defined earlier, and 35% puts them way below.

If the player were extremely skilled or unskilled, they would likely win most of the time or lose most of the time in both situations (since their skill could overcome bad luck against less skilled players).

Therefore we can assume the player is of "average" skill.

The person did not say, "I win most of my non-draft games".

The person said, "most of my wins are in non-draft games".

(It could well be the case that the player in question, any player making that statement, wins less than 50% of the time whether playing draft or non-draft, depending on which of the above two interpretations was the intended one.)

At this point, I would assert that it is not clear which was actually intended, though based on context, I lean toward the second one.

The first interpretation is just unlikely to be true over any meaningful sample, unless there is a significant skill difference between the players. But if there is a significant skill difference, that creates an inconsistency with most of the losses being in draft games.

I interpreted the statement as, "I have more success when I play non-draft than when I play draft." This could be true for a player who wins slightly less than half the time overall, or 30% of the time overall.

Using your interpretation and example numbers though, you have the word "most" meaning 80% one moment and then 65% the next. Which, to be, would be indicative that the word "most" is being used in a manner so vague and imprecise that other words should be used to add more clarity.

Generally, I would not use "most" to refer to a 65/35 split.

I still don't think we need specific numbers - but, more precise statements could still be made, such as, "My win% in non-draft games is significantly higher than it is in draft games". That provides a lot more information and less confusion than the original statement, while still not =providing specific numbers.

[FrankJones]

It also partly depends on what premises we start with.

Do we assume that draft is more skill-based than non-draft? I say yes; I realize others disagree.
If we start with that premise, then we would expect the more skillful players to win more often than lose when playing draft against the less skilled players.
If we start with that premise, we might expect the less skilled player to do slightly better in non-draft games, because there will be games where the non-drafted cards for the less skilled player simply are too strong for the more skilled player to overcome. But I would still expect the more skilled player to win more than half the games of non-draft against the less skilled player.

[richardforbeau]

Since drafting is generally (but not unanimously, I should point out) considered to be more skillful and less luck-based, I believe we can draw conclusions from the given information without knowing the specific numbers.

The mistake in the logic you presented is here.

This is an assumption, based on perception. It is not because general perception of a situation shifts towards a supposed rule that said rule is an axiom (IE: Earth didn't become flat during middle-age just because a large group of people believed it to be so).

Building your theory on an unverified assumption means that everything derived from it will be tainted by the bias of that initial, unproven premise.

My demonstration was indeed to argue the opposite: Drafting is not necessarily "more skillful and less luck-based" in the sense that non-drafting requires a different skillset - hence my initial post saying that I won most of my non-draft games and lost most of my draft games (and I explained what I liked/disliked about it).
But again, if you don't know the numbers behind those assertions, you cannot draw a conclusion as to what is causing it.

It's like saying "my playing style is better adapted to non-drafting games" (does that means I rely on luck?)

Or even

" I play better with CreditCor because I tend to play expensive cards" (is CreditCor is better than other corps?)


Etc...

(hint: answer to both questions is "missing data to reach an objective conclusion" )

[FrankJones]

Since drafting is generally (but not unanimously, I should point out) considered to be more skillful and less luck-based, I believe we can draw conclusions from the given information without knowing the specific numbers.

The mistake in the logic you presented is here.

This is an assumption, based on perception. It is not because general perception of a situation shifts towards a supposed rule that said rule is an axiom (IE: Earth didn't become flat during middle-age just because a large group of people believed it to be so).

Building your theory on an unverified assumption means that everything derived from it will be tainted by the bias of that initial, unproven premise.

I do not agree with this. If the vast majority of higher-level players believe draft to be more skillful than non-draft, I see no issue in using that as a premise to make inferences, with the caveat that the conclusion(s) might be flawed, but likely are not flawed.

Additional data from the person who originally made the statement would not necessarily clear this up anyway. Sometimes we need to start with an axiom and go with it.

[RoyalRook]

Since drafting is generally (but not unanimously, I should point out) considered to be more skillful and less luck-based, I believe we can draw conclusions from the given information without knowing the specific numbers.

The mistake in the logic you presented is here.

This is an assumption, based on perception. It is not because general perception of a situation shifts towards a supposed rule that said rule is an axiom (IE: Earth didn't become flat during middle-age just because a large group of people believed it to be so).

Building your theory on an unverified assumption means that everything derived from it will be tainted by the bias of that initial, unproven premise.

My demonstration was indeed to argue the opposite: Drafting is not necessarily "more skillful and less luck-based" in the sense that non-drafting requires a different skillset - hence my initial post saying that I won most of my non-draft games and lost most of my draft games (and I explained what I liked/disliked about it).
But again, if you don't know the numbers behind those assertions, you cannot draw a conclusion as to what is causing it.

It's like saying "my playing style is better adapted to non-drafting games" (does that means I rely on luck?)

Or even

" I play better with CreditCor because I tend to play expensive cards" (is CreditCor is better than other corps?)


Etc...

(hint: answer to both questions is "missing data to reach an objective conclusion" )

Blaaaaa, that's pretty stupid.

[primrose1234]

Since drafting is generally (but not unanimously, I should point out) considered to be more skillful and less luck-based, I believe we can draw conclusions from the given information without knowing the specific numbers.

The mistake in the logic you presented is here.

This is an assumption, based on perception. It is not because general perception of a situation shifts towards a supposed rule that said rule is an axiom (IE: Earth didn't become flat during middle-age just because a large group of people believed it to be so).

Building your theory on an unverified assumption means that everything derived from it will be tainted by the bias of that initial, unproven premise.

My demonstration was indeed to argue the opposite: Drafting is not necessarily "more skillful and less luck-based" in the sense that non-drafting requires a different skillset - hence my initial post saying that I won most of my non-draft games and lost most of my draft games (and I explained what I liked/disliked about it).
But again, if you don't know the numbers behind those assertions, you cannot draw a conclusion as to what is causing it.

It's like saying "my playing style is better adapted to non-drafting games" (does that means I rely on luck?)

Or even

" I play better with CreditCor because I tend to play expensive cards" (is CreditCor is better than other corps?)


Etc...

(hint: answer to both questions is "missing data to reach an objective conclusion" )

Blaaaaa, that's pretty stupid.

+1. I see so many flaws in that logic that even the opposite isn't correct.

Since people who play without draft tend to be newer players, the higher winrate at non-draft games may rely on the opponents being less experienced.

[RoyalRook]

I guess stupid is the wrong word, let's settle on fanciful and meaningless.

[R-Cane]

I VERY much preffer drafting. For me a game without draft feels just like gambling.

[Andrew Davidson]

I prefer buying for the following reasons:

1. Drafting makes little sense thematically. If a corporation was offered several good ideas, it would sometimes investigate them all. A hard restriction forcing it to pass a good idea to a competitor doesn't seem to fit the theme.

2. Drafting is not the primary game design; it's an optional extra; a bolt-on kludge.

3. As I understand it, the game designer prefers buying rather than drafting -- liking the challenge of making do with a more limited variety of options.

4. Drafting is gamey -- a game mechanic borrowed from other card games. This spoils the immersion.

5. The game has few catch-up mechanisms as it's mainly that "the rich get richer". The possibility of getting a good research draw provides some hope for a player who has fallen behind. Drafting tends to act as a leveller by sharing out the good cards. Levelling is most important at the start so it's puzzling that the initial 10 cards and preludes are not drafted. That would make more sense.