Board Game Arena

Draft helps to balance the game also. If one player keeps getting good drafts he has to share those with the other player(s).

My opinion lies with what seems to be the majority on this thread. Drafting makes the game less luck based more skill based. It does take more time if you want a shorter game, sure no draft. It's not the same game though.

To give an opposite opinion, I personally prefer buying over drafting.

Except for a very few games that can indeed be too unbalanced to win, buying card allows to define a strategy and think ahead, depending on what cards you have in hand. And the moment you buy, you know among those 4 which ones can go into your strategy. Sometimes I'll get bad cards for three or four generation, then the next draw I get 'the' 2 or 3 cards that I need to turn things around.

Instead, when drafting you'll have to sacrifice three of them and can't plan ahead until you get the next three -it may seem equal, but in fact more often than not a pair of card in a draw of 4 goes together according to what you plan to do, and if an opponent takes the second, your strategy is blasted.

Again, i don't find playing without drafting particularly disadvantageous. If one player starts building resources, it can be counter it by rushing the endgame, if they start drawing loads of cards you cut their resources, and so on. Also people often underestimate available resources on the board, that can help balancing as well.
Most of my winning games were buy, and most of my losing ones were drafts. Just saying

richardforbeau wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 19:43
Most of my winning games were buy, and most of my losing ones were drafts. Just saying

Interesting. I wonder what conclusion we can draw from that?

One thing to add is drafting makes in-person TM a little more interactive and fun

Any Magic: the Gathering players here? I find that when I play TfM with draft the whole game scratches the same itches as a cube draft. So addictive.

FrankJones wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 23:06

richardforbeau wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 19:43
Most of my winning games were buy, and most of my losing ones were drafts. Just saying

Interesting. I wonder what conclusion we can draw from that?

you are being cheeky, but if you really want to draw a conclusion from that you need to take into account the % of games won in both situations. Again, it's just a different point of view.

richardforbeau wrote: ↑26 August 2025, 14:57

FrankJones wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 23:06

richardforbeau wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 19:43
Most of my winning games were buy, and most of my losing ones were drafts. Just saying

Interesting. I wonder what conclusion we can draw from that?

you are being cheeky, but if you really want to draw a conclusion from that you need to take into account the % of games won in both situations. Again, it's just a different point of view.

You said most of your wins occurred in non-draft games and most of your losses were in draft games. Do we need the percentages? The word "most", I would think, gives the same information the percentages would give.

If a player tells me, "Most of my wins are non-draft, and most of my losses were draft", I would think that means the player is able to win when both players get random cards with no draft, likely because that player got better cards, but that when drafting was in play, that same player struggled to win.

Of course, there are other possibilities, but that one seems the most likely conclusion. Each individual case might be different, including yours, obviously, but in general, that is the conclusion I would draw, if, for example, 20 players (who play in different games, not always against one another) made the same statement.

FrankJones wrote: ↑26 August 2025, 17:56

richardforbeau wrote: ↑26 August 2025, 14:57

FrankJones wrote: ↑25 August 2025, 23:06

Interesting. I wonder what conclusion we can draw from that?

you are being cheeky, but if you really want to draw a conclusion from that you need to take into account the % of games won in both situations. Again, it's just a different point of view.

You said most of your wins occurred in non-draft games and most of your losses were in draft games. Do we need the percentages? The word "most", I would think, gives the same information the percentages would give.

If a player tells me, "Most of my wins are non-draft, and most of my losses were draft", I would think that means the player is able to win when both players get random cards with no draft, likely because that player got better cards, but that when drafting was in play, that same player struggled to win.

Of course, there are other possibilities, but that one seems the most likely conclusion. Each individual case might be different, including yours, obviously, but in general, that is the conclusion I would draw, if, for example, 20 players (who play in different games, not always against one another) made the same statement.

It's a simple matter of statistical analysis.

If you don't have the % of loss/victories for the two situations, you cannot draw a proper conclusion. Here is why:

In a fair game, we expect each player to win approximately 50% of the time in the long run, assuming both players are equally skilled. This is the baseline we use for comparison. Because, unless a player is extremely skilled or extremely bad, they will likely fall somewhere in the middle of the mass of players, averaging out against both better and worse players.
So, the fact that they are playing against a variety of skill levels makes this 50% baseline acceptable.

In this situation, in a long set of games, we expect player A to win, in the long run, 50% of their games in a 2px, 33% in a 3px, 25% in a 4px game. Anything significantly different requires a bias, either in the player's skill, or the game fairness.

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.

If the player is of average skill, then their win rates ought to align with the % mentioned above, over the long run, with a minor fluctuation depending on whether they are in the lower or higher part of said mass of players (which, if we look at the total victory statistics, could tell us that they are in the medium-high skill area, since they reached an average of 63%).

However, if they are "mildly better than average", they ought to be able to win in both situations, since, in a draft game they'd be able to overcome difficulties against less skilled players.

So, in this situation, the fact that we see a big difference between the two methods does not implies that the game is "rigged" in favor of "buy" vs "draft"; it rather means that the player has a strategy that works better with one method over the other.

TL;DR: we need to know the number of played games and % of victories in both setups to draw a proper conclusion. Oh, yes, I already sad that

richardforbeau wrote: ↑27 August 2025, 01:13

TL;DR: we need to know the number of played games and % of victories in both setups to draw a proper conclusion. Oh, yes, I already sad that

Yes, you have said it.

I'm not sure I agree that you have adequately supported this assertion.
I have extensive background in probability and statistics, but that does not mean I am right or wrong here. Which is why we're having the discussion

Most important, I think, is defining the word "most" (in the context it was used, not as the first word of my sentence).

A player says, "Most of my wins were non-draft" and "most of my losses were draft".
Does "most" mean 80%? Let's go with 80% for the sake of argument. Regardless of the specific numbers, this player is much more likely to win when not drafting, and much more likely to lose when drafting.

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.

Is it possible we're dealing with sample sizes too small to be relevant? Yes. though I would question the word choice of saying "most [something] and most [something else]" if the sample size were not significant.

Is it possible that the player is very lucky in non-draft games? Yes, which is pretty much my point.
Is it possible the player is very unlucky in non-draft games? Yes, though that would be a rather unlikely string of bad luck, unless we're dealing with a sample size too small, in which case we shouldn't be using words like "most" as though it has any meaning, as per my previous paragraph.

Is there enough data to make definitive conclusions? Perhaps not. Is there enough information to make some strong assertions that have a high likelihood of being correct? Yes, in my opinion.

In general, I would assert that non-draft gives a weaker player a significantly higher probability to win than drafting does.

[NOTE - I added more thoughts on the next page of this thread.]