Board Game Arena

So I know what a normal draft and snake draft are. What I'm confused by is the draft option BGA has when making a table.

I made a table with friends and chose snake draft thinking that's how you're supposed to draft in Heat, which it is per the rulebook. The only thing I thought was odd was that the option mentions discarding a card at the end so we all have 3 upgrades. Weird. There shouldn't be anything to have to discard.

So we get started, and I'm first on the grid. I'm expecting the card selection to refresh after the first round of drafting/after my first pick, but it didn't.

I assumed the normal "draft" option would be a normal, circular draft ( 1 > 2 > 3 > 1 > 2 > 3, etc) which is never how I've played it, so I didn't choose that one.

So what am I missing here?

The Draft option is what is printed in the rulebook.

The Snake draft has two sets of cards. One set of cards that picks goes last to first, then first to last. Followed by another set of cards drafted first to last then last to first.

Draft is what is printed in the rulebook.

Snake Draft is a true snake where it snakes back -> front, front -> back, then front -> back, back -> front, and as a result you draft 4 upgrades, hence discarding 1.

The latter has been developed for competitive play, it was used at the World Series of Board Gaming, and is generally favoured in any high level game. If you are new to the game though, you're probably better off sticking to the rules as per the rulebook.

The idea of doing it four times is to make it more fair for whoever goes last first, so that everyone gets each position twice.

I've always been curious why the game drafts from a common pool rather than individual hands, pick and pass. Going in the middle can be really brutal on both options. Getting 3rd pick 4 times (in a 5 player game) is not very good.

JovianSunrise wrote: ↑07 October 2025, 03:43 I've always been curious why the game drafts from a common pool rather than individual hands, pick and pass. Going in the middle can be really brutal on both options. Getting 3rd pick 4 times (in a 5 player game) is not very good.

No draft is perfect. Pick and pass issue is I could look at a pile of very average cards while someone on the other side of the table looks at a set of great cards that will never reach me. It will also have issues over some seats being clearly better than others, eg. if you have a new player passing to you you can end up with a huge advantage, something that Snake Draft addresses somewhat. You would also have to change the way pick and pass traditionally works to really fit with how Heat currently plays, because currently I can see what cards you have which may influence my decision, in most pick and passes you can't, and even if you drafted face up, I still wouldn't know what you're picking the turn I am passing to you. You could in theory have everything face up, but it would be a lot then to take in to look at you cards, and look at the cards around the table.

I don't think Snake Draft is perfect, particularly the higher in player count you go, but I'm not sure any idea will be completely perfect, and it's worlds better than standard draft where many games are decided before the race even begins. Snake Draft was mostly designed for competitive play which the idea is they will mostly take place at lower player counts, and it does work very well at eg. 4 player Arena.