A Facebook group has been promoting the idea of drafts, instead of sealed, as a Pro Tour qualifier format. Bill Stark, over at the Starkington Post, discussed the topic, as have some podcasters. Having worked a number of drafts at high-level events, I can talk about the logistics of a draft PTQ.
What is the biggest issue? Consider this — a player’s ultimate nightmare: You are undefeated, going into round 5 of a store event. It’s “win and you’re in” time. Your opponent, however, has the following deck.
3 Baneslayer Angel (one foil)
2 Blinding Mage
5 Harm’s Way
4 Divine Verdict
2 Planar Cleansing
4 Pacifism
2 Serra Angel
2 Palace Guard
17 Plains
This guy’s last round opponent called shenanigans, too. The guy opened 6 packs for the sealed, and six rares plus a foil rare is possible. It is even possible that three of the rares could be Baneslayer bombs, The odds are massively against it, but no one checked the contents of anyone’s card pools and the TO decided he couldn’t prove that the guy cheated, so he’s still playing.
Sucks for you, though, doesn’t it.
This guy has added cards to his sealed pool. That’s illegal, and grounds for a disqualification. The additions are also incredibly, blatantly obvious. I was going overboard for effect. I doubt that anyone would be this stupid. (On the other hand, there was an event at Worlds, a few years ago, where someone added a Portuguese Arc Slogger to his deck. The packs drafted were all in English.) I also expect that any experienced judge would, had someone actually had this deck, DQ him or her. To DQ a player, the head judge just needs to believe that the offense had occurred. The above — well, it is blatant.
Of course, that raises the question of less blatantly insane decks. People do open insane cards in drafts on occasion. If you do not take other actions (stamped cards, preregistered packs, people watching picks, etc) to prevent people from adding cards to their draft pools, then judges have no way, other than their own judgment, to decide if cards have been added. In short, the only protection against cheating, in that case, is for judges to decide, based solely on their own experiences, whether a player’s deck is “too good.” This is a terrible option — rulings would vary based on the judge’s own draft experience, etc. Innocent players could get DQed for drafting very well, etc. All this is why judges and TOs do use other methods of preventing players from adding cards. I’ll talk about the possible methods for preventing players from adding cards in drafts in a bit. First, however, I’ll talk about what is done to prevent this sort of cheating in sealed event PTQs.
Judges and TOs put a considerable amount of effort into preventing players from adding cards to their pools. I won’t talk about the really subtle ways judges have to catch cheaters, but I will discuss why we do what we do.
Generally, as anything more competitive than a PTQ, we have one person register a card pool, and another player use that card pool for the event. It’s called a deck swap. Here’s what that means, for a M10 sealed event.
First, the judges distribute product to all players. That means each player gets six boosters of M10. The judges also distribute checklists, with list every M10 card, by color. The checklists have two columns — “played” and “total.” The player registering the deck opens all six booster packs, sorts them alphabetically, then lists each card opened in the “total” column. If a player opens three Blinding Mages in the six boosters he opens, he puts a “3” in the total column in front of “Blinding Mage.”
Once all players have finished registering their card pools, the decks are swapped. This means that the cards opened, and the checklist, are given to another player. That other player checks that the cards were registered correctly, then builds his or her deck from the new cards. The intent of a deck swap is obvious — one person registers the cards and another player plays the cards. The opportunity to cheat is lessened.
Deck swaps can vary, and the different types of swaps involve lesser or greater levels of work for the judges. The most secure is to have the judges collect all the pools, once registration is complete, and redistribute them randomly. This works, but the higher the ratio of players to judges, the longer this can take. Still, this is pretty common at PTQs, and routine at larger events, like GPs.
A simpler method is to have the players pass their sealed pools around the table. The simplest is to just hand them to the player across the table, but some number of passes to the left or right are also commonly used.
Another tactic used is to return roughly 10% of the card pools to the players that register them. This has the effect of limiting the temptation for players to add bad cards to their pools, because the odds of getting the bad cards back are at least as high as the odds that they will play against the player that gets the deck with the bad cards.
Judges use a few other techniques to prevent players from adding cards. For one, they usually seat players all together. Players often ask “can I sit over there to build?” while pointing at an empty table in the corner. Generally, the answer will be “no” — or else the judges will watch the player carefully. At events involving sealed decks, we don’t sit players across from their first round opponents so players do not have to move to avoid having an opponent see their deck construction. As judges, we want players together, so they can watch each other. It is harder for a player to pull cards out of his or her binder while surrounded by other players than while sitting by himself in a corner.
It simply isn’t possible / practical for draft players to do the equivalent of a deck swap. At best, we could have players all open and register three packs of cards. The players would have to list each pack separately, and keep them separate, because these packs would then be drafted individually, and be moving in different directions. This might be possible — maybe — for a three set draft, where, for example, the Shards pack, the Conflux pack and the Reborn pack would each be registered in a different part of the sheet. For something like a triple M10 draft, players would have to register the cards in separate columns, or something like that. (E.g. Pack one in the played column, pack two in the used column and pack three to the left of the used column.) This would have to be done across pods, of course — players in pod one would be registering the packs for some other pod.
It would still have problems. Roughly 10% of the players would end up shuffling all three packs together or otherwise misregistering the product. This would force the TO to provide more packs, the player (or a judge) to spend more time registering the product correctly, and the rest of the tournament waiting for the fix.
It would be more of a mess if the mistakes were not caught before drafting had begun. And it would happen. Players simply do not listen to instructions. In any sealed event, we see 5-10% of the decklists with game loss errors — and registering a deck is a well-known process. Likewise, we tell players to count their booster packs when they open them, but players still find 14 card boosters only after they have picked 10 or more cards. Etc.
Logistically, I see problems with this approach to registering boosters. Best case would be for the players to be seated for “drafts,” then open and record the boosters, then get up and move to new tables, leaving the opened boosters and registration sheet on the table. This might be doable — provided the players can leave the boosters in place, in the right order, and correctly recorded. (I asked a high level judge to review this article. Her comment: “Ugh. I hate this too. I think you just don’t want people to see the whole contents of all their packs before drafting. And they don’t get to open packs. Not to mention Mr Peeky trying to scan registration sheets for specific rares.”) It might also require some tricks to get the new DCI tournament software to create pod pairings twice, correctly. (This might not be an issue — Wizards released new tournament management software last week. RIP, DCI Reporter.)
The downside is that there is no practical way to make sure that players don’t put the packs back in the wrong order. Sure, you can tell them, but I have judged a lot of events, and I can assure you that no matter how often and repeatedly you tell players something, they will not hear / ignore / not understand it. Some players will not separate the packs, some will stack them in the wrong order, some will mis-record the packs, etc. You could have judges check every single pack before each draft starts. (Comment: “This is the big problem with any concept for registering packs BEFORE drafting — it just won’t work, IMHO.”)
Why would this be necessary? Assume this is an Alara block event, and the packs are reversed. The player would then pick up the Alara Reborn pack first. Even if you assume that the player catches the error immediately — as opposed to passing Reborn cards a couple times before anyone notices — then the player still has an advantage. If the player saw that the rare in Reborn will be Maelstrom Pulse — or some bomb — that might influence how he would draft the first two packs.
Getting the packs out of order would be less of a problem if the draft is three packs from the same set, like triple M10 or triple Zendikar. The only problem there would come if someone is passing a pack that should have gone right to the left. Since the purpose of registering the packs is to allow judges to reconstruct a draft, to determine if a player could have drafted the cards they are playing, having a pack reversed is a problem. Not insolvable, but a problem.
Nonetheless, this may be the only feasible option. (I’ll talk about stamped boosters in a moment.)
(Reviewer comment: Meh. I still think if you had them at draft tables, you just switch bodies, have them register the drafted pools right there at the same tables, and then switch back to their own pools. Unless you think cards get added while the draft is happening; I think it happens during the build. Even so, the problem is now what if you get Stupid Registration Errors — does that screw you out of your good cards? There’s a reason we go for heavy observation of players during drafts. It’s just not good in any way, shape or form to let any other players get their hands on cards you have picked or are going to pick. You could be a lot less controversial (although shorter) and just say that there is no practical option.) Note: I’ll agree with this. None of the options for having players register draft packs will work in practice.
Tables
Another issue for consideration — would your local TO have the tables to make a draft PTQ work?
Most PTQs use rows and rows of rectangular tables with no gaps. Tables are simply numbered 1-100, or whatever. This works fine for sealed events, Constructed events — everything but drafts.
Premier events, like PTQs and National Championships, use two sets of tables. Play during the rounds takes place at the typical rectangular tables. The drafts themselves take place at round tables, whenever possible, with eight players per table. (Note: U.S. Nats this year did not have round tables.) Drafting at round tables has a lot of advantages. First, the drafts flow easily. More importantly, with people spread around the table, peeking is harder to do and more easily caught. Having separate draft and play tables also makes it easier to lay out the draft sets before the draft.
It is possible to draft at rectangular tables. If so, it is important to leave gaps between drafts. You might expect that players could remember which draft they are in. You might expect that, even though player one in draft number two might be sitting next to player four in draft one, that player one would not pick up the cards circulating in the other draft, but you would be wrong. Drafters are so used to picking up the cards placed next to them that they grab any nearby packs. It happens — it happened at a FNM last month. It can certainly mess up the draft. You can solve the problem by inserting empty seats between drafts, of course — but this means having more seats, and getting the software to insert the empty seats. It’s easy with two or three simultaneous drafts, but much harder with 30.
The other advantage of having round tables for drafts and other tables for builds and play is that players can be moved away from thier drafts to the build area, and separated. The tournament software can seat players so that most, if not all, are not sitting near other members of their drafts. Even with separate draft tables at premier events, judges still end up moving a couple players so that they are not building their decks within view of other members of their draft pods. In a more cramped area, this problem would be worse.
Judges
Drafts get messed up. Judges are there to untangle them. Even at premier events, like Pro Tours and Worlds, drafts go wrong. Judges step in to fix the problems. In my experience, a judge has to step in to fix a table roughly every other draft at premier events. Premier events tend to have 30-50 tables per event, and the players are usually highly experienced drafters.
Premier events generally have at least one judge per draft table, as well as a judge calling the draft and the head judge circulating. That is not going to be possible for a PTQ. Few areas have even half that number of judges available, and only a fraction of those judges are experienced in handling screw-up during called drafts.
The drafts would have to be called. Calling a draft means that a judge calls a cadence, and everyone drafts accordingly. Like this.
Open your packs. Count them face down. There should be 15 cards.
Pick up your packs.
(The judge then waits the appropriate interval.)
5 seconds…
Draft.
Lay out the cards. There should be 14 cards.
This continues throughout the draft. When laying out the cards, the players should lay them out in a way that lets the player getting the cards, and the judge, count them without picking them up. Basically, this is the method used to handle multiple simultaneous drafts. The drafts are assured of being fair — everyone has the same amount of time — and logistically easier to handle.
If you do not call the drafts, then some drafts will finish long before other drafts. It is going to happen. (Reviewer comment: For a PTQ I would NEVER consider not calling multiple simultaneous drafts.) At three-pod FNMs, I have often seen one pod finish before another pod has finished thier second pack. That would not be a problem if players who finished thier draft simply sat quietly and waited, but they don’t. They start talking, they wander off, etc. — all of which can distract and disrupt the players still drafting. It is also unfair to let early finishers start building early, since everyone should have the same time to build.
A bigger judging issue is that many players do not know how to draft. I don’t mean that they don’t know how to bust packs, pick, and pass. I mean that they have no idea what is — and what is not — allowed at a competitive rules enforcement level. Have you ever seen these things happen?
* A player shows a friend the hotness he has picked so far.
* A player says “what is this doing here? 11th pick Doom Blade?!”
* A player busts a pack and says “foil land — woot!”
* A player puts a card on his pick pile, then changes it for another card in the booster.
* A player looks at the cards he has drafted while waiting for his neighbor to ship another pack.
* A player separates his picks into multiple face-down piles.
* A player flashes a foil rare to his friend opposite him.
* A player puts a good card he is not cutting on the top of the pack and says “Merry Christmas.”
I see all of these, routinely, at FNM. At a higher rules enforcement level, they would all be illegal, with penalties ranging from cautions to DQs. In a draft format PTQ, all of these infractions should be called, which means that the judges will be extra busy. The head judge may be able to limit some these problems with a good introductory lecture at the start of the draft, but that assumes that players listen.
Stamped Product
At premier events, Wizards provides stamped product for all drafts. Stamped product means that the packs have been opened, all foils and other duplicates removed, and each card in the pack stamped with the same small stamp. Then the pack is wrapped with a paper strip, and the three pack draft set wrapped with a second strip. Each strip bears the identification of the pack, seating position and draft: e.g. Draft 2, Seat 1, Pack B. This pack might be stamped with a tiny crescent moon in the upper left of the text box. This makes it easy to spot added card, or recreate the entire draft, if necessary. It also makes it possible to tell when a player takes two cards out of one pack, then replaces one with a card picked from a previous pack.
Stamped product is wonderful. However, it is not easy to create. Years ago, I had a discussion with Andy Heckt, who was, at that time, both the judge manager and the guy who created the stamped product. For a number of days before the Pro Tour, he and his family sat around their kitchen table busting packs, stamping product, and assembling draft sets.
It is a manual process.
Getting the stamps is pretty easy — I just Googled “tiny rubber stamps.” You can get a decent set for under $50.00. The ink is trickier — regular stamp pad inks do not stick to Magic cards. A special ink is used, but I’m not going to say which one. TOs can probably get it. In worst case scenario, you could mark the cards with strangely-colored Sharpies.
To see how this process worked, I decided to make enough draft sets for one eight-man draft. I had printed out the paper band labels in advance, and cut them with a paper cutter. I used my dining room table, which meant I could lay out four packs at once. (Laying out is important, because the markings need to dry before you bundle the pack, otherwise the ink smudges the backs of the other cards.)
I had to open an extra pack to replace some foils, and it took an extra minute or so to check that the common I had replaced the foil with did not duplicate a card already in the pack.
The process of opening the pack, laying it out, pulling the rules/token and land cards, marking the cards, letting them dry, restacking each pack, bundling them with a paper strip and taping the strip, then bundling three packs together and binding them all took a lot longer than I expected. I finished in just over 52 minutes.
That is 52 minutes to create enough product for one eight player draft. I allowed about 45 seconds drying time. With practice, I would expect the assembly time to be under 45 minutes per set, but I don’t know that you could expect significantly greater improvement. With more people and a lot more table space, I could see production time dropping to about 30 minutes per draft set, but not less.
If you don’t believe me, try it yourself. Open a booster pack and lay it out. Replace any foils, initial each card with a Sharpie in a specific location, let the ink dry, stack the pack, wrap it in a paper strip and tape the strip tightly around the pack. Now repeat this 24 times.
One more thing — be accurate! Mislabeled boosters or packs with too many or too few cards a going to mess up drafts, and that is unacceptable at a PTQ.
Pricing a Draft PTQ
If we have draft PTQs, the big question will be how much to charge as an admission fee. Let’s look at two different events — a PTQ with 120 players and one with 240 players.
For an event with 120 players, the DCI recommends 7 rounds of Swiss play. It is messy to play four rounds following a single draft, but it is possible. (Five rounds, following a single draft, is not, since you will almost certainly have some pods with odd numbers, and the byes would mess up the pairings.) Four rounds of play per draft means that the TO could do two drafts for the Swiss play for a 120 player tournament.
120 players would mean 15 draft pods for the initial draft, and almost as many for the second. Almost no one drops if staying in gets them a free draft. The drops will happen starting just after the second draft. To prevent players from drafting and dropping, the TO might offer draft sets for anyone dropping before the draft, but you will still get some players who want to rare-draft.
The DCI recommends nine rounds of Swiss for an event with 240 players. That means three drafts, with 30 drafts running simultaneously in round one, and at least a couple dozen for each of the later drafts.
The Catch 22 here is that the TOs will have to set the admission fees based on the amount of product they expect to use. If they expect to use two drafts worth of product, they could set the entrance fee at US $30 to $35. If they expect to have to provide nine packs per player, the fee might rise to $45 to $50. Of course, that higher fee might turn many players off, meaning that the numbers will fall back towards the two-draft range.
The TO will also have to adjust the size of the venue they are renting. If the TOs use separate tables for drafting and playing, that will greatly increase the price of the hall. If they do not use separate tables, then the tradeoff will probably be in additional time to for players to find their seats for the builds. That could make the event run even longer — and a multiple draft event will be long no matter what. Practically, you can add a half hour for a called draft, plus roughly another half hour plus for builds for each draft. If you register packs, instead of using stamped product, add another half hour per draft to register the cards. At best, you are probably talking an hour per round for the Swiss, plus an hour and a half for each draft. For the smaller event, that means at least 14 hours, even if the players split in the finals. For a 240 player event, the event will be many hours longer.
The TO will also have to consider the costs of a judging staff. Currently, a lot of TOs run PTQs with one judge per 75 or so players, plus a head judge and scorekeeper. That works fine for most events, including the multi-hundred player Legion events I have judged at over the last year. It would not work for a draft event. Draft events would probably not require the one judge per table used at premier events, but the number of draft screw-ups I routinely see would justify one judge per four tables — or roughly three times the number of judges most TOs currently use. That is going to cost the TO more, or radically cut the judge compensation. As a judge, the idea of working significantly longer hours for a lot less pay is not appealing, but if judge compensation goes up, entrance fees will have to rise accordingly.
Note that doing stamped product makes the process of setting entrance fees harder. The TO will have to prepare stamped product for the maximum number he or she expects. If draft proves as popular as the Standard PTQs, that could be 250 players. That would mean preparing 750 stamped draft sets — that’s three drafts per player. Even if the players don’t show, that product is pretty well shot. Once the packs are opened and the cards stamped, you can’t sell those packs. Leftovers might be useful as judge compensation, but it is most likely just a dead loss. Preparing for 250 players and getting 180 might mean that the TO takes a big loss for the event. TOs don’t make a lot of money in any case — getting this wrong a couple times could put them out of business. Note that this is a big risk with stamped product, and a risk that does not exist with other forms of sealed product.
In short, I would expect TOs to charge about $50 per person to enter a draft PTQ, but that would be risky. If turnout was significantly higher or lower than what the TO expected, then the TO is going to lose a lot of money. That’s bad. The Premier TOs are already hurting because of losing exclusive prereleases; Wizards really cannot afford to gash them again, but it cannot offer to compensate them for getting the numbers wrong.
Conclusion
A draft PTQ could be a lot of fun for the players. Logistically, however, it is a nightmare for the judges and the TO. It is also a bear for the TO to price. For all these reasons, I can’t see it happening.
PRJ
Drafting on MTGO as “One Million Words”