Cactus Game Design Message Boards

A question came up at the WI State tournament about deck building rules for booster draft. "You can still only have one copy of a dominant, right?" My understanding is that the ONLY deck-building rule for booster draft is that you have the correct number of Lost Soul cards. Does anyone know for SURE one way or the other?

Thanks!
Ken

By the way, Kirk posted "rules" for booster draft a couple years ago, but I don't know where they were quoted from. They said that you may have duplicates of any card type. (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/ruling-questions/booster-draft-16674/)

And browarod asked this same question a couple years ago but didn't get any consensus answer. (http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/ruling-questions/booster-draft-question/msg290171/#msg290171)

Kirk's thread brought up another question... Can you put your cards face down into multiple piles (like good and evil)? We have someone at our tournaments that has done this, and I didn't realize it may be a problem, but these same "rules" say one pile.

Those rules are not the same as the ones Kirk listed - they don't say anything about duplicates of cards or putting the cards face down...

2. Booster Draft (Multi-Player only)
Booster Draft is played in place of Closed Deck Multi-Player. Starter decks are
NOT used in this type of play. Players build their decks from six expansion packs of
cards. Each player is given one of each type of booster from six of the following
expansions as determined by the host.
Players sit at their first-round multi-player table.
- Each player is responsible for bringing 8 regular lost soul cards (no special
abilities) to the table. You will need 7 lost soul cards if you play a 50 to 56 card
deck. You will need 8 lost soul cards if you play over a 56 card deck. If you pull
a lost soul card from a pack then you can substitute it for one that you brought to
the table. This is the only way you will be able to play a lost soul card that has a
special ability.
- Each player opens the Original pack at the same time, selects one card to put in
his deck, and passes the rest of the cards to the player on his left. Then each
player looks at the cards he was just handed and places one of those cards in his
deck, and passes again. When all the cards from the Original packs have been
added to decks, everyone opens their Prophet packs, and you repeat the process,
this time passing to the right. Continue this process until all the packs are
drafted. Players do not pass cards from Faith of Our Fathers or Rock of Ages.
- There is a 3-seconds-per card time limit when choosing a card. Each player is
given 3 seconds for every card in the stack they are drafting from (30 seconds
for a new pack of 10 cards, 15 seconds for 5 cards, etc...).
- Drafted cards are to be placed face down in a single stack. Players may not look
through the cards they have chosen until the draft is complete (looking slows
things down).
- Players may use all of the cards they choose from packs. Identical cards of any
type may be added into a deck although the rules regarding doubles in play still
applies.
- Players look at the cards they drafted and have 10 minutes to assemble a deck.
Each player will have 54 cards and are allowed to remove up to four cards if
they wish. Each player adds the appropriate number of lost soul cards to their
deck to make it legal. When players finish building their decks (or when deckbuilding
time has expired), play begins.
- Players must play a minimum of fifty cards in their decks.

These rules that Kirk posted seem correct to me.  The only difference that I've seen is generous hosts adding extra packs, and allowing more than 3 seconds per card choice, or more than 10 mins for deck-building.

- Your deck cannot be larger than 63 cards, since you can only have 8 Lost Soul cards. Later it says that players may use all of the cards they choose from packs, so technically these contradict.

I have never heard of this rule, or seen this strictly observed. I think the whole thing needs to be updated, since the line:

-Players look at the cards they drafted and have 10 minutes to assemble a deck.
Each player will have 54 cards and are allowed to remove up to four cards if
they wish.

is certainly outdated, as it is impossible to draft exactly 54 cards without Women packs.

- Drafted cards must be placed face down in ONE stack.

This rule has been in effect for some time, and I have seen it observed at most tournaments I have played BD in.

I agree with the "other Prof".  The 63 card limit does not take into account the more "generous hosts" that I mentioned earlier, which make larger decks possible.

However, the 1 upside down card stack is industry standard.

My understanding is that you can ONLY have 7 no sa LSs and you need to draft any further LSs.

In addition, the rules say any drafted can be swapped for the ones you brought.

Im pretty sure you can have multiples of any cards, including dominants. Because, during one tournament I was able to draft 2 copies of DON and was allowed to have both in my deck. I've also made a 70 card deck in booster and been told that you can use as many no SA lost souls as you need for your deck size.

... and this is why I asked the question! No one seems to know the "official" rule since it's not clearly stated anywhere. Is this something that the elders need to discuss and come to a decision on, Rob needs to decide, or something else?

One face-down pile.  That is a standard rule.  I allow players to use up to 8 lost souls, though not more than a couple people have used more than 7 in the years that we've been doing booster draft.

As for number of the same dominants in deck, I've heard it go either way.  But it happens so rarely that it hasn't really mattered.

I prefer the simpler rule: # of lost souls is accurate for deck size.  Anything else goes.  You draft it, you can use it.

so just to clarify you can have multiple multi-color cards(like damsel with spirit of divination) as well?

The fact that the quoted (and obviously outdated) guideline list doesn't specify a limit for dominants is only because it was not possible to draft two of the same dominant back then.

This is actually always been possible.  You could have been at a table where all 4 people opened a pack with DoN in it, and everyone could have passed them except for you, thus you would've ended up with 4 DoNs in your deck.

I prefer the simpler rule: # of lost souls is accurate for deck size.  Anything else goes.  You draft it, you can use it.

I also prefer this simple rule.  Booster takes long enough without requiring more extensive deck checking than this.

What if I draft 15 sites?

I've never seen very many sites in a Booster draft, but I don't tend to take the ones that I usually see.  So many people are playing with so many colors, that sites really don't often work well.  Usually they just make it so that certain people can take you LSs, and it's usually the person in the lead.  So who wants to save all their LSs for the person who's winning anyway