Draft and Sealed Tournaments

[scarlet ridge]

In Magic: The Gathering, there are Draft and Sealed tournaments that are very popular. Heartstone also has this type of game mode. It helps to spread interest in the game, and players sometimes get to keep the cards that they opened during the tournaments (for MTG). Sometimes the entry fee is basically the cost of the packs. So essentially these tournaments are a fun way to buy more packs. The company that creates MTG (Wizards Of The Coast) often supports prizes for the winners.

Illivium could have similar modes. They would have an entry fee, and participants would all keep their Illuvials, with winners getting extra prizes.

EXAMPLES:

DRAFT

MTG's Drafts: Players sit around a table (tournaments can have multiple tables) and each player opens a pack of cards. Each player takes a card from their pack, and passes the pack to the next player. Repeat until the packs are empty. Then repeat for 2 more packs. Then players make the best decks they can with the cards they drafted, and play a tournament.

Illuvium-Style Drafts: Players pay an entry fee and enter a lobby. When full, everyone is given a "pack" of 15 random Illuvials. Players pick one and pass, until the pack is done. Repeat with 2 more packs (or maybe significantly more, to allow players to accumulate duplicates and fuse them to higher-stage Illuvials). Then players play an 8-player tournament with their decks. The winners get additional prizes in the form of Illuvials or Fuel.

SEALED:

MTG Sealed: Players each get 6 packs. They build the best decks they can with those cards, and have a tournament. All players keep the cards they opened. Winners get prizes of additional packs.

Illuvium-Style Sealed: Players sign up, pay an entry fee, and get a week to do a set number of Overworld runs (maybe 10 or 20 - depends on how long a run is and how many Illuvials can be caught). At the end of this time period, players build the best deck they can with Illuvials caught, and then have a tournament. Players keep Illuvials they caught, and winners get prizes.

Why These Are Great

These are isolated tournaments where everyone starts on the same playing field. Anyone can win, if they build a good deck and play it well. Skill matters, but a smart new player can beat a whale. So people love to "buy" packs by participating in these tournaments. The result is that way more packs are purchased, and the fun of new sets last months without players getting bored.

[austere verge]

My 2 cents:
Draft - it's probably too bothersome to setup 8 player tournament structures. And very time consuming for players.
Sealed - the playing field is not balanced. One player can be able to run T5 regions, other might be able to do only T3 and so forth.

P.S. I know it's easy to poke holes at someone's idea and I'm sorry to be that guy.
P.S.2. I very much like the general idea to have modes in which players playing field is balanced. Maybe the most important thing to do is speed or asynchrony. So maybe you get a pod of cards and build on your own time. Then you enter a ladder with similarly build decks. Very much like heartstone.

A better draft experience was presented in Artifact. Where packs were being drafted with other players. But async. Example. You open a pack of x cards. Pick y amount of cards. Put x-y cards pack into global draft pool. When it's you z-th pick you get x - (z * y) pack from the global pool, that some people have already drafted from. And then you get the regular draft ladder on your own.

To go a bit on a tangent. In survival so far we get a Random deck every day. It'll be "simple" to plug in a different mechanism to get your deck. So in a way draft can be implemented for survival also. While being made more competitive by allowing you to draft vs other people.

[untold acorn]

I will have to disagree with your whole premise .Draft and sealed have have been proven successful over 30 years and I didn't like the draft style in artifact.

Getting "bomb" T1 deck is one of the best experience in MTG sealed or draft. It may suck for your opponent but really too bad that's life.

Not everything has to balanced completely.

I also disagree with people who show up to a MTG tournament with a preconstructed say "no skill p2w" or people who advocate that everything needs to be balanced like a chess board to be " truly competitive" . In the context of a "collection game" the collection you own should have a great impact on the game itself or might as well just give everyone everything at the start and call it chess.

[scarlet ridge]

Yeah I think those issues could be solved. For example, players should not be able to run different tiered regions. It should be one entry fee, same rules for all. You know?

I don't know if draft must be 8 players... Hearthstone pulls off drafts pretty well, IMO, and they are a little time-consuming, but they work. I've had tons of fun playing them. They do take advantage of a huge playerbase, though...

[main lagoon]

my main problem with this idea is its going to be bypassing getting illuvials thru the overworld...

[scarlet ridge]

Understandable, especially for the Draft idea.

For the Sealed idea, it would still be getting Illuvials through the overworld.

[untold acorn]

that option is already available . Playing overworld is not mandatory. All you have to do is wait for a while. I am sure there will people who buy their entire collections off other players on the illuvidex just like people buy singles of magic/Pokémon cards in stores.

[main lagoon]

Difference is all the illuvials in the marketplace were minted because someone played in the overworld. The proposal seems to imply that illuvials will be minted without overworld play. As the Logosether said, the 2nd ideA ‘sealed draft’ is more viable

[untold acorn]

ahh you do have a good point actually. 🤔 🤔 it also avoids the bonding curve

@scarlet ridge Mors bring up good points i don't think sealed and draft will work as it will be in conflict with the collectability and bonding curve

[scarlet ridge]

Yeah I feel like Sealed is still possible. But very interesting points!

[minor raptor]

Thumbs up for mentioning Artifact

[austere verge]

I think artifact is a game you can learn much from. Especially illuvium. Even if artifact was web2 it had similar to nft concepts with the open market. They also tried to make waves with big cash tournament. And their failure can bring invaluable lessens.

The most concerning comparison I can make is the payment module. You had to pay real money to be able to get cards. And the game died in less than a month. I hope our f2p aspects can combat this issue.

Every time I remember arttifact I wish at least one of the core contributers has experienced and researched this case.

[minor raptor]

Artifact had over a 100.000 paying initially though, and interest died of very quickly thereafter (personally, I have no idea why)
But I do agree that Artifact is a game to learn from. Reynard actually had a great video explaining why he thought it was shit before everyone else thought so.

And now, back to the draft idea:

[silk shale]

This completely eliminates the IBG element of the Overworld. I'm against this idea UNLESS it's only available for Free2Play where it has no impact on the greater Illuvium economy

[scarlet ridge]

Sealed is basically an overworld hunting tournament combined with an autobattler tournament after that. It wouldn't be any different from current overworld.

I suppose you could also have all of this (sealed and draft) where you don't actually get the NFTs, so they disappear after the tournament... Either way.