Pokemon Draft!

[Platyp]

Many thanks to PokeN3rd for letting me use the banner.​

Update: DraftBot now supports Concealed Draft! (Concealed is our version of MtG's Booster Draft.) This OP has been updated below with relevant information.

Introduction​

Hey guys. I'm The Reaver, and I've been a longtime lurker of Smogon who just recently began posting. =D This is my first thread in Smogon, so I hope to make the best of it.

Anyway, the reason why I'm posting this thread is to propose something that was somewhat well received by the people who took interest in it. What am I talking about?

(if you read the thread title, you probably can take a guess)

Anyway, the reason for my posting this was that I saw a lot of games emulating things from Magic: the Gathering. A lot of TCGs, such as MtG and Pokemon, have a draft gametype, where you are limited to the cards from booster packs for your deck and you have to individually select them from the limited pool of cards given to you in the booster pack. I saw games like BattleForge copying terms and the draft game-type directly from MtG, and even Guild Wars is holding something similar. And of course, one mustn't forget sports drafts--that's where this came from (if you don't know what a sports draft is, just wiki it).

So my reasoning was simple. If TCGs and sports (two games that can have a lot of different potential players) can have a draft game type, then why can't Pokemon have one as well?

The concept is as follows: Drafting in Pokemon involves building a team using a limited amount of Pokemon at your disposal, then competing with that team against other draft teams.

Supported Draft Types​

DraftBot supports several different draft types. Each has its own unique playstyle, but ultimately, the objective is the same: draft a solid set of 8 Pokemon, then crush your opponents in battle.

Rochester Draft
Rochester was the initial draft type. It is the simplest form of draft because it can be run manually (i.e. via a human host). Rochester is accomplished with a pool of four players and a host (hosts have become obsolete with the advent of DraftBot, but may still need to be used when DraftBot is offline).

Rochester works like Rochester draft in trading card games.

• DraftBot creates packs of 10 Pokemon each. The number of packs created is equal to the number of players. DraftBot then determines an order in which players pick Pokemon.
• DraftBot "opens" a pack, revealing the Pokemon inside to the players. Using the picking order previously determined, players take turns selecting ONE Pokemon for their box, or set of usable Pokemon. After each player has taken one Pokemon, the players go around a second time and select another Pokemon. Each player therefore ends up with TWO Pokemon per pack. The remaining two Pokemon are unused and the organizer discards them.
• The player who picked first for the previous pack moves to the end of the picking order, and the rest of the picking order remains the same. DraftBot opens a new pack and the above process is repeated. After the last pack is depleted, players will have 8 Pokemon each.
• Only four players ever pick at a time. If there are more than four players in a Rochester draft, the remainder of the players take turns sitting out.
• DraftBot reveals the picks in the draft channel at the end.

Some of you may have been confused by the way picking order works. Using four players (A, B, C, and D), this is how it goes down:

Pack 1: A, B, C, D
Pack 2: B, C, D, A
Pack 3: C, D, A, B
Pack 3: D, A, B, C

Now, if there are more than four, it will go something like this:
Pack 1: A, B, C, D (Sitting out: E, F)
Pack 2: B, C, D, E (Sitting out: F, A)
Pack 3: C, D, E, F (Sitting out: A, B)
Pack 4: D, E, F, A (Sitting out: B, C)
Pack 5: E, F, A, B (Sitting out: C, D)
Pack 6: F, A, B, C (Sitting out: D, E)

Bid Draft
Bid is a second draft type that's made possible by DraftBot. It's very difficult to do a Bid manually due to the sheer amount of host work needed. Bid is the most balanced of the many draft types, but it also takes the longest to do.

Bid works much like an auction.

• DraftBot creates and displays a pool of Pokemon. The number of Pokemon in the pool is equal to 10 * the number of players. A picking order (which will remain the same throughout the whole draft) is determined. 80 credits are assigned to each player.
• The first player picks a Pokemon to bid on and automatically bids 1 credit on the Pokemon. The rest of the players may bid on the Pokemon in real time, but are only allowed to place a bid if it is higher than the current bid. The highest bidder keeps the Pokemon and loses credits equal to the bid.
• The process repeats for the rest of the pickers. A player does not get to pick if he or she has no credits. Bidding ceases when each player either has 8 Pokemon or has run out of credits.
• A player who runs out of credits before filling up his or her 8 Pokemon is assigned random Pokemon from the pool until he or she has 8 Pokemon. Conversely, a player who fills up his or her 8 Pokemon slots before exhausting his or her credits loses all remaining credits.
• DraftBot reveals the picks in the draft channel at the end.

Concealed Draft
Concealed is our newest type of draft. DraftBot also makes this possible because it's very hard to host a manual Concealed game. Concealed is good for quick(er) games, as the drafting process can take less than 5 minutes for any number of players.

Concealed draft works like Booster Draft in trading card games.

• DraftBot creates packs of 10 Pokemon each. The number of packs created is equal to the number of players.
• DraftBot then assigns each pack to a player. Via PM, each player gets to see what Pokemon are inside his or her pack, but no one can see another player's pack. The player gets to select one and only one Pokemon from the pack.
• When everyone has selected one Pokemon, DraftBot passes the packs. Each player gets someone else's pack, minus the Pokemon that that person selected, and can select one Pokemon from it as before.
• This process repeats until each player has selected 8 times and has 8 Pokemon.
• DraftBot reveals the picks in the draft channel at the end.
  
  
  Tournaments​
  Tournaments are single elimination or round robin, depending on the size of the pool of players.
  
  Larger drafts would need multiple pools. Essentially, each pool is a "qualifier" for the rest of the tournament. For example, say there are 32 people in a draft tournament. The players would be divided up into 8 pools. Each pool would complete a normal four way draft, and after all of the inter-pool matches are completed, each pool would have a victor. There would be 8 of these "victors" (one from each pool), who would then proceed to go through a normal single-elimination tournament.
  
  Because of the reduced importance of the overarching metagame (players don't have access to every Pokemon, so they can't build whatever team they want), the Pokemon in each player's box would be made public. Every player would be able to ask for the list of Pokemon in any other player's box to help with his or her own teambuilding. In this way, the "metagame" is between you and your opponent only, as you don't know which 6 of his 8 he will send forth into battle.
  
  
  Pack Generation​
  
  Generating packs for a draft is actually a lot easier than most people think. However, it can be a pretty time-consuming process.
  
  (We are no longer using the Tier Method because the Usage Method is far superior.)
  
  Usage Method
  This method generates packs solely based on usage in the Standard metagame and makes no distinction between tiers. Therefore, some NU Pokemon (such as Porygon2 and Charizard) appear on this list.
  
  Use random.org to generate 3 Pokemon from this list (Top):
  
  
  Hide

  |    1 | Scizor     
  |    2 | Salamence  
  |    3 | Rotom-A    
  |    4 | Tyranitar  
  |    5 | Latias     
  |    6 | Heatran    
  |    7 | Gyarados   
  |    8 | Metagross  
  |    9 | Jirachi    
  |   10 | Infernape  
  |   11 | Lucario    
  |   12 | Gengar     
  |   13 | Swampert   
  |   14 | Starmie    
  |   15 | Blissey    
  |   16 | Azelf      
  |   17 | Gliscor    
  |   18 | Magnezone  
  |   19 | Skarmory   
  |   20 | Machamp    
  |   21 | Vaporeon  
  |   22 | Breloom    
  |   23 | Dragonite  
  |   24 | Zapdos     
  |   25 | Flygon     
  |   26 | Kingdra    
  |   27 | Suicune    
  |   28 | Celebi     
  |   29 | Jolteon    
  |   30 | Empoleon   
  |   31 | Forretress 
  |   32 | Bronzong   
  |   33 | Togekiss   
  |   34 | Electivire

  Then, generate 3 Pokemon from this list (Mid):
  
  
  Hide

  |   1  | Snorlax    
  |   2  | Aerodactyl 
  |   3  | Weavile    
  |   4  | Tentacruel 
  |   5  | Dusknoir   
  |   6  | Mamoswine  
  |   7  | Roserade   
  |   8  | Smeargle   
  |   9  | Hippowdon  
  |   10 | Ninjask    
  |   11 | Heracross  
  |   12 | Porygonz   
  |   13 | Cresselia  
  |   14 | Umbreon    
  |   15 | Crobat     
  |   16 | Alakazam   
  |   17 | Ludicolo   
  |   18 | Abomasnow  
  |   19 | Porygon2   
  |   20 | Dugtrio    
  |   21 | Ambipom    
  |   22 | Arcanine   
  |   23 | Gallade    
  |   24 | Milotic    
  |   25 | Rhyperior  
  |   26 | Yanmega    
  |   27 | Uxie       
  |   28 | Donphan    
  |   29 | Clefable   
  |   30 | Charizard

  And finally, generate 4 Pokemon from this list (Low):
  
  
  Hide

  |   1  | Raikou     
  |   2  | Spiritomb  
  |   3  | Registeel  
  |   4  | Froslass   
  |   5  | Hitmontop  
  |   6  | Blastoise  
  |   7  | Sceptile   
  |   8  | Claydol    
  |   9  | Walrein    
  |   10 | Kabutops   
  |   11 | Mismagius  
  |   12 | Venusaur   
  |   13 | Weezing    
  |   14 | Honchkrow  
  |   15 | Slowbro    
  |   16 | Feraligatr 
  |   17 | Shaymin    
  |   18 | Cradily    
  |   19 | Staraptor  
  |   20 | Lanturn    
  |   21 | Blaziken   
  |   22 | Absol      
  |   23 | Gardevoir  
  |   24 | Electrode  
  |   25 | Marowak    
  |   26 | Typhlosion 
  |   27 | Azumarill  
  |   28 | Tangrowth  
  |   29 | Aggron     
  |   30 | Houndoom   
  |   31 | Shedinja   
  |   32 | Espeon     
  |   33 | Shuckle    
  |   34 | Hariyama   
  |   35 | Steelix    
  |   36 | Moltres    
  |   37 | Toxicroak  
  |   38 | Magmortar  
  |   39 | Torterra   
  |   40 | Medicham   
  |   41 | Quagsire   
  |   42 | Miltank    
  |   43 | Nidoking   
  |   44 | Swellow    
  |   45 | Drapion    
  |   46 | Lapras     
  |   47 | Ursaring   
  |   48 | Glaceon    
  |   49 | Cacturne   
  |   50 | Rampardos  
  |   51 | Floatzel   
  |   52 | Nidoqueen  
  |   53 | Poliwrath  
  |   54 | Drifblim   
  |   55 | Exeggutor  
  |   56 | Hitmonlee  
  |   57 | Qwilfish   
  |   58 | Ninetales  
  |   59 | Mr. Mime   
  |   60 | Jumpluff   
  |   61 | Leafeon

  This generation method has been extended to the UU tier as well.
  
  
  Glossary​
  Team: The six Pokemon used in battle.
  Bench/Sideboard: Two Pokemon that may be rotated out in your team slots in between games.
  Box: Your team and your bench combined (a total of 8 Pokemon).
  Pool: All of the Pokemon involved in the draft. Also, the group of players who is drafting. There may be multiple pools for a larger tournament.
  Pack: The current set of Pokemon that are up for grabs. The number of packs per pool depends on the draft type.
  
  Link to the now-obsolete pack generator: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R61ET4HX.

 

[A.P.]

Uh, I don't mean to shut you down, but this is for competitive Pokémon, as referring to a metagame similar to that in the cartridges' Wi-Fi.

I'm not sure where you'd go for competitive TCG (I'm not a player myself), but IIRC, PokéBeach is the biggest TCG competitive site (they have a TCG online simulator, known as Redshark), so that may be a better place to do this.

EDIT: Sorry, I skimmed over this. Never mind my post.

EDIT2: IMO, it still wouldn't work. Because as far as I know, Smogon likes to stay close to the official Wi-Fi established metagame, so I dunno. You may find it more favorable to take it up somewhere else, but I don't really have a say in this anyways, so don't listen to my humble opinion if you don't want to.

 

[Platyp]

Heh, yeah, I was talking about cartridge-style gameplay, not the TCG.

Before I go further, I want to make sure you understand that my posting this thread wasn't for the purpose of altering the metagame. It's just providing a new way of looking at Pokemon. This forum is for Diamond/Pearl/Platinum discussion. The draft would use DPP tiers. (I also looked through the rules for this forum, and there wasn't anything in particular that said this thread would be taboo.)

I don't see how this would particularly differentiate the metagame. I'd assume that people would generally use the same or similar sets. The only real change would be your selection of Pokemon, which would be different for each draft. As I said, my intention isn't to revolutionize Pokemon, but to look at it differently.

If this thread is shut down by staff, I'd be happy to take my ideas elsewhere.

 

[cantab]

Because as far as I know, Smogon likes to stay close to the official Wi-Fi established metagame, so I dunno.

I disagree with that. Smogon primarily revolves around Shoddy. The main difference is the Rotom Appliances are a major consideration on Shoddy, but absent from WiFi. (Ubers Shoddy gets Shaymin-S and Giratina-O too, while missing Arceus because the EV limit isn't supported.)[/QUOTE]

About the original ideas: One thing you need to consider is what about the Pokemon is defined?

The least restrictive is just the species.

An intermediate possibility is that species, ability, nature, IVs, gender, nickname and shinyness are fixed. This corresponds to the idea of it being a single individual Pokemon.

The most restrictive is to add EVs, moveset, and possibly held item.

I've though of a not dissimilar idea myself, The Pokemon Premiership. It's based on the English football leagues.

* At the start of the tournament, each player must create a squad of some number of Pokemon (probably 12).
* Each squad member's species, gender, nickname, and shinyness are made public. Their ability, nature, and IVs are also fixed, but told only to the tournament organiser. Species clause does NOT apply to squads. However, 'global nickname clause' applies - no two Pokemon, of any player, can have the same nickname.
* It's a single round-robin system, with 3 points for a win, and 1 for a draw (if self-KO clause is off).
* Before each battle, each player forms their team from their squad. They can use whatever EVs, moves, and items they want - this corresponds to the idea of being able to coach team members between matches. Species clause does apply to teams.

That's the basics. After all matches are played, the league is complete. Ties are resolved by knockout-difference.

Additions could include:

* Battle logs being public (which is in accord with real sports).
* A 'transfer window' of some sort after half the matches are played.
* Matches consisting of two 'halves', each a battle, with some substitutions allowed between. Problem is this means the tournament organiser should have the EV spreads of all twelve Pokemon of each player before each match (you can't coach much in half time!), which would be too much work I think.
* Multiple divisions, with a system of promotion and relegation. A limit of 20 in each division would I guess be about right if each 'season' was to last a month.

 

[scorchedsky]

Would you be drafting specific Pokemon (i.e. set EVs, item, moveset...) or would you just be drafting the "species?" Seems like it'd be interesting to try either way.

 

[Ferrouswheel]

I think this is a very interesting idea, though it could use a little more fleshing out. I really like the Bid draft idea.

 

[Platyp]

Would you be drafting specific Pokemon (i.e. set EVs, item, moveset...) or would you just be drafting the "species?" Seems like it'd be interesting to try either way.

I've created a new section in the OP with my opinion about that. I'm more in favor of drafting just the species because it'd be very difficult imo to keep tabs on each player's Pokemon's moveset.

I think this is a very interesting idea, though it could use a little more fleshing out. I really like the Bid draft idea.

More fleshing out, you say? How so?

 

[Ferrouswheel]

It needs more fleshing out in terms of the creation of the pack and pool. You can't just randomly have OU and UU pokes, you'd need to have it divided somewhat.

I think that if your doing a limited pool, you could have it divided into groups of pokes by type. For instance, you'd have a choice of the Water/Ice group (which is X number of OU and UU) and then you'd have second choice of Fire/Dragon, and so on. With only team + 1 pokes, you'd have a little hard time getting a rounded team. I realize that your team isn't supposed to be Laddering level, but it would be nice to allow for more coherent strategy building.

 

[makiri]

We have already had several tournaments like this, where a group of people will get together and draft Pokemon similar to an NBA or NFL draft, where all non-ubers are fair game. And I know several people like to just get together (Mekkah comes to mind), and draft "cool" Pokemon only, however no one has really ever done this "pack" idea. It seems interesting to say the least, however if you are interested in hosting such a tournament I suggest getting into contact with a tournament director, it seems like it would require some work forming these packs and such, but could be incredibly fun for participants.

 

[Twin_Scimitar]

Cool idea you've introduced the reaver. I have a suggestion for it.

I used to play a good amount of Magic the Gathering back in the day. A major part of competitive Magic is a format called "limited". One section of limited is a draft. I just c+p'ed from wiki for the explanation:

In a "Booster Draft", several players (usually eight) are seated around a table and each player is given three booster packs. Each player opens a pack, selects a card from it, and passes the remaining cards to the next player. Each player then selects one of the remaining cards from the pack he or she just received, and passes the remaining cards again. This continues until all of the cards are depleted. Players pass left for the first and third packs, and right for the second. Players then build decks out of any of the cards that they selected during the drafting. Talking, signaling, and showing cards is forbidden during the drafting process.

I'd imagine the best way to work this for pokemon, is for each person to be given one pack only. The total number in each pack, along with the ratio of OU to UU could be decided upon by the Tournament Organizer, however for ease of this explanation let's say the packs would be 6OU and 10UU. The draft consists of six players for the purposes of this example.

Each player would start with a unique pack, pick one pokemon, and pass it to the next player. Each pack would go around the table twice (each person would pick from a pack twice), leaving 4 pokemon in each pack to be discarded. Then each player would have 12 pokemon to choose from to create a team. I feel that this would give enough freedom, and allow players to build functional teams. The pokemon would not be limited to a specific set, and you could do whatever you wanted with that pokemon. This method of drafting is also more "fair" to everyone involved than the other previously mentioned non-bid drafts. To add further consistency and fairness, you could create the packs through a random number generator and usage statistics. A pack could be created as follows:

Ou #1: 1st to third in usage
Ou #2: fourth to 10th in usage
Ou #3: 10th to 15th in usage
Ou #4-6: 15th and lower of OU
UU #1: 1st to third in usage
UU #2: fourth to 8th in usage
UU #3: 9th to 15th in usage
UU #4: 15th to 20th in usage
UU #5-7: 20th to 35th in usage
UU #8-10: 35th and lower of UU

Again, the numbers are just examples I quickly came up with that are put there in order to demonstrate the idea. The same principle could be used for a draft game of only OU, only UU, or even Ubers. It doesn't have to be done by usage, however I see it as a fair and effective way of randomly making each of the packs "good".

Another added bonus of this method is that an added element of strategy is introduced in the drafting portion. If the player that is passing you packs is passing you packs chock full of amazing walls, he probably is not trying to make a stall team, and you might be wise to pick up some of those walls, since it is likely he will continue passing more in future packs.

The logistics of such a tournament would be the stopping block (as it always is). It would probably be wise to start small, no more than 32 people perhaps even 16, so that logs could be submitted in order to curb cheating. Relying on good faith would make it so much easier to run, but could be a problem. I foresee the problem of cheating being this idea's breaking point, and any suggestions as to how to solve it would be welcome.

You'd probably want y pools of x people being supervised by y people. Each person supervising a pool would be responsible for keeping track of each pack in a pool, and subtracting a pokemon each time someone picked one. After pools you'd set it up as a regular bracket. Since trying to do this through pm over the course of a few days/a week is fraught with complications, I feel that the best "venue" for a draft tournament like this would be something similar to the late night tournament. You would set a time that it will take place in the tournament thread a few days before, and then take applicants for the tournament at the set time. That way it can all be done over shoddy, in a much quicker and more time efficient manner. Another method is to have the draft on Saturday, and the actual match on Sunday, to avoid the block of dedicated time required being too long. People being inactive could be a problem, however if you made sure to get two or three subs per pool I feel good about its chances of working. I'd be more than willing to help out with such a tournament if anyone is interested.

If anyone has any thoughts on the cheating aspect of this type, or the Rochester type of draft whether they be solutions or further issues, please share them.

 

[Otterpaw]

I think that it's best to have more than one 'pack.' In MTG they give you multiple packs not just for the cards, but also so that when you open your second pack you have an idea of your general strategy as you select your cards. This is even more present in pokemon, because team building can't take 5-10 'cards' that aren't all that good.

This would also need to all be mostly in one tier, because when you introduce the lower ranked UU poke's to any OU poke's it's not too much of a fight. Select the ones that are used most in OU (like uxie) and add them in the last slot of the pack, but they shouldn't be too present.

If the number of people who join up is over 15, you should probably break it into 2 drafts.

 

[noob3]

in mtg you draft 45 cards, while your deck is only 40 cards, so that leaves you with around 23-27 useable cards depending on how mana intensive your deck is.

just stating this to try to get the amount of pokemon in the draft right

 

[Twin_Scimitar]

The multiple pack idea has merit. As noob3 stated, in magic you need 23-27 playables for a deck, whereas in pokemon you only need 6. Since, you only need six team members, and ideally each pack should be passed around a pool twice, I think three packs might be too many. Perhaps two packs would work, to give someone the opportunity of drafting some of the better pokemon in a format once they already know what kind of team they want to build. It would also allow them to search for team members that would fulfill specific roles that are required for one's team to function well.

I agree that the idea would probably work better within a specific format, and I would suggest starting it out like that.

Noob3, I don't feel that the ratio of 45 magic cards opened to 23-27 playables being used in one's deck should necessarily say anything about the ratio for pokemon. Even if the draft type is similar, the games are so different I don't see how it would be relevant.

 

[Acritter]

I have to say I really love this idea, and would look forward to participating in drafts. However, the problem about completely randomizing the pool is that, unlike Magic, it can be much more difficult to pick a theme and then be able to carry it out. In Magic, you can (Zendikar block time) decide to pick an Allies theme to carry out, and there will almost certainly be enough Allies in the pool to get a full team. However, in Pokemon to carry out a theme such as Sandstorm you need to have a lot of lucky picks, including a Sand Streamer and a lot of Ground/Steel/Rock types. That's not all that likely to be found. So to make a good Pokemon draft, you need to have something bearing much more resemblance to a Cube Draft. Say, take all of the below-Ubers Pokemon and give eight or so people a pick at a time until they hit eight Pokemon apiece, in the same picking order as Cube (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,1...). Some diversity could probably organized, and it's worth noting that there are less than 64 OU Pokemon available, meaning that picks HAVE to go into UU. Some good alternate Cubes could probably be made, but that's the basics.

 

[Platyp]

Yeah, I thought about Booster. I play MtG pretty frequently, and drafting is always one of the best parts of it.

However, as you mentioned, cheating is the biggest issue with this type of draft. Who is to say that someone couldn't simply pick any random Pokemon they wanted, put it on their team, and then delete the best Pokemon in the pack so another player couldn't take it?

IRL this would be a lot easier to manage, but it's very difficult over the internet unless a drafting simulator were created. That's why I'd prefer the Rochester version.

That being said, I think it's still worth a shot. I just get the feeling that it might be more prone to cheaters/lengthy.

I'm tempted to get a tournament of some sort together, but these rules would need to be solidified. I'd open an IRC network, but a) I'm not too familiar with it, b) as a corollary to the first, I'm not sure if IRC stores backlogs, I will probably be need, and c) my computer lags itself shitless whenever I do go on IRC. A Skype chatroom would work best imo because it records history and such, but would anyone have a better idea for a means of communication?

This would also need to all be mostly in one tier, because when you introduce the lower ranked UU poke's to any OU poke's it's not too much of a fight. Select the ones that are used most in OU (like uxie) and add them in the last slot of the pack, but they shouldn't be too present.

Not necessarily. Plenty of OU teams use UU Pokemon successfully. Additionally, when you limit it to only one tier, you have far less variety. What if you're doing a four-person draft with 36 Pokemon in the pool? If you do multiple, you'll be getting the same Pokemon over and over again. I suppose we could start off that way, however.

Additionally, I also really, really like the idea of basing "rarity" of a Pokemon in a draft by its usage. The top of OU, to use an analogy with Magic, would be the "Mythic Rares," while the mid OU would be "rares." Low OU, BL, and high UU could be "uncommons," leaving the low UU to be "commons." Unfortunately, I realize that this would make a lot of the more viable Pokemon a lot harder to come by. Suggestions are completely welcome.

For future reference: here are the chances of coming by a card of a specific rarity in Magic.

Mythic Rare: 1/8 from 15 = 1:120
Rare: 7/8 from 53 = 1:60
Uncommon: 3 from 60 = 1:20
Common: 10 from 101 = 1:10

However, the problem about completely randomizing the pool is that, unlike Magic, it can be much more difficult to pick a theme and then be able to carry it out. In Magic, you can (Zendikar block time) decide to pick an Allies theme to carry out, and there will almost certainly be enough Allies in the pool to get a full team. However, in Pokemon to carry out a theme such as Sandstorm you need to have a lot of lucky picks, including a Sand Streamer and a lot of Ground/Steel/Rock types. That's not all that likely to be found.

That may be true, but you have to realize that there aren't as many "themes" in Pokemon as there are in Magic in the first place. Basically, the only themes are No Weather, Sun, Rain, Sand, Hail, Trick Room, Gravity, and Tailwind (lol), and within each of these themes, you can go offense, balanced, or stall for your playstyle. That leaves 3 * 8 = 24 team types, 21 when you eliminate Tailwind. Additionally, some of these themes don't work very well with a playstyle. Rain, Sun, and Trick Room aren't really made for stall, for example. If you keep making generalizations like this, you will begin to realize that the number of "themes" that you can use is very small.

The purpose of drafting isn't to build a team with a particular theme, but to build a team with synergy, which is entirely possible with a pool of 18 Pokemon if you build the right movesets.

 

[TEA_DEMON]

This is a really interesting idea, and sounds like it'd be quite fun. And about the whole theme thing, every team has weaknesses (like MtG, your deck can't be prepared for everything in a draft). It's down to your skill as to how you work around the weaknesses formed in the draft. I mean, if you open a pack you'd almost certainly pick the OU and work around it (like MtG, people tend to go for a rare/uncommon and see how they can manipulate it). Themes really aren't overly relevant in Pokemon compared to MtG, it's more a matter of synergy.

 

[Twin_Scimitar]

I have to say I really love this idea, and would look forward to participating in drafts. However, the problem about completely randomizing the pool is that, unlike Magic, it can be much more difficult to pick a theme and then be able to carry it out. In Magic, you can (Zendikar block time) decide to pick an Allies theme to carry out, and there will almost certainly be enough Allies in the pool to get a full team. However, in Pokemon to carry out a theme such as Sandstorm you need to have a lot of lucky picks, including a Sand Streamer and a lot of Ground/Steel/Rock types. That's not all that likely to be found. So to make a good Pokemon draft, you need to have something bearing much more resemblance to a Cube Draft. Say, take all of the below-Ubers Pokemon and give eight or so people a pick at a time until they hit eight Pokemon apiece, in the same picking order as Cube (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,1...). Some diversity could probably organized, and it's worth noting that there are less than 64 OU Pokemon available, meaning that picks HAVE to go into UU. Some good alternate Cubes could probably be made, but that's the basics.

Look at it this way. In a booster draft you can draft allies, but you can't really afford to draft white allies. Whereas with pokemon you could draft stall, but not Sandstorm stall. There's really only a few types of teams I could see where you couldn't draft them. Mostly just weather, and you could probably do rain if it was a OU/UU draft, although it would be risky. If you wanted to build a team around say sub machamp, you could pick up a lead, a lure for counters (could be HP ice ape, Lucario, or even Tyraniboah), and a safe switchin to some of its counters(Heatran, Rotom-A, Latias, or Metagross). It won't be perfect, however the teams should work well enough, and it seems like it would be a lot of fun.

Yeah, I thought about Booster. I play MtG pretty frequently, and drafting is always one of the best parts of it.

However, as you mentioned, cheating is the biggest issue with this type of draft. Who is to say that someone couldn't simply pick any random Pokemon they wanted, put it on their team, and then delete the best Pokemon in the pack so another player couldn't take it?

IRL this would be a lot easier to manage, but it's very difficult over the internet unless a drafting simulator were created. That's why I'd prefer the Rochester version.

That being said, I think it's still worth a shot. I just get the feeling that it might be more prone to cheaters/lengthy.

I'm tempted to get a tournament of some sort together, but these rules would need to be solidified. I'd open an IRC network, but a) I'm not too familiar with it, b) as a corollary to the first, I'm not sure if IRC stores backlogs, I will probably be need, and c) my computer lags itself shitless whenever I do go on IRC. A Skype chatroom would work best imo because it records history and such, but would anyone have a better idea for a means of communication?

If I were you, I would have the actual passing of the packs handled by the tournament organizer(s). The person could tell the organizer what they are picking, and out of what pack, and the organizer could pass that on to the next person, minus that pokemon (this is how I would handle Rochester draft as well). I am worried about cheating during the playing of the games. What's to say someone doesn't just add a Scizor and a Latias because it would make his/her team better. That would be the hard part to monitor, especially since I feel that the best way to do it would be all in one night, or over two nights. It would be impossible, since everyone would have to pm teams to the TO, and save logs and give them to the TO, all during one night. Even if you had 4 people helping you, that would be a task you couldn't accomplish. I guess we could just have all participants report teams that are "too well built" or have too many high OUs, and look at those logs. What do you think of that?

Edit: Mythic rares are, imo, a marketing ploy. They bring nothing to a draft and we should not treat the high OU as mythic rares. If you are going to include high OU in one pack, you should include them in all of them.

 

[Ffancrzy]

I think this would be a great idea, but I think it would be better to do more along the lines of a "fantasy draft" for football than an MTG style draft simply because its hard to emulate a booster. I think you could do it where you draft pokemon for a tourney like this and it would be great.

 

[Platyp]

I think this would be a great idea, but I think it would be better to do more along the lines of a "fantasy draft" for football than an MTG style draft simply because its hard to emulate a booster. I think you could do it where you draft pokemon for a tourney like this and it would be great.

I think the two-player draft most resembles a fantasy draft than the others. I'll update it to allow for more players, though.

If I were you, I would have the actual passing of the packs handled by the tournament organizer(s). The person could tell the organizer what they are picking, and out of what pack, and the organizer could pass that on to the next person, minus that pokemon (this is how I would handle Rochester draft as well). I am worried about cheating during the playing of the games. What's to say someone doesn't just add a Scizor and a Latias because it would make his/her team better. That would be the hard part to monitor, especially since I feel that the best way to do it would be all in one night, or over two nights. It would be impossible, since everyone would have to pm teams to the TO, and save logs and give them to the TO, all during one night. Even if you had 4 people helping you, that would be a task you couldn't accomplish. I guess we could just have all participants report teams that are "too well built" or have too many high OUs, and look at those logs. What do you think of that?

Edit: Mythic rares are, imo, a marketing ploy. They bring nothing to a draft and we should not treat the high OU as mythic rares. If you are going to include high OU in one pack, you should include them in all of them.

That's my issue as well. Even if it were handled by TOs, people could still cheat. One TO can't watch every game.

Imo, a draft version that would be less prone to cheating would be better suitable for this type of thing. Even if Rochester or the bid draft aren't as fun as a booster version, they're easier to keep track of.

And now that I look at it, I agree with the mythic rare thing. I'd reworked the entire rarity thing in my head last night, using MtG as a model. Basically, instead of of the 3 OU, 6 UU for every 9, we would separate the giant conglomerate of the OU, BL, and UU tiers into Top, Middle, and Bottom groups based on usage, simply because Rare, Uncommon, and Common sounds too much like a TCG, which this isn't. =P

Now, since we have three groups, we can't just simply through in OUs and UUs and hope for the best. We have to include each of these groups. However, imo, a 3:3:3 ratio wouldn't be fair because the Bottoms would always go last. Therefore, the next best thing is to separate it into a 2:3:4 ratio (2 Top, 3 Middle, 4 Bottom). For example, in a four person draft, you would have 8 Pokemon from the Top, 12 from the Middle, and 16 from the Bottom. How does that sound?

Regarding the cutoffs for each of the groups, I took a look at Zendikar and their rarity ratios. There are 15 Mythics, 53 Rares, 60 Uncommons, 101 Commons, and 20 Lands for a total of 249. For simplicity, I combined the Mythics with the Rares for a total of 68 Rares and the Lands with the Commons for a total of 121 Commons. It's easy to see that they're in a rough 1:1:2 ratio.

There are 113 Pokemon in OU+BL+UU, but I combined all of the alternate Rotom formes into a single Rotom-A, just because it seems a little weird to restrict players to a single Rotom forme. I then made ratios of Rare:Total, Uncommon:Total, and Common:Total and multiplied that number with 109 to get the following:

30:26:53

Then I saw that all of UU except for Venusaur, Arcanine, Honchkrow, and Uxie were in the Bottom group, which didn't make much sense to me. I fudged the numbers a little to move all of UU into the bottom group.

28:24:57

So, if a rarity base is in favor for determining the Pokemon in the pool, those would be good numbers to use. Any suggestions for this are welcome. =)

 

[zarator]

Sorry if I sound dumb, but... where is the point of this thread? I always loved Draft (I played Magic for years, you know^^), but unless you put up a tournament with this format, why are you posting this here in Stark? There are a lot of possible (and entertaining) formats to play Pokémon with without altering in-game mechaninc, and yours is one of them. If you really would want to play this format, submit a Tournament application (or ask someone else to do so), but I don't see this as a standard format on shoddy battle anytime soon. I guess randbats are enough to satisfy your need for "randomness"^^

 

[DJXO9]

Sorry if I sound dumb, but... where is the point of this thread? I always loved Draft (I played Magic for years, you know^^), but unless you put up a tournament with this format, why are you posting this here in Stark? There are a lot of possible (and entertaining) formats to play Pokémon with without altering in-game mechaninc, and yours is one of them. If you really would want to play this format, submit a Tournament application (or ask someone else to do so), but I don't see this as a standard format on shoddy battle anytime soon. I guess randbats are enough to satisfy your need for "randomness"^^

Really because he wanted to figure out what the best format would be since obviously this would be a large undertaking. And with a large undertaking, I too would want to know if there were interest so that if this were posted with the tournaments, it wouldn't go to waste.

 

[Platyp]

Haha, I see where you're going with this.

I've heard from a few different members from on the forums and on IRC that there were draft-style tournaments in the past, but most of them failed because the people were either uncommitted, uninterested, or didn't know how to use IRC (or something like that).

Therefore, I guess the point of this thread is to get people together who would be interested in something like this. I've just opened up an IRC network for everyone who is interested to get together. Granted, this isn't standard Pokemon, but I'm not trying to change the standard way the game is played in the first place.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[zarator]

Mmm, I see your point now. Well, if there is a tournament about this format, I could be interested. My only advice for you, if that is the case, is to boost the cap from 64 to 128 participants. I know it may seem high, but standard tournaments generally get a hundred of replies just within a day from the post. If you are also making (hopefully successful) efforts to popularize the format beforehand, I'd expect the participation to be huge should a tournament be posted.

 

[The Illuminati]

I like the idea :-)

 

[DJXO9]

I like the idea; its a good concept on paper. I hope it turns out well though, if this happens. With my break officially starting in a few hours, calculus ftl, I could help some if needed.