What we need from Draft Mode

Does anyone remember draft mode?

Draft has the potential to be an amazing game mode, I personally play draft almost exclusively after I reach pro rank, its a fun way to break out of the meta.

At the moment there are clearly stronger leaders than others. For example, Natures gift, imposter, Mahakam forge and Blood Scent are much stronger than rage of the sea, pincer maneuver, overwhelming hunger, and guerilla tactics. This isn't due to the leaders being weak or strong, but because their packages are.

What we want is variety in games, discovering new packages and making interesting combos. We don't want to end up with traditional decks a the end of 7 rounds. But lets be honest, we still want a functioning deck that's able to win.

With that said, draft suffers from 3 serious issues that make the game mode incredibly stale, repetitive, and unbalanced.

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1) Leader cards (the first 3 cards you get to choose from – lets call them that)

90% of the time you are choosing the same card over and over. There is no variety in leader cards, the other 2 options simply suck.

– Firesworn? pick Jaques or Dies Irae

– Natures gift? pick Eithne

– Battletrance? pick Gedyneith

Some leaders have either too weak leader cards, or completely unsynergetic, such as:

– Double Cross (too weak): Anna Henrieta or Artorius Vigo (both 9 provisions) while Imposter gets Ball and Emhyr (14 and 13 provisions)

– Overwhelming Hunger (lack of synergy): only option is Koshchey

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2) Packages

Not only are the packages severely outdated, sometimes they make no sense at all or add nothing to the deck. Packages should made you think and strategize, not pick the clear best out of 3.

Packages should not be randomly generated but carefully picked by the developers, they need to bring synergy to the leader and the leader cards you choose.

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3) Lack of updates

The last update to draft was 10.3 back in march 2022 and so far it hasn't been touched. So many cards added in the past year are not found. Where is Milva? Regis? new Scenarios? Henselt? Hemmelfart? Adding the 50+ cards added to the game over the past year would bring a new level to draft.

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The Solution

1) Leader cards should be an actual choice you make between 3 strong cards (atleast 10 provisions and up) and should impact the rest of the packages you subsequently choose.

– Suggestion: Devs can add Renfri, Shupe, and GN to the list of leader cards

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2) Packages should synergize with each other and with the leader and leader cards. Packages should be updated every patch and reworked all together. Players need to make a thoughtful choice when choosing a package.

– Suggestion: Have phases of packages, for instance Phase 1: control (choose between 3 packages that offer control) Phase 2: thinning, Phase 3: Engines.. etc..

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3) Comprehensively update and add all the cards that have been added or reworked in the game.

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4) Change and add leaders. perhaps change leaders that are not archetype specific (such as jackpot, pincer maneuver, imprisonment) into things like (deadeye ambush, inspired zeal, and enslave)

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Hopefully gwent developers catch on to this, all it takes is just a bit of rework and fixing!