16 Card Mock Draft

[Dad_Scaper]

Oh, don't feel bad for me. Let's wait until it's all finished, but I think I ended up with a good army for an imaginary round robin here. I just think the second position, and to a lesser extent the third, are tougher spots than the first and fourth. But in the case of this particular draft, I think I did just fine. I'll finish with Migol and have an army of pretty durable heroes and a couple of squads of wolves that are, when lucky, quite dangerous.

Let's wait and look at the final armies when they're all assembled.

[Unhinged Manchild]

Ha, this thread looks interesting. So this is all just theoretical, no actual games going down?

Regardless, I like reading the thought process behind each pick.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Originally Posted by kolakoski

In any event, I feel bad for how things went for you. The problem with this draft was me, not the format, I think. What do you think of expanding the pool? What would be the smallest viable pool for 4 players? How about 2?

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

Oh, don't feel bad for me. Let's wait until it's all finished, but I think I ended up with a good army for an imaginary round robin here. I just think the second position, and to a lesser extent the third, are tougher spots than the first and fourth. But in the case of this particular draft, I think I did just fine. I'll finish with Migol and have an army of pretty durable heroes and a couple of squads of wolves that are, when lucky, quite dangerous.

Let's wait and look at the final armies when they're all assembled.

How about my questions?

[flameslayer93]

I could see bumping the options for 4-player to 6 cards per tier. For 2 players, 3 cards per tier should be reasonable.

[Dad_Scaper]

I was really hoping to have four sets of fully selected armies before diving into the full post mortem.

[itsbuzzi]

Perhaps for the tiers have an extra so the last person still has a pick. So in this case instead of 4 per tier have 5 that are somewhat equal. That should at least make it a little better for the second and third pick because their picks happen with the widest spread (second and seventh and third and sixth)

[flameslayer93]

Player 1: Nilfheim (Tier 1) (wriggz)
Player 2: Krug (Tier 2) (DS)
Player 3: Mogrimm (Tier 3) (Tornado)
Player 4: Charos (Tier 1) (Ollie)
Player 4: Kaemon Awa (Tier 2) (Ollie)
Player 3: Master of the Hunt (Tier 2) (rym)
Player 2: Braxas (Tier 1) (DS)
Player 1: Skull Brutes × 2 (Tier 4) (wriggz)
Player 1: Crixus (Tier 3) (wriggz)
Player 2: Anubian Wolves x2 (Tier 4) (DS)
Player 3: Tagawa Samurai Archers x 2 (Tier 4) (Tornado)
Player 4: Sir Denrick (Tier 3) (Ollie)
Player 4: Shaolin Monks (Tier 4) (Ollie)
Player 3: Moltenclaw (Tier 1) (flameslayer)

It looks like everything is predetermined now. Hopefully player 3’s can inflict crucial wounds.

[Dad_Scaper]

So Player 3 (mostly @Tornado ) gets Moltenclaw, Player 2 (me) gets Migol, and Player 1 ( @wriggz ) gets the Frost Giant. It's all forced, and it appears people are intent on getting into the post mortem, so I'll just post the final armies now, in the order in which the units were selected:

Player 1 (Wriggz):
Nilfheim
Horned Skull Brutes
Crixus
Frost Giant of Morrh

Player 2 (me):
Krug
Braxas
Anubian Wolves x2
Migol

Player 3 (tornado and @rym )
Mogrimm
Master of the Hunt
Tagawa Samurai Archers x2
Moltenclaw

Player 4 (Ollie):
Charos
Kaemon Awa
Sir Denrick
Monks x2

My final army: Krug, Braxas, Wolves x2, Migol.

My analysis of this small meta was that it was *very* hero-heavy. Obviously. Light attackers, including light multi-attackers, would not be as valuable as they are in a traditional competitive environment, where there is wide shot selection and lots of squaddies that can be pinged off the board.

The only standout unit was Krug, in Tier 2. Each of the other Tiers was defined by the units to avoid: Moltenclaw in Tier 1, whose breath weapon is relatively lower value and whose base stats weren't as good as the others; Mogrimm in Tier 3, whose strengths derive from playing well with allies; the monks and archers in Tier 4, who lack durability and punch.

I ranked Braxas as the second-best dragon behind Charos. Nilfheim has good base stats but he'd often be squaring off in melee so his breath weapon would have less value, and his efficiency for his points is of course irrelevant in a draft. The acid breath attack would be much more valuable when facing a bunch of melee heroes and high defense squaddies. I am mindful that Moltenclaw can be situationally effective on the right maps, where he can sometimes get to a hard-to-reach perch, but I am not going to burden my analysis with consideration of the exception map, or the exception glyph, as I wrote above.

The Frost Giant was a good choice behind Krug in Tier 2. I don't understand why he fell to the end. I've always found Kaemon Awa to go down pretty quickly when opposed by heavy hitters, and there are many too many heavy hitters in this draft for me consider taking him. I might have taken him ahead of the MotH, but I'm not sure. I definitely would have scooped up the Giant, if I hadn't gotten Krug, because I think the dropoff after those two is substantial.

In Tier 3 I thought Mogrimm was the odd man out. The other three were good choices. Durable, with decent attack and some special ability that might help in the monster-fest to follow.

In Tier 4 I thought the Horned Skull Brutes were the best choice. The Wolves were a somewhat distant second, though their speed and high defense would be an asset in getting up close & personal with the tough foes they'd be hunting. After those two the dropoff was significant.

By my own analysis, then, I got the best unit in the draft and the best in Tier 2 in Krug, the second-best dragon in Braxas, the second best squad in the Anubian Wolves, and one of the better heroes in Tier 3, in Migol. Reviewing the armies drafted by my excellent friends here, I see that Wriggz did a good job, as measured by my own rankings, led by the best squad from Tier 4, and the second-best hero from Tier 2, in the Frost Giant of Morrh. He avoided Moltenclaw in Tier 1 and scooped up Crixus in Tier 3, who might be better - by a hair - than Denrick and Migol.

Thanks again for setting this up, Kolakoski! @Tornado , @rym , ollie , @wriggz , what did you guys think?

If there's another round, I'd like to see some other guys step in. Definitely including rym, who put his quarter on the machine for "next," as far as I'm concerned, before we settled into this pattern of one-person-per-player.

[ollie]

I think Players 1, 2 and 4 all have a fighting chance. 2 would probably be my pick as the army that'd come out on top.

I was undone by my relative unfamiliarity with units between about Wave 8 and C3V Wave 2. Until Wave 8 I've played all the units many times, and more recently I've been playing a lot with the newer ones, especially for playtests. However, playing a lot less in that window means that I misjudged a couple.

First, I underrated MotH (in this context). I think I've only ever played it a couple of times and don't much like the sculpt (which really shouldn't count against it here). But I put it significantly below the others in Tier 2, when I now don't think that was warranted.

I still think Kaemon is a strong (but sub-Krug) pick from the tier. Range is good, especially when not many other units have it; Counterstrike is good, especially when there's lots of melee (albeit heavy-hitting for the most part) around; and attacking more than once a marker is good.

I also underrated the HSB. Another unit I haven't used much. Doesn't help that I've got a soft spot for each of the other three in that tier and so am probably prone to overrate them a touch.

So, in hindsight, my first pair of picks should have been Charos (as I did, avoiding Moltenclaw and getting arguably the best dragon although I think it's tight between the three non-Moltenclaw ones) but then HSB rather than Kaemon, because Tier 4 was where the spread really was rather than Tier 2.

I agree with those saying the Tier 3 ones are much of a muchness. I went with Denrick as he was the one I'd least like attacking my Charos from someone else's army, and there are plenty of huge things for him to swing at too.

Good fun!

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Originally Posted by ollie

I had an idea about this (and agree it'd be fun to do again): what if we come to consensus on who "won" the draft (with Kolakoski the final arbiter if needed) and that person becomes the next host and can set up the draft however they like (but not participate)?

We could maybe have a waiting list of participants too, or just dive in like this time.

Agreed. I'm open to changing the number of cards, and also eliminating the Tier system. Let's see what wriggz comes up with.

P.S.: I'd love it if you all would participate in a mock draft for my SoV candidate playtest, which can be found here.

[Dr.Goomonkey]

I never jumped in on this, though I did keep some tabs on it. I see Charos being better than Braxas in this pool, actually. If you send your dragon after Braxas before she can get in range of your squaddies (or little heroes, I guess) then you should be able to nullify her pretty well. I would probably even choose Charos over Nilfheim, but considering the amount of heavy hitters that is probably uncalled for.

Tier two was picked out in a ridiculous order, by my reckoning. Krug is a pretty clear first choice, but if it were 3 Goomonkeys fighting over the rest of them we would have chosen Frost Giant, then MotH, and finally Kaemon. Counterstrike seemed somewhat inane on even Charos in this batch, so why would I want Kaemon? Two attacks per turn is nice, but two extra lives, range, and extra wounds is nicer.

Maybe I'm racist, but I would want the Tier 3 humans. I'd probably go with Crixus because I love attack 5, but I could see myself picking Denrick if I ended up without a huge figure from Tier 2. Morgrimm would be my last pick but that's probably because I personally have always done terribly with him. Tough is nice, but I wouldn't feel confident in my ability to get height with him once I already have another figure engaged where he can buff them; plus, if I already have another figure engaged why aren't I just attacking with them?

Tier 4, Anubian Wolves. Enough said. Guaranteeing attacks of 4 with the Brutes is nice, but in this setup they have no special powers (and who doesn't love rolling a 1 with the Anubians?) Archers' range probably pushes them just above monks in this setup, but if it was down to those picks and anything else was left to fight over I would take the anything else since neither of those squads catch my eye at all.

Players 1, 2, and 4 are really closely matched, but if I average who they got based on who I said was the best to get, player 1 should win since he got all the second best choices from the Tiers and Crixus, the best choice from his tier. Player 2 got Krug and Anubians, which sets him up for success, but Braxas (hopefully) won't be that effective if the other player knows what their doing, and I don't like Migol... Player 4 got Charos, and Denrick was a close second to Crixus in that Tier, but getting stuck with Kaemon and the Monks seems bad to me.

Player 3 got almost entirely the 3rd best choices, and Moltenclaw. Depending on dice they've still got a chance, but I don't see it happening. If you start a sentence with "depending on dice" it's probably not good.

[ollie]

It seems odd to be needing to argue that Kaemon is a worthwhile unit. I guess that's the fun of the drastically different metagames these small-pool drafts have. Three points, that are mostly elaborations of what I said before:

First, Counterstrike is game-defining against low-attack units, which isn't the case here, but even against medium-to-high attacks it has a decent effect. There are plenty of attacks of 4 (or less) in the pool. The chance of Counterstrike hitting against that (assuming no height either way) is about 20%. And many of these units are melee and without specials.

Second, I think Kaemon has the second-best attacking output for the tier, where that is defined as some squidgy mix of reliability and number of dice. Two attacks of 4 at a range of 4 beats out the provisional/circumstantial nature of the others apart from Krug (and even Krug can be danced around to some degree as the enemy has a big say in when to pump him up).

Third, the range of 7 is huge in a mostly melee game. That gives you a good chance of first strike, gaining height, and/or being able to shoot something without it being able to hit you back.