Draft Mode in “Legends of Signum”

Hello dear readers, after some articles about game mechanics – it’s time to talk about game modes as well. Here we will take a look on example of Draft mode.

What is the Draft in Legends of Signum?

Draft is the tournament format in which at least four people take part. The main feature of this format is that players come to the tournament only with miniatures of characters and the Hero, which are the basis of the Deck, support cards are randomly distributed from the boosters right at the beginning of the tournament. The second feature is that you can use the support cards of any faction (game mode: “Battle”) or the support cards of other heroes (game mode: “Reconnaissance by Fire”) on the draft. The third feature allows you to have an unlimited number of copies of support cards in the deck. Thus, the last feature of the draft allows those cards that the player opened from the boosters take into their collection.

How to play draft?

At the beginning of the tournament, players need to form their own deck. For this, after everyone is seated at the table, players take four boosters. At the command of the referee, they open the first booster, choose one card from it and the rest cards give to the next sit player from the left side. Accordingly, the player on the right side in the same way give his booster cards without one card. At the command of the referee, players take the second card from the players that were handed over to the right and again give the rest to the left. This happens until the players select seven cards for themselves and the first booster will not end.

After that, players open the second booster – but now rest of cards from it are transferred to the right. The process is repeated as many times as there were booster packs before the start of the tournament. Only the direction of the transfer of cards changes. Be careful, take only one card and check how many cards are given to the neighbor. After the end of each booster, the referee must give time for players to recount their cards and make sure that they have seven cards after the first booster, fourteen after the second, twenty-one after the third and twenty-eight after the fourth booster.

When all boosters are ended, players get time to form a deck. From the twenty-eight cards selected on the draft in the deck to the hero and pre-announced characters, you can add from fourteen to all twenty-eight cards, depending on how many characters the player declared for this tournament. Note that unlike the Constructed (classic format), the number of support cards copies is unlimited. If a player wants, they can choose four or five identical cards, and even more if they want to put into their deck.

Draft example from 1-st person view

Let’s take a closer look on the Draft. For example, I take part in the Draft mode tournament. I have prepared my own constructed Deck with the Hero Queen Zenobia of the Holy Grypharim Empire faction. For example two Draft modes: “Dump” – when players make previously a part of their deck, which consist of any miniatures and compile the rest of the deck from support cards, taken from draft mode (but not include personal Heroes’ cards) and “Battle Reconnaissance” – when players can use any personal Heroes’ cards, but not support cards of other factions.

I take part in the Draft mode “Dump” tournament (4 players draft).

My Deck consists from many shooters/throwers, stealth creatures and mid-game melee characters. I will be playing using defense tactic, not to move forward aggressively, but stay near my field side and shoot out by my archers and use healing abilities and defend my range shooters lines by melee fighters. So, my objective is to find cards according to my defensive tactic.

Miniatures in my deck:

Hero:
Queen Zenobia

Characters:
Celebrian the Dawn Archer
Herrick, 17th Infantry Regiment “Burning Dogs”
Umbra, Illuminati Agent
Sergeant Bron
Deinir, Hitter Without a Miss
Cador, Two spears
Rexo, Centaur knight
Adberd The Temple Guardian
Aria, the Avatar of Goddess
Belinda the Healing Hand
Cordelia the Сrusader
Gai the Reliable
Inquisitor Atticus
Huntsman Sorin
Kerub, the Armoured Griffin
Egibert, Imperial Dragoon
Korass, the Inquisition Executioner
Ividomi, Lone warrior

I and other three players sit on game table, making final preparations and waiting for the next commands of the referee. Players including me receive four boosters each and open one of it. Each player including me receives four boosters and open one of it. Here, as example, we will show you opening of two boosters:

I receive next 7 cards:

Second Chance; Contract with the Guilds; Fireball; Spy Games – Vallor cards (three common, one rare)
Wings of Battle; Hold the Line!; Warlord Helmet – Grypharim cards (three common).

From these 7 cards I need to choose only one, understanding the fact that other six I will give to the next player. My decisions are next:
1 “Spy Games”, spell – very situational card which is unnecessary with my tactic. On the other hand I have many stealth character, so if I give this card to my opponent – it can be fatal, but let’s a look another cards.
2 “Second Chance”, spell with the possibility to reshuffle the Deck and redraw the Hand – as for me I like this card and now this card is my priority.
3 “Contract With the Guilds”, relic with durability 2 (gives 2 armour) – I don’t have a lot of characters with guild abilities, so I think I don’t need this card.
4 “Fireball”, spell – good cheap spell, which will look good in any deck. Useful for dealing additional damage, which sometimes can be not enough to kill a character or something in this spirit.
5 “Wings of Battle”, spell – it is not makes sense, but I was lucky to get personal Queen Zenobia’s spell in booster (because I have Queen Zenobia in my army as the Hero). In Draft any Hero can use this card. Card property is useful for mobilize the army and move once again in particular necessary situation. Good card, but I still prefer “Second Chance”
6 “Hold the Line”, tactic – very powerful tactic card for my defending game strategy, where my Hero almost always will be surrounded by ally characters. As for me, I would take this one and now it is hard decision between “Hold the Line” and “Second Chance”.
7 “Warlord Helmet”, relic with durability 3 (3 armour) – the last one card, with ability, which, in my opinion, is not be very important in my deck.

After analysis, still a big decision between two abovementioned cards and I think I will take “Second Chance” as a card, which will give me an opportunity to increase flexibility to my deck and chance to change my Hand in the situation, when the things are not going as was planned.

Player from right side gives me 6 cards:

Here I like many cards, but Rust, for example, seems to me very situational. Word of destruction fiving the opportunity to destroy the building with double cost, seems expensive, but sometimes it’s very powerful. Bear Trap is impossible to pick, because it is devoted only for the hero Khan Dir and in game mode “Dump” it’s completely impossible as I’m playing with Queen Zenobia hero. Architect’s Insight also seems very good card as well as Sky-High Storm. Attack on Illusion also isn’t so bad, bud if compare to my favourites in this list – I would prefer Sky-High Storm, Architect’s Insight or Word of Destruction.

I think an opportunity to destroy any terrain is very nice, also knowing the fact that unique terrains cannot be constructed again. My decision is to take this card.

I choose “Sky-high Storm” and give the rest five cards to the left side.

Thus, I have chosen one cards, so the rest six – I give to my opponent from the left side. On the other hand, I receive six cards from the player from the right side and doing the same as previous time, choosing only one card for my Deck. And so on until you will not collect 28 additional cards, from which I can choose any cards to reach a task of constructing a battle deck with a number of cards between 30 and 40 cards.

This mode is created for the people who likes random constructing and making changes immediately during the draft procedure. Here you can try experimental game moments, such as using another faction’s cards or other Heroes’ spells/relics.

Collected together – the hero, characters, support cards and buildings are the deck for this draft and the players will use them in this Draft battles.

This is only your decisions, firstly bring the miniatures to the tournament and collect the optimal possible support cards for your winning strategy. Play and win in “Legends of Signum” in the way that only you can do!