Drafting Tournaments Explained

[Radiant Dragon]

@Herons: Whoops. Partly to create evener drafting numbers, and partly because they're not necessary to have free (they're nice to have though, I'll admit). The only reason they were chosen as free units is due to their uncertain value as draftees.

@3-1: Ike and Gatrie can complete 3-1 by themselves without anyone else being attacked, so having a 6-move unit be free solves the problems of completing the chapter in time and prevents people from having to take penalties because some scrub like Rhys got attacked.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Integrity]

I've never, ever, ever had a problem with completing 3-1 in time with any team that could prevent the undraftees getting attacked.

[Florete]

I've never, ever, ever had a problem with completing 3-1 in time with any team that could prevent the undraftees getting attacked.

What teams have you used for it?

[Integrity]

Uh...

Ike and Titania (no penalties, finished with two or three turns to spare), Ike and Boyd (no penalties, finished with a turn or two to spare), Ike and Oscar (could not keep the initial rush away from the blob, had to take one penalty unit and finished with three turns to spare). I think that's it.

[Florete]

Ike and Titania is the common way to do it if you don't have an adequate team otherwise, never tried Boyd, and Oscar failed anyway.

So yeah.

[Balcerzak]

@3-1: Ike and Gatrie can complete 3-1 by themselves without anyone else being attacked, so having a 6-move unit be free solves the problems of completing the chapter in time and prevents people from having to take penalties because some scrub like Rhys got attacked.

...Seriously?

I've never, ever, ever had a problem with completing 3-1 in time with any team that could prevent the undraftees getting attacked.

Maybe I just suck, but with Ike, Mia, and Soren I could not complete the chapter on time.

[Radiant Dragon]

...Seriously?

Yeah, I was surprised too. He needs at least 22, possibly capped (23) Speed (I believe there are a few 19 AS enemies that will extend the chapter if Gatrie can't ORKO), though. And all of the 1-2 range weapons he can use.

Maybe I just suck, but with Ike, Mia, and Soren I could not complete the chapter on time.

I needed Titania when I had Ike, Mia and Rhys as well, so yeah.

The more I think about it, the more I think that it may not be fair to let Gatrie be free there, but you really need either him, Titania, a Speed-blessed Boyd, or like 3 or 4 units + Ike to complete the chapter.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Florete]

Maybe we should just have everyone free for 3-1 because it sucks that much.

[Radiant Dragon]

Maybe we should just have everyone free for 3-1 because it sucks that much.

This is very tempting...

How about allowing a 7 move unit? Mia, Shinon and Boyd (without BEXP levels for Speed) aren't as good as Titania and Gatrie here, so it would put a heavier reliance on your drafted GM(s). Thoughts?

Edited July 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Florete]

This is very tempting...

How about allowing a 7 move unit? Mia, Shinon and Boyd (without BEXP levels for Speed) aren't as good as Titania and Gatrie here, so it would put a heavier reliance on your drafted GM(s). Thoughts?

Your idea does not sound bad at all, but I don't think we'll ever come up with a 'perfect' way to do it. At this rate I'm for just about anything.

[Radiant Dragon]

I doubt that there is a perfect way to do it (which I'm sure is what you meant, now that I think about it). But anything that doesn't force the 5 people that don't get Titania or Gatrie to take a penalty here sounds good to me as well.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Janissary]

I would like to propose that the format I used in my Support Chain draft for character drafting be adopted as the standard drafting format. I think that it address the fact that both Geitz and Karla are typically worthless unused picks as best as possible.

Hector, Marcus, Athos, Eliwood, Lyn, Merlinus, and Ninian/Nils are free. All other units are draftable, with Karla coming in a package deal with Bartre.

[Radiant Dragon]

I like your format, personally. The biggest hang up for HHM drafts is Cog of Destiny, but allowing everyone to have 2 extra units with decent Resistance (Eliwood and Lyn get +5 when they promote, if I remember correctly) as well as Ninian to Vigor and Ninis's Grace (albeit it doesn't last as long as Barrier/Pure Water), should make that chapter more possible.

Alternatively, we could go with Priscilla free instead of Ninils (or just Ninian, with Nils free), if we value Restore and Barrier that highly. Or we could remove Wallace altogether. There's plenty options.

There's one other thing I've been thinking about for a while: Banning Warp in all of the games (except FE4), rather than just FE5 and FE11. This really only matters for the GBA games, but it Warp is a massive turn-saving tool that not everyone can have access to. Of course, the same can be said for fliers, and removing Warp may only succeed in making them more dominant. It's just a thought.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Psych]

FE11 really only gives an advantage to Lena. She can warp in chapter 3. As long as you reclass Jeigan, you can use it from Chapter 4 onwards. As long as it's not Hard Mode that's easily possible. Warp there does not have as huge advantages as the other games.

And same deal with FE4. It only gives Aideen a small advantage, because otherwise you can't use it till Levin/Tiltyu promote or you get Claude. I mean, no one cares about Return, Rescue, or the Return Rings.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Psykitty

[CT075]

I dunno about Return, but the Rescue and ReturnRings are fucking valuable.

[Janissary]

I like your format, personally. The biggest hang up for HHM drafts is Cog of Destiny, but allowing everyone to have 2 extra units with decent Resistance (Eliwood and Lyn get +5 when they promote, if I remember correctly) as well as Ninian to Vigor and Ninis's Grace (albeit it doesn't last as long as Barrier/Pure Water), should make that chapter more possible.

That's probably another side benefit. I'll let you know ;)

Alternatively, we could go with Priscilla free instead of Ninils (or just Ninian, with Nils free), if we value Restore and Barrier that highly. Or we could remove Wallace altogether. There's plenty options.

I don't think we should ever make Priscilla free (especially not over Ninian/Nils). You can replicate Priscilla's best function just fine (Serra, Lucius after promotion, Pent). Yeah, Wallace is kinda a problem still. Not much to do for him though.

There's one other thing I've been thinking about for a while: Banning Warp in all of the games (except FE4), rather than just FE5 and FE11. This really only matters for the GBA games, but it Warp is a massive turn-saving tool that not everyone can have access to. Of course, the same can be said for fliers, and removing Warp may only succeed in making them more dominant. It's just a thought.

I would be opposed to this because, in my experience, Warp is significantly more powerful in FE11 because it's not capped by magic. With a magic cap (and Pent being the only real strong magic user warper, at least in FE7) I don't really think warp is that much of a problem. If you want Warp, you get Warp (unless you are 5th pick, since you could potentially lose out, but it'd even up that by giving you the two best fliers if you wanted them. If you are super bold, you can try to farm Erk or Canas (and fail at it).

[dondon151]

FE7 doesn't give you very many good Warp chapters, nor very many good Warp users outside of Pent.

In the other games, it's pretty broken. Not quite sure about FE4 because it's limited to castles, but it's really broken in FE5, 6, 8, 11, and 12.

[Florete]

I would like to propose that the format I used in my Support Chain draft for character drafting be adopted as the standard drafting format. I think that it address the fact that both Geitz and Karla are typically worthless unused picks as best as possible.

Hector, Marcus, Athos, Eliwood, Lyn, Merlinus, and Ninian/Nils are free. All other units are draftable, with Karla coming in a package deal with Bartre.

Alternatively, there's the method I proposed in the KP HNM draft:

I actually thought of a way around this before but didn't want to mention it until I started my own draft. However, that probably isn't going to happen, so I'll just mention it now.

The idea was to make it so that Karla and Geitz are not just "joke" drafts. Karla is easy; combine her with Bartre.

Geitz requires a lot more, though, especially if you want to keep the drafting even. What you can do, however, is make both Hector and Eliwood free all game and allow Lyn mode up to a certain number of turns (50-55 is good) in which all characters are free for Lyn mode (and possibly various other rules like not allowing the Knight Crest to be used on Kent or Sain). It's pretty easy to get Lyn to ~12 in LHM and with free Hector and Eliwood, reaching the 50 level requirement isn't so far off.

You can even the drafting field at 40 units easily enough. Make Marcus free/banned for a certain amount of time and draftable for after that (~Ch 19 would probably be good), have Ninian and Nils drafted separately and draft Athos and that ought to make 40 draftees in total.

Beneficial if you don't want to be including so many free characters + Lyn mode being optional can be nice for those who take it.

[13th]

Integ, first, Hippoman's Random Reclass Roundup finished drafting

1. Hippoman: Abel, Navarre, Wendell, Darros, Wolf, Horace, Ymir, Gordin, Samson, Lorenz, Wrys

2. SpyKitty: Cain, Merric,Athena, Palla, Lena, Etzel, Astram, Linde, Norne, Bantu, Elice

3. Quintessence: Frey, Catria, Cord, Sedgar, Radd, Minerva, Dolph, Tiki, Maria, Est, Boah

4. Furetchen: Barst, Hardin, Jake, Draug, Caesar, Beck, Castor, Midia, Vyland, Macellan, Boah

5.13thShadow: Caeda, Ogma, Jeigan, Roshea, Bord, Matthis, Roger, Tomas, Rickard, Arran, Boah,

And second, I finished with a grand 259 turns.

[Radiant Dragon]

FE11 really only gives an advantage to Lena. She can warp in chapter 3. As long as you reclass Jeigan, you can use it from Chapter 4 onwards. As long as it's not Hard Mode that's easily possible. Warp there does not have as huge advantages as the other games.

Jeigan can't use Warp at base, according to the main site (I could be wrong here, since I don't have much experience with FE11).

And same deal with FE4. It only gives Aideen a small advantage, because otherwise you can't use it till Levin/Tiltyu promote or you get Claude.

Yeah, that's why I said 'except FE4'.

I don't think we should ever make Priscilla free (especially not over Ninian/Nils). You can replicate Priscilla's best function just fine (Serra, Lucius after promotion, Pent).

Notice how there are only 4 Restore/Barrier users and 5 drafters. Since Cog of Destiny is such a problem, I see no problem with letting everyone use those staves in that chapter. Besides, it's not like she saves a whole lot of turns outside that chapter if we ban Warp.

Yeah, Wallace is kinda a problem still. Not much to do for him though.

After thinking about it some more, I would argue Geitz is still the problem. Not only is his version longer than Wallace's, I assume it's still difficult to get Hector, Eliwood and Lyn to level 50 by that chapter when playing for turns. I haven't used all three in a draft though, so I could be wrong.

Pent being the only real strong magic user warper, at least in FE7

So you're saying that we shouldn't ban Warp because only the person who goes first is able to use it effectively? What?

@Red Fox: That works as well. I personally think Janissary's version sounds cleaner, but that's only my opinion. What does everyone else think?

[Psych]

Jeigan can reclass to Bishop. Instant Heal-Bot and Warp.

[Florete]

@Red Fox: That works as well. I personally think Janissary's version sounds cleaner, but that's only my opinion. What does everyone else think?

There are benefits to both. Drafting Marcus would be odd as it is, but getting Geitz in mine would be easier. Having to get just Eliwood and Hector to ~18-19 in the main story would likely be a lot easier than getting all three to ~17 from base (1, 1, and 4). Also worth noting is that with so many free characters, there are bound to be maps where you can't even deploy all your units.

As for recruiting Wallace and Geitz, well, nothing will solve that. Dondon's video shows where Wallace appears in HHM, so either one is likely to cost the player 3-4 turns just to recruit. People like Stefan in FE9 have this issue, too. The only way I've ever thought of to solve it is creating a rule that all units must be recruited.

[Balcerzak]

Jeigan can reclass to Bishop. Instant Heal-Bot and Warp.

Bishop: Tome E, Staff D

Warp: C

[Radiant Dragon]

Jeigan can reclass to Bishop. Instant Heal-Bot and Warp.

I'm fully aware of that, thank you very much. But Warp is C rank, and Bishop starts with base D rank staves, so unless I'm mistaken, Jeigan can't use it. And Balcerzak ninja'd me.

Also worth noting is that with so many free characters, there are bound to be maps where you can't even deploy all your units.

Unless I'm remembering wrong, this would only be a 'problem' in 17x, since there's only 2 spots left after Hector/Marcus/Eliwood/Lyn. Well, and Chapter 30, but yeah.

As for recruiting Wallace and Geitz, well, nothing will solve that. Dondon's video shows where Wallace appears in HHM, so either one is likely to cost the player 3-4 turns just to recruit. People like Stefan in FE9 have this issue, too. The only way I've ever thought of to solve it is creating a rule that all units must be recruited.

I would prefer not to create that rule, since if a character is going to cost more turns to recruit than they would save, I believe that the player should be given the choice whether or not to bother getting them.

Edited July 28, 2011 by Radiant Kitty

[Psych]

I though Bishops were Tomes E Staves C and Sages Tome C Staves E. :/

Oh well. Next chapter you get Wendell, and he can just reclass and use Warp. It really doesn't have much use till Chapter 6 or 7 anyway to recruit Bantu.