[thatguy0900]

I think this is the big mistake new players make, they want to take every good card they see when really you should be skipping the majority of card drops,even if the card is good it probably isn't good for you right now.

[ridiculous_fish]

I used to take the "best cards", then went through a phase of "have a plan and skip drops which don't advance that plan." But A20 streams take nearly all drops, but very thoughtfully; they are flexible and their plan adapts to what they are offered. There's no objectively good cards, it is always relative to your deck and relics, and the upcoming boss fight, yet with the Heart fight always in mind.

[shadytrees]

I agree with this. As a player gets better at the game, they should be skipping less and taking more cards. A beginner player looks at the four options (three cards, and skip) and is able to assign (bad, good, bad, ok) to the four options. A more advanced player can maybe assign integer values (-1, +2, 1, 0). And a fantastic player can get down to an even finer resolution (-0.7, +1.8, 1.2, -0.1) -- once someone can value cards at that level, they can begin taking more of them because they can foresee how all the different mechanisms in a run make a card (at this current point in the run) stronger or weaker. You end up, for example, taking Bouncing Flask even when the deck already has three Shiv-based cards because you need scaling damage later in the fight; you take Well-Laid Plans and Piercing Wail even if the deck is killing everything on turn one because Act 4 fights will go much longer.

(I can't take any credit for this. I just watch Jorbs content all day.)

[b450]

> There's no objectively good cards, it is always relative to your deck and relics, and the upcoming boss fight

This is really the key. A card always has value in context. A good player will take, for example, a Disarm, and say "this solves Book of Stabbing". The important point is that Disarm doesn't have to be useful in every fight, but it adds a solution for _some_ fights to the deck. Good players focus on the specific set of problems the deck has to solve, discounting future challenges relative to imminent ones, and add tools for those fights. Good players also tend to highly value card draw and deck manipulation to enable searching the deck for the right card when it's needed. Depending on how effectively you can cycle the deck, adding tons of cards to a deck is often a good strategy. For example, a deck with Corruption and Dark Embrace basically doesn't need to worry about the deck bloating at all because the whole deck can be searched in one turn.

[masklinn]

A20 early game you often need to take even sub-par cards in order to get sufficient damage for the elites and boss (or you may have to avoid the elites which hinders your scaling).

An other difficulty is the ability to “switch theme” and correctly pivot from a deck able to pass act 1 to a deck able to kill heart.

[shoo]

tangent --- it is interesting watching highly skilled players navigating draft in magic the gathering. quite different mechanics to how deck building operates in sts.

one idea is having a good working understanding of "the format", all the possible cards in that version of the game, which subset of those are potentially playable in draft, and an understanding of different styles of strong deck to steer for. breadth of experience and familiarity helps in both games.

another idea is not locking yourself in too early to a particular strategy that depends on cards you haven't got yet -- prefer taking cards that can be good in multiple possible future decks, rather than picking a card that is very strong but only works in a specific kind of deck that might not pan out.

there are some major differences to sts. in sts the drafting is interleaved with the rest of the game, so in some scenarios it would be necessary to balance short-term and long-term payoff --- optimising for the best long-term deck might leave you weak and get you killed you in the short run. whereas in mtg the draft is a phase that takes place before any battles, so there's no benefit or downside to having a good partial deck mid way through draft, beyond the ways it might be completed into good final decks.

another major difference is mtg's drafting being multiplayer, your draft choices are drawn from packs of cards where other players have already removed cards that they want for their own decks. part of the game is trying to infer what kinds of decks other players in your group are drafting -- so you can avoid drafting the same thing and instead position yourself to go after a style of deck that no one else is competing for.

another subtlety is if you are going to play against the other players in your draft group or not. if so, you are incentivized to "hate draft" strong cards you have no intention of playing just so the people you will be playing against cannot field them against you. but if you're not playing against your draft group, it's optimal to let the other players get strong cards you don't want that would be a good fit for their deck, as that encourages them to keep drafting their current style of deck, and not start intruding on your style. another facet of this is that in sts you have to play every card you draft (unless you can find an option to remove it) whereas in mtg you always draft more cards than the minimum deck size, then field a deck containing a subset of them.

[aloisdg]

Skipping card is often better than most card to avoid deck pollution and increase your odd to get your best cards.

MtG decks always have a floor limit of card and players rarely go above.

[WastingMyTime89]

If by best card you mean the card which solves your problem right now, you definitely always need to take the best card rather than try to build an archetype. Knowing what is the best card is extremely unobvious for beginner however. Then, sometimes what’s best leads to boring play and you have to chose if you would rather win or actually enjoy your time.