Draftin' – A draft simulator for Magic the Gathering

[shawndeprey]

Hi there! It has been a hard fought alpha run, but Draftin' is finally ready to grow up a bit. You have probably never heard of this project because I have been intentionally keeping it off of message boards until it was ready; I created Draftin' to be the most professional and easy to use Magic the Gathering drafting software around. What's going to make or break the project is how it stands up to real usage.

Given that all major features have been added to the application, I am moving the project into beta and releasing it to any and all who want to try it. My only request is that if you do use Draftin' in it's current state, please report any bugs that you find/leave feedback where you feel it is needed. Bare in mind that Draftin' has only been used up to this point by close friends, so you may find bugs we did not.

Even so, I invite everyone to give Draftin' a try. I am really excited to see what real usage uncovers/what everybody thinks of the application! Let me know via the feedback form! Feature suggestions are always welcome as well!

-Shawn

[shawndeprey]

Hi there! It has been a hard fought alpha run, but Draftin' is finally ready to grow up a bit. You have probably never heard of this project because I have been intentionally keeping it off of message boards until it was ready; I created Draftin' to be the most professional and easy to use Magic the Gathering drafting software around. What's going to make or break the project is how it stands up to real usage.

Given that all major features have been added to the application, I am moving the project into beta and releasing it to any and all who want to try it. My only request is that if you do use Draftin' in it's current state, please report any bugs that you find/leave feedback where you feel it is needed. Bare in mind that Draftin' has only been used up to this point by close friends, so you may find bugs we did not.

Even so, I invite everyone to give Draftin' a try. I am really excited to see what real usage uncovers/what everybody thinks of the application! Let me know via the feedback form! Feature suggestions are always welcome as well!

-Shawn

p.s. I will be checking this thread throughout the day.

[malenm]

This is really slick! Much nicer interface than a lot of the other online drafting sites I have seen. It would be awesome to be able to draft a cube, which would have slightly different logic to only allow a single copy of each card.

I also think you should have the most common recent draft formats pre-selected. Most people coming here will want to do Theros/Born of the Gods, RTR block, or whatever - only a small slice will want to go crazy with the Legends-Champions of Kamigawa-Ravnica drafts.

Lastly, I would like to see the card display a little more contained, just so it's easier to see your picks and your pack all neatly on the screen. MTGO isn't good for much, but it does have a great interface in this respect (smaller, tiled cards that you can click-to-zoom, and sorting by CMC + color).

That's all I got for now - I'm at work but I'll try to dig into it a bit more when I get home and give some more feedback.

[shawndeprey]

Thanks for the awesome response! I definitely plan to support cube at some point. I also plan to add standard draft presets so you can easily get a standard draft started.

I will take a look at the UI suggestions. Thanks :)

[dyrg]

Hi! Have you looked into legal implications for this project? There was once a website that had a simple draft for newer sets (pre-releases), but it got DMCA noticed and shut down soon after.

EDIT: This website: http://www.magicdraftsim.com/

[shawndeprey]

Yeah there are lots of drafting tools out there. It's really a matter of what WotC decide to let stay up. I really hope they see this tool as more of a benefit since I put so much work into it. We will see though.

[taumhn]

There are a number of other drafting sites running around. The current stance of WOTC seems to be that sites that don't let you play but only let you simulate drafts or help you in deckbuilding are ok...

[qdog]

Cool demo video, seems simplistic but useful for people that want to draft over and over. However, I would plan for a takedown notice from WoTC. I've thought a bit about Magic programs, and it seems to me you might need to have a Generic Card Game Program where someone can load datasets, and not host or provide any datasets for copyrighted games yourself. This would add some friction to the ease of use, but I'm not sure there's a better approach.

[shawndeprey]

When it comes right down to it, the community wants stuff like this. So I really hope they decide to let this tool stay up. We will see.

[qdog]

Well, one can hope, but based on their history of takedown notices I would plan on how to remove references to infringing materials.

[k2enemy]

What is drafting? I suppose the site's target audience already knows the answer, but I couldn't find it explained anywhere on the site.

[shawndeprey]

hmm. Good point, I didn't consider that. I'll add it to the list. :P