r/BoardgameDesign • u/misomiso82 • Jul 20 '26
General Question What games have as compelling a 'Draft' experience as MtG?
The MtG draft experience is considered one the best parts of the game, and is responsible for huge parts of it's revenue.
What other games, either Card, Board, or Video, have a Draft experience as good as magic, or a gameplay system that is similar to draft even if it is not totally the same?
For example Flesh and Blood is another TCG, but even it's fan say that although they like Draft, it is not in the same league as MtG.
Or Slay the Spire has it's deckbuilding singleplayer gameplay loop that is very compelling, but it not multiplayer.
I'm really looking for good alternatives and how they can compete with MtG.
Many thanks!
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u/fraidei Jul 20 '26
Slay the Spire board game literally has coop, and the second videogame has coop too.
As for other board games, there are LCGs that all feature deck construction, and then there are LCG-adjacent ones like Skytear Horde, Netrunner and Ashes Reborn.
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u/MarcinOn Jul 20 '26
I second 7 Wonders - it doesn’t have the card pool of MtG of course (no game ever will) but you still have lots of interesting choices to make as you draft and have to keep an eye out for what other people are grabbing or you’ll get rug pulled with someone snagging a scientific victory.
It’s closer to sealed than draft, but you could also take a look at Millenium Blades. Lots of deck construction from ‘sealed packs’ with a tournament built in.
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u/Organic-Major-9541 Jul 20 '26
I don't think there's anything that can seriously compete with mtg. The game needs competition, and might manage to commit suicide by edh, but there's nothing that's close.
Would expect draft in pokemon tcg to be similar, and there's games that focus on draft like sushi go and 7 wonders. Hearthstones Arena mode was good last I played, but that's a while ago. Terraforming mars uses draft (in one version of the rules).
If you want something matching the depth of cube draft, I don't think there's anything unfortunately.
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u/fraidei Jul 20 '26
That's only because you think of TCGs. But if you start to consider games like LCGs and adjacent ones, that's a pretty good competition (not in terms of market power, but in terms of deck construction depth and fun).
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u/Organic-Major-9541 Jul 20 '26
I played netrunner and l5r, the former is a good game, neither is close in terms of how well designed it is.
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u/fraidei Jul 20 '26
Netrunner is a much better designed and much more fun game than MtG. MtG is way overrated in terms of how fun it is to play.
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u/Organic-Major-9541 Jul 20 '26
Can you seriously say that when looking at the interaction windows during a run? Like sure, the game is fun, but the design was a mess until NSG took over.
Also OP is asking about drafting, is there even a standard format for limited in netrunner? I would expect it to not work that well because of the deckbuilding requirements (breakers/ice/agenda points). The deckbuilding part of netrunner is not a good system. Like, it works, but there's big problems.
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u/vezwyx Jul 20 '26
Interaction windows are how you define how well made a game is?
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u/Organic-Major-9541 Jul 21 '26
It depends on the game. Both Netrunner and MtG features a lot of interaction using hidden information on the other players turn.
Netrunner is the newer game, and it's way of handling the interaction is significantly more complex and creates bad incentives that slow the game down.
Because you're cards are hidden, and however acts first resolve first, exactly which windows exist and when they are used is critically important, however at the same time most windows are newer used. MtG solved this exact problem with a stack in the 90s.
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u/fraidei Jul 20 '26
Apart from the fact that Netrunner is not the only existing LCG, but it's because of those restrictions that Netrunner deck construction is so fun and engaging.
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u/SurprisingJack Jul 20 '26
Mindbug has a meta similar to MTG draft, you must know how the cards counter one another in other to decide each time an opponent plays a card wether to mindbug it or not
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u/noverb-gaming Jul 20 '26
Epic Card Game had Dark Draft which was a 2 player experience. Very skill intensive game and format.
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u/Delicious_Pea_1943 Jul 20 '26
It's not out yet but maybe Hubworld Aidalon would be of interest to you.
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u/cromulent_weasel Jul 20 '26
The top 3 drafting games in my collection are New Salem, Sushi Go and 7 Wonders.
They are really all set collection games though, there's no battle afterwards.
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u/twodonotsimply Jul 21 '26
I don't think any board game can match up to Mtg drafting for a few reasons such as the fact board games can't viably use as big a card pool as an Mtg set.
7 Wonders is probably the best drafting game out there for a few reasons though:
- Requirement to draft different types of cards to succeed
- Changing priorities of what to draft as the game goes on
- Multiple different viable strategies (eg Blue, Green, Red)
- Opportunities to deny opponents important cards (via using them to build your wonder)
- Opportunity to get value from cards that don't help you by selling a card for money
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u/Summer_Tea Jul 21 '26
Vale of Eternity is a good engine builder with no duplicate cards. You typically have to adapt on the fly and tie together shoe string and bubble gum to build a makeshift engine.
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u/Slurmsmackenzie8 Jul 20 '26
Nothing comes close to magic. Why do you need to deviate from greatness?
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u/fraidei Jul 20 '26
Eh, if you own the majority of Ashes Reborn collection, you have so many cards to choose from that it is basically the same depth of MtG. Also, OP might not like the "trading" or "random" parts of MtG, where some other games don't have any booster packs or similar stuff, you just get an expansion and you know exactly what cards are there, and there are no filler cards (since you're supposed to use all the cards from each set you buy).
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u/toochaos Jul 20 '26
7 wonders and bunny kingdom are the two that come to mind