Our original plan for One Big Weekend 2020 was to back time it from US Nationals in the hope that the new Infinity Gauntlet set would be available for those venues who wished to draft the new set during our local OBW event window.  However, with the events in China, and now the world being what they are… that set has yet to be released and looks highly unlikely to make it out before the end of May at the earliest.  What to do, for those scenes who were hoping to draft?

Why not draft the new WWE or D&D Campaign Boxes and team packs?

These Campaign Boxes, unlike their predecessors, have an equal number of character/non-basic action cards and dice.  This means they are much easier to draft from.  One die per card makes it very straightforward.

The WWE set is particularly easy in this regard in that there are 48 character cards and 48 matching dice.  Why is 48 such a good number?  Because it is evenly divisible by 12, and in the traditional Dice Masters Rainbow draft, we would open 2 sets of 6 foil packs, which resulted in two piles of 12 cards that we would pass.

See instructions for how to draft here…

Wizkids How To Rainbow Draft

So those 48 cards in the WWE campaign box would be exactly enough for 2 players to create 2 stacks of 12 and have a traditional draft.  Continuing that logic 2 campaign boxes would work perfectly for 4 players.  Trouble in Waterdeep is a tiny bit less draft friendly in that it has 49 cards (2 Non-Basic Actions are in this set with 2 cards/dice each).  So, if you draft from the Waterdeep Campaign Box be prepared to pull one card out of the mix to get to the desired even number of 48.

The trouble (pardon the pun) comes when we introduce team packs into the mix.  Each team pack has 3 versions of 8 different characters (a total of 24 cards), but each character is only allocated 2 dice (for a total of 16 dice).

There are two ways to handle this disparity.

Add Dice OR Subtract Cards.

How to Campaign Draft by Adding Dice…

If you draft in a scene with a couple of Whales (you know the collector who has max plus of everything) they may be willing to loan extra dice for the event to make up for the discrepancy.  If so, you’re in luck because it makes for a draft that feels almost identical to a traditional Rainbow Draft.

The basic principle here is that you’re going to need 24 cards for each player to have two stacks of 12 cards.  So multiply the number of players in your draft by 24 and you get the total # of cards you will need for the draft.

One nice thing is that each Team Pack has 24 cards (but not dice), which is exactly enough for one player.

Below, you will find a handy table breaking down the number of WWE Campaign Boxes and Team Packs needed based on the number of players who show up, with different configurations to suit you players’ desires.  For the sake of simplicity I’ve used WWE as an example (Waterdeep would be almost the same but for every Campaign Box referenced subtract one card).

Once you’ve determined the correct configuration of product to players, remove the Basic Actions, Shuffle the rest of the cards and randomly remove any excess (consult the table) to get to a number evenly divisible by 24.  The Whale player will add 8 additional dice per team pack to the rainbow, to make up for the missing dice in each team pack (that person will recollect those dice at the end of the draft).  Divide every thing up into piles of 12 and draft.  Then draft the BACs.

***NOTE: if you’re viewing the following table on a tablet or smart phone please remember to scroll right to see the final columns which are important!***

WWE Drafting TABLE – A guide to matching product to the Number of Players (Add dice version)

Campaign Drafting by subtracting Cards…

If you draft in a scene where no one has extra dice to throw into the mix, then you probably want to draft these set by subtracting 1 card for each of the characters from each team pack so that each Team Pack character now has 2 cards to match the 2 supplied dice.  So you’d end up taking out 8 of the 24 cards in each team pack.  It makes the math a little more complicated, but you don’t have to worry about borrowing and recollecting dice at the end of the tournament.

There will now be less cards than the format above, and this can make for smaller stacks/piles (than the standard stack of 12 cards).  In our experience, piles smaller than 10 start to get too limiting, so our chart doesn’t go lower than piles of 10 cards.

Use the chart/table below to match the number of players to the desired amount of product.  Pay particular attention to the sixth column, as it will tell you the number of cards that should be in each stack for the configuration of product.

Remove the Basic Actions, thoroughly shuffle and subtract the specified # of cards if there is an excess of the target number (as indicated in column 7).  Once the cards are thoroughly shuffled, distribute them into the correct number of piles, making sure that each pile has the correct number of cards as it sometimes varies in this format.  Hand out the stacks, and then draft those stacks as usual and follow that up by drafting Basic Actions.

***NOTE: if you’re viewing the following table on a tablet or smart phone please remember to scroll right to see the final columns which are important!***

WWE Drafting Table (Subtracting Non-Whale Method)

If more than 12 people show up, you can use combinations of 8 + 6 in the chart to get to 14, etc.

Other Possible One Big Weekend Formats…

Once again, one of the nice things about OBW is you get to tailor your local event to the desires of your own player base.

Here’s an interesting suggestion from Reg with DM-North:

Rainbow drafting with your own cards…

Prior to the event – Select 12 modern cards. Emulate a draft pack. Doesn’t matter rarity just 12 cards.

Add 3 BAC cards of your choice. (Place your cards in one per determined colour sleeve – example Kim = orange) * this is so your will have your cards returned to you at end of event.

Add 2 dice for each card you add to your pack.

Event setup: Open draft packs you bring. Add dice to middle of pool.

Separate all the BACs and character cards into 2 piles.

Divide the piles into number of players for the event.
You would now have 3 random bacs and 12 cards in your new ‘pack’.

Keep the 3 BACs you’ve drawn, and rainbow draft with your cards.

At the end of event return all cards to original owner.

Here’s another cool idea for drafting campaign boxes that Jourdo ran in Calgary for their One Big Weekend 2019. http://www.dm-north.com/one-big-weekend-calgary-alberta/

If your scene would rather play constructed – feel free to tailor the event to whatever level of competitiveness your players enjoy.  We encourage you to be creative, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if any of this is confusing.  Most importantly, have fun!

‘Nuff said!