Exploring how SpyNet by Richard Garfield uses cards and a mechanism reminiscent of a Dutch auction to keep the market moving in this spy-themed drafting and lane battling game.
I found it interesting, especially for three players.
A considerable property of it that everybody usually gets all colors (as a lot of varied cruft is accumulated in the first pile), while regular draft usually tends to players naturally specializing in certain colors. This should work well for factionless games, but would negatively impact games where players are supposed to specialize.
Good call! Someone brought this up during the recent playtest of Ratsail (which uses the Dutch auction) noting the similarity to Winston drafts. I should have included that in the article but forgot.
Also, according to a quick search, Richard Garfield did create the Winston draft: "Winston Draft is a casual limited Magic: The Gathering format that forces players to choose between variable stacks of cards.[1][2] It was developed by Richard Garfield."
Came here for this. Think one of the other benefits of Winston-style drafting is not necessarily needing a deep understanding of the card pool / environment to make cogent decisions - 'i need more cards' is as valuable an impetus as 'i need to draft X archetype'. Also much easier to teach, and for newer players results in fewer 'feels-bad' moments when, by leaving a face-up card undrafted, you play into an opponent's strategy.
Sounds like I should (as a non-MtG-player) dig into the various MtG draft types. Might be some really interesting stuff there that could be applied and repurposed in other games.
Definitely Dutch Auction adjacent (and I share your love of the mechanic), but for the BGG / building blocks categorization we’d put it under the clunkily-named “Increase value of unchosen resources”.
Thank you for pointing this out! Definitely a more precise/accurate mechanism, although I agree it doesn't have nearly as catchy of a name. :)
I'm not sure how the Community Wiki and/or comments work, but the note on that BGG mechanism page seems to agree:
"Can we come up with a more concise name for this? Resource Promotion? Unallocated Resource Appreciation? Unchosen Resource Boosting? Unselected Resource Enhancement?
Incentive Ramping? This mechanism is a lot like a Dutch Auction. Could we call it a reverse Dutch Auction? I suggest "Unchosen Incentives" as this can apply to more than just resources, I.E. cards in Century Spice Road, factions in Smallworld, etc."
Huh, I knew Garfield designed the 1996 version of Netrunner--was he involved in the actual production of the 2012 reboot as well?
I didn't think so, but he has a designer credit for it on the BGG entry:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124742/android-netrunner
This is equivalent of MTG's Winston draft format. I don't know who invented or formalized it, but it very well might be Richard Garfield as well.
https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Winston_Draft
I found it interesting, especially for three players.
A considerable property of it that everybody usually gets all colors (as a lot of varied cruft is accumulated in the first pile), while regular draft usually tends to players naturally specializing in certain colors. This should work well for factionless games, but would negatively impact games where players are supposed to specialize.
Good call! Someone brought this up during the recent playtest of Ratsail (which uses the Dutch auction) noting the similarity to Winston drafts. I should have included that in the article but forgot.
Also, according to a quick search, Richard Garfield did create the Winston draft: "Winston Draft is a casual limited Magic: The Gathering format that forces players to choose between variable stacks of cards.[1][2] It was developed by Richard Garfield."
Came here for this. Think one of the other benefits of Winston-style drafting is not necessarily needing a deep understanding of the card pool / environment to make cogent decisions - 'i need more cards' is as valuable an impetus as 'i need to draft X archetype'. Also much easier to teach, and for newer players results in fewer 'feels-bad' moments when, by leaving a face-up card undrafted, you play into an opponent's strategy.
MTG is of course filled with to interesting approaches to drafting, the Housman 2 player draft being one of my faves - https://luckypaper.co/resources/formats/housman-draft/
Sounds like I should (as a non-MtG-player) dig into the various MtG draft types. Might be some really interesting stuff there that could be applied and repurposed in other games.
Thanks!
Definitely Dutch Auction adjacent (and I share your love of the mechanic), but for the BGG / building blocks categorization we’d put it under the clunkily-named “Increase value of unchosen resources”.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamemechanic/2914/increase-value-of-unchosen-resources
Thank you for pointing this out! Definitely a more precise/accurate mechanism, although I agree it doesn't have nearly as catchy of a name. :)
I'm not sure how the Community Wiki and/or comments work, but the note on that BGG mechanism page seems to agree:
"Can we come up with a more concise name for this? Resource Promotion? Unallocated Resource Appreciation? Unchosen Resource Boosting? Unselected Resource Enhancement?
Incentive Ramping? This mechanism is a lot like a Dutch Auction. Could we call it a reverse Dutch Auction? I suggest "Unchosen Incentives" as this can apply to more than just resources, I.E. cards in Century Spice Road, factions in Smallworld, etc."
super fascinating! thank you for sharing <3
Thanks!