Modified Draft Format: Neo Draft

During the 2019-2020 competitive play season in New England, a slightly modified draft format has been used. It was even democratically voted in by the participants of the 2020 Woodin Bowl as the draft format for the championship. The draft is almost identical to the previous draft format, except when the player normally "adds one card to each pile" after picking a pile, instead, the player "adds five cards to any pile(s) in the draft, as long as there are at least one card in each pile minimum."

Certain players prefer this draft model because it eliminates certain small deck strategies, which were becoming common in competitive play. The Neo Draft Format does allow for small deck strategies, but only if both players are agreeing to it each round by the placement of their cards during the draft.

Here is what the rulebook changes would be for the Neo Draft format, everything else would remain the same:

"Rulebook Version 1.0:

Regular Draft Play (Modified for Neo Draft Rules)

Paragraph 2: The player who drafted their Starter Pilot last, drafts first. The first player to draft looks at Pile 1 (the closest pile to the draft deck) and determines whether or not to add the entire contents of Pile 1 to their deck, or to put Pile 1 back down and then look at Pile 2. The player can continue to look through the piles in succession (Piles 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) until they decide to keep one. If a player gets to Pile 5 they must take that pile. A player may not go back and look at piles they did not choose in the round. After the player chooses a pile, the player populates 5 cards from the draft deck into any piles that they wish, separated however they prefer as long as at least one card is in each of the 5 draft piles for the next player. The next player then follows the same process, always starting with Pile 1. Late in the draft, the piles can get very large. "