Dark Draft Simplified

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Introduction

I’ve written a lot on Dark Draft in the past, in large part because my Dark Draft strategy has continued to evolve. However, in this article I just want to write up a concise explanation of my current style without going overly in depth as I usually do.

Three Pillars of Dark Draft

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There are three types of cards I actively want to draft:

1. 0’s
2. Re-establishing cards
3. Draw 2s

All other cards are secondary and are picked only if I can’t get one of these (with a few exceptions that I may go over in a different article).

Essentially, these three types of cards let us minimize the number of times we have to spend our gold before our opponent on a turn.

0’s: Specifically 0-cost Champions or Removal

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0’s are the backbone of Dark Draft. Unlike in constructed, there is no limit to the number you can include in your deck, and you generally want as many as you can possibly draft.

0’s are strong because they let you impact the board, without spending your gold before your opponent. 0-cost blitz champions, like Little Devil, are one of the best ways to start a game. Without spending a gold, you put a threat into play that will eventually win you the game if unanswered. If your opponent spends a gold to deal with it (which is not an unreasonable thing to do), you get a chance to spend an uncontested gold, which is an incredibly powerful position. On the other hand, 0-cost removal can deal with those and other threats, without putting you into that vulnerable position.

While other 0-cost cards can be strong, they aren’t as reliable for initiating and maintaining this gold advantage. They are therefore not on the same level as 0-cost champions and/or removal.

Most importantly though, just because you can play all of these 0-cost cards on the same turn, you generally shouldn’t. The best position is to have the only champion in play with a handful of cards. It is much harder for your opponent to efficiently answer one 0-cost champion than it is to answer a bunch, and this gives you the most options to react to what they do.

Re-Establishing Cards: Champions + Removal

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These are the most worthwhile 1-cost cards. There are only two limits to the number of these you should draft: your entire deck shouldn’t have many more than roughly five 1-cost champions without ambush and at least half of your cards should draw in some way.

Re-establishing cards are strong because they frequently remove an opponent’s 1-cost card, AND they leave you with a threat that requires your opponent to spend another 1-cost card to remove. If you ever get behind on the board and are forced to spend a gold before your opponent, these cards pressure your opponent to answer your new champion(s) instead of just playing their own champion(s) to pressure you.

Draw 2s: Literally ANY Draw 2s (“Ands” = Best)

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Draw 2s get you to the strong 0’s and Re-establishing cards in your deck. You want at least half of your cards (15+) to draw in some way, whether a Draw 2, Tribute/Loyalty effect, or recycle.

Draw 2s are strong because they let you keep relying on the 0-cost cards you drafted to win the game, otherwise you risk running out of cards. Therefore, since we are valuing the draw 2 effect so highly, the OR option on these cards becomes nearly irrelevant. Further, the “Draw 2 and” cards become even better, since gaining extra value for doing something we already want to do is awesome.

Conclusion

This is my basic strategy (originating from the Nashville team’s 0-focus at worlds 2016) that I use against all opponents. It worked pretty well in the last Arena (7/1/19 week) where I went 21-2. However, I did have those two losses where this by itself wasn’t enough. Thankfully, by drawing on my experience of a ridiculous amount of losses in the past, I was able to adapt my strategy and win the next 4 straight games against the first person who beat me, and 3 straight games against the second.

Other things I’ve learned to consider, through my losses, are the dynamics between burn and heal, on-turn and off-turn gold punishers (to exploit your gold advantage), anti–deck out cards, anti-control cards, and my own inclination towards Evil (best aggressive 0’s) and Sage (excellent re-establishing cards) which lets me draft loyalty effects in those alignments more readily. There is a lot of nuance and subtlety in Dark Draft that I’m not going to attempt to capture in this article, but I believe this to be a strong starting point from which to learn. (The best way to learn from here is to just play enough to develop a style that works for you. Once you’ve done that, it becomes easier to see your opponents’ styles, and then figure out ways to adapt to beat them.)