Start Booster draft game
For general information about Booster draft mode look in the internet at:
I tried implmenting the Booster Draft mode according to above mentioned explanation.
In JPortal there are a number of steps to take, befor you can actually start playing.
Start Booster draft game
A bootser draft game can have 2 to 9 players.
A maximum of one human player and up to 8 computer players. You can leave out the human player if you just would like to tests the AI(s).
At the top of the start panel you can chose whether a human player (the active player) participates in the game or not. If no human player is chosen, you can opt for automatic battle - which means all battle are concluded automatically one after the other. Otherwise (non - automatic) you have to press the "Do Battle" button for each battle.
If you play with the active player, you will receive 5$ reward for each round you "survived".
Below the human player settings, you can chose the eight AI opponents. From the combobox chose a named AI, or battle against the default (which more or less randomly choses its drawing preferences). Remember to activate a computer opponent by checking the checkbox next to the combobox.
At the bottom of the window there are some other options like:
Bootser per player
how many booster per player will be opened. (These boosters will not have lands in them, lands can be gotten... well - se below), default is 3, which will result in a 45 card heap (without lands)
how many single games must be won to win a match (default is 2 (meaning 2 out of three) )
Booster can be gotten randomly from all known sets
or a set where all booster will be taken from, can be chosen.
After doing all setting up here, press "Start Game", which does not mean that the game starts, but the drawing of booster cards starts.
Booster drafting
This screen is similar to the usual "Open Booster" (player mode).
If you only selected computer oponents, you can watch them draw. If not - I'll explain a bit.
As human player, you start off. The player who's turn is to do something is marked with a little colored square. Red means DO SOMETHING, gray means, wait others must do something.
If you see a picture like above, you must open a new booster. Do that by pressing "Open Booster" (weird, isn't it?). After doing so, a new booster is opened and displayed in the top half of the screen. You can right click any card and the details will be displayed in the detail view. Left clicking of a card actually draws the card and it will be added to you new heap. Directly after drawing your card, the next players will continue to draw and a second or so later, you can drawn again... after the booster is finished, the next will have to be opened, either by you (see above) or by the AI... and so on...
Per default you can see your current heap on the bottom half of the screen. You can switch the view to:
your heap (default), this will be updated automatically while you draw new cards
your deck (if you already made a deck)
a heap of an AI (press the corresponding button on the right side, for the AI you would like to look at). The AI heaps are not updated automatically, you will habe to refresh manually, by pressing the button.
Right clicking on that heap display, also fills the detail view.
After all boosters are drawn you must do two things!
add lands
The button "add lands" will be enabled after you finished drawing. Here you can add as many lands as you like to your heap.
you probably will not want to take your just created heap as a deck (if you want, you are finished, the unedited deck is your heap)
To edit your deck press the "Edit deck" button. A deck editor opens, which (oh wonder) has as the heap the just drawn cards, and to begin with all these cards set as your deck. So first thing to do now is remove all your cards from the deck, that you do not want.
This is "normal" deck editing, and I will not explain it here again. Just remember to press "Save" after finishing your editing actions.
After that you are ready for the next screen!
Press the Button "Beginn Match(es)".
Booster scheduling
Here you will see the rounds to be played. Randomly chosen two players compete against each other. Winning a match (consisting of # of games that were given in the first screen) means you are in the next round, losing - you are out. Since at most 9 players are in the tournament, at most 4 rounds will be played.
If a human player is in the contest, he can chose to "Skip Battle", meaning a winner is randomly chosen and the AI's won't really battle each other.
You cannot skip your own battle!
The colored squares have following meaning:
yellow
No definite result yet - battles must still be done
red
the battle is currently under way
green
player is the winner of the match
gray
player is the loser of the match
The human player can allways edit the deck by using the "Edit player deck" button (Again: remember do Save it).
Once you press "Do Battle" (or automatically when you set to automatic), the battle begins and you FINALLY can play a game again :-)!
After the battle finished, the screen will be shown again. If you want to have a look at the screen in between, you can use the
menu→window→Booster Scheduler
to go back to the game:
menu→window→Game
Note:
Since there can be a non-even number of participants there might be a "free" lot per round. If so you are lucky and just pass to the next round - which will certainly be not free for you again...