Blizzard's suit is different.

That suit is about a different class of cheaters; ban evaders, griefers, and just plain rotten apples.


As was pointed out, this kind of deck building system can be done (and is already being done) through other manual processes. There are spreadsheets with fancy formulas and websites with fancy formulas, where you quickly type in the options and it runs the probabilities and statistics for you.

The big problem with them is that it doesn't really work very well. There are a few very simple guides, like in M:tG you know 17-18 lands, about 15 creatures, the remaining 7-8 cards a balance of spells and possibly artifacts ... but other than that, you are basically free to decide.


For NON-DRAFT deck building, taking the time to make sure you have good cost curves and a statistically good balance of creatures and spells. Since there is no time limit, many people build up specific deck lists and share them, they also build their own deck lists as good players. They want to ensure that statistically they will get the specific cards they want by a specific turn number. The game is built for people to spend the time and run the numbers and do the statistics, so do it.


For DRAFT deck building, part of the fun is the social aspect of building your deck, watching what other people take and what they leave, and why. If an awesome card has gone through three people already, stop and think about why. No database of card statistics will help with that. Maybe you will notice that they are going for trickery rather than brute force. Maybe the card is only good in constructed where you can have several of them together or in combination, but in a limited-format draft it isn't worth the cost. Maybe their focus is just like yours, trying to build a specific theme and they are blind to an opportunity. Perhaps they had better cards than the one you thought was awesome, which could mean your knowledge of the set will allow you to counteract the cards. And that leads us to...

The big reason spreadsheets don't help while drafting is that most of the information is not visible in the cards. What you know about others is more important. The way you play and the way others play are far more important than the statistics of rarity of a specific card. What specific cards have you seen so far in the draft? Is there a common theme in the cards that you can exploit, or that others might exploit? Are you drafting with aggressive players? Playing against reactive and defensive players? Someone who loves a bunch of cheap magic? Someone who loves giant beatdown cards? Someone who uses magic to control the board? Someone who uses multi-pronged combinations, so even if one prong doesn't work they have a card that plays well with the other half? Someone who relies on one-card wonders rather than multi-card trickery?

The best you can hope for with spreadsheets in a draft is that you can see which cards are missing as players make their choices. But even that isn't too important in a limited format game where you draft from a pool. By the time you know what is missing it is too late--they are gone. The best thing in a limited format game is to pay attention to resources that are out there, pay attention to effective ways of winning, and take the cards that will best enable your playing style for the deck that you build.