This list is a bit shorter than my solo games, which you can see here. But Drafting Games is an area of gaming that I like a lot. I think that it offers great chance for trying different strategies every time. And I’m doing with anything where there is a set and those things from the set are picked up. There are some games where you might pick up one thing from a set, but that is tableau building, engine building, or hand management.

Ranking My Drafting Games

12. 7 Wonders

I know, this one is going to be very high on some people’s lists. And I get it, it’s a very solid drafting game and I like it a lot. But it doesn’t work great at two, and I have played it at that number a few times. I know, I need to play 7 Wonders Duel. For me, this game is a great pure drafting game, the theme doesn’t intrigue me that much, and often I want more going on.

11. Cat Cafe

This is another one that is just good, but it’s not a bad roll and write. In Cat Cafe, you draft dice to determine what you do. It’s a simple part of the game where you use the die you draft and one that is left at the end. It determines what cat feature you add as well as where on the cat trees you put them. It’s a nice little system and a cute game.

10. Magic: The Gathering

This one is tough for me to rank. Mainly because drafting in Magic: The Gathering, is a lot of fun, but I haven’t done it in ages. And I don’t plan to do it for a long time. It’s a good way to play some more relaxed magic, if you are playing with friends. I think that besides Commander, drafting or sealed are my favorite ways to play magic.

9. Truffle Shuffle

Truffle Shuffle is a board game that makes a good two player drafting game. It has the grid or layout for cards that you draft from, and you open up other cards. The game play is simple, take a card, and then you can put down a set of cards, kind of in poker hands. The poker hands give you points, plus there are some special power cards as well. If you want an easy game to play, Truffle Shuffle is a good drafting game.

8. The Isle of Cats

The Isle Of Cats really focused on drafting in a great way. Yes, it is a game about putting out cats onto a boat to rescue them, but the drafting matters so much. You draft scoring missions, you draft cards that allow you to rescue cats, and other types of cards as well. And what I like is that as you draft cards, you need to pay for them. So you wont keep all of them. But which ones do you keep, because you also have to bribe the cats with fish. It’s a clever system.

7. Draftosaurus

And in Draftosaurus, you are drafting dinosaurs, probably the most unique thing to be drafting. Especially because we see dice, and we cards, but these are dino meeples. You basically are building out a dinosaur park putting dinosaurs in spots that will give you points. In a lot of ways this feels like a roll and write to me, but with dino meeples. The game plays really fast and easy and is a lot of fun.

6. Sushi Go Party!

I thought that Sushi Go Party might be higher when I started ranking, and it’s not that I don’t like the game as much anymore, but it’s more that there are a lot of fun drafting games. Sushi Go Party is adorable, and a lot of fun. The anthropomorphic sushi and other foods are cute. And I like how the drafting works. That you draft over rounds, but you score and reset at the end of each. Except for desert, and those only score at the end of the game.

5. Ohanami

Slightly above Sushi Go Party! is Ohanami, another simple drafting game, but one that I love to pull out. The game is so easy to play. Ohanami has you drafting two cards and putting them into any of three columns. The trick is that the columns and cards added, always need to increase or decrease. It’s a really fun puzzle, not that hard a one, and I like how scoring works, in that scoring grows over time.

4. Roll Player

Now we have another die drafting game, but in Roll Player you are drafting dice in order to build out an RPG character. This is a theme that I really love. I don’t get to play D&D, but I’ve rolled up a lot of characters for fun in my time. I just get to run games. And Roll Player does a good job of simulating that and getting equipment and spells. It’s a cool idea that I want to play more of, and some good drafting.

3. Sagrada

But better die drafting for me is Sagrada. Sagrada is a little bit simpler but not too simple. You draft dice to build out a stained glass window. But you have specific scoring conditions that you are going for. And a hidden scoring condition. The game also scales well with some of the things that come in the 5-6 player expansion. So I like it can play that big a group.

2. Blood Rage

Blood Rage looks like a dudes on a map game. And there is that element to it, you are vying for control of areas to get increased prowess in combat, more action points, or to be able to put more dudes on the map. But the game shines when it comes to drafting. Drafting is how you determine your strategy. And it is how you become more unique as you go. You might focus on getting monsters. Or you might want to improve your troops or to let them die. A lot of great options and good decision making that comes from drafting.

1. Lords of Hellas

Finally, Lords of Hellas. The drafting in this game isn’t a huge part, but at the same time it is very impactful. You start out with a leader/hero power but otherwise you’re the same. Then as temples are built, you draft new powers. So being the one to build a temple gets you first pick, so there is a rush to get some of them built at times. And those abilities can really shape what you’re going to do, because they might make you better at defense, fighting monsters, or building more temples.

There are a lot of things that are cool in Lords of Hellas. And the drafting isn’t the biggest part. But it is a part that keeps the game feeling fresh. Everything feels powerful, and you kind of want to draft them all. But how can you draft what’s going to be best for you?

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy drafting in most games. Some of them like Ohanami, Sushi Go Party, and 7 Wonders mean that you’re all playing at once. That is one feature that I really like. Other times you go separately but then it creates tension for what is going to be left for you. And there’s probably one, maybe two things that you really want.

The downside to drafting can be that people hate draft. And I don’t think that hate drafting is bad, but if that’s all someone is doing, it can be an issue. Mainly because it can ruin the run of a game. But when drafting is done well, and people are trying to optimize their own score, it is great.

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