WWE Raw Deal Fantasy Format
Revolution EXTREME Draft
by Stuart Lauder

Raw Deal has had many formats in its history. From All Axxess to Steel Cage, No Mercy to Afterburn, Tag to Raw Draft; they’ve all been great fun. But what Raw deal has never had is a true draft format. Not to belittle Raw Draft, Rumble Draft or Raw Deal Draft, all of which a great fun formats that I enjoy, but they’re all built off the base of a Starter Deck, and to me that’s not a draft.

But then came the Revolution, and with it the ability to build a deck easily from a handful of drafted boosters, and a selection of playable Extremists to build round. So, how does Extreme Draft work?

What you need

In short, a pile of boosters. Each player is going to need 5 boosters of Revolution to draft with. You’ll also need one set of Extremists for every 4 players. Round up, so 14 players will use 4 sets of the Extremists. This may be a bit of a stretch for some play groups, but it’s all right, we’ll let use proxy the Extremist and their Superstar Specific if you don’t have enough to go around. Just this once though…

The Manager running the draft will randomly distribute the Extremists, one to each player, along with 5 sealed boosters. The players should keep their Extremist a secret from the other players at this stage. The Manager will then divide the players randomly in to pods of four. If the numbers don’t go evenly in to four, then some pods of three or five are ok too. Players should continue to keep their Extremist secret at this point.

Now the drafting begins. Each player opens one booster, chooses a card from it, places it face down in front of them, and passes the rest of the booster to the player on their left, receiving one in turn from the player on their right. Pick another card from this booster, and pass it on. Keep doing this until the first booster is finished. At this point, you can review the cards you’ve drafted before opening your next booster. This time, you’re choosing a card and passing it to the right, and you’ll be passed a booster from the player to your left. At the end of the booster you can review again. Booster number three goes to the left again, booster four to the right, and the final booster to the left. This will leave you with a pile of 57 cards (including your Extremist and their superstar specific) with which to build your deck.

Deckbuilding

“But wait,” I hear you cry, “57 cards isn’t enough to build a deck.” Not under normal circumstances, but this is an Extreme draft, so you need to build an Extreme deck. Your Extreme Arsenal must contain exactly 40 cards. There are no limits to the number of each card you may pack, so if you’re lucky enough to draft five Collar and Elbow Lockups, you can play all five. As always, only one of any Unique, but you'll be able to play any Uniques you find, as Superstar Specificness is ignored for deck construction. Your Extreme Backlash is also smaller, too. You may pack up to four Pre-Match and four Mid-Match, and may play up to two of each. Each player is allowed half an hour to construct their deck, during which time the Manager will draw the pairings for the first round.

The Tournament

The tournament is played as a normal Smackdown, but with twenty minute rounds of Swiss instead of half an hour, cutting to a single elimination knockout, and uses the standard Revolution rules, with one exception: The Aggression rule. Due to the smaller size of an Extreme Arsenal, the penalty for not attempting to play a maneuver is reduced from six cards to three. Other than that, play as normal until a winner is determined. At the end of the tournament, hand your Extremist (and their Superstar Specific) back to the Manager, and then gather up all the rares and any ultra rares and put them all on a table face up. The winner of the tournament gets to pick one, then second place picks one and so on down the tournament. After everyone gets one pick, first place gets their second pick, and so on and so forth until all the cards have been chosen. This means that if there are any ultra-rares in the mix then the top few places of the tournament will get six picks, and everyone else will get five. Then the standard prize kit will be distributed as normal.

Strategy

A lot of what you want to draft will depend on your Extremist, but these should be obvious: Test will want to grab any Colossal he sees, CM Punk will want Holds and so on. Here are some more ideas:

0F maneuvers are your friend, as they form your main reversal base as well. All the common and uncommon maneuvers are Cores (with the exception of the Mid-Match Means), so they are the majority of the maneuvers being played will be Cores. 0/1 Maneuvers should be picked whenever you see them.

Pre-match cards should be carefully considered before picking. A New Plan is very powerful. With only a limited pool of cards with which to build your deck, getting the right cards in your starting hand is more important then ever. Underestimate the Competition is another card that’s extremely powerful in the environment.

Antic are exceptionally powerful. The only cards in the game that reverse Antics are Rare, so the chances of any opponent having them are small. Antics such as Out Here All Night and Look Under The Ring are exceptionally good in the environment.

Don’t pick Rares just because they’re rare. Due to the Rare re-draft at the end of the tournament, you’re not necessarily going to end up keeping all the rares you draft, and in this environment a common is often more powerful than a rare. Slap, for example, is often a better card to choose than Forget the History, and Hardcore Hell is no longer the bomb it is in constructed.

In closing, remember that Extreme Draft isn't an officially supported format, but don't let that stop you giving it a whirl. If you've never played in a draft before, you might be pleasantly surprised.