Hello!
After playing warlock Brawl casually with friends for over 6 months, I started to realize how much depth this game has and the potential for a captains mode became very appealing. Just like in dota's captains mode that consists of picking and banning heroes, warlock Brawl can work the same.
Myself and a friend started by tweaking what spells and abilities can be picked and banned and at what time after several test drafts and test games, this was the most competitively sound format we could come up with.
-1v1
-First to 5
-Round gold 50
-Starting gold 78
-Kill gold 0
-Win gold 0
Drafting: Drafting will consist of getting one point in each skill after taking turns banning and picking. Think of this as filling all 5 heroes slots in dota.
The first round will be only spells of level 1 with no items. This is why there is only 78 starting gold because it does not give you enough gold to buy items. The purpose of no items on the first round is so that your drafting can be strategic and forces you to play with the abilities you were able to get. Think of this like a laning phase in dota, you draft for lanes to be won and adjust them accordingly as the game progresses.
The round gold is 50 because it gives each player a chance to optimally max a skill they need, or buy the items they need. This allows for a slow build up where each player is getting stronger in the way they deem fit. Think of it like the early to mid game build up in dota, realizing you are against a hard hitting team so you build early armor or healing.
The rules and format of drafting are as follows:
*Important note for testing this out yourself, because there is no mutual hud like thee is in a dota drafting screen, you will need to communicate and remind your opponent which abilities have been banned and picked. In the future the hopes of a mutual hud would make this a lot smoother.*
Both players pause the game with their shop open
Both players make a global ban for the opponent
-Unlike dota drafting, bans only affect your opponent options not yours as well, meaning if I ban link for my opponent, it is still available for me to pick
Both players make a global pick of one spell or ability
Now the drafting phase goes into a column banning phase
This is where the drafting gets a bit tricky to communicate.
-The idea is that a global banning for all phases of the drafting phase would make certain types of spells be over banned and others under banned. This is countered by 'Column banning'
Column banning works by each player telling the other player which column of their own they want a spell banned from.
-Keep in mind that there has already been one global ban and pick so there are only 5 spell slots left.
Example of column banning:
-Player one chooses column one to be banned from, player 2 bans homing. Now player one only has 2 options in that column instead of 3.
The players do collum banning until there is one spell slot left for each player. This will be the player's choice as to which column they want to go untouched. This allows for a draft to be secured and strategized.
The drafting phase is now over, each player should have one of each ability and no items or masteries.
Round one is the only round with no items. After round one there is no limit on what gold can be spent on.
Thank you for reading this! I would love to answer questions on this potential game mode, or try it out with anyone. I can honestly say that playing the game this way allowed for a lot of interesting combos and strategy. It is very comparable to a drafting phase in dota where you can see what your opponent is trying to do before they finish picking so you ban a specific ability that you don't want them to have. This game mode has a lot to offer if it's just given a few rounds chance.
Message me if anyone is interested in trying it! I promise it is worth it!
Thanks again!