Lost Chapters Draft Guide: Picks, Colors and Curves

Updated October 2, 2026 by the Lost Chapters team

Short version: Draft costs 2,500 gold or 250 gems. You pick a Leader from three, then make 30 picks, choosing one card from three each time. Your deck is filled to 40 and you play the AI until you reach 3 wins or 2 losses. Pick removal and cheap characters early, watch your curve, and don't take a big card you can't afford to play.

How Draft works

Draft is a mode where you build a fresh deck from cards offered to you, instead of using your collection. It is found in the Play menu and needs an online account, because the game server deals the picks.

1. Pay the entry: 2,500 gold or 250 gems.
2. Pick a Leader. You are offered three of the six historical Leaders: Nikola Tesla, Dr. King, Neil Armstrong, Amelia Earhart, Blackbeard and George Washington.
3. Make 30 picks. Each pick shows three cards from your Leader's color, and you keep one. Rarer cards show up less often, so a Legendary offer is a treat.
4. Fill to 40. After your last pick, the game tops your deck up to 40 cards with basic Commons.
5. Play until 3 wins or 2 losses. Your rivals are AI opponents on Hard.

Drafted cards are for that draft only: they are not added to your collection. What you keep are the rewards.

Rewards

You can retire a draft early and take the reward for the wins you have so far. Every Draft game also earns XP (40 for a win, 20 for a loss).

Picking a Leader

Each Leader pulls your picks toward a plan, so choose the one whose plan you can draft for:

• Amelia Earhart is the most forgiving. Adventurers and Pilots all gain Explore from her passive, and Emerald has plenty of both.
• Blackbeard wants Rebels and cheap attackers. Garnet also has the most removal in Set 1.
• George Washington rewards sturdy Founders, and his 1-crystal refresh makes almost any character better.
• Nikola Tesla needs Inventors and Items. Strong when the picks cooperate, awkward when they don't.
• Dr. King wants a wide field of healthy characters, which Cobalt offers often.
• Neil Armstrong relies on his Leader as the main attacker, so cheap blockers and card draw do a lot of work.

Read the Leader's passive before your first pick. Every pick after that should ask: does this card help that plan?

Pick order

When the three cards on offer are close, use this order:

1. Removal. Cards that destroy or damage enemy characters win drafts, because the AI's best character is often the one that beats you. Examples: The Boston Massacre, Guerrilla Warfare, Kite and Key, Zap.
2. Cheap characters with an effect. A 2-cost character that draws a card or deals damage is worth more than a vanilla body with bigger numbers.
3. Evasion. Characters with Explore, or Items that grant it, turn a decent deck into one that closes games.
4. Big finishers, in moderation. One or two 7-cost cards are great. Five of them is a deck that does nothing until turn four.
5. Counters. One or two Moment events give you a way to answer a charge on the AI's turn.

Watch your curve

You gain 2 crystals a turn, up to 10, so the early turns decide a lot. By the middle of the draft, count your picks by cost. Aim for something like:

• 8 or more cards that cost 1 or 2,
• 8 to 10 that cost 3 or 4,
• 5 to 7 that cost 5 or 6,
• no more than 4 or 5 that cost 7 or more.

If you are short on cheap cards, take the cheap card even when a stronger expensive one is on offer. The basic Commons that fill your deck at the end are there to make it legal; they rarely carry a game, so your 30 picks are what count.

Reading your Leader's colors

Every offer comes from your Leader's colors, so the shape of the pool is predictable. A Gold draft sees plenty of Items and Inventors, a Garnet draft sees removal and Rebels, and an Emerald draft sees Adventurers with Explore. Use that: if your Leader rewards a tribe, a mediocre card of that tribe is often better than a strong card that ignores your Leader's passive. Keep a rough count of characters as you go, too. A drafted deck with fewer than 15 characters struggles to block and to pressure.

Playing your Draft games

The AI on Hard blocks well and uses its Counters, so:

• Trade early. Take even trades with your cheap characters while you build up crystals.
• Charge the Leader when you outnumber the blockers, not before.
• Hold a Counter for the AI's biggest attacker if you drafted one.
• Call your Command on the turn it swings the board. It is once per match.

Three wins is a strong result. Retire only if you need the gold now, because each win adds to the reward.

Start a Draft