How It Works
This tool simulates an Arcs draft and provides recommendations to help you choose the best leader and lore cards. Configure the settings to match your real game (players, seat, pool, etc.), then use the UI to run or simulate drafts.
Setup
- Players - choose 2–4 players.
- Your Seat - select your seat; draft order supports descending and snake formats.
- Lore per Player - set a fixed number or use Custom to specify per-player counts.
- Leaders / Lores in Pool - adjust pool sizes and use Random or Clear to fill/reset the pool.
Tier Sources & Custom Tiers
- Built-in - Laurens's 3P/4P and League data (Community win-rates).
- Community - separate 3P and 4P community draft data sources are available.
- Custom - paste CSV text or provide a Google Sheets CSV export URL to load your own tier lists (supports separate 3P/4P/lore sections).
Scoring & Weights
- Tier Scoring - Varied spreads a small sub-score within a tier; Same gives every card the tier base score.
- Leader Weight - adjust how much leaders count relative to lore (slider 1×–5×).
- Base tier scores (SSS→F) are used; final pick values include sub-ranking, leader weight, synergy bonuses and handicaps.
Pool Tools & Balanced Draft
- Balanced Generator - auto-generate a balanced draft pool with options to constrain leader/lore tiers and set an acceptable point spread.
- Handicaps - apply point handicaps per player when generating balanced pools.
Drafting
- Start Draft launches the interactive draft board showing player boards and the current turn.
- Best picks are marked by opportunity cost - the recommendation that would lose you the most value if you pass.
- Auto Draft completes remaining picks automatically using the same recommendation logic.
- Undo reverts the last pick; Reset clears all picks back to the start.
- Save Image lets you export the draft board as a PNG.
Advanced Notes
- Synergy bonuses between specific leaders and lore are included when computing final player scores.
- Balanced generation can be toggled and tuned via the ⚙ settings next to the generator button.
- Custom tier URLs must be publicly accessible.
The tool is intended as a decision aid. Always combine recommendations with your strategic judgment (starting court, counters, combos, etc.).
Draft Strategy
The most important thing to realize about drafting in arcs is that leaders are far more impactful than lores. In my experience A single tier difference in leaders is roughly equivalent to a 3-tier difference in lore. Only prioritize a lore card over a leader if the available leaders are all close in strength.
The tool does not keep these in mind, but in your real game draft you should also consider:
- Draft for raw strength and flexibility first (this is what the tier lists and tool help with!), then for combos
- Building starting locations
- Starting court
- Counters
- Synergies between your and opposing leaders
- Denial of all of the above for other players
A note on player counts: Laurens's tier lists are built around 3 and 4 player games, and the League data is from 4-player games. Community data is available for both 3-player and 4-player. The 2-player mode is included for convenience. Relative card strengths are similar enough across player counts to be useful, but take recommendations with a grain of salt.