fe7 Draft pick explanation (of the 12 jun 2021 race) 

There are two primary reasons: The first is that yes, we all want the race to be a pretty reasonable length. The harder modes of fe7 and fe8 aren't that much harder than the easier modes, but most strategies would just find a place to dedicate 20 or so additional minutes to grinding levels in order to bring units up to strength. Outside of those 20 additional minutes of grinding, the runs would probably look pretty identical. Lastly, it's not as though racing on normal mode is super easy, you're still competing against opponents and against your own prior times.

Of the chapters where you have warp (31, 32, final) only 32 places severe restrictions on your movement, and so Pent's warp is most attractive in this map. Hawkeye is able to overcome these movement restrictions somewhat by going over mountains and rivers to dodge zones and enemies.

@@OriginalRaisins I'm guessing Dart isn't viable due to his low Res and inability to carry an unpromoted Hector. Could Dart and Pent work as the fourth and fifth picks?

@@lanceareadbhar Dart and Fiora is currently one of the major picks, and at one point held the world record time.

@@OriginalRaisins Awesome. I just listened to a draft race where they took Dart and Fiora. I forgot that an unpromoted Fiora can pick up a promoted Hector so that makes more sense than Pent.

Before doing anything, do make sure you're completely transparent with your friends regarding the level of practice you intend to put in before the race. Winning is great, and it's awesome that you're willing to put in the practice, but if your friends have a different expectation of the level of competition, you should communicate with them your preparation. I have notes on a google doc but it's a little sparse atm and has my real name and email (and the real name/email of some other people) attached so you'll have to understand if I'm averse to sharing it. If you're looking for discussion and practice help, definitely join the #draft-racing channel in Castle's discord discord.gg/5YBNKpb34f Copying the teams from this video is pretty helpful I won't lie. Without knowing too much about your level of experience with fe7 speedrunning, a reasonable practice schedule may look like this (start at whichever point you find most appropriate): 1) Do any% runs of the game just to get used to the maps and playing the entire game in one sitting. Don't record your times 2) Do solo's of the game with the four major carries (Heath, Florina, Hawkeye, Pent+ground carry) introduce another non-carry unit (like Isadora) when you feel it necessary. Take side objectives as you wish. Don't record your times 3) Once you have an idea of how to play each map, grab their respective team from this video and run through the game. Record your times. 4) Determine with which units you are most comfortable playing and which units your friends are likely to pick. Create mockup draft scenarios from there. Again, the best thing you can do to improve your own skill level and ensure level competition is to frequently communicate your practice and plans with the other people in your group. Let them know whenever you set a new personal best and if you start to favor some units, let them know. Your wins mean more when your competition is as good as you are or better so use this opportunity to improve yourself and others.

@@OriginalRaisins Thanks so much for the detailed write up! My default is probably to over-practice, I’ll clarify with my friends and do probably just the first 2 steps you described. Again, appreciate it and thank you!

I can't say anything for the first one, but yeah, Harken was considered bad by Mekkah+Friends because he costed time to recruit.

(Castle345 here) Yes! Marcus is the typical unit deployed in order to recruit Harken in that map, but theoretically you could use him for anything, similar to how florina is used by the team that drafts Wallace in the Lloyd map. Harken, like raisins said, is more of a risk mitigation pick specifically for the Lowen/Pent team. That way if Lowen ends up screwed to the point where he cannot kill Limstella, then Harken can do that instead. We initially rated Harken to be absolute trash tier, but learned that when you think of him in different terms, he becomes far more useful for at least 1 team.

Marcus can still be used to recruit Harken on that map, and he follows the same rules as undrafted units. You're right to bring this up! We actually revised the rules for future races and changed the wording from "Marcus is banned after...." to "Marcus is treated as undrafted after..." to avoid this exact confusion :) Also WRT why he's bad. Harken has a substantial time cost to recruit and not many chapters to make it up. After you recruit him, you have 6 chapters to make up that time. BBD: Your fastest plan is to yeet a stronger unit forward with Ninian and then camp with the rest of your team in the top right. Fewer units is faster. CoD: Harken can cross the rivers to avoid zones but it takes many inputs. This is actually one map where we are now experimenting with faster clears and Harken could speed up the process. Berserker: Already a very tight map with strong turn-by-turns but I could see him helping here, especially since many of the knights have axereavers. Sands of time: Harken's biggest timesave. He can not only contribute to a faster Denning kill, he can help with units in the top and east. Main carry is better suited to the south. Victory or Death: Harken can assist with killing Limstella in the event that your team is weak and struggles to kill her (happens to 20/20 units more often than you'd think). Heath is usually not susceptible to this. Final: This map is practically all Athos solo with Luna but Harken could contribute by opening the Brendan door faster. Overall a pretty meh unit because he's not unlocking any new strategies, but he does help hedge against the risk that your main carry gets RNG screwed and can't do all the fighting on their own. In our practices a month ago, Harken was picked much sooner, but as we all got more confident in our lategames, we no longer needed the help as much.

The only Eliwood format I know of that has rules also plays all Gaidens, so yeah Fiora would be better for carrying Eliwood AND she gets additional use in 18x. I think I explain the round 3+ picks well. They contribute in small ways but you have to know when and why you're deploying them. I start a good bit at about 23:30. The first "nothing" pick was probably my Nino in round 7 As far as using units to do things go, we spent a lot of time practicing and learning strats. You begin to pick up on patterns and basic ideas. Once you have the fundamentals down, the places where an extra idiot issuing an attack command or rescue or blocking a reinforcement are much more obvious. We were also all working together, so any time one of us came up with a new strat or development, we immediately shared it. There was a brief moment in Mekkah's fe7 practice a couple days ago where I asked him which strat he was using for crazed beast. I described a strat in like 6 or 7 words to him and he was able to confirm in exact detail what he's doing. We just start to develop strats and patterns that begin to work. We also take notes and take pictures, and this helps us remember mid-race. We spent a lot of time stratting the runs out and everyone was involved in the process. The more you play and practice the more you improve :)

It's extremely impractical to recruit him and if he's free then there are 36 draftable characters which is evenly divisible by 4

@@OriginalRaisins that makes a lot of sense. Thanks Raisins.

We briefly experinented with it and he's just so exceptionally strong he breaks the format entirely. Even without planning our "Marcus carry" times were way ahead of curated strats for other team compositions.

@@OriginalRaisins Compared to seth, marcus really is dominant in his own game huh

@@user-vd3pw6yf7b Seth is "not as dominant" because the other carries are strong AND the brief period where Seth is unavailable is quite awkward for a team that relies upon Seth carry. Chapters 5 and 7 are the best examples, but I'll go ahead and completely admit that I am a bit out of my depth in fe8 compared to FE7. One type of rule we didn't explore was a brief period of unavailability, mimicking Seth's unavailability until ch 9 in Sacred Stones. It'd be hard to come up with an appropriate chapter. Average stats Hector does reasonably well up through Crazed Beast. So basically Hector solo will "fall off" anywhere from chapter 22 to 28. If Marcus' unavailabilty period ended before 22, it'd be as if he were never gone to begin with, and if he were unavailable sometime after, it'd be hard to ensure that Hector is strong enough to reach that point.

@@OriginalRaisins U right, I didnt even take into account the time when seth is banned for 5-7 and 9+.... seems realy hard to find a balance for marcus availabilty And how rule changes can drastically make or break the game for the marcus drafter. I guess chance of draftable marcus is low

We had one scheduled a while back but I dropped out of it. FE6 draft is exceptionally difficult and I wasn't having as much fun practicing as I was a more straightforward game like fe7.