Draft categories
A draft is only as good as what it is drafting. Below is every premade category on the shelf, grouped by what they are actually like to play, followed by the four things that separate a category which starts arguments from one that dies after four cards.
What makes a category play well
A spread of value, not a ranking. The best categories have five or six genuinely great entries, a long middle where reasonable people disagree, and some obvious junk. A category where everyone agrees on the order is not a draft, it is a queue — the cards go in sequence at the minimum bid and nobody has a decision to make.
Recognition, not expertise. If one player has to ask who a name is, that card is dead. It does not matter how deep the category is if half of it means nothing to one of you. This is the single most common reason a custom category disappoints.
At least four times your roster size. A five-slot draft needs ten cards dealt, and if the deck is only twelve deep then almost everything gets seen and scarcity stops mattering. Aim for thirty or more. The premade decks are sized well past this on purpose.
Something to argue about. The game does not calculate a winner. If a category has no basis for a fight — no eras, no regional loyalties, no guilty pleasures — then the end of the draft is just two lists.
Sports
The original format, and still the easiest sell if both players follow the sport. The risk is knowledge asymmetry: a lopsided draft is boring, and the fix is teams rather than players.
The deepest deck on the shelf. Big enough that two drafts from it barely overlap.
Names everyone recognises, so the argument is about value rather than trivia.
Generational splits make this one loud. Expect disagreement about eras.
Teams beat players when one of you follows the sport more closely — the value is in the badge, not the roster.
Food and drink
The most reliable category type for a first draft with someone who does not follow sport. Everybody has a position, nobody needs any knowledge, and the disagreements are immediate and unserious.
The best starter category on the shelf. Strong opinions, no expertise required.
Regional loyalties do a lot of the work here.
Seasonal, and narrower than Candy and Sweets, so the good picks run out faster.
Small and deliberately divisive — a short, fast draft.
Anime
The most contested categories on the site, because power-scaling arguments are already a hobby for the people drafting them. Best played by two people who watch the same show.
The largest anime deck. Deep enough that the back half is genuinely obscure.
The tightest deck here — most names are ones both players will have a view on.
Screen and music
Nostalgia categories. They tend to produce the most even drafts, because value is personal rather than objective and neither player can be straightforwardly wrong.
Cross-universe, so expect at least one argument about whether the comparison is fair.
Everything else
Categories that work because nobody arrives with a ranking already formed.
Surprisingly good. Everyone has been to some of them and nobody has a defensible ranking.
The least confrontational category on the shelf, which is sometimes exactly what you want.
Building your own
With an account you can type any category name and have the list built for you from Wikipedia, or hand the job to a third person entirely — they build the list from a setup link and neither player sees it before it is dealt. That last option is the best version of the game, because the host is drafting blind alongside their opponent rather than half-remembering a list they typed.
If you are writing a list by hand, the failure mode to avoid is stacking it with your own favourites. A deck of forty things you like has no junk in it, and a draft with no junk has nothing to give away.
Start a room to see the full shelf, or read the strategy guide first.