Drafting

How a game works from the moment you open the draft link to the final board.

Joining#

Opening the draft link shows the board straight away, with a Join the draft dialog on top:

• Spectate to just watch. Spectators don't need a team or a side.
• Blue side or Red side to draft. Each button says which team you'd draft for there.
• If the host named the teams and you haven't drafted yet, you first choose the team you draft for.
• With Separate pick order, you also choose First pick or Second pick.

You can type a display name in the dialog. If you leave it empty you show up under a generated name such as sneaky-poro. Leave Remember this for future drafts ticked to reuse the name next time. The name is also in Menu › Settings.

Each side has one drafter. If both seats are taken, you go straight to watching. A spectator link skips the dialog: you're watching straight away, and no seats are offered. Click the spectator count in the top bar to see who's here.

You keep your seat if you refresh, and every tab you have open on the draft shares it. Your browser is your identity: there are no accounts.

Teams and sides#

• You draft for the same team for the whole series. Each new game you choose a side again.
• Game 1 puts Team 1 on Blue. Each later game starts with the sides of the game before.
• In the lobby, Swap sides trades the teams' sides. If the other seat is taken, the other drafter has to approve. With Separate pick order, the drafters choose the pick order in the lobby the same way.
• Before the draft starts you can Leave role to free your seat. Once the draft starts, drafters can't leave.
• If you drafted earlier in the series and someone else has your team's seat in a later game, you can Ask for the seat. If they hand it over, they become a spectator.

Ready#

Both drafters press Ready, and the draft starts the moment both are ready. If a ready drafter's connection drops for 10 seconds, they're no longer ready.

Pick and ban order#

Every game is the standard 20-step tournament draft: 6 bans, 6 picks, 4 bans, 4 picks.

The table shows Blue with first pick. With Separate pick order, when Red takes first pick, swap Blue and Red throughout.

Picking and banning#

When it's your turn:

• Click a champion to select it. Everyone sees your selection as you change it.
• Press Ban or Lock in (or Enter) to confirm. Double-click a champion to select and lock it in one go.
• Press / to jump to the search box. Search ignores case, spaces and punctuation, so kogmaw finds Kog'Maw. The role buttons filter the grid.
• None is the first tile. Locking it leaves the slot empty on purpose. That's final: it can't be filled later.

Champions you can't take are greyed out: banned ones, ones already picked this game (PICKED), ones used earlier in a Fearless series (USED), and ones the host disabled (DISABLED).

Timers#

Each pick and ban has the series' timer (30, 45 or 60 seconds). The countdown turns red at 10 seconds, and the drafter on the clock hears a tick for each of the last 5.

When the countdown reaches 0 there's a short grace of 3.25 seconds in which a lock still counts. After that the turn resolves:

• If you had a champion selected, it's locked in for you.
• If not (or you had None selected), the slot is left empty. You can fill it later with Late Selection, if the series allows it.

The next turn starts right away. Timers don't stop for disconnects; only a pause stops them. With the timer Off there's no countdown and turns never time out.

Pausing, resuming and restarting#

Drafters can ask for these from Menu › Draft while a game is in progress. The other drafter approves or declines. One request can be open at a time, and if the other seat is empty the request goes through on its own.

• Ask to pause: the timer stops and keeps its remaining time. Nobody can select, lock or request late picks while the draft is paused.
• Ask to resume: once approved, a 3-second countdown runs (Resuming in 3, 2, 1), then the timer continues where it stopped.
• Ask to restart this game: sends only this game back to its lobby. Picks, bans, ready and timers reset. Seats, sides and pick order stay, and earlier games aren't touched. You can't restart a finished game.

Undo#

A drafter can ask to take back their own last pick or ban:

1. Hover your most recent pick or ban (on touch screens the button is always shown) and press Undo pick or Undo ban.
2. The other drafter approves or declines. You can cancel while you wait.
3. If approved, the draft goes back to that step: that slot and every slot after it are cleared, the step's timer is full again, and the draft is paused. Resume it with the normal resume request.

Details:

• You can ask any time during the draft, and for 15 seconds after the last pick locks. A pause stops that 15-second clock.
• An undo asked for in those 15 seconds gets up to 30 seconds for an answer, and the game stays open while it waits. If it isn't answered by then, it expires and the game ends.
• Only your most recent pick or ban can be undone, whether you locked it or the timer did. A late fill can't be undone on its own.
• There's one undo request per game at a time. Your next lock (or timeout) cancels a request you haven't had answered.
• If the other seat is empty, you confirm and the undo goes through on its own.

Late Selection#

If a slot was left empty because the timer ran out, that side can ask to fill it afterwards, and the other drafter decides. It's on unless the host turned it off when creating the draft.

• Only slots the timer left empty qualify. A None you locked on purpose stays empty.
• Your first eligible slot shows Missed this pick? with Request a late pick. Other eligible slots show Propose late pick or Propose late ban when you hover them.
• Choose a champion and send the request. The other drafter sees it with Approve and Decline. Approved slots fill and keep a small LATE tag.
• Each side can have one request waiting at a time. A declined slot is closed for good. If you cancel, or the champion gets picked or banned by someone, the slot opens again.
• Requests never pause the draft or change the timer. The champion must still be available when the request is approved.
• Late-filled picks count for Fearless like any other pick.

After the last pick, the game stays open for late requests while there's still something to fill. It closes 30 seconds after the last late request, answer or cancel, and nobody can start a new request more than 60 seconds after the draft ended. A request already in progress still gets its time: 30 seconds to choose a champion, then 30 seconds for the answer. Once every empty slot is filled or closed, the window ends early. With the timer Off nothing times out, so there's nothing to fill.

Role confirmation#

When the series has Role confirmation on (the default), drafters can say which role each of their champions will play.

• Each pick you've locked in shows a small Role ▾ control in its label row. Open it and choose Top, Jungle, Mid, Bot or Support.
• If another of your picks already has that role, the menu shows it, for example Mid (Ahri). Choosing it swaps the two. No role clears it.
• You can change roles any time from the lock until the game ends: during the draft, while it's paused, and in the 15 seconds after the last pick. Setting roles doesn't keep the game open any longer.
• Only your side sees your roles until the game ends. The other drafter, spectators, the broadcast view and the overlay data don't.
• If a pick is undone, its role is cleared.
• When the game completes, every pick shows its role icon and name on the board. The broadcast view orders each team's cards Top to Support.

Roles are optional. Picks without a role simply don't show one.

When the draft ends#

After the last pick, the game stays open for 15 seconds so drafters can undo or set roles. The top bar shows Undo closes in with the countdown. It stays open longer only while an undo answer or Late Selection is still pending.

Then the game is complete. The board is read-only, shows Draft complete, and reveals every role. From here you can:

• Copy summary: the game as Discord-ready text, which unfurls into a result image;
• Copy image: a picture of the draft;
• in a series with at least two finished games, Copy match summary and Copy match image (in Menu › Share);
• go to the Next game.

Draft links also preview in Discord, Slack and other chat apps with the result image.

Series and Fearless#

• With more than one game, the top bar shows a tab for each (G1, G2, …). The next game unlocks as soon as the current one completes.
• Seats don't carry over. Everyone chooses again in each game's Join dialog. Drafters keep their team and only choose a side.
• When someone takes a seat in the next game's lobby, people still looking at the finished game get a Join the game N draft prompt.
• You don't have to play every game: unused games at the end of a series just stay open. Draftify doesn't track who won.

Fearless: any champion picked by either team in an earlier, finished game can't be picked or banned for the rest of the series. Late-filled picks count. The grid marks them USED, and the Used this series panel under the grid lists each earlier game's picks by team.

Disconnects#

• If your connection drops briefly, Draftify reconnects on its own. Reconnecting… only appears if it takes more than 2 seconds, and an action you take meanwhile waits a few seconds for the connection instead of failing.
• If a drafter is gone longer, their seat is held for 60 seconds and their side shows Reconnecting… 0:59. The timer keeps running.
• After 60 seconds the seat is freed. Someone else can take it over, and the draft continues.

Sound#

Use the speaker in the top bar to mute, set the volume (default 50), and turn Sound effects, Champion voice and Music on or off. Music is off by default. Sound starts after your first click on the page, because browsers block autoplay. Everyone in the room hears the champion's voice line when a pick or ban locks. Your settings are remembered in this browser. The broadcast view has its own sound settings.