In 2026, Drafty is getting a major renovation.
What's changing
Clubhouses
- No more trophies
- No more rule change polling
- No more record books
These features were heavily under-utilized, so they're being taken out to increase the focus on the best draft room on the internet.
- Clubhouses will be called "draft groups"
- Clubhouses will be required
- Presets will be expanded
Everyone will create a draft group and draft from there, instead of having to choose a basic, advanced or clubhouse tier and having different options for each.
Draft rooms
- No more draft room tiers
- No setup, just presets
- Draft group settings sync with draft room
Anyone can create a draft group and it will take less time than typing out this sentence. Each draft group contains a draft room that is ready to go, out-of-the-box. No more setup so iterating mock drafts for practice is faster than ever. Teams are configured, player lists uploaded, and settings configured all inside the draft group. Any change to group settings will automatically sync with the draft room.
- Positions automatically detected from uploaded player list
- Set starting lineups and positional limits with ease
- Create custom Flex roster slots on starting lineup
- Pro league branding will be optional
A total departure from how positions have been handled up to this point, Drafty will extract positions from uploaded player lists so that groups have total control over player eligibility. This also makes Drafty a viable draft platform for literally ANYTHING in real-life or fantasy sports leagues. From national eSports and gaming tournaments to state-sponsored cricket leagues; from home-grown fantasy table tennis to local rec sports leagues hold a live, real-life draft.
Infrastructure
- Performance improvements to underlying technologies
The CMS that powers Drafty and PHP versions will be modernized to improve performance across the board.
Alpha Testing
Testing is now underway, even while draft room functionality is still a work-in-progress. That's kind of what alpha testing is, acutally. You can jump in and help test upcoming renovations by trying to do all the normal stuff you would for your own upcoming draft, with the understanding that there will be bugs and broken features. The whole point of alpha testing is to find problems and fix them.
Here are some tasks you can try to complete on the dev site, and please report any issues!
- Create a user account
- Join the Drafty Bug Busters test group (I'll be organizing some mocks and if you're in the draft group I can invite you)
- Claim a team in the test group
- Create your own draft group
- Upload a player list and assign keepers in your draft group
- Run a mock draft (or 3) in your draft group
- Switch to another draft format and try another mock draft
- Keep fiddling as much as you like
- Use the request support button in the footer to report any roadblocks you find. There will be many, and if you try again in a week there will probably be much fewer!
⚠️ Anything created on the dev site will be deleted once alpha testing is finished.
Go to the dev site and look for the draft group called Drafty Bug Busters. Join it with the password ALPHATEST for early access to the new draft groups!