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The optimal number for a draft pod is 8 people, but it can be often hard to get a even multiple of 8.
If there are an odd number of drafters how should the pods be split? Also if there is any justification as to why it's done that way that would be nice to know.
I am aware of the Wizards Event Reporter, and that it can split players into pods automatically. I want to know how to split pods by hand, in case I ever need to run an event with pencil and paper.
In my LGS it's solved this way.
6 players => 1 x 6
7 players => 1 x 7
8 players => 1 x 8
9 players => 1 x 9
10 players => 1 x 10
11 players => 1 x 11
12 players => 2 x 6
13 players => 1 x 6 + 1 x 7
14 players => 1 x 6 + 1 x 8
15 players => 1 x 7 + 1 x 8
16 players => 2 x 8
17 players => 1 x 8 + 1 x 9
18 players => 3 x 6
19 players => 2 x 6 + 1 x 7
20 players => 2 x 6 + 1 x 8
21 players => 1 x 6 + 1 x 7 + 1 x 8
22 players => 1 x 6 + 2 x 8
23 players => 1 x 7 + 2 x 8
24 players => 3 x 8
The idea behind is to not have a draftpod with less than 6 people, which yields in just too less cards in the entire cardpool. 9 players is still quite doable, 10 and especially 11 player pods are really bad (you basically won't see any card coming back to you).
To summarize:
Don't go below 6
Avoid going above 9
Try to fill as many 8 pods as possible
1 x 7, 2 x 8 etc - what are these numbers meant to represent? A single 7-player multiplayer game? A 7-player something or other?
Apr 17, 2016 at 4:06
Realistically, the simplest way to resolve having X players where X is odd, would be to treat it as if you were running an X+1 man pod and then someone dropped suddenly.
So you draw up the rankings with "Mr Missing" as the 8th players, and then the player that gets matched up with him gets a "bye", where you automatically win the round.
Obviously, this still means that one player is having to sit out every round (this is unavoidable unless you're doing a Conspiracy-style multiplayer draft), but because they count as winning, they'll automatically be facing someone next match, whereas one of the losers of the match will now get the bye for the next round, will win, and will then get another match.
This allows you to constantly rotate through who's sitting out the next game, and gives a real benefit to winning, because you get to play every round.
EDIT: Did some research, and the official rules for Swiss Pairings can be found here; basically confirming the above.
