The draft variant

You asked, so here it is: yes, play with the draft. At two players it’s arguably the variant at its best — the serious 2-player stats are all played with draft on, and everything you’ve studied in this guide gets sharper the moment you can choose your cards instead of accepting them.

How it works

Instead of being dealt 4 cards each research phase:

1. You’re each dealt 4 cards. Keep one (face down), pass the other 3 to the other player.
2. From the 3 Matthew passes you, keep one, pass 2 back.
3. From the 2, keep one, pass 1 back.
4. The last card you just keep. You now have 4 drafted cards.
5. Then buying works as normal — keep any of the 4 for 3 MC each, ditch the rest.

Drafting is free; buying still costs the 3 MC. All the pricing math in Judging any card applies unchanged.

(One official wrinkle: the passing direction alternates each generation. With two of you it’s just back-and-forth either way. No draft in generation 1 — you buy from your dealt 10 as usual.)

Why it’s better head-to-head

• Less luck, more you. Across a game you effectively see and choose from far more cards. A bad research phase stops being a dead generation.
• Hate-drafting is a guaranteed play. With three or more players, a card you pass might land anywhere. With two, you know exactly who receives everything you don’t keep. Denying Matthew an S-tier card is 100% reliable — and the community line is that a monster denied is worth more than a decent card gained.
• You read his plan. What he keeps (and what he refuses to pass you) tells you what he’s building generations before it hits the table. If the Jovian cards stop coming through, you know why.

The never-pass list

These go in your keep pile even when you don’t want them — because he does. (All from the premium cards page; the ▲2p marks matter double here.)

• Earth Catapult, AI Central, Restricted Area — the engines. Every one of these compounds for the rest of the game.
• Protected Habitats — the single biggest 2-player card in the deck. If he gets it, your entire attack hand turns to dead cardboard.
• The attack package — Sabotage, Virus, Predators, Heat Trappers, Hired Raiders. At two players, 100% of the damage lands on you.
• Giant Ice Asteroid, Deimos Down — multi-step TR plus they eat your plants. “Basically a seven-point swing” head-to-head.
• Plant production — Kelp Farming, Trees, Insects, Arctic Algae. The green machine cards are sticky at 2p; treat every one as a keep.
• Any Jovian multiplier if he has Jovian tags down — Terraforming Ganymede especially.

The happily-pass list

Cards that scale on cities or on “opponents” get worse with one opponent — passing these is free, and if he buys one, better still:

Greenhouses · Toll Station · Zeppelins · Martian Rails · Immigration Shuttles · Immigrant City · Rover Construction · Energy Saving — anything whose text says “per city.” And every card on the trap list: passing Matthew a trap he might pay 3 MC for is the quietest points swing in the game.

Drafting habits worth keeping

1. Keep-priority when torn: engine for your plan → deny his monster → points. Before generation 5 that order almost never betrays you.
2. Count what he’s shown. Two tags of anything is a plan; draft against it early, not after it’s assembled.
3. Don’t hate-draft yourself out of a game. Denying him only pays while your own hand still develops — one denial a round is plenty; two is a hobby.
4. Cards are still the scarcest resource — when two keeps look equal, take the one that draws more cards.
5. Plants near his conversion turn. If you’re holding plant destruction, the draft tells you when his greenery is coming. Time it.

The honest caution

It adds a few minutes per generation and a few more decisions per round — your first drafted game will run a little longer while it becomes habit. It’s worth it. This is the version of the game where knowing the cards is the whole edge, and as of tonight, you know the cards.