How to Play Invasion Draft
Invasion Draft is a booking game for people who grew up arguing about the Monday Night Wars. You pick a side, WWF or WCW, and draft a full nine-match pay-per-view card one spin at a time. Then the bell rings and your card goes up against a card from the other company. The aim is simple and very hard: go 9-0. This guide covers every rule, with a few tips we picked up from far too many test runs.
1. Pick your side
At the start of a run you choose to draft from the WWF or from WCW. That choice is locked for the whole run, and your opponent is always the other brand. If you take WCW, you are building a Nitro card to beat a Raw card, and the other way round. There is no mixing. If you want Goldberg and Stone Cold on the same card, this is the wrong game, and that is half the fun.
2. Every pick is a fresh spin
Before each of your twelve picks a reel spins two things: a random year between 1995 and 2001, and a random alignment, heel or face. Both are fully random every time, and repeats are allowed. You might get three 1996 heel spins in a row, or jump from 1995 to 2001 and back. The spin decides who you are allowed to pick from, so a WCW 1998 heel spin is full of nWo members, while a WWF 1995 face spin is a very different, much leaner pool.
Each spin shows you eight options from your brand for that exact year. The first spin is always eight main eventers, so your top match starts strong. From spin two to spin twelve you see two main eventers, two tag team wrestlers, two midcarders and two from the women and managers group.
Options match the alignment that was spun. A wrestler who genuinely worked both sides in that year, meaning a real turn with at least three months on each side, can show up on either spin. If a year and alignment cannot supply two names in a category, the gap is filled from the opposite alignment of the same brand and the same year, and the card is labelled as an other side fill-in. It never pulls from another brand or another year. Once a name is on your card it will not appear again, even in a different year.
3. The twelve slots and nine matches
Your card has twelve slots that become nine matches:
- World Champion for the World Title match.
- National Champion for the secondary title, the Intercontinental or United States belt.
- Tag Partner A and B for the Tag Team Titles.
- Women's for the women's match.
- Cruiserweight for the Cruiserweight Title. Any man can go here, but a heavyweight takes a misfit penalty.
- Grudge, Hardcore, Midcard and Opener, four more singles matches.
- Manager 1 and Manager 2, who attach to any of the nine matches and boost that match.
4. Placing picks
Placement is free. Tap an option, then tap any open slot it is allowed in. The slot list shows the fit bonus or penalty before you commit, so you can see whether a pure cruiserweight is worth more in the Cruiserweight slot than in the Opener. If two wrestlers formed a real team, placing the second partner next to the first shows REAL TEAM +10. A classic gamble is taking one Hardy brother or one Dudley early and praying the other turns up later.
Until you lock the card you can move and swap freely. Tap a pick on your card and then tap another slot: an empty slot moves it, a filled slot swaps the two. Managers can be re-attached to any match from a dropdown. All match scores and the overall card power recalculate live as you shuffle things around.
If none of the eight options could legally go into any open slot, for example when your women's slot and both manager slots are already full and the spin is heavy on those groups, the spin re-rolls for free. That is the only automatic re-roll.
5. Lock the card and ring the bell
When all twelve slots are filled, press Lock card and ring the bell. Each of your nine matches is simulated against the matching match on the opponent's card. Results come from our own rating formulas: in-ring ability, star power in the year you drafted them, how well they fit the slot, real-team bonuses and manager boosts, plus a dose of luck so that an underdog can still steal one. Ratings are our formulas, not anyone's official verdict on a real performer.
6. Coins, keepers and respins
You earn coins by playing. Coins can be spent on an extra keeper slot in Keeper League mode, a quick-game respin when a spin goes badly, or cosmetic belt colours. Coins cannot be cashed out, sold or traded, and there are no loot boxes or random packs. In some places you can choose to watch a short optional ad instead of spending coins.
7. Keeper League
Keeper League is a longer mode where you run a season of shows and keep part of your roster from one show to the next. Keepers are where planning beats luck: a young midcarder drafted in a 1996 spin might be worth keeping if you think later spins will favour him.
8. Daily Challenge
Every day there is a Daily Challenge where everyone gets the same seeded spins. It is the fairest way to compare scores with friends, because nobody can blame the reel.
Tips from our test runs
- Do not burn your first spin on the safest name. The first spin is the only one that is all main eventers, so take the one who scores highest in the World Champion slot.
- Leave the Cruiserweight slot open for a real cruiser if you can. WCW spins from 1996 to 1999 are rich in them.
- Managers are underrated. A strong manager on a close match can swing it.
- Real teams pay. If you see half of a famous tag team early, it is often worth the risk.
- Going 9-0 is rare. 7-2 against a strong opponent card is a good night's work.
Play Invasion Draft now or read about the real history behind the game in our Monday Night Wars history hub.