Sometimes Zwar Gokken is too card dependent and Headshot recently suggested next change to it:
add additional pack to starting pool (currently there are 6 packs in Zwar and 5 in Free Sealed)

I wanted to try it by creating custom Zwar, but since it is not trivial to implement I decided to discuss this first.

What I think about it
Pros:
- less likely to have not enough cards and probably less random dependent;

Cons:
- increased deck building complexity due to increased amount of time -> increased deck building time;
- more likely to get too many of the same card (f.e. getting 6x Red Imps/Mud Mogis/Lysis is too good in 25 cards deck) -> more overpowered unbalanced decks;

What do you think about such change?

P.S. Another possible way to improve situation is to decrease number of used domains (currently it is 5 out of 6 domains), but this still have all cons mentioned above.

I appreciate you considering this and making this thread, but that isn't exactly what I suggested. I was under the impression that there are only 5 boosters, and my suggestion was to add one more booster and include all the domains. This doesn't work as well with 6 boosters as it would have with 5, but I'll discuss this at the end of the post.

Option number 2 (the one altren introduced at the end of his post): Making the boosters contain only cards from 4 random domains, instead of five out of six might indeed be one of the best options available. Free sealed seems okay with 5 boosters and 4 domains, and the extra booster could be balanced to some extent by card pools of each domain being wider with BL included.

Pros:
-Better chance to be able to make a viable, reasonably balanced deck with 2 or 3 different domains.
-Deck making might actually become even simpler, bigger pools for each domain but less domains to choose from. Personally I don't consider this a good thing, but it would speed things up a bit.
-Seems to work in free sealed. There would be one more booster, but this would be balanced to some extent by wider card pools (decreasing chance to get a given card, say ord stone) for each domain.
-More variation in domain selection. Currently I believe MF and Chaos are disproportionately popular choices, and with this change they would be ruled out more often, forcing the player to pick something else.

Cons:
-There being only 4 to select from instead of current 5 would take out some of the fun of weighing the pools of each domain against each other, their weaknesses and strengths, and deciding which ones to include and in what order you want to have the domains in the game.
-Some domain combinations are better than some others. For example, Elementals work well with any domain, but CI doesn't. I think a player who gets MF, DL, Chaos and Ele might be likely to have an advantage over another who gets Sylvan, CI, MF and DL.
-Tough mono-domain or near mono-domain decks would become more common.


Option number 3: The only other option I can think of in addition to the 2 mentioned in Altren's post, is to add 1 more booster and include all domains. On one hand, 1 might not be enough, since the number of domains would be increased by 20%, but the number of cards only by 16,7%. On the other hand, when we take into account that there are also neutral cards (although less), it would seem that each domain's card pools would be almost as big on average as now.

Pros:
-When you can pick from 6 instead of 5, your chances of finding 2 or 3 that would make a viable, reasonably balanced deck are better. I think this is the best way to approach the problem.
-Highly synergestic decks and mono-domain or nearly mono decks would not become any more viable.
-The aspect of picking a best combination of domains from the pool would become a bit more important, which is IMHO cool, because it's the most interesting thing in zwar/free sealed deck making. Once you have decided on domains, the rest is pretty straightforward.
-You can use any domains you want, regardless of random number generator.

Cons:
-I'm not entirely sure if this would help with the issue at all. However, if it would not help or if it actually made the problem worse, adding another booster could be tried.
-It would make decision-making a bit harder in deck building. I personally don't think this is a con, but some people do.

When it comes to testing, I think both the simplest and best way would be to just have a new format in addition to zwar for now, named for example "Zwar 2". After something like 3 or 4 months, the more popular format would stay, or if it isn't clear which one people like to play more just by looking at current (at the time) popularity, then there could be voting.

Sorry, my bad. I told you that there are 5 packs, but after small investigation I figured I was wrong and 5 pack are given only if there is one set, but for all sets there are 6 packs.

This can be fixed by changing domain to be same for all players.

What I'm thinking about 6 domains is that wouldn't make things better. Since there are slightly less cards for each domain first you will look at them and exclude some because they have too few cards and as a result you'll end up with choosing cards from 3-4 domains.
More packs means longer building and what is more important longer waiting for opponent, so it becomes more about building, less about playing game, which should be main part after all.

Let me write all options one more and add one new:
Option 0 (how it is now): 6 packs, 5/6 domains.
Option 1: 7 packs, 5/6 domains.
Option 2: 6 packs, 4/6 domains.
Option 3: 7 packs, 6/6 domains.

Option 4: 5 packs, 4/6 domains. (excluded domains are same for both players)

Pros:
- Slightly more cards for each domain;
- No need to waste time of finding unplayable domain;
- Less cards to pick from, enough time to better combine them or
- less time required to build, more time to actually play.

Cons:
- Less cards and less domains might be too limited, but I think feel should be same as it is in current Zwar.
- Higher chance that you won't have domain that you are familiar with or simply prefer to play over others. (might be not a problem since in other options you might want to play it, but won't due to not enough/useless cards in it)

It will probably mean longer building time, but how much longer? My guess is something like half a minute more on average at most, which still isn't much when you compare to the time playing until 2 wins takes. Playing would still take something like 85% of the time. In my opinion, anything that adds a bit of time to construction is easily worth it, if it lessens the chance of either player being screwed from the start.