How to Run a Draft With Friends in Dota 2 - Steps

Updated 2026-07-13

How do you run a draft with friends in Dota 2?

You run a draft with friends in Dota 2 by gathering all your players in one list, naming two captains, and letting those captains take turns picking teammates in a fixed order until every player has a team. This is the captains draft format: it replaces the usual free-for-all of "who wants to play with who" with a clear, watchable process that produces two teams nobody can call rigged.

The steps below cover how to run a draft with friends dota 2 style, from a group chat full of names to two rosters ready to paste into a Dota 2 custom lobby — no spreadsheet, no argument in voice chat.

Step 1: Get your ten players confirmed in one place

Before any picking happens, confirm exactly who is playing and get all ten names in one list. A draft with 8 confirmed players and 2 maybes wastes everyone's time — someone gets picked, then has to be swapped out when a maybe cancels. Lock the roster first, whether that is a Discord voice channel headcount, a pinned message with reactions, or just a quick round of "who's actually playing."

Once the ten names are confirmed, add them to your draft tool. On DOTA DRAFT you can paste Steam IDs to pull each player's rank medal, best positions, and win rate from OpenDota automatically, or just type in plain names if you would rather keep it simple. Either way works — the draft itself does not require Steam data to run.

Step 2: Choose two captains without an argument

Pick your two captains using a method the whole group agrees is fair before you decide who they are, not after. Arguing about captains after someone is already announced is where most friend-group drafts go sideways.

The choice of method matters less than agreeing on it up front. A group that always defaults to the same two captains tends to breed resentment over time, even if those two players are genuinely the best decision-makers in the lobby — rotating the method, or at least rotating who gets picked, keeps the format feeling fair week after week.

• Manual selection — name two known shot-callers directly, the simplest option when your group already has obvious leaders.
• Random wheel — spin for a fair, low-stakes pick that removes any argument about favoritism.
• Highest MMR — auto-select the two highest-ranked players in the pool, which rewards rank without any manual decision at all.

Step 3: Run the picks in snake order

Once captains are set, the remaining eight players get drafted in snake order: A, B, B, A, A, B, B, A. Captain A picks first, but captain B immediately picks twice in a row, and the direction keeps reversing every two picks so neither captain gets a permanent first-pick edge over the whole draft. This is the same reversing pattern used in fantasy sports drafts, applied to a 10-player Dota 2 lobby.

On DOTA DRAFT, each pick has a 30-second timer that resets after every selection. If a captain hesitates — debating, say, whether to grab a known carry player who mains Anti-Mage or lock in a reliable support instead — the clock keeps the draft moving. If the timer runs out, the tool auto-picks a random remaining player so one slow decision never stalls the whole lobby.

Step 4: Check role coverage and the balance score

After the last pick lands, look at the suggested positions 1-5 and the balance score before you accept the teams as final. Two teams can be drafted fairly in terms of pick order and still end up lopsided if one side accidentally ends up short on supports — five confident carry mains do not make a working Dota 2 team on their own.

DOTA DRAFT assigns suggested positions to each roster and shows a balance score as a percentage: 85% or higher generally reads as a fair game, based on each player's rank tier, win rate, and recent performance. A support-heavy pick like a player who mains Crystal Maiden fills out the role coverage that pure carry picks leave empty, and the score reflects that once the roster settles.

Step 5: Copy both rosters into your Dota 2 lobby

With the draft complete, copy both team rosters into an actual Dota 2 custom lobby and set the two sides to match. DOTA DRAFT generates a shareable result link showing both final teams and the balance score, so anyone who missed the live picking can see exactly how the teams came together — useful for settling any "how did I end up on this team" questions after the fact.

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