What is Rough Draft?
Rough Draft is a ranking game that presents six athletes and asks you to order them by a single statistic. The category appears at the top, the names sit in two columns with decade tags showing when each player was active, and six numbered slots wait below. Categories range from traditional stats to off-field metrics like peak Instagram followers. You get one submission per day.
How to play Rough Draft
- Read the category strip at the top to see which stat you are ranking and whether the order runs high to low or low to high.
- Tap an empty slot, then tap a player to place that athlete in the position.
- Fill all six slots with your best guesses.
- Press LOCK IN DRAFT BOARD to submit your arrangement. That single submission is final for the day.
Scoring and draft grades
Rough Draft scores each position and gives credit for near misses. An exact placement earns two points; a placement one slot away earns one, and anything farther away earns zero. The maximum score is 12.
Your total determines the grade: 11–12 is A+ (Hall of Famer), 9–10 is A (All-Star), 7–8 is B (Starter), 5–6 is C (Backup), 3–4 is D (Practice Squad), and 2 or fewer is F (Cut). If every athlete is one position away from the correct spot, the board scores six points and receives a C, or Backup.
Ranking games depend entirely on what they ask you to rank. Rough Draft moves beyond traditional box scores. A board might line up a retired basketball center, a footballer, and an MMA fighter and ask who had the bigger social media following at their peak. That question demands different knowledge than who scored more points. The two-one-zero scoring system rewards getting the shape of the list right even when exact order escapes you.
Tips and strategy
Use the decade tags under each name as hard data. On a category like peak social following, when a platform became popular matters more than how famous the athlete was in their sport. Keep names you cannot confidently separate next to each other in the order, because swapping two neighbors costs two points while swapping the first and last slot costs four. Check the ORDER badge next to the category before you lock in your board. The direction is stated clearly, and reversing it ruins the entire grade.
When the next board arrives
A new puzzle drops every day at midnight ET. Your progress saves if you close the app before finishing. Once you lock in a board, you cannot change it.