There is no journey to an AFL premiership that doesn't make a pit stop at the draft.

Any champion team comes together over many years and through an increasing variety of means, but the key to it all remains the ability to identify and secure elite young talent.

Fostering and developing it is another matter, but to complete the trek from the bottom to the top, work at the draft needs to be precise.

The 2024 draft will see a handful of clubs look to fast-track, support or complete their rebuilds, but each in very different ways.

The AFL draft will be held on November 20 and 21. Check out our full top 30 rankings here, and join us for our live blog on draft nights.

The success of the strategies put in place by Richmond, West Coast, North Melbourne, Adelaide and St Kilda won't be fully clear for some time, but the futures of these clubs may well be determined by what takes place on the nights of November 20 and 21, 2024.

Richmond's plan is not subtle and certainly not sentimental. The Tigers cleared the books, farewelling a handful of stars from their recent premiership era and banking a suite of draft picks with a smile.

The result is an unprecedented first-round haul. At the time of writing, and before any draft night wheeling and dealing, the Tigers will have no fewer than seven first-round picks to play with — one, six, 10, 11, 18, 20 and 23 — and the first pick of the second round on night two.

This is a club looking to rebuild in one summer. Even if only half of these selections realise their potential, in a draft which is correctly assessed as being very even through the first round and into the second, they should form the basis of Richmond's next premiership-chasing team.

The Tigers can address every position and any playing style. With those picks, they could take the best midfielder, best tall forward, best rebounding half-back and best ruck in this draft and still have some picks spare for some speculative punts or specific needs.

But it will come at a cost. The problem with throwing eight of the best teenagers into your AFL team is they are still teenagers. They will develop together, and grow together, but in the beginning, they will also lose together.

The clean slate model that Richmond is trialling means tough years like 2024 are inevitable in the short-term, but with an expectation of steady growth before the sudden blossoming of a new generation of success. It will be fascinating to behold.

West Coast, a club which has been poorer for longer than Richmond, has taken a very different path.

The Eagles traded away their blue chip pick this year, losing pick three in a deal which brought them Liam Baker and pick 12. It will mean another year outside the top 10 for the Eagles, as trading back in to the upper rung this year has proven to be exceptionally difficult.

West Coast hasn't valued early picks as high as others for some time now, and come round one in 2025 the only top 10 picks it will have on its books will be Harley Reid (pick one, 2023) and Reuben Ginbey (pick nine, 2022) — for a team that has been clearly in the bottom two or three for three seasons now, that is a remarkable dearth of top-end selections.

But the Eagles are coming at this from a different angle. Their belief is they can no longer afford to be easybeats, and through their trade work have improved their baseline to be instantly competitive, if not good.

Baker, Jack Graham and Matt Owies make the Eagles stronger in the short term. That should help the development of their younger players and draftees, help convince Reid of the future of the club and help them attract more players in the coming years.

Their draft hand in 2025 is very healthy, thanks to a bounty received in the Tom Barrass deal with Hawthorn. Those picks will come in handy should an arms race for Chad Warner emerge, otherwise the WA crop coming through next year is promising.

But for now, West Coast isn't prepared to go all in on the draft. The Eagles want to improve with youth, experience and players at their peak. They will likely be better than the Tigers next season, but will they eventually find themselves short of elite, premiership-standard talent down the line?

Pit these contrasting strategies against each other in four years' time and the results will be illuminating.

The Crows, Saints and Kangaroos will all believe the 2024 draft is a chance for them to put the finishing touches on their playing lists ahead of surges up the ladder in 2025 and beyond.

The Saints are in a slightly different spot from the others as they played finals in 2023 and finished this season with an encouraging run of form. With picks seven and eight — and a couple of NGA defenders available on the cheap — they can add a final dash of quality, address some midfield issues and set the platform for a sustained run at finals and beyond.

St Kilda is staring at a golden opportunity, with two successive picks inside the top 10 of a good draft. Use them, trade them, whatever — it's a gift that can not be squandered.

Adelaide will surely have the right option fall straight into its lap. Sid Draper is an SA local, is close to the very best midfielder available in the draft and has a better than even chance of being available at Adelaide's selection.

He makes the Crows immediately better in 2025 and, injury permitting, can be marked down for a decade of elite football.

It's almost too good to be true for the Crows. The only pick of substance they have in this draft happens to be the one that will land them the exact thing they need at the exact right time. It's not a decision that should be overthought.

And then there's North Melbourne, which has spent half a decade attacking the draft in a bid to create its next contending team.

Most of that time has been spent loading up with the best available midfielders, leaving them with a promising but unbalanced list.

With its top pick this year though, there is a chance the Kangaroos will go after the best key defender on offer in Alix Tauru. Whether they use pick two on Tauru, split that selection to get him and someone else lower down — or trade their 2025 first-round pick to get back into the draft for one of the top-line talls — it would be a promising sign for North.

There has to be improvement for North Melbourne in 2025. Another season in the bottom two can not be tolerated, and that sort of move would prove the Roos are ready to start behaving like a team that is getting out of a rebuild and primed to start chasing wins in the here and now.

The player himself may not facilitate that — Tauru especially would need patience and physical development — but one way or another the logic behind the selection will provide a clear indication of North's frame of mind.

The beauty of the draft is there is always another one next year, but this one does feel particularly pivotal.

Next year's crop is littered with academy and father-son options at the top end, limiting the pool of players available to most clubs. Then Tasmania looms only a few short years away, with heavily compromised drafts a natural by-product.

The time to strike is now. Pick your strategy, nail your picks and hope history smiles on your decisions.