Chapter packs are made with a single sheet. That way, they can be exact playsets for games like SW (10 pods, with 4 or 5 in 2x) and Conquest (a squad of 9 and 17 cards in 3x or 20 cards in 3x). However, you get problems when you have the odd card that can only be included in 1x (faction/house/identity card, plot, agenda, or even just a card that specifically mentions it - there are a few in AGoT and at least one in A:NR). Expansion boxes are probably made with 3 sheets (assuming the same sheet size), so it's easier if all 3 are identical. Either way, the card backs can be easily varied, especially given they're already doing it for SW and A:NR.

I'm not saying that there isn't some other solution out there that might possibly be found, but so far, the best convergence of out of the box playability with constructed options is the mostly 1x model in the core set, particularly with a large number of factions. Doing so lets them keep the initial price point low enough for people to be willing to try out the game at $40 rather than trying to lump in 3x everything and selling a single core set at $120 or so (probably a little lower with slightly less packaging) which would almost surely price it out of the range of anyone who isn't already committed enough to buy whatever FFG puts out.

I hope that FFG simply rethinks the $40 price-point. Just go up to $49 and give us complete playsets of cards in the core set. Buying multiple core sets is annoying. True, some players remain very casual. But, many, many enjoy playing competitively. And, better deck-building options would still be appreciated for casual players. I don't buy (no pun intended ) that the extra $10 or so would significantly affect whether or not a casual player decides to pick it up.

They've publicly committed to the $40 price point and praised the design of the Conquest core set which is mostly 1x's. $49 for a box encompassing 8 factions with everything at 3x is...unrealistic. At this point I am convinced that the drive to sell multiple core sets per customer is not just a side effect of saying "well we can put 200 different cards at mostly 1x or 75 cards at all 3x and more variety would be better" but is actually a deliberate choice. They're here to make money after all and it works against their interests to make the central product self-sufficient.

I'm just going to be setting aside a huge chunk of my Gen Con money...

Perhaps a Core+ version, or an add-on pack that simply includes cards necessary to take the Core Set up to 3x of each card (or whatever constitutes a complete playset for a given game).

So now they're going to the expense and trouble of creating, shipping, and asking retailers to stock an entire other product whose sole purpose is to reduce sales of the central product?

Never going to happen. Never have done for any of six LCGs.

The purpose of core set is introduce the game to new player. The only thing that counts is that it is cheap enough and that the game is playable and entertaining using only one core set... Normally it means some *1 cards, some *2 cards and some *3 cards... Hopefully it only is 1 and 2 in this case... But in any way you will need 3 core sets. They already say that 6 faction games needs 2 or 3 core sets in their homepage... So it gives a hint what to expect...

250 cards max

We have 8 House cards

I assume we have at least 28 Plot cards (to support 4p OOTB)

That leaves 224 remaining cards maximum.

If Houses are equal size, that's 28 cards maximum per house. There is no way that this can be a complete play set ( or else there would be virtually no deck building) so let's me optimistic and assume all 28 cards are unique. Even if you have to buy three cores to get a full play set, you wind up with an impressive card pool of 224 cards - a way bigger card pool than any other LCG core.

Full play set in one box would be a disaster. It just won't happen. But hopefully we will at least get our money's worth with 3. The worst thing is of we have combination of 1s, 2s, and 3s which results in a puny card pool while still requiring three buys. A combination of 2s and 3s (requiring two purchases) is also annoying and small card pool. So the best hoe is that the card pool is actually in the neighborhood of 200 cards and that we are getting great value from the money we spend on three of them.

This is also the second time a core LCG set was designed with Rotation in mind. Like W40K:C, I expect single versions of each card with very few exceptions. This gives a strong starting set for each house, forces players to work with the treaty rules right out of the box and get a strong feel for game play and variety. Those who want to play competitively will expect to pay a bit more and a second core, maybe a third will be required. I have stayed competitive in my local W40K:C meta with just two cores but will be picking up a third along with the firs deluxe expansion.

With these deluxe expansions I would guess a breakdown of 3 neutral, 17 each for 2 houses and 3 new cards for the each of the other 6 houses. These stay evergreen. The chapter packs would, over 6 packs in the cycle offer something like 14 cards per house plus 8 neutral cards.

How important is it to have three (or whatever the card per deck limit will be) of each card?

I've played various CCGs and you hardly ever need the limit on everything.

It seams to me that that answer would depend on how competitive you want to be. In ANR and W40K:C there are cards that you need three to get them into play soon enough and often enough to be effective. I run with 2 of most cards and keep my decks to the minimum number of cards. I have only two ANR cores but will be picking up a third W40K:C along with the first delux box.

Netrunner's core set is a mix of 3x cards, a lot of 2x cards, and a few 1x cards. So a second core is a good value as it gives most of the card pool at 3x (and enough staple cards to build more than one deck at a time) but there's a very steep drop-off in value for a third Netrunner core. But if you must have that 3rd copy of a certain card, then a lot of people bite the bullet.

Conquest I'm given to understand is mostly singletons, so you really do need 3x core sets, but that you get a much better value for your $120 MSRP than you do out of Netrunner.

I'm content to buy 3 core sets.

Conquest is all singles except for two cards in each faction that you get two. I do believe that two cores are a must. For those that do buy three cores that "overage" would be 2 additional set of warlords and 21 cards beyond the three of each. All 21 cards could be used in multiple decks though so usage could be found if you wanted to.

The "value" of additional Netrunner cores is not so much.

If we know there are 8 faction cards (multiples of those are redundant), and 28 plots (more than 2 copies of those are redundant), for the person who only builds one deck at the very least we will have 8 cards not worth buying a second core for, and 36 not worth buying the third for (for a total of 42 wasted cards across ~750). Those diminishing returns are not that bad.

I suspect there will be a few other duplicated cards, mind you, but I doubt we will find ourselves in the LOTR-core level of diminishing returns.

Return on investment for multiple core sets has been getting better and better with each LCG. It could be better than conquest.

250 cards max

We have 8 House cards

I assume we have at least 28 Plot cards (to support 4p OOTB)

That leaves 224 remaining cards maximum.

If Houses are equal size, that's 28 cards maximum per house. There is no way that this can be a complete play set ( or else there would be virtually no deck building) so let's me optimistic and assume all 28 cards are unique. Even if you have to buy three cores to get a full play set, you wind up with an impressive card pool of 224 cards - a way bigger card pool than any other LCG core.

Full play set in one box would be a disaster. It just won't happen. But hopefully we will at least get our money's worth with 3. The worst thing is of we have combination of 1s, 2s, and 3s which results in a puny card pool while still requiring three buys. A combination of 2s and 3s (requiring two purchases) is also annoying and small card pool. So the best hoe is that the card pool is actually in the neighborhood of 200 cards and that we are getting great value from the money we spend on three of them.

By my math, 250 - 28 plots - 8 factions = 214, not 224. And titles still count as cards, so that brings us to 208. Which makes for 26 cards per faction. But there are some neutral cards as well, so it might be 24 or 25 per faction. (24 is how many each had in Conquest). EDIT: Actually, 26 come to think of it. Each faction has 24 unique cards, with two cards in duplicate. 25 if you don't count the warlord.

(The neutrals might come in quadruplicate, in order to support 4-player out of the box; or there might be some equivalent neutrals, I saw The Roseroad in the video, The Searoad could be there too. Or multiplayer isn't supported with just one core, but I would be very surprised if that were the case.)

I believe they've said the deck size is still 60, but as I recall you couldn't really build a full legal deck out of the one 1E core either.

If I had to guess, based on how Conquest works, this is how deckbuilding will work with a single core:

• Choose a faction for your house

• Include all cards from that faction

• Include one copy of all neutral cards

• Choose a faction for your agenda

• Include all non-loyal cards for that faction

Voila, you now have a deck, probably of either 45 or 50 cards (guessing 45).

I am actually hoping for 1xEach card/Core, aside from maybe the neutral stuff. It does make the initial cost a bit pricier, but there is a bigger card pool on release and there is no waste. Something I didn't care for in both Conquest and Netrunner was if you did buy 3 for full playset, there were some cards which you didn't really need because they were included as 2+ copies in one core.

1x of each removes the waste and allows you to buy in as much as you want/can afford. Again, I'd be okay with the neutral stuff being a 2x or more since that would simply allow you to build more decks overall, even if there is a small bit of waste there.

I am actually hoping for 1xEach card/Core, aside from maybe the neutral stuff. It does make the initial cost a bit pricier, but there is a bigger card pool on release and there is no waste. Something I didn't care for in both Conquest and Netrunner was if you did buy 3 for full playset, there were some cards which you didn't really need because they were included as 2+ copies in one core.

1x of each removes the waste and allows you to buy in as much as you want/can afford. Again, I'd be okay with the neutral stuff being a 2x or more since that would simply allow you to build more decks overall, even if there is a small bit of waste there.

There's certainly some waste with three Conquest cores: two extra sets of warlord squads and two extra sets of planets, plus 6x of a bunch cards, most of which you likely don't need 6 of (though I've definitely appreciated being able to have 3 Tactical Squad Cardinises or Earth Caste Technicians in two different decks without shuttling cards around). But the vast majority of cards, you are getting a complete set when you get that third core.

Netrunner though, ugh. So many 3x and 2x cards in that, and then an obnoxious number of 1x cards. You have a very nearly complete set on Core 2 (with three extras of some cards, one extra of other), but if you want a complete set you're buying that last core for something like I think 11 or 12 cards you don't have in triplicate yet, and you'll end up with 9x and 6x of most of the core.

In my opinion FFG wants to force veteran players to buy 3 Core Sets, which is a shame.

Why couldn't they publish a Core Set containing 1x, 2x and 3x cards and then provide their customers with a possibility to buy supplementary boxes containing misssing 1x and 2x cards just as Arcane Wonders did it with "Mage Wars Spell Tomes"? Why? The solution is so simple! Why to force people to spend 3 x USD 40 (USD 120 in total) instead of 1 x USD 40 and plus 1 x USD 25 or 30 (not more than USD 70 in total)? Why?

In such a way the out-of-the-box experience (terrible buzz word by the way) would be fine and torunament players would be happy with their supplementary cheaper boxes.

Why couldn't they publish a Core Set containing 1x, 2x and 3x cards and then provide their customers with a possibility to buy supplementary boxes containing misssing 1x and 2x cards just as Arcane Wonders did it with "Mage Wars Spell Tomes"? Why? The solution is so simple! Why to force people to spend 3 x USD 40 (USD 120 in total) instead of 1 x USD 40 and plus 1 x USD 25 or 30 (not more than USD 70 in total)? Why?

You're not going to like this answer, but it's because there is simply no business sense in making a separate product whose sole purpose is to reduce sales on an existing product.

Yeap. What is funny though, Arcane Wonders didn't have any problem with "business sense". They have decided to support their fans whereas FFG constantly refuses to change their policy towards players, which, again, is a shame. As someone wrote on this forum, buying 3 Core Sets has become a standard for FFG players and it is sick.I probably won't jump into AGOT 2e. I just don't like FFG's attitude.

You seem to forget Mage War is not a card game like magic or an LCG. You dont have a deck, so no need to max copie of certain card to make sure to use it during a game. The need of having multiple copie in mage war compare to AGOT is less important.

Sure, I will be happy to buy 1 box and have the full game but, I will not prevent myself to play a great game because of this details

Yeap. What is funny though, Arcane Wonders didn't have any problem with "business sense". They have decided to support their fans whereas FFG constantly refuses to change their policy towards players, which, again, is a shame. As someone wrote on this forum, buying 3 Core Sets has become a standard for FFG players and it is sick.I probably won't jump into AGOT 2e. I just don't like FFG's attitude.

I have spent far more on Mage Wars to build the decks I want for 1-2 of each Mage then I have on W40K:C and maybe even ANR. I own multiples of everything for Mage Wars to be able to support the very different style of deck design. You suggest multiples of individual cards which mean fewer different cards and the need for more expansions. That would be the same cost to players as buying three cores. What you miss is that three cores are not needed to play. Every LCG is fully playable with one core. Most players will never need more than 1 core to play and enjoy the game. The only person that needs more than a single core is the one who wants to get into competitive play.

By offering a core set that is fully playable on its own, everyone can play the game right away. The 1 or 2 out of every five (pull the numbers from Alliance) players that chooses to play competitively can pick up a second or third core as they feel the need. This system, while not perfect for everybody (what is), is the best option for the largest population of players.

That said my demo of Mage Wars Battlegrounds: Domination is SWEET! can't wait to play a full competitive game.

You're not going to like this answer, but it's because there is simply no business sense in making a separate product whose sole purpose is to reduce sales on an existing product.

Yeap. What is funny though, Arcane Wonders didn't have any problem with "business sense". They have decided to support their fans whereas FFG constantly refuses to change their policy towards players, which, again, is a shame. As someone wrote on this forum, buying 3 Core Sets has become a standard for FFG players and it is sick.I probably won't jump into AGOT 2e. I just don't like FFG's attitude.

I have also found that a lot of players like to stick with 1 or 2 houses/factions. What a lot of people do is split boxes and chapter pack cycles up amongst them and their friends and distribute the houses/factions accordingly. That should help reduce costs for a lot of players if that is something you do with your friends. Splitting 3 core sets with 4 friends would get you a full play set for your house/faction and would only be 1/4 of the price. Not sure what to do about plots and neutral cards, but I figured this type of thing is worth mentioning.