League idea

By DagobahDave, in X-Wing

Posted at
Here's how I intend it to work for my store group of about 15 players. All league matches will be according to the standard tournament rules, 100 points, 75 minutes, and so on.
When a player joins the league, they draw 1 random card from the League Deck. This card will confer some benefits for league matches. Players may not sell, trade, give away, destroy, lose, deface, damage, misuse, or look sideways at League Cards.
When a league match is played, the winner receives one random card from the loser. In the case of draw, the players keep their cards.
If a player is ever without a card, they may draw one random card from the League Deck. If a player has more than 3 cards at the end of a match, they may choose 3 to keep and must shuffle the rest back into the League Deck.
LEAGUE CARDS
Academy: Reduce the cost of elite talent upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Bomb Factory: Reduce the cost of bomb upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Cannon Factory: Reduce the cost of cannon upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Command Center: Once per match, when you reveal a dial, you may select a new maneuver instead.
Crime Syndicate: Your Scum squad may include 1 Imperial or Rebel ship; this ship loses its pilot ability (if any) and its upgrades must be neutral or Scum only. In all other ways, treat this ship as the same faction as your other ships.
Forward Base: When selecting your 3 obstacles, you may choose any mine tokens (Cluster Mines, Conner Nets, Proximity Mines), asteroids and debris clouds (including those from the huge ship expansions).
Guild Contract: Your Rebel or Imperial squad may include 1 Scum ship; this ship’s upgrades must be neutral or Scum only. In all other ways, treat this ship (and the Nashta Pup) as the same faction as your other ships.
Illicit Lab: Reduce the cost of illicit upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Market: Add 2 free squad points when building your squad. Free points are spent just like squad points, but do not count toward your squad point total.
Missile Factory: Reduce the cost of missile upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Robotics Lab: Reduce the cost of astromech and salvaged astromech upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Scrapyard: Reduce the cost of modification upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Shipyard: Reduce the cost of large ships by 1 point.
Spaceport: Reduce the cost of crew upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Spy Network: Your squad point total is reduced by 5 for the purposes of determining initiative only. You may deploy your ships within Range 1-2 of your starting edge instead of Range 1.
Systems Lab: Reduce the cost of system upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Tech Lab: Reduce the cost of tech upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Temple: Once per match, you may change 1 of your [focus] results to a [damage] or [evade] result instead.
Torpedo Factory: Reduce the cost of torpedo upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
Turret Factory: Reduce the cost of turret upgrades by 1 point, to a minimum of 1.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I plan to print out a couple of copies of some of these cards so there's no danger of running out even if the league expands.
If you have any ideas for other cards we might use, or simple ways to spice up a league using this sort of thing, this thread is for you.

Posted at

Honestly I would have it go the other way. Make it so when you win you must give away positive cards to other players. Make it so that it is more prestigious to have less cards, perhaps by giving league points out for a match as an inverse of the number of cards you have, or give a point bonus if you have less cards than the opponent or something similar.

Having cards that give winners bigger benefits actually creates even more of a divide between good, average and poor players.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea, I just feel that making the rich richer will cause problems for the league in the long run.

Posted at

Like the idea. I do have to agree with ID X T though. Might be a drag when the best players in the league start to dominate.

How about also giving a negative 5 squad points for each card you have. Or each card has a bonus and a handicap. i.e. you may only take one named character, or your list must include the expose upgrade, or you may not use any upgrade or pilot card twice in the same list.

Posted at

Actually yes. That sounds more fun. Give the losing players a bonus instead.

Posted at

Are the cards unique or are there multiples? If a single player has multiples do they stack? I could see that being pretty big on some of the cards (and much less so on some of the others)...

Posted at

I like the idea, but agree that each card should have nothing a positive and a negative. It would still allow winners to 'customize' their card collection towards an end. Just be sure the negatives aren't ones that could be outright ignored.

Posted at

I like it; sounds like it could be pretty fun.

I kinda disagree that you need a negative effect on each card, and that losing players need a bonus. These effects are not game breaking IMO, (even if you have three), plus players are going to have random combinations of these cards unless they've won about 10 matches and have had the chance to prune their hand. Randomness reduces chances for 'abuse', overpowered combinations, etc.

Also, the random bonus effects could spur players to fly non-standard lists.

Also- Dave, is there a way to contact you directly? (for some reason I can't PM your FFG account). I have a campaign system that's almost ready to publish and I wanted to ask for your feedback on it. You may be interested in some of the elements of the campaign system if you're setting up a league and want to try new things out.

Edited by Babaganoosh
Posted at

I think this is a great idea. Just a thought that might keep things interesting for both new and veteran members is maybe each player starts with 3 cards? The winner gets to pick 1 of the losers cards and the loser redraws to a max of 3 again. Maybe have 4 or 5 cards the max anyone could have? Just a thought instead of trying to design a positive and negative effect for each card and balancing that might be a nightmare.

Posted at

Thanks for the feedback everybody.

I agree it's a good idea to not over-reward winners. So maybe this:

Join the league, draw 2 cards from the league deck.

If you use a card during a match (including squad building), it goes faceup into a shared discard pile.

At the end of a match, the winner takes 2 cards, which can be drawn from both the faceup discard pile and the top of the league deck. The remaining cards are shuffled back into the deck.

Maximum hand size is 3 cards.

The loser draws from the top of the league deck until they have 2 cards in their hand.

In the case of a tie, the discard pile is shuffled back into the deck and then both players draw from the league deck (as if they had lost), starting with the player that had initiative.

The deck probably will include some duplicate cards, but I'll choose them carefully. And I can always tweak the deck over the course of the league.

Babaganoosh, feel free to email me at luminousbeings at yahoo or gmail. I'd be interested in seeing that campaign.