I've never played a collectable card game before, but I'm very excited about this. I'm seeing lots of posts both here, on Twitter and on Facebook saying that people won't be picking this up due it its collectable nature, mainly due to how expensive these type of games are.

My question is therefore what level of expense are we talking about in order to get a decent play experience? I see people in my local game store playing Pokemon and MtG that I can't imagine are dropping huge amounts of cash on the games having a great time and so I'm guessing when people talk of great expense they're referring to building super competitive meta decks?

As someone who already plays mainly X-Wing, but also Armada and Imperial Assault, I don't have the time (regardless of inclination) to get deep into another game. But the idea of buying odd packs of these cards from time and the thrill of maybe getting a really nice rare card is very appealing to me. Is that level of buy in and commitment, alongside similarly minded players likely to provide a fun play experience from time to time?

If your playing all 3 at any kind of level, I doubt that this will break the bank if you're playing casually. I remember people who would drop hundreds B of dollars a month on MtG and that was in the 90s.

I have to agree with this topic. I understand that people might not like the blind buy. I understand that people think you're going to spend a fortune trying to collect everything. But if I'm not mistaken, if you want to collect everything from X-Wing... you're down a little fortune as well.

"But you don't have to buy the ships you don't like." I can hear some people say. Yes, that is true. The thing is, you also don't have the booster packs if you don't like them. Just stick to the starter packs. How many people buy just a single core set of any LCG out there, and just play with that without ever buying anything expansions for it? This is the same thing. You don't NEED anything from the booster packs to enjoy the game.

Besides, the only cash grab that usuablly occurs with games like this, is the one the players themselves start. Instead of trading one card for another, they'll start looking at how rare it is and how much more it would cost compared to other cards. That's when the cash grab happens.

I think this is just a matter of restraint. If I were to start playing this game, I'd probably just add like a booster or two whenever I would order something from my FLGS. I won't be dropping hundreds right off the bat.

Now with that being said, it would have been nice to actually be able to pick the characters that you wanted to play when purchasing a pack. I can just imagine wanting a Darth Maul, but opening a Jar Jar Binks...

As someone who already plays mainly X-Wing, but also Armada and Imperial Assault, I don't have the time (regardless of inclination) to get deep into another game. But the idea of buying odd packs of these cards from time and the thrill of maybe getting a really nice rare card is very appealing to me. Is that level of buy in and commitment, alongside similarly minded players likely to provide a fun play experience from time to time?

I believe that's the appeal of booster drafts. (get together with a group of players each buys X amount of boosters, and you play with the stuff you open.) Great exitment as you rip open packs and you don't have to worry that some guy shows up with his 500$ overpowered deck.

With magic you don't have to pay a lot of money unless you want to play pro and go do tournaments and stuff. Or unless you saw this real cool OP deck that the world champ used last montgh online and you want to build that same deck... yeah then you are gonna have to pay up.

That's the one thing I sometimes miss with the LCG system: that exitment (ok maybe a to big word) of cracking a boosterpack and hoping it's a good rare- (and finding out it's a crappy one, but what's that? foil epic? yeaaah!)

I've never played a collectable card game before

Don't.

CCGs hit the same part of the brain gambling does. You'll either keep buying boosters full of filler and crap again and again or you'll be paying over the odds for anything good from the secondary market.

I believe that's the appeal of booster drafts. (get together with a group of players each buys X amount of boosters, and you play with the stuff you open.) Great exitment as you rip open packs and you don't have to worry that some guy shows up with his 500$ overpowered deck.

And if you ever want to play again you have to buy those boosters all over again.

I've never played a collectable card game before

Don't.

CCGs hit the same part of the brain gambling does. You'll either keep buying boosters full of filler and crap again and again or you'll be paying over the odds for anything good from the secondary market.

I believe that's the appeal of booster drafts. (get together with a group of players each buys X amount of boosters, and you play with the stuff you open.) Great exitment as you rip open packs and you don't have to worry that some guy shows up with his 500$ overpowered deck.

And if you ever want to play again you have to buy those boosters all over again.

First you can still play with the cards you go from the draft (either keep the deck or add the cards to another deck) It's not like you have to burn your cards after draft.

Okay this one only works if you're playing with your buddies but: put all the cards into a big facedown pile- draft again.

First you can still play with the cards you go from the draft (either keep the deck or add the cards to another deck) It's not like you have to burn your cards after draft.

But if you're not exclusively drafting then how are you avoiding the arms race by drafting?

Okay this one only works if you're playing with your buddies but: put all the cards into a big facedown pile- draft again.

Doesn't need to be a CCG to do that.

I've never played a collectable card game before

Don't.

CCGs hit the same part of the brain gambling does. You'll either keep buying boosters full of filler and crap again and again or you'll be paying over the odds for anything good from the secondary market.

I believe that's the appeal of booster drafts. (get together with a group of players each buys X amount of boosters, and you play with the stuff you open.) Great exitment as you rip open packs and you don't have to worry that some guy shows up with his 500$ overpowered deck.

And if you ever want to play again you have to buy those boosters all over again.

And if you have a party and have everyone chip in to order pizza, you'll have to buy the pizza all over again when you throw the next party.

Man, those pizza places are just a cash grab. I'm never inviting people over for a party with pizza ever again.

Collectible games are only "prohibitively expensive" if you make them such, ie. you have a compulsion to buy the blind packs until you have a full set. If you just buy the singles you want or just buy some packs to play and have fun, they're not more expensive than any other game.

That's the same as playing X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault, Warhammer or any other game. If you absolutely have to have everything and then buy it again x times to get a playset, then yeah, you'll have to fork out the $$$. If you just figure out a set of pieces you want to play and buy those, or buy some odd stuff from time to time to play for fun and make laser noises, not so much.

Come to think of it, it's like that with anything else in life. If you like videogames, you can just buy and play the videogames you find appealing and fun. Or you can fork out the $$$ and buy every single videogame release. That's your own choice. No evil moustache twirling corporate executive is making you do that.

It all comes down to being an adult and knowing when to stop. If you can't do that, than yeah, you're going to have a bad time. Like a kid in a candy store that doesn't know better and eats candy until he gets sick. But that's not the candy manufacturer's fault now, is it?

Lets put it this way:

An LCG pack has 60 cards and costs $15.

If I bought 15 worth of these boosters, I'd get 25 cards and 5 dice.

So yeah, bad pricing.

I think draft format is a huge plus for randomized games. However, I'm not sure this game can do drafts justice. We'll see, but building a 30-card deck from boosters means buying 8 packs for the draft.

Then again, don't most draft formats use smaller decks? I think it's 40-cards for MtG. So then, I suppose you could drop $18 for 6 packs in a draft/sealed environment and do okay. That would give you 24 commons and uncommons from which you could build a 20-card deck. That actually doean't sound too bad.

I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but I think it would be fun to try a draft/sealed tournament at least once.

Lets put it this way:

An LCG pack has 60 cards and costs $15.

If I bought 15 worth of these boosters, I'd get 25 cards and 5 dice.

So yeah, bad pricing.

It's probably down to production cost. Now I'm not an expert, but once you print on paper/cardboard in sufficiently large quatities your cost drops enough that it doesn't matter if your print (let's say) 9000 or 15000 units. Not quite sure if that's true for dice, (who need to be molded, have stickers on them and then laminated or whatever)

How about you compare it to a one figure expansion for imperial assault: those are what, 10 bucks each? for that you get one piece of plastuic and a few pieces of cardboard.

Lets put it this way:

An LCG pack has 60 cards and costs $15.

If I bought 15 worth of these boosters, I'd get 25 cards and 5 dice.

So yeah, bad pricing.

And Cold War: CIA vs KGB is 15$ for 59 cards, three tokens, two score markers and a rulebook. It's also playable out of the box.

So LCGs are an evil cash grab, amirite?

Lets put it this way:

An LCG pack has 60 cards and costs $15.

If I bought 15 worth of these boosters, I'd get 25 cards and 5 dice.

So yeah, bad pricing.

And Cold War: CIA vs KGB is 15$ for 59 cards, three tokens, two score markers and a rulebook. It's also playable out of the box.

So LCGs are an evil cash grab, amirite?

Yeah! Comparing to 52 (fifty two!) cards in classic playing cards deck that you could get for 3$! And plenty card games included for free! Unlimited fun for so such cheap price.

Lets put it this way:

An LCG pack has 60 cards and costs $15.

If I bought 15 worth of these boosters, I'd get 25 cards and 5 dice.

So yeah, bad pricing.

So LCGs are an evil cash grab, amirite?

LCGs are a cash grab, but CCGs are evil cash grabs. There is a difference.

Collectible Games can be deceptively pricey depending on how much you get into it. If you're the type of person that wants everything or if there are some rare items that you needed multiple of in order to be competitive the costs can get up there. Also, it can vary depending on the distribution of rare items from the publisher as well.

I've bought into quite a few collectible games in the past such as WoTC Star Wars TMG, Axis and Allies TMG, War at Sea, Dice Masters, etc. Every release I would spend generally $400 for each set release for each collectible game.

Right now, I'm into X-Wing and prefer to know what you get. Overall the cost is cheaper for me per wave release (around $200) and I don't have to go thru the hassle of buying a bunch of random stuff and sorting it out.

Of course something like X-Wing or some other miniature wargame is more expensive but you should compare this to a LCG.

If you need 3 (or whatever the maximum allowance of one card is) copies of a card in a LCG you buy the set the card comes in and you get the maximum amount of it (except for the starters i think), of course if you only want that card it's also not really cheap cardwise, but if you would want to do that in an CCG you either need to buy many boosters, depending on your luck and the distribution of said card, or you got to buy this card which if it is a highly sought after card would cost you some money or you can trade but in that case you need something good to trade.

So yes it can be expensive but doesn't necesseraly mean it will be more expensive than a LCG, it depens on your playstyle and if you wan't to play tournaments or not.

In Magic everyone will tell you to only buy boosters to draft. Never to make your deck better. It is much cheaper to just buy singles.

I know that opening boosters is great but it is a huge waste of money. You will get so much chaff that you will most likely never be able to trade away.

Will drafting even be an option for this? How will it work with having two specific factions, and there not being a guarantee as to what number of cards per faction are in a given booster?

Will drafting even be an option for this? How will it work with having two specific factions, and there not being a guarantee as to what number of cards per faction are in a given booster?

I think that because of the Hero vs. Villain aspect, drafting may actually work better than sealed construction. After half-way through the draft, you should have an idea if most players are running hero or villain, and you can adjust accordingly.

I used to play Pokemon for years as a players and a collector, so this is nothing new to me. Yes it will be more costly then LCGs but only if you blind buy and collect. If this follows the other CCG model then I expect a new pack each quarter and at the most $100(if you only buy singles) every 3 months at the most isn't that bad. That is unless the game gets red hot or the cards hard to pull. We will just have to wait and see and give it time to know for sure.

I guess I'm just a little confused, because in other games, it's not possible to get a dead card in your deck when drafting. But here, you could end up with totally invalid cards (e.g. Millennium Falcon when you've got Kylo and Vader). Or am I missing something?

I guess I'm just a little confused, because in other games, it's not possible to get a dead card in your deck when drafting. But here, you could end up with totally invalid cards (e.g. Millennium Falcon when you've got Kylo and Vader). Or am I missing something?

You mean Light Side cards in with Dark Side cards? What they could possibly do if there is a draft format is you are paired with another draftee and one of you gets all of the Light Side cards from both packs and the other player gets all of the Dark Side. Not sure if this will fully make everything "useable" since it looks like certain equipment and support cards only attach to certain types of heroes, which you still might not get.

I'm pretty sure they'll find a way for us to draft though.

I guess I'm just a little confused, because in other games, it's not possible to get a dead card in your deck when drafting. But here, you could end up with totally invalid cards (e.g. Millennium Falcon when you've got Kylo and Vader). Or am I missing something?

Well, I think in a draft you have some control over what you choose to take, so you really shouldn't get stuck with anything too bad, unless it's at the end of a pack. While it's true that any card is play able in a draft, some are functionally unplayable given the color/theme/mechanic you've been drafting toward. That just happens. (Plus, you could always hate-draft, if you wanted). In My Little Pony, it's possible to end up with a pony requiring 3+ of a color in play in order for you to play it, without drafting enough other ponies of that color to be able to play it, so that, too, could be a dead card. Again, though, you should have some bit of control over this through the drafting process.

And touching back to the hate-drafting. Stealing the Millennium Falcon may not be a bad idea, even if you're drafting villains.

I guess I'm just a little confused, because in other games, it's not possible to get a dead card in your deck when drafting. But here, you could end up with totally invalid cards (e.g. Millennium Falcon when you've got Kylo and Vader). Or am I missing something?

You mean Light Side cards in with Dark Side cards? What they could possibly do if there is a draft format is you are paired with another draftee and one of you gets all of the Light Side cards from both packs and the other player gets all of the Dark Side. Not sure if this will fully make everything "useable" since it looks like certain equipment and support cards only attach to certain types of heroes, which you still might not get.

I'm pretty sure they'll find a way for us to draft though.

I hope you are right...I don't see myself wanting to spend enough money to play constructed, but I can definitely see going to the game store and dropping $15 to draft some cards and have a fun afternoon.