I am planning on going to my first national championship weekend here in canada and i was wondering if there is a rule on which damage deck needs to be used for a national champ game? Old or new or is it players choice?

Pretty sure its still players choice. There are even strategies based around which deck is best for what kind of build. Though it seems the new deck is better in most cases.

Okay. Thanks. Just dont want to have to buy the new core for the new deck if its not needed.

The old deck is better for generic pilot lists as a good number of the crits won't affect a generic pilot (e.g. losing your pilot ability). Every crit in the new damage deck will have an effect on the ship that receives it (to varying degrees of severity).

There is a text file version of the full tournament rules on the xwing product page page that's small enough to download to anything (less than half a mb).

I'd suggest reading up as those events can be a little tighter on some rules as opposed to store level.

Page 6 still lists either damage deck as a legal choice.

They once made a rule that you have to use the new, but then common sense kicked them in the butt, and they ditched said rule.

2 hours ago, GLEXOR said:

They once made a rule that you have to use the new, but then common sense kicked them in the butt, and they ditched said rule.

common sense : nerd rage :: po-tay-to : po-tah-to....

4 minutes ago, digitalbusker said:

common sense : nerd rage :: po-tay-to : po-tah-to....

"Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce a new product that is mandatory to buy at 40$ if you ever want to play in a tournament ever again!"

Now, does that sound like something that should be fixed? Common sense and nerd rage are not even close to comparable! Want some nerd rage? how about "new product is better than old product, NERF NEW PRODUCT UNTIL NEW STUFF IS OBSOLETE!"

Not the same.

5 hours ago, GLEXOR said:

They once made a rule that you have to use the new, but then common sense kicked them in the butt, and they ditched said rule.

Common sense would have said they could phase out the old deck simply by not reprinting it anymore so eventually the supply would dwindle to the point they could require the new deck. They could have also made the deck available as a stand along product granted it would probably be a much better "deal" as part of the core set. Finally, the could easily have required it at the higher level tournaments where they realistically expect people to be using dozens of expansions to build their squadrons and where the could also make the new DD available at the start of the tournament.

While I'd never want to see a rule requiring, or maybe requesting is a more appropriate word, the new DD in casual play and probably not even in the lowest level(s) of tournament play having it phased in as the tournament standard makes plenty of sense and if they just stopped printing the old DD and replaced it in the red box core set with the new DD I'm not sure anyone would really notice the difference.

11 hours ago, StevenO said:

Common sense would have said they could phase out the old deck simply by not reprinting it anymore so eventually the supply would dwindle to the point they could require the new deck. They could have also made the deck available as a stand along product granted it would probably be a much better "deal" as part of the core set. Finally, the could easily have required it at the higher level tournaments where they realistically expect people to be using dozens of expansions to build their squadrons and where the could also make the new DD available at the start of the tournament.

While I'd never want to see a rule requiring, or maybe requesting is a more appropriate word, the new DD in casual play and probably not even in the lowest level(s) of tournament play having it phased in as the tournament standard makes plenty of sense and if they just stopped printing the old DD and replaced it in the red box core set with the new DD I'm not sure anyone would really notice the difference.

if that rule had remained, I would not be playing in any setting outside of my house, which would mean not playing at all, because I have no one to play against, and I found out about the local league through my first tournament. so I would not have given them any more money, because they said "you know that thing you bought awhile back? Yeah, if you ever want to use it again, you have to buy a new one."

1 hour ago, GLEXOR said:

if that rule had remained, I would not be playing in any setting outside of my house, which would mean not playing at all, because I have no one to play against, and I found out about the local league through my first tournament. so I would not have given them any more money, because they said "you know that thing you bought awhile back? Yeah, if you ever want to use it again, you have to buy a new one."

Then that's maybe too bad. Are your squadrons highly competitive in tournaments and current? If so getting that new DD would be just one more component you'd need to update. Maybe you also missed the suggestion that FFG have the deck available other places to make its acquisition easier. You still don't want to get it then maybe you know someone, or there is someone at that tournament you're attending, who will loan you a deck. It shouldn't be any harder to acquire a new DD than it is to assemble the huge number of upgrades that most squadrons demand these days.

Its a tiny deck of paper cards that costs little to produce. They could easily if they want make it a free participation prize at tournaments that have entry fees then mandate its use as you can no longer say you don't own one or that its unfair because you don't want to pay for a new core set.

2 hours ago, Smitty said:

Its a tiny deck of paper cards that costs little to produce. They could easily if they want make it a free participation prize at tournaments that have entry fees then mandate its use as you can no longer say you don't own one or that its unfair because you don't want to pay for a new core set.

Start this at the high level tournaments and it requiring an updated DD soon wouldn't be a problem.

FFG gave away new decks at some of the tournaments if I'm not mistaken.