Which set of cards will become obsolete towards the end of the year? I'm relatively new to the game so want to make sure my investment stays relevant for as long as possible

It probably depends on your local community and its size. I believe my community will remain infinite for some time as we are a small group.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/11/8/swd-what-lies-ahead/

The above link outlines future rotations of sets - Standard, Trilogy and Inifinite.
Standard - current cycle + previous cycle (Legacies + Awakenings)
Trilogy - Current cycle (Legacies)
Infinite - All cycles
Black boxes Awakenings cycle (Black boxes) - Awakenings (Plus Kylo and Rey starters), Spirit of Rebellion and Empire at War) will be the first to go. They are already out for the Trilogy format.
Legacies cycle (White boxes) - Legacies (Plus Two-player game, Luke and Boba starters and Rivals), Way of the Force (unreleased), and one more unannounced set.
I would approach your local community.

Enjoy!

And we have to put a big old "it depends" on this discussion too. We know the cycle (as pointed out in the above post), but we don't know when all the sets will actually drop. We're currently looking at a pretty decent gap between Legacies and Way of the Force. If that kind of gap continues onward (between WotF and whatever set is after it), the Awakenings cycle will be around for quite awhile still.

Beyond that - we also don't know what will be reprinted from the Awakenings cycle into the newer cycle. We've already seen that things CAN be reprinted (from the 2 player set), so that's another reason to not think all Awakenings card will instantly be trash. So...a whole lot of "it depends" with this question, but JuzFuzz did point out all the info we know at the moment about rotation!

Yeah, if they take 6 months between sets it will be a while still but more importantly, not many will be playing anymore, so it wouldn't matter.

imo the rotation is far far too short for standard.

Come Dec/Jan, whenever the next group of box sets comes out (probably be a Blue or Red box color), the Black box boosters (Awakening, Spirit of Reb, Empire at War) will become no longer legal for standard.

That is way, way too short. Magic goes for YEARS before they deem cards too old for standard, heck i routinely find old cards im surprised are still legal in standard.

And given how expensive Destiny is....gonna turn a lot of people off quick when they realize a lot of old stuff are no longer legal and "old" is like 2 years ago.

I wouldn't be too surprised if they extend the rotation period once the Awakenings cycles out and can't come back.

Perhaps once the Red/Blue boxes hit the shelves we'll see the white boxes remain for a year more?

5 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

Come Dec/Jan, whenever the next group of box sets comes out (probably be a Blue or Red box color), the Black box boosters (Awakening, Spirit of Reb, Empire at War) will become no longer legal for standard.

That is way, way too short. Magic goes for YEARS before they deem cards too old for standard, heck i routinely find old cards im surprised are still legal in standard. 

  And given how expensive Destiny is....gonna turn a lot of people off quick when they realize a lot of old stuff are no longer legal and "old" is like 2 years ago.

Wait...what? Destiny and Magic's standard rotations are almost identical in terms how long any given 'block' is legal -- approximately two years.

That's the entire point of the format. Standard formats are designed with the intention of keeping the cost of entry down and ease of access up for newer players looking to get involved in competitive play.

33 minutes ago, Amanal said:

Perhaps once the Red/Blue boxes hit the shelves we'll see the white boxes remain for a year more? 

Possible, but doubtful. They'd either have to publicly commit to reprinting the older sets while they're in rotation, or risk skewing the Standard format in favor of players that have been involved with the game longer (which defeats the entire purpose of having a Standard format).

They're best option IMO would be to make sure the all three formats receive different representation at organized events. That way there is a competitive format that fits for almost every type of player.

22 hours ago, Vineheart01 said:

imo the rotation is far far too short for standard.

Come Dec/Jan, whenever the next group of box sets comes out (probably be a Blue or Red box color), the Black box boosters (Awakening, Spirit of Reb, Empire at War) will become no longer legal for standard.

Way of the Force isn’t until August/September most likely. At the rate of release, I’d be shocked if we got another set this year. If it goes as it has, next set won’t be until six months after WotF and that set won’t trigger rotation. It is the seventh set that will trigger rotation of the Awakenings cycle. Don’t expect that until around this time next year.

12 hours ago, gokubb said:

Way of the Force isn’t until August/September most likely. At the rate of release, I’d be shocked if we got another set this year. If it goes as it has, next set won’t be until six months after WotF and that set won’t trigger rotation. It is the seventh set that will trigger rotation of the Awakenings cycle. Don’t expect that until around this time next year.

Where are you getting that Way of the Force is going to be delayed that far out?

On 6/12/2018 at 2:57 PM, Vineheart01 said:

imo the rotation is far far too short for standard.

Come Dec/Jan, whenever the next group of box sets comes out (probably be a Blue or Red box color), the Black box boosters (Awakening, Spirit of Reb, Empire at War) will become no longer legal for standard.

That is way, way too short. Magic goes for YEARS before they deem cards too old for standard, heck i routinely find old cards im surprised are still legal in standard.

And given how expensive Destiny is....gonna turn a lot of people off quick when they realize a lot of old stuff are no longer legal and "old" is like 2 years ago.

I think you need to do a little research into MTG because this statement isn't accurate.

On 6/12/2018 at 8:20 PM, Amanal said:

I wouldn't be too surprised if they extend the rotation period once the Awakenings cycles out and can't come back.

Perhaps once the Red/Blue boxes hit the shelves we'll see the white boxes remain for a year more?

What benefit would they get from that?

Happier players.

At the rate I’m seeing players leave and local store events drop to zero, we’re not going to have to worry about rotation at all.

8 hours ago, Amanal said:

Happier players.

Alot of players aren't opposed to rotation and understand the purpose of it. Having cards be legal longer sounds great, except when you consider that starts to defeat the reason for having rotation at all. That's not beneficial for players in the end.

Look at the LCGs where they tried to introduce rotation for a crowd of gamers that wouldn't be use to the idea, so they went with a longer block of time. And now you're starting to see the problems of that and a number of players are starting to come around to saying the rotation is too long to do what it's intended to do.

Complaints about rotation are expected given this is FFGs first CCG in a decade. But given that I keep seeing those complaints based of misunderstandings of when it starts (people thinking it occurs on Set 6), inaccurate comparisons with others CCGs (see above), or complaints about how iconic characters like Episode 4-6 Vader won't exist anymore (them forgetting that they can make another Vader and that the current Vader sees no play so rotation is the best bet to get a new better one); I don't think appeasing those players would be worth it.

11 hours ago, ScottieATF said:

Where are you getting that Way of the Force is going to be delayed that far out?

They said third quarter. The product tracker says it’s still being printed, making it likely at least six weeks minimum from now if that flipped to on the boat today. And, past experience with this game. I’d definitely put very favorable odds that it releases at GenCon for GenCon and then hits stores around a month after.

5 minutes ago, gokubb said:

They said third quarter. The product tracker says it’s still being printed, making it likely at least six weeks minimum from now if that flipped to on the boat today. And, past experience with this game. I’d definitely put very favorable odds that it releases at GenCon for GenCon and then hits stores around a month after.

The "product tracker" is a completely unreliable resource for information for the actual status of products. None of those statuses are updated in real time and they have in the past proven to be wildly inaccurate. For instance Legacies only spent 7 days "On the Boat"

I won two starter decks betting on it's inaccuracy with Legacies. It is honestly the last thing you want to use to come to a conclusion about when a set is going to release.

11 hours ago, ScottieATF said:

Alot of players aren't opposed to rotation and understand the purpose of it. Having cards be legal longer sounds great, except when you consider that starts to defeat the reason for having rotation at all. That's not beneficial for players in the end.

Look at the LCGs where they tried to introduce rotation for a crowd of gamers that wouldn't be use to the idea, so they went with a longer block of time. And now you're starting to see the problems of that and a number of players are starting to come around to saying the rotation is too long to do what it's intended to do.

Complaints about rotation are expected given this is FFGs first CCG in a decade. But given that I keep seeing those complaints based of misunderstandings of when it starts (people thinking it occurs on Set 6), inaccurate comparisons with others CCGs (see above), or complaints about how iconic characters like Episode 4-6 Vader won't exist anymore (them forgetting that they can make another Vader and that the current Vader sees no play so rotation is the best bet to get a new better one); I don't think appeasing those players would be worth it.

I like the way rotation works myself.

Be nice though to see some of the reprints trickle down now.

21 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I like the way rotation works myself.

Be nice though to see some of the reprints trickle down now.

Is it too early to repeat? Assuming Standard is the... well standard type of play at events, would having repeats in a standard rotation be too soon? Not that I would mind being able to chase that Vader I never got from Awakenings or an Ancient Lightsaber. And I know that Doubt, Evade, Tactical Mastery among other small cards already got reprinted. But I’m imagining they’ll wait for some of the bigger stuff.

On the other hand, this is my first CCG, so what do I know?

3 hours ago, PeoplesChampion said:

Is it too early to repeat?

With regards to the characters I am not so sure you repeat them. Is there any point in duplicating Leia, Darth Vader and others when they are not seeing play?

With events, supports, plots and upgrades and such, you have to consider that if they aren't copied in each set, then at some point or another they rotate out. So putting some cards in the white sets and some in the "blue" sets will have a different effect on the rotation of cards.

If you want cards to become a staple, then they have to be included in both the white and blue sets. Do you want these cards to show up all in that third set of the cycle? I would rather them be scattered here and there.

Plus Trilogy will also be affected by the when part of the duplication.

Perhaps FFG is planning a 2 player starter or such that would include some of these cards and not have to repeat cards in the main releases of each cycle. Thus each release can be 160 unique cards.

If FFG was smart, they'd of released a statement of why WotF is taking so long. Word on the street is that an initial shipment went out back in April but didn't make it, therefore it couldn't be released in Q2 b/c it no longer existed. Had they made it known to everyone, folks would have been a lot more understanding.

~D

1 hour ago, HoodieDM said:

If FFG was smart, they'd of released a statement of why WotF is taking so long. Word on the street is that an initial shipment went out back in April but didn't make it, therefore it couldn't be released in Q2 b/c it no longer existed. Had they made it known to everyone, folks would have been a lot more understanding.

~D

Always comes back to communication to me. I think it might be a question of perception too. FFG seems to see itself as a design company only - which they excel at, they design some incredible games...no one is denying it. But they need to be more than that, a fully well-rounded company that communicates with the player base and creates an atmosphere of shared interest. They seem to rely upon Asmodee North American to be the communication and marketing department - which may be the case or may not...but there really seems to be a disconnect between FFG, Asmodee North America, and the public at large. I'd like to see those gaps bridged, shored up, and I think this game (as well as their other products) would really have a chance to shine.