EDH stands for Elder Dragon Highlander, it's basically a multiplayer variant that has some deck building rules that make it more for casual play. It wasn't created by Wizards of the Coast, it was created by the community (it used to be called Commander), it was simply embraced by Wizards of the Coast and kind of made an official variant.

There are many great card games and certainly Destiny falls into that category, being number 10 in a top 10 list is not exactly failing. I would not expect however that at this point FFG changes its business model, my best guess would be that they will simply continue to develop the game as they have and simply reduce the production of the game to meet the expected demand, another words, sell to those that buy. This is at least historically their strategy with all of their games. In a sense this is good for casual players like me because it means the discounting of products will continue, making the whole game a whole lot cheaper to buy. Most stuff is already at 50% off in most places which I think may be sufficient to get more people to at least consider it.

1 minute ago, BigKahuna said:

EDH stands for Elder Dragon Highlander, it's basically a multiplayer variant that has some deck building rules that make it more for casual play. It wasn't created by Wizards of the Coast, it was created by the community (it used to be called Commander), it was simply embraced by Wizards of the Coast and kind of made an official variant. 

There are many great card games and certainly Destiny falls into t  hat category, being number 10 in a to  p  10 list is not exactly failing. I wou  ld not expect however th  at at this point FFG changes its business model, my best guess would be that they will simply continue to develop the game as they have and simply reduce th  e production of the game to meet the expected demand, another words, sell to those that buy. This is at le  ast historically their strategy with all of their games.

Ya which is an unfortunate strategy as I do personally believe with an updated model this game could hit a wider audience of people that would find it fun. I do not believe this game would ever reach the levels of Magic, Yugioh, or pokemon simply because those games target a wider audience by not having dice to add to the complication of the game, but still Star wars is definitely not hitting its full market potential with its current strategy.

I remember the raid decks of the old WarCraft CCG where 2-4 players would play against another player that played the deck(s) for the raid.

You could do an attack on the Death Star being a mission in 3 parts:
1. Get past the TIE Fighter Pilots and TIE Fighters,
2. Get past the Stormtroopers to enter the throne room,
3. Attack and defeat Darth Vader and Palpatine.

In addition to the Villains you could add in some characters for the Heroes, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando, C3-PO and R2-D2...

1 minute ago, Amanal said:

I remember the raid decks of the old WarCraft CCG where 2-4 players would play against another player that played the deck(s) for the raid.

You could do an attack on the Death Star being a mission in 3 parts:
1. Get past the TIE Fighter Pilots and TIE Fighters,
2. Get past the Stormtroopers to enter the throne room,
3. Attack and defeat Darth Vader and Palpatine.

In addition to the Villains you could add in some characters for the Heroes, Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando, C3-PO and R2-D2...

This could be interesting I think the format could be 2v1, where the 1 person has like 40 points and a 40 card deck and maybe draws 1 extra card and gains 1 extra resource per turn. While the 2 decks work the same as before, but there can be no character copied throughout both of those decks. What do you guys think.

1 hour ago, tunewalker said:

Ya which is an unfortunate strategy as I do personally believe with an updated model this game could hit a wider audience of people that would find it fun. I do not believe this game would ever reach the levels of Magic, Yugioh, or pokemon simply because those games target a wider audience by not having dice to add to the complication of the game, but still Star wars is definitely not hitting its full market potential with its current strategy.

I would agree if Destiny was a made up world by FFG, but the fact that it's a Star Wars product already gives it legs imo. I think this all boils down to FFG not promoting the game right. Plus in this digital age a lot of card games come with a stigma attached to them, I know a lot of video gamer that get so upset when a rpg they want to play has a card game mechanic (They have no idea what they're missing). Not many people know this game exist. I think if more people just knew the game was a thing and how simple the game is to learn, they'd buy up boosters like crazy.

I also think FFG screwed up by making it a ccg. Dicemasters, another fun dice game learned that the ccg format isn't all that great, so now they're doing something similar to a LCG format with team expansions.

the new post brings hope to me that they may try to bring in more casual players.

8 hours ago, tunewalker said:

the new post brings hope to me that they may try to bring in more casual players.

Which says:

Quote

Many players also really appreciate the social aspect of gaming with friends and I’d like to implement another multiplayer mode, such as team play or one versus many, in addition to the official Free-for-all mode.

That should be a most welcome addition, but the author misses the point.

There are various starter boxes available. Why does none of them provide a complete deck? I got into the game with the two-player starter. It allows for immediate play and gives a decent taste of game mechanics. But even after adding some single-player starters and boosters, the game appeared too much arbitrary and luck-driven for my taste.

Recently, I gave it another try and got a second copy of the two-player box. The game now feels much more tactical and balanced. Elites and doubling cards does make a difference. But why would anybody who's not familiar with the game (or reading the FFG forum) buy two identical copies of a starter box?

I don't play competitively - even if I wanted, there is not a single SWD player left at the FLGS. This is now an occasional family game. It has great theme, mechanics, and variety. But: If FFG wants to sell SWD to casual players, they have to issue *complete* starter boxes with two elite characters and, say, 40 cards per player to choose 30 from (even if the price is higher). It is the initial experience that gets us hooked. For more variety and competitive play, boosters are available - and anybody who got hooked will buy them, anyway.

(I don't think that the CCG/LCG distinction is relevant. All of this comes after the starter box.)

The KeyForge starter box is complete and guarantees variety (four decks!). Then, endless (random) expansions. That looks promising.

4 hours ago, Canopus said:

Which says:

That should be a most welcome addition, but the author misses the point.

There are various starter boxes available. Why does none of them provide a complete deck? I got into the game with the two-player starter. It allows for immediate play and gives a decent taste of game mechanics. But even after adding some single-player starters and boosters, the game appeared too much arbitrary and luck-driven for my taste.

Recently, I gave it another try and got a second copy of the two-player box. The game now feels much more tactical and balanced. Elites and doubling cards does make a difference. But why would anybody who's not familiar with the game (or reading the FFG forum) buy two identical copies of a starter box?

I don't play competitively - even if I wanted, there is not a single SWD player left at the FLGS. This is now an occasional family game. It has great theme, mechanics, and variety. But: If FFG wants to sell SWD to casual players, they have to issue *complete* starter boxes with two elite characters and, say, 40 cards per player to choose 30 from (even if the price is higher). It is the initial experience that gets us hooked. For more variety and competitive play, boosters are available - and anybody who got hooked will buy them, anyway.

(I don't think that the CCG/LCG distinction is relevant. All of this comes after the starter box.)

The KeyForge starter box is complete and guarantees variety (four decks!). Then, endless (random) expansions. That looks promising.

I can not like this post more than once... I am sorry it would have 100 upvotes from me if I could.

The contents of starter product is a topic of a lot of debate, but generally I agree that Destiny lacks a solid starter product that opens the game up to a truly wide audience. $30 is not a large sum for a solid starter product that would truly allow 2 players to get the full experience of the game, every aspect of it: At least 1 epic character, paired with a minion/trooper level character, a solid starting deck, and a selection of additional cads to begin the deck building aspect of the game. Per player. Even running at $40, this could be a solid product that would compete well with, say, the other selection of boardgames at Target these days.

My son and I got into the game with the original Rey and Kylo starters. I wasn't going to get them....I'm a Beta era M:tG player that has burnt out on the CCG model in general, but I convinced myself that I could make this different and not get sucked in...more on that later.

But I watched a demo, I read FFG's hype, and I picked them up. We loved the game. We loved the pacing, the give and take/back of forth beats of the game. How it incorporated limited resources and action choice, move and countermove. I added boosters, and after teaching my wife, we started getting boxes. The glow didn't even last a year. Very quickly the game changed from that initial promise, into something else. Something less fun.

We're getting out of the game now. We don't play, and have no desire to play. There are many other games we enjoy that don't require the effort to keep up, or the cost. And I'm again swearing off CCGs.*

Sort of? I traded most of my WotF cards for a sizeable amount of Transformer CCG cards, and I know that I'll add a booster here and there along the way. But I won't be getting whole boxes at a time, and it really is just a casual investment. No, really

I think a lot can be said about the CCG model in general, it's a bit of a strange market. Generally it's a kind of gambling, you pay up front and hope you get something good. Its not too unlike dropping a 20 on a hand of black jacket. It feels great when you get something good (when you win), but most of the time its disappointing and after a while you just kind of learn that the entire thing is just kind of a setup, a kind of scam. You can win if you gamble, but the odds are you that you will lose.

It also has diminishing return, the more stuff you have the more likely what you get when you gamble will be disappointing which leads you to the path of the second hand market scam where the price increase is typically over 100% of the value of pretty much every card. Sure you can pick and choose but it never fails that the card you want cost 2-3 bucks, the price of a whole booster so that too is kind of rigged to give you less value.

The Living Card Model solves all that. You need to buy one expansion pack, you get everything you will ever need from that pack, ... buy it once and done. No gambling, no mystery, no fuss. It's just a friendlier model, in a way it's kind of respectful to the player base where it simply says. Hey we know you love the game and you want all the cards, so here they are, no gambling, you get exactly what you pay for.

To me personally the CCG model is kind of sleezy business model, its very predatorial. I find with kids in particular who don't fully grasp the value of money it becomes a kind of spending addiction, it's actually quite bad, I generally keep my kids away from games like this for that reason.

3 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

To me personally the CCG model is kind of sleezy business model, its very predatorial. I find with kids in particular who don't fully grasp the value of money it becomes a kind of spending addiction, it's actually quite bad, I generally keep my kids away from games like this for that reason.

The CCG model are definitely not as good as the LCG model and I certainly won't dispute that, but I don't think that alone is a demerit against the game. At least in comparison to other CCG's! And doesn't seem a whole lot we can do to get FFG to change that :/

Now if they put out more accessible starters for new players that'd be a lot better. As others have said, I too think if they sold more complete decks, like if instead of the 2 player set they had sold 2 complete decks with Kylo/Phasma and Rey/Poe separate instead of selling them as as half complete it would have been pretty perfect. That we didn't get a similar product this year sorta stings.

Starter Decks will come out the same time as the core set wouldn't it? So when we change colour on the box.

26 minutes ago, Amanal said:

Starter Decks will come out the same time as the core set wouldn't it? So when we change colour on the box.

Yep the next ones should be after the set following Across the galaxy. A full starter deck with 2 of every card would help a lot of people ease into this game with them getting a real feel for what a complete deck feels like to play. It will feel less random and at the same time like they are getting their value worth. Personally I work under the assumption that FUN starters can be sold for very little profit and it would provide greater revenues for them simply by getting more people hooked on the game, but the age of the game may make that a hard sell these days.

12 hours ago, tunewalker said:

Yep the next ones should be after the set following Across the galaxy. A full starter deck with 2 of every card would help a lot of people ease into this game with them getting a real feel for what a complete deck feels like to play. It will feel less random and at the same time like they are getting their value worth. Personally I work under the assumption that FUN starters can be sold for very little profit and it would provide greater revenues for them simply by getting more people hooked on the game, but the age of the game may make that a hard sell these days.

I agree, but Mark Rosewater from Wizards of the Coast(one of Magic's big designers) actually said something interesting when he was asked why THEY don't release complete starters either: that for beginners they would rather expose them to as many cards as possible so decks with high variance are better teaching tools. So I wonder if we would need both starter decks and tournament ready decks? Food for thought.

3 hours ago, Atomisk said:

I agree, but Mark Rosewater from Wizards of the Coast(one of Magic's big designers) actually said something interesting when he was asked why THEY don't release complete starters either: that for beginners they would rather expose them to as many cards as possible so decks with high variance are better teaching tools. So I wonder if we would need both starter decks and tournament ready decks? Food for thought.

It's an interesting thought, but the idea of starter sets is to introduce the players to the game, not part of the game. In the early years of Magic they had stuff like the Portal Set that also had "smaller decks" to give you a taste and it was a very ineffective entry point to the game. Ultimately it kind of comes down to "am I getting my money's worth" and I think when it comes to games and gamers, the idea that something be "cheap" is really not a concept that resonates with the community because in large part, we aren't new to gaming, we are just new to this game. It's really not a thing for a total non-gamer to walk into a store, pick up an CCG starter pack and say "I will give this a go", I mean, I know that's probably what the marketing team is going for, especially with Star Wars on the cover, but this just isn't a thing. The most common customer of a CCG or LCG for that matter is a person who is already a gamer that is looking for something new, in fact I would venture to guess that from a ratio stand point it's like 98% of the people that play Destiny for example, played some other CCG prior to that. I have literally never in the 30+ years I have been gaming met someone who just randomly picked up a CCG with no prior coaching by someone who is already playing or more commonly simply having played something prior to that. It simply doesn't happen often enough to target such an audience.

Hence starter sets are less about introducing people to gaming and more about introducing this specific game to gamers. As such gamers being gamers we don't want "part of a game", so things like half built decks and "intro games", just aren't of any interest to anyone. We buy them of course, but only because we want the cards that are in them, which is why starter sets sell so well. Which kind of brings us to the other point interestingly enough, that Starter Sets are the only time when we buy into a CCG like Destiny where we know what we are getting for our money, so it's no surprise to me at all that they are the most popular and sought after sets. Which again just drives the point home that what people want is LCG's not CCG's, they want the guarantee.

When you consider that all CCG's have big third party markets where players try to complete their collections, in the end they are actively pursuing the LCG concept by doing it this way, but rather than by set, they do it by individual card doing little to distinguish the difference between an LCG and a CCG with the exception of course being that you buy individual cards rather than sets and you pay a crap ton more for that privilege. This idea that there is a difference between CCG's and LCG's in terms of card pools, options or even as a model is silly. All CCG's do for card games is make them more expensive for everyone than LCG's and create unfair competitive tournaments where those that can afford it, have a distinct advantage. LCG's of course are still expensive but at least everyone is on equal footing in terms of cost so you know that ok this will cost me X dollars as it does everyone else. There aren't people who "just get lucky" in LCG's with their purchases.

Go to any LCG tournament and the game isn't about what cards you managed to get a hold of but what deck you built from the available card pool. With CCG's there is always someone who simply spent more money and doing so gives him a clear advantage. It's not too unlike free to play, pay to win digital games.

1 hour ago, BigKahuna said:

I have literally never in the 30+ years I have been gaming met someone who just randomly picked up a CCG with no prior coaching by someone who is already playing or more commonly simply having played something prior to that. It simply doesn't happen often enough to target such an audience.

I mostly agree with you on this subject, but I do think you're wrong on this. I used to work in a comic and gaming shop that carried a lot of different card games and I saw this all the time, especially with Licenced games like Star Wars. People come in, ask what Dragon ball stuff you have and you point them to the manga, the comics, and then ultimately the card game. And while it sorta falls under your second category, there are lots of players who have only played one CCG before and might want to see a wide variety of cards to sample the game before committing to actually investing in a card game from a competitive point of view. So while it may be annoying that the starter it are an incomplete product and I wouldn't say there is no audience.

Also, the whole pay to win thing is still a thing in any card game I think. Yes, an LCG is a fixed cost, you get guaranteed ratios and loads of other good things but if you look at the top decks for LCGs cost isn't really that much better. Because you have to buy umpteen expansions, usually at retail, to get a fully competitive list. I was recently looking at the game of thrones LCG and I put the full cost together of 3 core sets, 2 expansions, and several chapter packs later my pricing wasn't that far off from the price of my competitive CCG decks. My point is, there's always gonna be those kind of barriers so I don't think that it's something that isn't a CCG specific issue.

46 minutes ago, Atomisk said:

Also, the whole pay to win thing is still a thing in any card game I think. Yes, an LCG is a fixed cost, you get guaranteed ratios and loads of other good things but if you look at the top decks for LCGs cost isn't really that much better. Because you have to buy umpteen expansions, usually at retail, to get a fully competitive list. I was recently looking at the game of thrones LCG and I put the full cost together of 3 core sets, 2 expansions, and several chapter packs later my pricing wasn't that far off from the price of my competitive CCG decks. My point is, there's always gonna be those kind of barriers so I don't think that it's something that isn't a CCG specific issue.

I have done the math on this and as politely as I can muster, your simply wrong. To collect a complete collection of Destiny today you need about 3,000 dollars, maybe a bit less if your clever about it. You can pick up the entire set of Game of Thrones for under 1,000 dollars and that's if you play retail, realistically its more like 500 bucks.

The same is true with all of FFG's other games, the only issue is availability.

LCG's are waaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

7 hours ago, Atomisk said:

I agree, but Mark Rosewater from Wizards of the Coast(one of Magic's big designers) actually said something interesting when he was asked why THEY don't relea  se complete starters either: that for beginners they would rather expose them to as many cards as pos  sible so decks with high variance are better teaching tools. So I wonder if we would need bo  th starter decks and tournament ready decks? Food for t  hought.

This actually is not as much of an unsolvable issue as you may think. If you wanted to do mostly 1 of's to add variance they could simply make the 2 ofs the cards that are exclusive to that starter and still make it a 30 card deck. The 30 card aspect would create greater variance and give a greater idea of the number of cards out there than a 20 card deck.

Imagine if the Luke skywalker starter was more like

2x Luke Skywalker
2x Han Solo
1x Stolen Intel
1x Outer Rim Outpost
1x Quickdraw Holster
1x Bamboozle
1x Dangerous Maneuver
1x Hasty exit
1x Maz's Vault
`1x Smuggler's run
1x Impulsive
1x Invigorate
1x Mislead
1x Perseverance
1x The force is with me
1x Hunting Rifle
2x R2-D2
2x Heightened Awareness
1x Hidden Blaster
2x Force Focus
1X Alter
1x Bravado
2x Heirloom lightsaber
2x Millenium Falcon
1x Well-connected
1x Quick Draw
1x Remote stockpile
1x Adapt
1x Investigate

The only 2 of's are the ones that are exclusive to the starter while the rest provide a wider variance of play by all being 1 ofs.

2 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I have done the math on this and as politely as I can muster, your simply wrong. To collect a complete collection of Destiny today you need about 3,000 dollars, maybe a bit less if your clever about it. You can pick up the entire set of Game of Thrones for under 1,000 dollars and that's if you play retail, realistically its more like 500 bucks.

The same is true with all of FFG's other games, the only issue is availability.

LCG's are waaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper.

I'm not trying to collect whole sets, I'm talking the price of playing competitively. If I sink $300(in singles) into a CCG, I should have a top tier deck or close to it. With that deck, I can play and win store credit/cash which refunds some of that value or packs to grow my collection. As new sets release, I can upgrade my existing deck by buying a few singles or trade with other players to transition into a new deck.

With an LCG to get a competitive deck, I have to buy a ton of stuff but I get to it but I get a lot more bang for my buck and I have a lot of stuff so transitioning decks is easier. But because they piecemeal faction cards in every release, I have to keep up with releases to get one or two cards to upgrade an existing deck.

All in all, I think it's about the same. I can do a post breaking down costs.

3 hours ago, Atomisk said:

I'm not trying to collect whole sets, I'm talking the price of playing competitively. If I sink $300(in singles) into a CCG, I should have a top tier deck or close to it. With that deck, I can play and win store credit/cash which refunds some of that value or packs to grow my collection. As new sets release, I can upgrade my existing deck by buying a few singles or trade with other players to transition into a new deck.

With an LCG to get a competitive deck, I have to buy a ton of stuff but I get to it but I get a lot more bang for my buck and I have a lot of stuff so transitioning decks is easier. But because they piecemeal faction cards in every release, I have to keep up with releases to get one or two cards to upgrade an existing deck.

All in all, I think it's about the same. I can do a post breaking down costs.

I suppose it depends on how you place value on money, because I don't think they are the same at all. To me, to spend 300 dollars on 1 specific deck of a deck building game is a total rip off. Your saving money because the total is less, but your getting next to nothing for it. Its about the equivalent of going to the fair and spending 5 bucks on a single ticket for a single ride, when for 20 bucks you can get a band and ride any ride as much as you want.

Also because of the how CCG models work, a new set comes out and your not just going to be able to "update" your 1 deck, by design new sets are created very specifically to destroy the current meta so its more likely that the majority of your deck will be rendered useless in competitive play and you will be back to buying singles again, again just a fair, you buy 1 ticket for 5 bucks, go on a ride and realize you want to go on another one and spend another 5 bucks. By the time the day is out you have spent way more money anyway you have just spread it out over time and got a lot less for it.

I don't know, I'm not a competitive player, I'm just a gamer, so I can only see it from the angle of "what am I getting for my money". To me, it's always about value. Given a choice between spending 300 bucks for 1 deck or spending 750 to get the entire collection of a card game, it's no contest where the better deal is. I don't consider it a saving to spend less money on something that has very little value, when spending a little bit more gets me everything.

9 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I suppose it depends on how you place value on money, because I don't think they are the same at all. To me, to spend 300 dollars on  1 specific deck of a deck building game is a total rip off. Your saving money becaus  e the total is less, but your getting next to nothing for it. Its about the equivalent of going to the fair and spending 5 bucks on a  single ticket for a single ride, when for 20 bucks you can get a band and ride any ride as muc  h as you want.

Also because of the  how CCG models work, a new set comes out and your not just going to be able to "update" your 1 deck, by design new sets are created very specifically to destroy the current  meta so its more likely that the majority of your deck will be rendered us  eless in competitive play and you will be back to buying singles again, again just a fair, you buy 1 ticket for 5 bucks, go on a ride and realize you want to go on another o  ne and spend another 5 bucks. By the time the day is out you have spent way more money anyway you have just spread it out over time and got a lot less for it.

I don't know, I'm not a competitive player, I'm just a gamer, so I can only see it from the angle of "what am I getting for my money". To me, it's always about value. Given a choice between spending 300 bucks for 1 deck or spending 750 to get the entire collection of a card game, it's no contest where the better deal is. I don't consider it a saving to spend less money on something that has very little value, when spending a little bit more gets me everything.

The thing is you still do not need every card from every set in a CCG either. While new sets "destroy" the meta there are still staples. My favorite characters are Luke Skywalker and Wedge so I have been building decks around Luke since the game came out collecting blue and neutral cards with the occassional red or yellow should I have a partner that I can pair him with. Between buying 1 box every time a new set comes out and trading with some lucky pulls and I think buying 2 cards on the open market I currently have enough cards to build Luke/Rey, Luke/Yoda, Luke/Aayla, Luke + Kids, Leia Mill Deck, and Wedge Vehicle deck, and I am sure a bunch more if i wanted to try (like Hondo Yoda). And I did not start out buying the first or second sets. Spending 100 dollars every time a new set comes out to get most everything I want to play with to me is not much different from an LCG buying a 6 pack cycle, because I end up with the cards I want to play and the decks that I want to play and some cards that I never have any intention of using. And the LCG model does the same thing you do not use every card from a pack in an LCG either and you have your prefered decks. This next set I am hedging whether I want to buy a box at all because there is not much to help out the characters that I like. Fisto + Solidarity or bitter rival is interesting Luke pairing. Lando looks like and interesting Wedge pairing, and some of the force powers like Force lift look like a good possibility for a Yoda/Luke deck, but still unsure on a lot of this.

But anecdotal experience is anecdotal. All I am saying is you can spend a similar amount to an LCG and get the competitive decks you want while still not being completely out of options with every new set unless you want to completely change up your play style every time a new set comes out which many probably would. I am just not one of them. So I guess for me it just does not matter because my preferred play style is so much more limited than others. To put it another way. Good cards are good, even if the next set changes up the top deck you can be sure that new top dog is using good cards from the old set and those cards were known as good back then.

1 hour ago, tunewalker said:

The thing is you still do not need every card from every set in a CCG either. While new sets "destroy" the meta there are still staples. My favorite characters are Luke Skywalker and Wedge so I have been building decks around Luke since the game came out collecting blue and neutral cards with the occassional red or yellow should I have a partner that I can pair him with. Between buying 1 box every time a new set comes out and trading with some lucky pulls and I think buying 2 cards on the open market I currently have enough cards to build Luke/Rey, Luke/Yoda, Luke/Aayla, Luke + Kids, Leia Mill Deck, and Wedge Vehicle deck, and I am sure a bunch more if i wanted to try (like Hondo Yoda). And I did not start out buying the first or second sets. Spending 100 dollars every time a new set comes out to get most everything I want to play with to me is not much different from an LCG buying a 6 pack cycle, because I end up with the cards I want to play and the decks that I want to play and some cards that I never have any intention of using. And the LCG model does the same thing you do not use every card from a pack in an LCG either and you have your prefered decks. This next set I am hedging whether I want to buy a box at all because there is not much to help out the characters that I like. Fisto + Solidarity or bitter rival is interesting Luke pairing. Lando looks like and interesting Wedge pairing, and some of the force powers like Force lift look like a good possibility for a Yoda/Luke deck, but still unsure on a lot of this.

But anecdotal experience is anecdotal. All I am saying is you can spend a similar amount to an LCG and get the competitive decks you want while still not being completely out of options with every new set unless you want to completely change up your play style every time a new set comes out which many probably would. I am just not one of them. So I guess for me it just does not matter because my preferred play style is so much more limited than others. To put it another way. Good cards are good, even if the next set changes up the top deck you can be sure that new top dog is using good cards from the old set and those cards were known as good back then.

Hey, same with the Luke thing, been playing Luke1 since the game came out(currently pairing him with Anakin2) and now Luke3 w/ Yoda But I think you're dead on about the good cards remaining good(unexpected new interactions aside like Bazine becoming better once snoke came out) so you really only have a small pool of cards in each set that are relevant for a particular playstyle which if that's your schtick which lowers the threshold of cards you need.

10 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I suppose it depends on how you place value on money, because I don't think they are the same at all. To me, to spend 300 dollars on 1 specific deck of a deck building game is a total rip off. Your saving money because the total is less, but your getting next to nothing for it. Its about the equivalent of going to the fair and spending 5 bucks on a single ticket for a single ride, when for 20 bucks you can get a band and ride any ride as much as you want.

Also because of the how CCG models work, a new set comes out and your not just going to be able to "update" your 1 deck, by design new sets are created very specifically to destroy the current meta so its more likely that the majority of your deck will be rendered useless in competitive play and you will be back to buying singles again, again just a fair, you buy 1 ticket for 5 bucks, go on a ride and realize you want to go on another one and spend another 5 bucks. By the time the day is out you have spent way more money anyway you have just spread it out over time and got a lot less for it.

I don't know, I'm not a competitive player, I'm just a gamer, so I can only see it from the angle of "what am I getting for my money". To me, it's always about value. Given a choice between spending 300 bucks for 1 deck or spending 750 to get the entire collection of a card game, it's no contest where the better deal is. I don't consider it a saving to spend less money on something that has very little value, when spending a little bit more gets me everything.

I'd like to contest the whole "ticket" thing, let's look at a popular aggro deck like Kylo2/X. When it was released last year, You needed 2 so your initial investment was $60. But the straight upgrades to the deck were vibrosknifes(20), Riot Batons(40), Ancients(100), Illusions(10) and Speeds(100). Once Phasma got hit, the deck ran Grievous(less than 5) with pretty much the same tech. Eventually he got a better partner with Anakin(2 Draft kits 30). Legacies proper added some heirlooms(2 starters for 30) and some mauls(50). Might as well add Shotos(20). You did has to shift out of Red around this time, so assuming you could move the Batons you got like half back(20). This was a World's winning deck though! With Way of the Force you needed a Dagger of Mortis(25) and Snokes (80) but it was cheaper if you went Pryce since you wouldn't need Snokes. But at it's core you still have that same kylo deck and have been competitive for over a year. Your initial investment was $330, but you averaged $20 a month over that year in upkeep to stay current, which seems comparable to playing a specific deck for an LCG which again you are playing competitively so you should be winning packs or credit which should give you some kinda return on your investment. It is not you paying the full investment into the game again and again.

55 minutes ago, Atomisk said:

I'd like to contest the whole "ticket" thing, let's look at a popular aggro deck like Kylo2/X. When it was released last year, You needed 2 so your initial investment was $60. But the straight upgrades to the deck were vibrosknifes(20), Riot Batons(40), Ancients(100), Illusions(10) and Speeds(100). Once Phasma got hit, the deck ran Grievous(less than 5) with pretty much the same tech. Eventually he got a better partner with Anakin(2 Draft kits 30). Legacies proper added some heirlooms(2 starters for 30) and some mauls(50). Might as well add Shotos(20). You did has to shift out of Red around this time, so assuming you could move the Batons you got like half back(20). This was a World's winning deck though! With Way of the Force you needed a Dagger of Mortis(25) and Snokes (80) but it was cheaper if you went Pryce since you wouldn't need Snokes. But at it's core you still have that same kylo deck and have been competitive for over a year. Your initial investment was $330, but you averaged $20 a month over that year in upkeep to stay current, which seems comparable to playing a specific deck for an LCG which again you are playing competitively so you should be winning packs or credit which should give you some kinda return on your investment. It is not you paying the full investment into the game again and again.

Again it comes down to how you value your gaming. To me the idea of playing the same deck or some variation of the same deck for a year.. frankly, I wouldn't do that for free, let alone paying for it. That has a value of zero to me. I want to have a new deck every week, its a deck building game, deck building is like 70% of the point of the game. But I do agree with you that with Destiny, to keep the cost within reason and to stay competitive, you have to pick a good deck, shell out the dough for it and then stick to it for a long time to curve the cost. I just find that incredibly boring.

With the LCG's I make a new deck pretty much every time I play and because I have the whole sets to work with the options are quite considerable, in particular with games like Game of Thrones, Legends of the Five Rings oh and especially with games like Lord of the Rings. Cooperative as it may be I doubt I have ever played the same deck more than 5-10 times before I tire of it, scrap it and build a new one on a new concept.

12 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

Again it comes down to how you value your gaming. To me the idea of playing the same deck or some variation of the same deck for a year.. frankly, I wouldn't do that for free, let alone paying for it. That has a value of zero to me. I want to have a new deck every week, its a deck building game, deck building is like 70% of the point of the game. But I do agree with you that with Destiny, to keep the cost within reason and to stay competitive, you have to pick a good deck, shell out the dough for it and then stick to it for a long time to curve the cost. I just find that incredibly boring.

With the LCG's I make a new deck pretty much every time I play and because I have the whole sets to work with the options are quite considerable, in particular with games like Game of Thrones, Legends of the Five Rings oh and especially with games like Lord of the Rings. Cooperative as it may be I doubt I have ever played the same deck more than 5-10 times before I tire of it, scrap it and build a new one on a new concept.

That's fair, but I also think there are a couple things to help to mitigate the "cost" of playing the same deck: Again winnings at locals can help refund your investment but also can instead grow your collection if you reinvest it back into the game. I played in an event back in EaW meta and I didn't event take the whole event( I was 2nd) but in one of my prize packs I got a 3rd force speed that I traded for a Yoda next set. I got a 3rd Luke3 to that same end. Also, trading is an important part of a ccg! If I'm bored with a deck that's still competitive, I can go on trade groups on FB and keep 90% of my value or take a small loss and trade in at my local game store(it's usually faster this way). It is generally an inconvenience of course, but it's not impossible and I know a lot of my local players who transitioned to new decks that way.

Of course, LCGs are better in that regard like you said, if nothing else it cuts out a lot of work! But you're not locked into a deck really either.

You guys are all wrong. The problem is never with the game(s) themselves (in most cases all the games are good). It's FFG itself. They only care about creating games, getting you to buy a bunch of cores, and then they move on to the next "big thing". It's all FFG does. They suck at any type of OPG and support. Period. If they did any of that, then their games would be better, but for some reason, FFG struggles with this concept. They don't look at games of having more than a 2 year shelf life. That's it. They will continue to widdle down on Destiny Resources and prolong releases. Maybe in 5 years they'll kill it off for another better NEW game that they'll try to sell us on. Heck, it might not even be 5 years as quick as FFG moves on this stuff half of the time...

~D