I have been playing Star Wars Destiny since it came out, but it is now time to move on and enjoy some of the other FFG products.

I do not mind the delay in product, but I am deeply concerned about the most recent Holocron and the explanation behind it. I am left with no confidence in the design team. The venue I play at is a great venue and the players are all very nice albeit uber-competitive. We are one of the stores that is scheduled for a 2020 Prime Championship.

I am baffled by how they can have:

• A card called Fateful Companions that you cannot play with C-3PO
• An errata that prevented C-3PO (by points) and R2-D2 from being played with fun figures like Biggs, but didnt do anything about the team they were concerned about.
• An explanation on the Holocron that begins by saying that there were all kinds of valid and interesting decks at Worlds but they were going to target only one of them (perhaps to make less deck options)
• An explanation that says they will power up some underused cards but not in a way that will bring them up to competitive standards (Can you believe they actually said that).
• Furthermore they arbitrarily adjusted some characters making sure that there were an equal representation of colors adjusted (it had nothing to do with power levels of cards that needed it).
• No other adjustment for all of the other Legendary intensive abusive decks such as Palpatine, Maul, and Kylo-Ren. Those decks may not be World Class decks but they are not fun to play against.

The problem isnt that Fateful Companions was broken and needed fixing, the problem is the design team isnt smart enough to know it before they printed it. Nor were they smart enough to fix it with their first attempt.

For me personally the way in which they are expanding the game does not resonate with me. I get that that is a personal thing, but I dont have a connection with the disney cartoons that is driving design.

I feel bad for my venue because despite hosting a Prime Championship they will be down to 3 players. The 3 players remaining are all world class players, nice, great guys, but all of the non-uber-competitive players have left. There is something wrong with the design of the game that it doesnt promote the most important and largest group of players. A collectible game cannot survive if semi-competitive and casual players do not have hopes of winning games.

If you dont focus the majority of your efforts on the majority of your players your game will not last.

Finally the obvious power creep is indication that the game design is past its apex and either does not have a set of rules to keep things in balance or that they are struggling with ways to make relevant cards.

Luckily for me though I have discovered several other great FFG games including LotR LCG and Marvel Champions. These games have made me a believer in fun Co-Op experiences (a type of game the board-game snob in me usually runs from).

Designing a card game is hard.

A few things:

-You can use Fateful companions with any C-3PO, so any future ones would work.
-You can totally play C-3PO & R2 with Biggs with a 4 die start, you just can't run FC anymore. Those pairings aren't optimal, but they don't have to be.
-Droids were the only deck that was still dominating the field after 2 previous nerfs(Military camp, then the point increase and the deck was still OP)
-Everyone has thought they should be buffing cards rather than just nerf them all the time. You can argue they didn't hit them enough, but it's a good first step.
-There were other decks, but Droids was the pairing that won worlds and has been a constant, dominant force in the meta. They'll hit the other decks too if they get outta line.

FFG definitely could use more testing on their stuff though, but this is nothing new and you're deluding yourself if you think any of their games will be balanced in the long term though. FFG just does as they do and you sort of have to take it or leave it.

To the OP, you're moving on at the right time. I think I'll be there with you. Has anyone seen the spoiler for the hero version of Anakin Skywalker from the next set? He's just another legendary 19 cost hero that is absolute trash. FFG has zero idea how to make cards for this game. The power level for low cost characters is insane compared to most of the higher cost. It's a Star Wars game and there's barely been a playable Luke, Han or Leia. FFG just does not have a hand on the cost-curve for the game and fails in design so often that the successful cards feel like a mistake.

I've already decided that I'm only going to play draft for Covert Missions. This will be the first set that I won't have a complete play set for after the first weekend. The bones of the game are still fun, but the balance for constructed is not at all.

On 12/17/2019 at 9:48 AM, gokubb said:

To the OP, you're moving on at the right time. I think I'll be there with you. Has anyone seen the spoiler for the hero version of Anakin Skywalker from the next set? He's just another legendary 19 cost hero that is absolute trash. FFG has zero idea how to make cards for this game. The power level for low cost characters is insane compared to most of the higher cost. It's a Star Wars game and there's barely been a playable Luke, Han or Leia. FFG just does not have a hand on the cost-curve for the game and fails in design so often that the successful cards feel like a mistake.

I've already decided that I'm only going to play draft for Covert Missions. This will be the first set that I won't have a complete play set for after the first weekend. The bones of the game are still fun, but the balance for constructed is not at all.

I'd say they're hit and miss 50% of the time.

On Lukes: Luke 1 was okay(eLuke1/Rey1 & eLuke/Akbar were legit in awakenings, less so in SoR meta but still a thing), Luke 2 Was real bad(but he's a starter character), Luke3 has shown up a few times in decks as a legit character(eLuke3/eYoda1 was legit during WtF), & Luke4 just looks to be the best pilot we've gotten, especially if you're trying to win via the plot but time will tell on that one.

On Hans:

eHan1/Rey1 was legit, Han 2 was awful(again a starter card tho), Han3 has shown up a lot of places with Qi'Ra and some other junk in the mix, while Han4 has found a home in droids but will likely prove to be a staple of aggro hero builds going forwards for some time, even if his droids deck got nerfed.

On Leias:
Leia1 was a miss for sure(Though she wasn't that bad imo), but Leia2 made mill a staple in the game, while Leia3 proved and early replacement to Hondo and has been a check aggressive wide strategies even is she hasn't been topping a lot recently(Her vs plo-woks or ewoks is super fun, if you're the Leia pilot).

As for the new Anakin, I'm not a fan either but we'll see how he performs(Maybe there's something we're missing in the set like a guard/destiny reprint to make his 4 side worth it, or maybe a new saber). Even if he sucks, they're 2/3 at least with Anakins(The Rival deck one had it's time in the sun with Kylo2) while the Yellow Anakin2 was a mill powerhouse.

All that said, there are plenty of legit issues to leave the game over but I don't think this one of them. Not that one needs a real reason, just saying that I don't think you need to reach for one here.

This is a fun game, too bad they went with the collectable card game model. If they made it more like a standard board game with a few decks and a few expansions now and then with a small but well tested card pool it would have been a good game. As it is, it just gets silly broken with a few combos and overly redundant with most cards, as games do with large card pools. Most people have already checked out. I would have like this game to have been successful but it just isn't and is completely dead in my area. It's very understandable why this happened.

2 hours ago, Atomisk said:

I'd say they're hit and miss 50% of the time.

On Lukes: Luke 1 was okay(eLuke1/Rey1 & eLuke/Akbar were legit in awakenings, less so in SoR meta but still a thing), Luke 2 Was real bad(but he's a starter character), Luke3 has shown up a few times in decks as a legit character(eLuke3/eYoda1 was legit during WtF), & Luke4 just looks to be the best pilot we've gotten, especially if you're trying to win via the plot but time will tell on that one.

On Hans:

eHan1/Rey1 was legit, Han 2 was awful(again a starter card tho), Han3 has shown up a lot of places with Qi'Ra and some other junk in the mix, while Han4 has found a home in droids but will likely prove to be a staple of aggro hero builds going forwards for some time, even if his droids deck got nerfed.

On Leias:
Leia1 was a miss for sure(Though she wasn't that bad imo), but Leia2 made mill a staple in the game, while Leia3 proved and early replacement to Hondo and has been a check aggressive wide strategies even is she hasn't been topping a lot recently(Her vs plo-woks or ewoks is super fun, if you're the Leia pilot).

As for the new Anakin, I'm not a fan either but we'll see how he performs(Maybe there's something we're missing in the set like a guard/destiny reprint to make his 4 side worth it, or maybe a new saber). Even if he sucks, they're 2/3 at least with Anakins(The Rival deck one had it's time in the sun with Kylo2) while the Yellow Anakin2 was a mill powerhouse.

All that said, there are plenty of legit issues to leave the game over but I don't think this one of them. Not that one needs a real reason, just saying that I don't think you need to reach for one here.

Luke1 wasn't every really a legit contender. People played LukeBar, but it wasn't nearly as good as Vader/Raider. Tier 2 at best. I will give you Han1/Rey1 was a thing during Awakenings. Probably the best lightside deck at the time. But, that was Rey, not Han. Sure, he got some shields from the combo and gave access to another ambush weapon, but he himself was overcosted and not that great. I mean, 18 cost elite with 10 health was all it took. After Vibroknife he never saw the table in competitive play.

Luke2 is alright. He's a tier 1.5. And, agree, Leia2 is a mill staple, but we all know mill is stupid. Leia3 replaced Hondo in a deck no one played anymore. Yoda decks got crushed by droids because they reliably kill him before his turn two die resolution. She's pretty good on her face, but the main deck for her just doesn't work anymore.

Regardless, my real argument regarding the main characters is that none of them have ever matched the sheer power of Palpatine1 or 3, or any Vaders. The cheap ones also don't match the utility of Talzin, Watto, Wat, etc. ****, Rose even fits into more decks than any of them.

I moved on to Marvel Champions too. I've kept 2 decks to play but sold everything else because it wasn't getting supported as much as I hoped and honestly the dice are so annoying to store and manage. I was all in at first but the collectable side of it was really hard too.

I do hope to see a non-collectable Star Wars card game again someday from FFG. The Marvel Champions game and product design would be interesting with Star Wars. Hero packs, Scenarios with certain villains, story boxes. I'm assuming someday there will be a way to play as a villain in Marvel Champions because the encounter deck is very similar to the hero deck so I think they could do the same thing with Star Wars and give people the option to play coop or vs. An LCG like that for Star Wars would check all the boxes for me and I think could be received well.

7 minutes ago, gokubb said:

Luke1 wasn't every really a legit contender. People played LukeBar, but it wasn't nearly as good as Vader/Raider. Tier 2 at best. I will give you Han1/Rey1 was a thing during Awakenings. Probably the best lightside deck at the time. But, that was Rey, not Han. Sure, he got some shields from the combo and gave access to another ambush weapon, but he himself was overcosted and not that great. I mean, 18 cost elite with 10 health was all it took. After Vibroknife he never saw the table in competitive play.

Luke2 is alright. He's a tier 1.5. And, agree, Leia2 is a mill staple, but we all know mill is stupid. Leia3 replaced Hondo in a deck no one played anymore. Yoda decks got crushed by droids because they reliably kill him before his turn two die resolution. She's pretty good on her face, but the main deck for her just doesn't work anymore.

Regardless, my real argument regarding the main characters is that none of them have ever matched the sheer power of Palpatine1 or 3, or any Vaders. The cheap ones also don't match the utility of Talzin, Watto, Wat, etc. ****, Rose even fits into more decks than any of them.

First I'd disagree on Luke1, he was fine for Awakenings and SoR, IIRC there were a few of the first store champs won by eLuke1/Rey1 during SOR(That was all Luke1 w/ My Ally Is The Force, those plays were super fun). Of course that was outstripped by more powerful decks like Emokids & once the Loops revealed the FN deck at Gencon a few months later Luke1 never did show again, but power creep has been a thing with the game as evidenced by Luke1 getting a cost reduction in Infinite.

Secondly, Han1 was definitely a powerhouse of that deck, because Yellow was great at the time with Second Chance players and Hyperspace Jumps. Vibroknife definitely was a killer for Han1 though, since it killed all the shield decks pretty much.

I'm not gonna touch the mill comment, but I will say that Leia3 is definitely just waiting for the right partner to really make her shine imo, especially with Ewoks around.

But onto the point of the main heroes matching the villains, they definitely have had T1 decks at various points in Destiny's history. There was still Poe1/Maz, Qui-gon/Kanan, R2/P2(which was dominant for a long while), Obi2/Maz, Rey2/Aayla(Stairs), Obi2/R2, Mace/Satine/LM, etc. If you specifically mean Luke, Han, & Leia(and won't accept mill) then I'd still point out that Luke3/Yoda1 took Nordic Champs at the end of WtF meta & Han3/Qi'Ra Was a top deck at the end of AtG meta with Han4/Droids was a threat till recently. Those characters, Leia aside only because you don't like Mill, have had showings.

So imo, they have made a lot of progress releasing main characters and while they still make mistakes(Anakin3 likely) they are also showing progress what with the recent buffs to certain over-costed characters. So barring a sudden cancellation announcement(which would be a valid reason to jump ship and is a possibility since it feels like there's something ominous about how the treat Destiny these days) I don't find the reasons presented in this thread to be compelling.

8 minutes ago, Atomisk said:

First I'd disagree on Luke1, he was fine for Awakenings and SoR, IIRC there were a few of the first store champs won by eLuke1/Rey1 during SOR(That was all Luke1 w/ My Ally Is The Force, those plays were super fun). Of course that was outstripped by more powerful decks like Emokids & once the Loops revealed the FN deck at Gencon a few months later Luke1 never did show again, but power creep has been a thing with the game as evidenced by Luke1 getting a cost reduction in Infinite.

Secondly, Han1 was definitely a powerhouse of that deck, because Yellow was great at the time with Second Chance players and Hyperspace Jumps. Vibroknife definitely was a killer for Han1 though, since it killed all the shield decks pretty much.

I'm not gonna touch the mill comment, but I will say that Leia3 is definitely just waiting for the right partner to really make her shine imo, especially with Ewoks around.

But onto the point of the main heroes matching the villains, they definitely have had T1 decks at various points in Destiny's history. There was still Poe1/Maz, Qui-gon/Kanan, R2/P2(which was dominant for a long while), Obi2/Maz, Rey2/Aayla(Stairs), Obi2/R2, Mace/Satine/LM, etc. If you specifically mean Luke, Han, & Leia(and won't accept mill) then I'd still point out that Luke3/Yoda1 took Nordic Champs at the end of WtF meta & Han3/Qi'Ra Was a top deck at the end of AtG meta with Han4/Droids was a threat till recently. Those characters, Leia aside only because you don't like Mill, have had showings.

So imo, they have made a lot of progress releasing main characters and while they still make mistakes(Anakin3 likely) they are also showing progress what with the recent buffs to certain over-costed characters. So barring a sudden cancellation announcement(which would be a valid reason to jump ship and is a possibility since it feels like there's something ominous about how the treat Destiny these days) I don't find the reasons presented in this thread to be compelling.

My point is based on the three main characters of the franchise, which are Luke, Leia and Han. You can add in Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader, but none of the other characters are the main characters of the franchise. Rey and Kylo lead a terrible trilogy. The Rebels are probably closest being that they headlined a pretty solid TV show for so long.

So, having staple characters like Watto, Wat and Talzin when none of the above have ever been a complete cycle's staple (aside from maybe Vader) is just a loss from a thematic design standpoint. Regardless though, the original argument isn't necessarily around the character names. It's around the discrepancy in card power. Legendaries, for at least while they follow that stupid release structure, should be powerful cards. Releasing this new Anakin is an example of them not getting it. Did you see the Hera and Ghost spoilers today? Two legendaries. Two pieces of junk. Hera is a Cienna clone and while an OK character shouldn't be a legendary at all. That new Ghost is trash. If it did what they say in the article and ready a Spectre character when it comes into play, then it would see play for sure. But it doesn't. Their article is wrong. It says it only activates a character. Give trash ambush and it's just ambushed trash. That's the reason to jump ship. Why spend so much money to get a full set of a collectible game where only six to ten cards each set are playable?

2 minutes ago, gokubb said:

My point is based on the three main characters of the franchise, which are Luke, Leia and Han. You can add in Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader, but none of the other characters are the main characters of the franchise. Rey and Kylo lead a terrible trilogy. The Rebels are probably closest being that they headlined a pretty solid TV show for so long.

So, having staple characters like Watto, Wat and Talzin when none of the above have ever been a complete cycle's staple (aside from maybe Vader) is just a loss from a thematic design standpoint. Regardless though, the original argument isn't necessarily around the character names. It's around the discrepancy in card power. Legendaries, for at least while they follow that stupid release structure, should be powerful cards. Releasing this new Anakin is an example of them not getting it. Did you see the Hera and Ghost spoilers today? Two legendaries. Two pieces of junk. Hera is a Cienna clone and while an OK character shouldn't be a legendary at all. That new Ghost is trash. If it did what they say in the article and ready a Spectre character when it comes into play, then it would see play for sure. But it doesn't. Their article is wrong. It says it only activates a character. Give trash ambush and it's just ambushed trash. That's the reason to jump ship. Why spend so much money to get a full set of a collectible game where only six to ten cards each set are playable?

The Rebels characters had showings as well(Sabine/Ezra for instance was a deck for over year, Kanan/Quigon, I'll give you Hera never showed though) but basically your argument is that the characters you like aren't the strongest. That's unfortunate, but typically not how card game design should work and I would say that in general thematic pairings have gotten much better lately, if droids & Reylo are any indication. However, they've been largely making characters smaller and attaching those big characters to those more now, to make thematic pairings more competitive.

Also Idk what you mean, 6-10 cards is a gross underestimate of playable cards that are reaped from a given set. Even counting bans, nerfs, etc we have a ton of cards from the new set that are essential for certain decks. The new set already looks to have some sick cards: First Luke1 is just the best pilot, period and his X-Wing is great too. Bane looks cool with Shien and Deathfield helping the deck diversify from Palp3(More big upgrades as opposed to loads of little ones). As for the other new stuff: Eject is super interesting in the late game imo. Ghost has no blanks, cheats out damage, and with multiple characters piloting it increases the amount of damage and generates a bunch of shields. It even has a resource side, which as estabilished supports that can pay for themselves are sorta OP. What more do you want? Hera even does a little action cheating as all pilots do, and she lets you ready a ship which remember they're piloting it till the end of the round which means you retain the bonus on Ghost for each Spectre piloting enabling multiple waves of shields and extra damage.

If you don't like where the game is, feel free to jump but I'm saying I don't agree with you. Also full collection of sets in CCGs has always been a bad idea, imo. Just pick up singles for the deck you want and call it a day 😕

22 minutes ago, Atomisk said:

The Rebels characters had showings as well(Sabine/Ezra for instance was a deck for over year, Kanan/Quigon, I'll give you Hera never showed though) but basically your argument is that the characters you like aren't the strongest. That's unfortunate, but typically not how card game design should work and I would say that in general thematic pairings have gotten much better lately, if droids & Reylo are any indication. However, they've been largely making characters smaller and attaching those big characters to those more now, to make thematic pairings more competitive.

Also Idk what you mean, 6-10 cards is a gross underestimate of playable cards that are reaped from a given set. Even counting bans, nerfs, etc we have a ton of cards from the new set that are essential for certain decks. The new set already looks to have some sick cards: First Luke1 is just the best pilot, period and his X-Wing is great too. Bane looks cool with Shien and Deathfield helping the deck diversify from Palp3(More big upgrades as opposed to loads of little ones). As for the other new stuff: Eject is super interesting in the late game imo. Ghost has no blanks, cheats out damage, and with multiple characters piloting it increases the amount of damage and generates a bunch of shields. It even has a resource side, which as estabilished supports that can pay for themselves are sorta OP. What more do you want? Hera even does a little action cheating as all pilots do, and she lets you ready a ship which remember they're piloting it till the end of the round which means you retain the bonus on Ghost for each Spectre piloting enabling multiple waves of shields and extra damage.

If you don't like where the game is, feel free to jump but I'm saying I don't agree with you. Also full collection of sets in CCGs has always been a bad idea, imo. Just pick up singles for the deck you want and call it a day 😕

Supports with a one resource side are OP? That's a stretch and downright false for Ghost. It sucks. It's another three cost that just doesn't do anything special. Hound's Tooth was a two cost that paid for itself even easier and it didn't see competitive play.

My argument isn't that the characters I like aren't good. It's Star Wars. I like any well thought out character from the franchise. It's that the main characters that are in the 17 elite + cost are always legendary and usually stink! They are batting under the Mendoza line. They'd suck for baseball where you're supposed to fail, let alone at a balanced card game where you are not.

Covert Ops Luke isn't going to be any good. The pilot mechanic isn't going to be any good without them introducing broken action cheating shenanigans into the game. Without a Desperate Measures nerf, then those decks are already answered. Even if they nerf DM, the new Vader discards supports when there's a pilot. It's not going to be a successful mechanic with the hate that they've made available. Again, that could change, but they'd have to action cheat break it like they did Sabine/Ezra for it to work.

I also think you're overestimating the good cards that came from the last set. I'm underestimating with six to ten, but it isn't over twenty-five cards. The set wasn't good. Aside from the three force-fed, built by FFG in the set decks (Droids, Reylo and Ewoks), the rest of the set sucked.

13 hours ago, gokubb said:

My point is based on the three main characters of the franchise, which are Luke, Leia and Han. You can add in Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader, but none of the other characters are the main characters of the franchise. Rey and Kylo lead a terrible trilogy. The Rebels are probably closest being that they headlined a pretty solid TV show for so long.

So, having staple characters like Watto, Wat and Talzin when none of the above have ever been a complete cycle's staple (aside from maybe Vader) is just a loss from a thematic design standpoint. Regardless though, the original argument isn't necessarily around the character names. It's around the discrepancy in card power. Legendaries, for at least while they follow that stupid release structure, should be powerful cards. Releasing this new Anakin is an example of them not getting it. Did you see the Hera and Ghost spoilers today? Two legendaries. Two pieces of junk. Hera is a Cienna clone and while an OK character shouldn't be a legendary at all. That new Ghost is trash. If it did what they say in the article and ready a Spectre character when it comes into play, then it would see play for sure. But it doesn't. Their article is wrong. It says it only activates a character. Give trash ambush and it's just ambushed trash. That's the reason to jump ship. Why spend so much money to get a full set of a collectible game where only six to ten cards each set are playable?

Off topic but I agree with Rey and Kylo leading a horrible trilogy. Hopefully that will change in a couple hours.

off topic again but I would actually like for clone wars/ rebels to see even more play but for ffg not to prioritize them over Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewie. I'd like to see clone wars anakin, Rebels Leia, and late clone wars Ahsoka

... word is, things aren't going to get better in a couple of hours.

14 minutes ago, Mep said:

... word is, things aren't going to get better in a couple of hours.

Shocker! I agree though, from what I have heard the new movie is a mess. The Mandolorian is really the only hope for any Star Wars fan at this point. Hopefully space horses gets everyone involved with RoS fired and we get Favreau and Filoni providing more of the overall direction going forward.

21 hours ago, gokubb said:

Supports with a one resource side are OP? That's a stretch and downright false for Ghost. It sucks. It's another three cost that just doesn't do anything special. Hound's Tooth was a two cost that paid for itself even easier and it didn't see competitive play.

My argument isn't that the characters I like aren't good. It's Star Wars. I like any well thought out character from the franchise. It's that the main characters that are in the 17 elite + cost are always legendary and usually stink! They are batting under the Mendoza line. They'd suck for baseball where you're supposed to fail, let alone at a balanced card game where you are not.

Covert Ops Luke isn't going to be any good. The pilot mechanic isn't going to be any good without them introducing broken action cheating shenanigans into the game. Without a Desperate Measures nerf, then those decks are already answered. Even if they nerf DM, the new Vader discards supports when there's a pilot. It's not going to be a successful mechanic with the hate that they've made available. Again, that could change, but they'd have to action cheat break it like they did Sabine/Ezra for it to work.

I also think you're overestimating the good cards that came from the last set. I'm underestimating with six to ten, but it isn't over twenty-five cards. The set wasn't good. Aside from the three force-fed, built by FFG in the set decks (Droids, Reylo and Ewoks), the rest of the set sucked.

It will never actually a one resource side though, it'll presumably be a minimum of Two(Unless you aren't playing this with spectres, and on an all spectre team this seems fine), likely more if you have more spectres with piloting. And yeah, it's pretty good to have a resource side, look at Entourage who granted had a higher damage cap but this has a lower floor. I think you're grossly underselling that card.

Anakin aside, who was the last character aside who was a main character who was in that 17+ range and was both legendary and unplayable? The ones that jump to mind(Palp, Phasma, etc) all have seen play or they aren't legendary(like Yoda3, and he's actually seen play). There is

I think even as a pure damage deck Luke4 will be fine, especially with his ship so cheap! While you have a point on DM being a check on the deck, as a lot of the CCs have been making too, but we'll see how it shakes out. DM killed big supports but much like Satine Droids showed, you just go wide with smaller supports and things are fine.

Maybe I am over estimating, but there were a ton of good cards last set that don't fit in those decks: At what percentage of "good" cards is a set good or not? Are we judging just legendaries, rares, & uncommons? Cause I'll tell you 3 cards I was(and still am) super excited by that came out of that set that don't fall into those 3 decks by category and have seen play in tourneys:

Legends:
Maul - Has proved a capable aggro deck on par with Vader, he's definitely a stick to measure from for aggro pairings for Blue Villain.
Jango Fett - Gave villain a "Bandoleer" deck and has proved that 3-die decks can still perform well if they have strong enough abilities(palp3/Jango2/lm is neat)
Thrawn - Thrawn2 is actually really interesting and has been shown to perform well in the hands of skilled pilot.

Rares:
4-LOM - He made bounties actually good and provided as the big for villain vehicles lists.
Yoda2 - Him and Bail has made what I think is still the best Admiral deck out there.
Bail Organa - Besides making me play respected business man, he's just an interesting leader who has found a home with Yoda2, but as more leaders come out to combo with I suspect we'll see him more frequently.

Uncommons
Jedi Mind Trick - Gave a more flexible Mind Trick for any Jedi Deck, nuff said imo.
Draw Closer - I've always loved damage multiplier cards and I could add the whole niman suite to this list) but this one in particular is cool because with the upgrade turns from x2 to potentialy a x3 on damage and that's neat!
Dead or Alive - Dead Or Alive is the best Bounty we've gotten yet, if we get more like this I imagine bounties(and downgrades in general) will see more action.

There are a ton more but I'm not here to do a full set review, but I guess what's the goal post here?

And again, I stress there are some really good reasons to leave the game, but the reasons you've given aren't convincing(to me) and you're the one who's take to a public forum to voice them. What are you aiming to accomplish by voicing these anyways?

On 12/18/2019 at 6:30 PM, Mep said:

This is a fun game, too bad they went with the collectable card game model. If they made it more like a standard board game with a few decks and a few expansions now and then with a small but well tested card pool it would have been a good game. As it is, it just gets silly broken with a few combos and overly redundant with most cards, as games do with large card pools. Most people have already checked out. I would have like this game to have been successful but it just isn't and is completely dead in my area. It's very understandable why this happened.

QFT This!

Not to suggest that I don't love the game, I do, but it's only because I play very off and on and always with the same opponent (a buddy of mine) and we very intentionally create unoptimized (theme decks).

For a brief period we didn't do that (my friend made a droid deck just to see how it would play) after which we stopped playing for several months. Competitive level decks instantly sucked all the fun out of the game.

If you intentionally avoid these sort of decks, find an opponent that the goal is casual fun decks and you stick to that format (self balancing and banning), the game is great, but as it is in terms of a competitive game it's just outright broken and not fun at all to play.

I agree that the main problem with the game from the very beginning is its business model. Collectable Card Games just don't last. There are a few that have broken that mold like Magic The Gathering, but for the overwhelming vast majority of CCG's they are dead on arrival. LCG's and contained card games may not be as popular and economically successful in the short term, but they last.

Well OP, it looks like Destiny is quitting you too!

A warning to all CCG designers. You are not designing MtG, that game took years to grow its Organized Play. If you want your game to last you must cultivate your player base. And since you have no clue let me break it down for you. Your player base is made up of sheep and wolves. There are always wolves. If you let the wolves eat all the sheep you soon wont have sheep and once you are down to just wolves its not going to go well. Feed your sheep. Invest in your casual players far more than anyone else because you need your casual players to out number your competitive players at a rate of 7 to 1. Dont worry how many tier 1 players you lose in the first 3 years of the game, worry about the casual players until you have established an optimal number of them. The casual players need to bringing in more and more casual players. The Tier 1 players cannot survive without the casual players and they need a lot of them.

41 minutes ago, IceHot42 said:

A warning to all CCG designers. You are not designing MtG, that game took years to grow its Organized Play. If you want your game to last you must cultivate your player base. And since you have no clue let me break it down for you. Your player base is made up of sheep and wolves. There are always wolves. If you let the wolves eat all the sheep you soon wont have sheep and once you are down to just wolves its not going to go well. Feed your sheep. Invest in your casual players far more than anyone else because you need your casual players to out number your competitive players at a rate of 7 to 1. Dont worry how many tier 1 players you lose in the first 3 years of the game, worry about the casual players until you have established an optimal number of them. The casual players need to bringing in more and more casual players. The Tier 1 players cannot survive without the casual players and they need a lot of them.

QFT

21 hours ago, IceHot42 said:

A warning to all CCG designers. You are not designing MtG, that game took years to grow its Organized Play. If you want your game to last you must cultivate your player base. And since you have no clue let me break it down for you. Your player base is made up of sheep and wolves. There are always wolves. If you let the wolves eat all the sheep you soon wont have sheep and once you are down to just wolves its not going to go well. Feed your sheep. Invest in your casual players far more than anyone else because you need your casual players to out number your competitive players at a rate of 7 to 1. Dont worry how many tier 1 players you lose in the first 3 years of the game, worry about the casual players until you have established an optimal number of them. The casual players need to bringing in more and more casual players. The Tier 1 players cannot survive without the casual players and they need a lot of them.

Well put! I don't know if MTG would even survive if it started up this year. So many companies are just in a hurry to make a quick buck. Which that's fine. They need to make money. But they prematurely kill too many games. Sad really. Some of their most profitable games never will be because they don't give them enough time. Or faith either.

On 1/14/2020 at 3:20 PM, IceHot42 said:

A warning to all CCG designers. You are not designing MtG, that game took years to grow its Organized Play. If you want your game to last you must cultivate your player base. And since you have no clue let me break it down for you. Your player base is made up of sheep and wolves. There are always wolves. If you let the wolves eat all the sheep you soon wont have sheep and once you are down to just wolves its not going to go well. Feed your sheep. Invest in your casual players far more than anyone else because you need your casual players to out number your competitive players at a rate of 7 to 1. Dont worry how many tier 1 players you lose in the first 3 years of the game, worry about the casual players until you have established an optimal number of them. The casual players need to bringing in more and more casual players. The Tier 1 players cannot survive without the casual players and they need a lot of them.

A well-put take on the challenges of getting a CCG to stick.

That said, it may be an impossible task, in practice. Given that over 90% of CCGs have failed within their first two expansions, and that all CCGs except three (MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon) have failed, it may be impossible post 1995 to introduce a new CCG and get it to stick. ****, even Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon seem to linger on not because of their gameplay or thriving local casual scenes, but because kids enjoy collecting the cards, even if they never play a single game.

So, really, the "carrying capacity" for CCGs in the hobby gamer market may in fact be 1, and I can't ever imagine anything dethroning MtG to take it's place.

29 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

A well-put take on the challenges of getting a CCG to stick.

That said, it may be an impossible task, in practice. Given that over 90% of CCGs have failed within their first two expansions, and that all CCGs except three (MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon) have failed, it may be impossible post 1995 to introduce a new CCG and get it to stick. ****, even Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon seem to linger on not because of their gameplay or thriving local casual scenes, but because kids enjoy collecting the cards, even if they never play a single game.

So, really, the "carrying capacity" for CCGs in the hobby gamer market may in fact be 1, and I can't ever imagine anything dethroning MtG to take it's place.

I agree with you. But there are a few more who seem to still be trucking on. Force of Will. Final Fantasy. Transformers. Each of them have a few years on them. Will minus Transformers. That's still newer.

We've accepted that video games, no matter how good, have a short shelf life. For some reason we believe physical games need be like Uno and Monopoly, around forever. Most games are fads. They come in hot and their cold corpse gets kicked out the door quickly. Rarely do you get a Chess, or Magic I suppose. FFG makes fad games. Yeah they are fun to play, for today.

On 1/15/2020 at 7:20 AM, IceHot42 said:

A warning to all CCG designers....

Throughout my life I have seen many a good game drop away, it is hard to understand why and I tend not to care too much to bother. Many times games that do flounder are better than some of the game that do well. Why does DnD do so well when there are significantly better games, or Monopoly exist at all.

Sometimes I think it is just a little bit of luck. I used to go into a game shop on my way home from work and saw a game on the shelf for about 12 months called BattleTech, it just sat there and then one of the guys at my local club showed up with it and we went crazy for it. Years later, I purchased Rogue Trader and played one game of it, then 2-3 years later a friend played some 40k and urged me to give it a try and we were hooked. Even WotC has fun, after Magic (I bailed on it because of price gouging) we played some Jyhad, Netrunner and Battletech, all came and went.

I think for the most part though you are right, you need to keep the casuals happy and FFG really struggles there, KeyForge showed a lot of promise, but the method of adding chains to decks is terrible, isn't Garfield a PhD in Maths? Around here we have gone from 20 players to 2, and they have just scared the casuals away buy buying cases of decks, it is insane to think that a few players here and there can keep the game going. I think X-Wing was a success and they just model every other game based on competitive X-Wing play.