rings said:

bu tthen, if nobody would be talking against it, FFG had to assume that all players here are in favour of rotation. and as you know, FFG recently grew the habit of listening to the players ;-)

and thats the moment for me to declare myself: i am against rotation. for many reasons, all of which have been mentioned before.

Husemann said:

i could live with something like that (while there is still an all-cards-format). i suggest to leave the choice of cycles rather to the player, not with FFG.

Our playgroup has steadily grown over the years. In no case have I noticed that a new player was discouraged from the game by the large card pool. So therefore I would be against rotation.

Something like a set of essential cards from each cycle would be a nice idea though. Throw in alternate art and FFG could sell them even to some veterans and collectors as well.

I'd buy alternate art ones in a heartbeat.

I am opposed to rotation.

The More Liberal Use of the Restricted Solution is much more preferable to me.
Rotation would ruin the point of having a Living Card Game to me and would make the playing environment very stale whereas right now it is *finally* getting very interesting to play in an LCG format and have it not just seem like a re-marketed Collectible Card Game.

The Restricted and Banned lists should be used to mediate power creep and such. Rotation would just make things so much more boring than it is now, I can't really articulate how opposed to rotation I am.

Dobbler said:

I don't think either of these points is valid especially considering Game of Thrones LCG's target market. This is not a game for 10 year olds like Pokemon nor is it intended towards 14-16 yr olds like a Naruto. This is a mature game where the intellectual property the game is based on already produces an older more mature target market. That translates into mostly people with jobs (and some grad students), not teens dependent on parents or minimum wage income. The vast majority of players who are likely to get into Game of Thrones have the funds where a hundred dollars or two is not going to be a pain point; its not going to be a negative incentive towards getting into the game in the vast majority of cases. I don't see any problem with new players jumping in. This is not a casual party game. As such its target market is not someone who needs things to be easy to learn and cheap to get into it. Its target market has different profile.

The informational resources available also make it completely reasonable to be a new tournament player without having bought all sets and chapter packs available. Playtesting is really not any more daunting. It might be more difficult for one single meta group to completely dissect every possible combination but thats a GOOD thing not a bad thing. I hardly see the errata thing becoming more of a problem because anything that slips gets caught by the community pretty quick.

Its still hurts to remember the $500-800 I straight donated to FFG when they promised that ITE and 5KE would be legal for another year. Based on that official statement I went out that summer and bought dozens of booster boxes for a lot of money. Most of those Rares I NEVER got to play once because less than month later FFG announced that all ITE and 5KE cards were now outlawed and it was only about the LCG. When I finally got back into playing I thought hey this is cool, they will never retire sets so eventually there be an awesome card pool with many different deck types available. That I thought was the point of having a living card game, not just following old CCG models and remarketing boosters to not be random.

What is a living card game after all? Is it just a CCG with non-randomized boosters? Or is there also supposed to be a game environment difference as well? No rotation, just a card pool that keeps growing like a tree. Restricted and Banned lists can easily handle the worst types of power creep or NPE type combos so why not just let the card pool keep growing? Personally I would love to see a 5000 strong card pool or 10,000. It would make the whole "LCG" name mean something real instead of just being a re-marketing play.

I can certainly respect that stance, but what do you tell players joining now who literally cannot purchase certain important chapter packs? Are they just out of luck?

imrahil327 said:

Chapter packs have been reprinted before, there is no reason to believe they will not be again.

Besides, the chapter packs in question are not required to play, or even to play certain houses, only certain deck concepts. The same would hold true if rotation was in place. Say the Time of Ravens packs were cycled out. Then NO ONE would be able to play certain themed decks, and I call that worse.

imrahil327 said:

Thats more of an FFG distribution issue and not something that should affect game environment decisions.

Not sure which chapter packs cannot be purchased, though, Clash of Arms? FFG should just re-release those as 3x and that would fix any of those issues.

LaughingTree said:

The first two in the Seasons pack cannot be found online. I guess I don't understand how 'FFG distribution' and 'game environment' can be separated. I certainly agree with you that they SHOULD release them as 3x but there has been no indication that they WILL.

@Kristoff, we can agree to disagree on your last statement, I suppose. I think that some people being unable to play something while others can is far worse for the game than everyone being unable to play it equally.

imrahil327 said:

See here, reply #9 .

That''s awesome, everything I''d read had said there were no assurances. That makes me feel a little better, although now we need someone to buy them out of the other 4 packs from that cycle.

I just checked and the only CPs left in stock from those cycles are Scattered Armies (1/6 from Time of Ravens) and Calling the Banners, Epic Battles and Battle of Ruby Ford (3/6 from War of Five Kings) and the rest have been out of stock for a while with no re-stocking apparent so Id wager a guess were a few months from the CPs being totally out of stock. Im kind of tempted to pick up Calling the Banners and maybe Scattered Armies if it will help speed things along. Provided the shipping doesn't screw me >.>

DerBarchen said:

Refugee is still in stock @ miniaturemarket and coolstuffinc

The best solution short of rotation is just pure hardcore ban list. No restricted list stuff, clear ban. Some archetype becomes too strong, just ban the card it requires and everyone is happy. Maesters are too strong? Ban Maester's Path. Here is your freedom, here is your creativity.

This being said, rotation will have to happen sooner or later, since most groups have casual AND competitive players (Hard to split 2 Hardcore players and 2 Casual players in separate metas if that's all you have in the whole state). Which makes having most or all of the cards semi-mandatory for casual players in such groups (it's either that or borrowing/proxing all the time). After all, those who argue that casual players will be fine by just having bought Core Set and a few packs are lying to themselves. Just imagine, I go to play with DCDennis and have only Core Set and Refugees of War. Great! I'll lose 10 out of 10 games and what next? Buying the rest of cards even though I don't care about tourneys thaaat much? That's exactly what I'll have to do!