It has been discussed, dismissed, decried, and probably a lot of other words starting with “D”. The simple fact is that at some point, we’re going to have to limit the card pool. How soon is a matter of opinion, but if we want the game to keep growing and adding cards every year without removing any, eventually the card pool will be too big to be manageable. This would present an impediment to designers and to new players especially. I bring all this up because I think FFG restricting the card pool is inevitable, and I'd love it to be with a more interesting system than Magic's "rotation". Discussing it in the community (and trying out some of our own solutions) could avoid that pitfall.

There are a variety of mechanisms for restricting the card pool, including power creep, expanded restricted lists/secondary restricted lists, stop printing old sets, Magic-like set rotation, and new rules for deck construction.

The latter warrants a little more explanation: let’s say that tournament rules specify that decks are limited to including cards from only a certain number of core/deluxe/chapter packs.

• This ruling would mean first that the initial cost of building a tier 1 deck would be lower (and fixed).
• No product would “expire” or cycle out (and all FFG’s product would still sell)
• It could add a tactical element to gameplay, as you’d be watching for the cards played by your opponent to keep track of what sets they’re playing to guess what’s hiding in their hand
• It would simplify deck building by limiting your card options once you’ve chosen your cycles, but not severely hamper your deck building ideas.
• It would make decks less powerful in the short run, and make power creep easier to avoid.
• A cycle can be designed and balanced as a whole vs other cycles, rather than on a card by card basis
• Cards that never otherwise see play because there are better cards that do the same thing might rise to prominence because people are “locked out” of the cycle with it’s better version
• It may open up some additional design space previously shut off by interactions across cycles that would now be illegal, or for agendas that allow cards outside of the deck construction limits
• It could probably do away with the majority of the restricted list

While the rules could be more convoluted (eg: neutral agenda might allow you an extra CP, certain cards might be on a “Not restricted by CP” list), let’s start with:

Decks are limited to being constructed with only :
1 core set
2 deluxe expansions
3 chapter pack cycles PLUS the current (unfinished) cycle (gotta incentivize buying it!)

Agendas are not limited by set/cycle.
No changes to the restricted list (although at first glance, most of these could probably be taken off the list)

I thought I’d organize a set of games in my local meta to try these deck construction limitations and see how viable they really are, and I’d love it if a few others tried adapting their current decks to this set of rules and post them here to see how it looks in practice. In our case it would offset the absence of “Clash of Kings” somewhat, and level the playing field somewhat between new-comers and those with a full playset. I hope to post a few examples of decks I have that wouldn't work at all with these restrictions, and ones that would work well.

-Istaril said:

That is your opinion ser, not a 'simple fact'.

-Istaril said:

Huh. So… given all the recent discussions on power creep, "when are they going to reprint 'Clash of Arms'?" threads, and new enteries onto the restricted list, I guess FFG is currently, by your definitions, in the process of restricting the card pool?

To DcDennis:
Well, either the game stops printing new cards (which limits the card pool), or reaches an infinite number of cards (impossible). So strictly speaking, my statement is true. Just… not necessarily applicable to the time scales we're interested in . If we want the game to continue to introduce new cards, there will come a time where the existing card pool becomes very unwieldy. When that point is "too" unwieldy will vary from person to person - and I guess you might argue that it will never becomes so. I suppose I'm probably mistaken in assuming that everyone would have a "too unwieldy" threshold, although I'd love to hear some arguments for an ever-expanding card pool to confirm that!

To Ktom:
Yes… and I don't see how that's controversial. The lack of access to Clash of Kings restricts the card pool, but does so in a way I dislike because it's not evenly applied to all players. It also doesn't benefit the designers very much, as they still need to take those cards into account when designing. The power creep in general is a "Soft" restriction on the card pool, because who would play card X when card Y does the same thing better in every way? This also does so in a way I dislike… and the restricted list limits the cards that can go into a deck, which is a slightly more roundabout way of restricting the card pool. The intent and extent of the limitations can vary greatly, but all of these methods do, for practical purposes, restrict the card pool a little.

-Istaril said:

Now, if your premise is "something more drastic needs to be done, sooner rather than later" that is a different discussion entirely. That does, indeed, seem to be your true premise based on the new information in your last post, particularly the frequent use of the phrase "in a way I dislike" when describing the "softer methods" FFG may be trying to limit the card pool now.

That, of course, goes back to dcdennis' argument that the need for FFG to limit the card pool (as opposed to players just not deciding to buy everything; after all a new player who decides to only buy 1 or 2 copies of the Core Set "limits the card pool" with no help from FFG) is an opinion, which you agree with - to the extent that the necessary time frame is a matter of personal taste.

You're quite right, Ktom - they are restricting the card pool. I may dislike these methods, but more importantly these methods still result in an ever increasing card pool - they prevent it from increasing at exactly the 20-cards-per-cp you might expect but the net effect is still an increase. Something more drastic needs to be done if the goal is to prevent the same "unwieldy" scenario I refer to, while the current measures only delay the need for such a system to be implemented.

Limiting your own card pool is definitely an option - and honestly it's not one that had even crossed my mind. Despite not playing in any major tournaments, I've always looked at the game as it plays out in that scene rather than in the "board game" context. So again, I should rephrase and say that this philosophy only applies to FFG's support of the competitive scene, and if their primary goal is to support the game in another context, the need for limiting the card pool is greatly reduced, if not eliminated.

I will just put in my $.02 and say that this proposed model (limiting not what cards are legal, but what cards are legal in combination by limiting how many Chapter Pack cycles one can use) is the first proposed method of card pool limiting that does not bother me at first glance.

It strikes me as a natural evolution of the Restricted List for managing a larger pool of cards.

KristoffStark said:

I'll go a step further and say that it's a natural evolution the longer people stay in the game. I think a lot of people unconsciously follow similar rules on their own. They may have favorite individual cards that never seem to go away, but I think people tend to build decks that limit how deep they go into the card pool on their own.

To me, saying that the card pool is too large and unwieldy, when people tend to focus on roughly 2 CP cycles and an expansion box when they build anyway, is like saying the ocean is too big for the guy who never ventures more than 100 yards from shore. The depth is certainly there , but almost no one really touches it.

To my way of thinking, a proposal such as this would be a formalization of what a lot of people tend to do on naturally. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a required thing, either.

There is also an argument to be made that since this is primarily for the competitive scene, which is a vast minority of the overall purchasing and playing community (measured by just about anything other than representation on the message boards), you really need to establish expectation levels - both from FFG's point of view and from the player's point of view. I'll be honest, the further I get from regular competitive play, the less important the "rotation" question gets for me. (So there's my bias in this discussion…. )

I'm open to explanations as to why the rotation model wouldn't work?

IMO, once Song of the Sea [Chapter Pack #9] completes, they retire Clash of Arms. When Chapter Pack #10 completes in October 2013, retire Time of Ravens. If they want more time for their Ravens cycle to sell through, extend it by another six months and retire Clash of arms in Q4 2013, with Ravens to follow in Q2 of 2014. And so forth?

It would work - there's no doubt about it. It does everything you need to do to limit a card pool, and does some of it more effectively than what I elaborate on in my post. It allows the designers to keep only a smaller portion of the total cards made in mind when designing new cards, shrinks the card pool, makes it clear what a new player "should" have to be competitive, etc.

However many people feel that having their cards "expire" is disagreeable (a great many of them, if I recall the last time this was discussed), and I suspect that ideally FFG would love to keep selling products they've already spent time designing/developing. That latter point is a bit of a guess, though, and may not be true - maybe the logistics of keeping many products on the shelves hurts profits more that the overhead of designing a new set.

It also means that they have to "reprint" certain key cards that are required to use existing mechanics - there are a great many cards that interact with summer/winter that are not in that chapter pack cycle, and so you'd need to reprint at least the ravens (so we're starting to talk about having an ongoing "core" reprint, like magic's core "Editions"). That's more design and redesign… frequently to give us the same cards we had and cycled out.

Reprinting old cards just to make them legal just seems like a waste of a new card slot. I wouldn't want to re-purchase older cards in a new cycle/deluxe expansion or have the designed obligated to design new cards that MUST be created just to allow a rotated out card mechanic legal.

What happens when we reach the trait synergetic chapter packs? Do they now have to redesign a similar cycle to allow the more recent cards the ability to be played because of the lost synergy? For example, the Brotherhood without Banners cycle has several Sand Snakes, Raiders, Clansman, etc that may eliminate the effectiveness of the newer cards that are designed to be most useful in decks with them in it. Are we hoping that they redesign CPs with that in mind?

This is my first CCG/LCG so I don't know that much about how rotation has worked out in other card games like it. In this game, I feel that rotating out entire CP cycles would potentially invalidate several of the cards stuck in the middle of legal CP cycles. You are then also wasting precious card slots on making up for the lost mechanics/card synergies instead of new card ideas and design.

Like I had said above, I have no experience in CCG/LCGs, but there is always risk at losing existing players due to a loss in their investment. There is also a risk for FFG to lose money on rotated out cycles if there is a fixed rotation cycle. I wouldn't waste money buying a CP of a cycle that is going to be rotated out in 6 months.

I really don't know how I feel about it one bit. I know that at this rate, the card pool will be massive in 5 years(if it's still going strong). I personally may be on board with enhancing the restricted list. Some kind of multi-tier restricted list is most certainly a viable option and I also think that it would be as simple to maintain as the current one.

I think one thing that is overlooked in this type of discussion is how unique cards with the same title are sort of within their own type of restricted list as a game rule(not a deck building rule). It is a more simplified version of a restricted list that is covered as a core rule on playing unique cards. This may be something to expand off of for limiting "rotated" cards.

I hope there is no rotation personally.

We currently have about 1400 distinct legal cards in AGoT. There are about 1600 distinct legal cards right now in the M:tG standard format (it's roughly the maximum, because the next set will bring a rotation). A full L5R arc is about 2000 distinct cards. Assuming the "unwieldy" threshold is comparable, AGoT still has some way to go before reaching it.

Khudzlin said:

are you sure about those figures for agot? i seem to recall investigating this when i first started playing last year and the number back then was over 1700 cards excluding plots. Are you not counting different versions of the same char (is that what you meant by distinct)?

I think Magic is at its rotational peak, at ~1700 cards, set to drop to about 1200 in early Fall. AGOT is currently at a little over 1400, as Khudzlin stated. Given that we have 6 houses to Magic's 5, plot cards and multiple copies of unique cards (excellent point, Bomb), you'd expect the threshold for "unwieldy" to be higher in AGOT. However, if that is our benchmark, that means that while we may not be there yet - it's certainly not a great ways off. It's something I really hope the designers have kept in mind, and a good time for the community to discuss it.

dcdennis said:

• Core Set = 250 (over-estimate)
• GJ Expansion = 60
• Martell Expansion = 60
• Stark, Bara, Targ, & Martell Expansions @ 55 = 220
• Clash = 120
• Ravens = 120
• King's Landing = 120
• Defenders = 120
• Brotherhood = 120
• Oldtown = 120
• Champions = 120
• Narrow Sea = 120 (when complete, 3 months from now)
• Total = 1550

And that includes titles, House cards, duplicates of resources in the various sets (e.g. Seas and Chambers), and plots.

Forgot LotR, but listed Princes twice.

dcdennis said:

The exact breakdown is (counting different versions of unique cards as distinct):

Core Set: 194 (excluding House cards and titles)
Greyjoy: 53 (excluding Titles)
Martell: 59
Stark: 49
Baratheon:51
Targaryen: 51
Lannister: 52
1st cycle: 118 (2 cards are banned)
2nd cycle: 119 (Carrion Bird is duplicated)
3rd cycle: 120
4th cycle: 120
5th cycle: 119 (excluding Neutral Faction)
6th cycle: 120
7th cycle: 120
8th cycle: 40

Total: 1405

And if we are just talking about play decks you can sub all the plots from that number as well.

And the agendas, too. But they still need to be taken into account for balance considerations. The figure I gave for L5R includes strongholds, which are like a house and agenda rolled into one card (not to mention that game uses 2 separate play decks).

Well, how many cards have been released for SW:CCG? I've never played the game, but AFAIK they never rotated anything out, although from what I hear they use pretty hefty power creep to de facto limit the card pool. Can anybody confirm this?

Also, V:TES never rotated anything out, did they? And there were, what, 3000+ cards in the card pool at the end?

Just saying that there probably *are* alternatives to set rotation.

EDIT: Then again, both of these game have been discontinued, so maybe that says something, too.

Grimwalker said:

Part of the problem I see there is we have chapter packs that build on concepts introduced in previous chapter packs.

For example, rotating out A Time of Ravens would severely reduce the number of cards that interacts with the Summer/Winter mechanic, but not all of them.

Would there be enough cards left in other chapter packs for a Season themed deck to really function? If not, then not only have you rotated out one CP, but made portions of others useless.

WotC, knowing that rotation will happen, designs their blocks to be stand-alone capable, so that when one cycles out it doesn't impact the play of future sets except in terms of card interaction and combos. AGoT isn't built that way.

Ratatoskr said:

V:TES uses 2 decks. The library has no set rotation and finished at 2136 cards. The crypt (of vampires) is broken into groups and you can only build this deck with two consecutive groups (i.e. 2&3 or 3&4) and finished at 1370 cards (groups range from 100 - 400 cards). The game does not use card limits (you could play 90 of the same card if you wanted, but it wouldn't be a good deck) so set rotation isn't really needed for the library. While there is no card limit for crypts either, vampires are unique so you want variety. Without groupings you could make an overly optimized crypt.

V:TES didn't start with groupings. It was added after 7 sets IIRC.

Not at all persuaded that any sort of pool limitation is required. Certainly not now given the size of the pool compared to Mtg or L5R (as pointed out above) and really not in general. i am of the mind that more cards = more options. sometimes I want to build around one version of Stannis, sometimes i want to build a Mercenary deck, or an attachment deck or a character lite deck so clearly - i want as many resoruces to support that theme as I can draw upon.

I tend to think a more active Restricted list would iron out problems at the high end competitive level which is the small sub set that really cares about such things. Rotation would not engender much good will - of that I am convinced, both from personal expereince adn years upon years fo reading and posting here.

Fully agreed with ktom and dcdennis.

With regard to MtG, once more I would like to point out that while there is indeed a rotation for the "Standard" format, players still get to play with all their old cards in several "eternal" formats, in particular the highly successful "Legacy" format, where the card pool consists of several thousand cards and the broken strategies are prevented through a banned list. There also is the "Modern" format, which is every card printed since 2003.

These multiple formats allow players to continue to play with their cards after rotation and has prevented the cards from becoming worthless trash after a rotation (I am not talking about the old overpowerd cards with their extremely limited print runs here; but just look up the price for "Dark Confidant" on ebay, printed in 2004). Indeed, some cards have increased in value after being rotated out, due to being heavily played in an eternal format. This whole concept is deeply satisfying, as you never really "lose" your cards.

As long as only one format is supported in AGOT and my cards would just stop to being playable in any organised way after a rotation, I would consider leaving if a rotation is announced. My collection of old, pre-LCG AGOT cards just collects dust and if this would be the fate of my new LCG cards as well, I probably just will stop playing this game.