I know, I know. A lot of you are pretty against the idea of set-focused deck-building. After demoing the game twice, re-watching the demo video, and thinking about it, I must admit I'm rather relieved that the game is the standard style of card game. Haven't we been there before with Decipher and WOTC (and I loved both games, don't get me wrong).

Anyways, I just posted my Case for set-focused deck-building on my blog over at Team Covenant. Agree or disagree, I'd love to hear what you think about the deck building mechanic!

Zach

Simply put:

I understand what they're trying to do with the deck building. I will not deny that it has several positive aspects. I will not try to claim that it is removing all of the deck building strategy. But I still don't like it. Tinkering with decks is something I do a lot of and enjoy immensely. Sure I'll still be able to do that, but the extent to which I can will be diminished. Overall, I like the game (based on playing in a few demos at gencon myself), but I'd prefer a system that gave me full deck building control.

dbmeboy said:

This is what it all boils down to. The deck building mechanic in this game doesn't make it better or worse, it's just a different flavour. If you're really into micromanaging a deck build down to the card, this will drive you nuts. If you want the ability to slap together a playable deck in minutes, this is for you.

I don't see why people became so militant over it. Just kidding, we're on the Internet, of course I know why people became so militant over it…

I like the concept a lot. I don't think it will diminish the deckbuilding apects that much but it WILL make it easier for someone new to fix togehter s deck in mere minutes. This means i can actually get this game out with friends of mine who're not hardcore cardgamers

I'm not hardcore either, maybe that's why i like it.

I also really like the idea; it means that you can begin to play from scratch at any point of the evolution of the game, without any need to go through a great amount of individual cards. This is good for casual gamers ; this is good to play with your own copy against friends who are not involved in the game on the long run ; this is good also because it forces player to think about how the play of the sets would go together (instead of trying to find one or two killer combos that will drive all the deck) ; this is good also because it puts more emphasis on play skill, instead of on available free time to build deck before play…

Good article on the blog, by the way.

I'm really into my deck-building but I actually really like what FFG have done here. This adds a lot of 'pick-up-and-play' value for people who are less hardcore gamers (which I'm grateful for since a couple of friends I play with really aren't).

The only fear I have with this mechanic is the redundancy of decks/cards in "tournament" scene.

I like some aspects of it but I guess as the game was presented, deckbuilding would be the choice of 10 best cards to use in your main deck (10 best Characters/Units) and the rest would be just fuel for Edge Battles.

And as I've seen on the other thread (the one with the card listing) this mechanic will only allow "standart" decks and not specialized ones. This is my main concern with this mechanic.

Good post Zach (and on Team Covenant as well), I play many CCG's, played SWCCG very competitively for years, even after Decipher lost the license, and it's still my favorite CCG of all time. I have some worries about the new game, but the deck building "limitation" is not one of them. I really do enjoy tweaking decks down to the card level in most games I play, and I believe that makes a difference between winning and loosing. What FFG is proposing here does not remove that aspect (once you get to a large enough pool of objectives), it just makes it different.

Card evaluation is such a critical asset in deck building, not just card evaluation purely on it's own merit, but in the context of the deck you are building, the synergies and purpose of the deck and the meta you expect. Having to do that with a group of cards I would contend is even more complex and introduces trade-off's that you just don't see on a one by one basis. I for one am looking forward to working through this balancing act. It just introduces new variables into the equation, and is something different.

I understand the rationale behind the factions creating resources of their type. Thematically it makes sense. The lazy me just doesn't want to have to worry about this issue when deckbuilding or playing.

oDESGOSTO said:

The above comment just fired my attention for a moment here. I think everyone is assuming that pods will contain one or two really good cards and the other three or four will be just extraneous fluff, Corey of course could perhaps be to blame for putting this assumption out there when explaining the process in the team covenant video when he says something like "if you want Luke, you're forced to bring the other four cards that come with him", implying those cards aren't very good but the game's mechanic for deckbuilding is forcing this on you.

We haven't seen very many complete pods to be able to judge on this properly yet, but I'd just like to suggest what appears to be a very radical point here, and the other four cards that come with Luke will be cards you would automatically pick if you had 100% control over your deckbuilding anyway. If the pods are all meant to have wonderful synergies anyway, then think about what that means for a minute. They work well together.

I feel this will all boil down to a case of "you assume too much".

I also think I'm going to really like this new way of deckbuilding for a few reasons:

1. We'll still be able to tinker with decks (at least I know I will be) it'll just be switching out pods and finding the ones that synergize the best or finding ways to warp other pods to work together, instead of individual cards. I think it will be quicker/easier to sub in different pods inbetween games than it is to sub in miscellaneous cards for other card games, keeping the actual games flowing.

2. Games like Star Wars where you need to build 2 decks instead of 1 used to take me quite a lot of deckbuilding time. Deckbuilding by pod should save a lot of time in that regard.

3. Other tournament formats. I'm really looking forward to normal tournaments for this, but also, as others have brought up, this could introduce a quick and easy Star Wars draft format where you draft pods instead of individual cards like Magic The Gathering drafts.

I wonder how difficult it would be to design a Star Wars game in which you only need one deck, rather than two?

Mattr0polis said:

I was thinking this as well. Or you can split the 2 factions' objectives into 2 piles, each pick a pile and randomly pick your 10 objectives just for goofing around fun.

spalanzani said:

I've only mentioned one of several POV on this one.

From my POV, since this is a game of combat (you have to attack Imperial objectives; you have to defend Rebel attacks), I would focused attention in getting all the best characters with resource-curve in mind to my deck, the rest is landscape (as in Edge fuel).

This is my opinion from the cards I've seen in the CardGameDB preview. I don't see that much depth in the game, to be honest, because it would only matter who's fighting who.


And honestly, the more I wait for this game the less interested I get.

oDESGOSTO said:

Choosing efficient cards is the central principle of nearly every card game. You are constructing a theory based on an unfinished unreleased game with no testing or even real ability to test to back that up. I'm sorry but you have the cart out miles in front of the horse.

oDESGOSTO said:

Oh yeah, I just used your quote as a jumping-off point

What it all boils down to for me is a 60 card deck would be built by 12 cards!!! Just 12!!! Sure simplifying deck building is a novel idea for new players but isn't this a little extreme?

Technically it's decided by 11 cards: ten objectives, plus your starting resource, which I'll refer to as a "Base" card in homage to the previous game.

10 Objectives, each one provides 5 cards to the deck = 50 cards in a deck, not 60 as written before.
60 card deck if you include the 10 Resources but since they're draw apart from a different deck, that means 50 card "force" deck + 10 card "resource" deck.

Just like a GOT deck is 60 and not 67 cards (or 68/69 if you count House Card and Agenda), and L5R is 40+40 and not 80 (or 83 if you count starting resources).

@ScottieATF: I'm building my "theory" from what I've seen, and that is a lot. Of course it was not the final version of this game but from what I've seen from this game is what I used to form my opinion about it.
Maybe in 30 days or 60 days I will change my opinion when this game comes out.

MarthWMaster said:

Starting resource?

clique84 said:

The Faction card which has the turn order sequence on it also provides a single resource. It's also typed to the faction on the card just like other objective cards.

oDESGOSTO said:

The 10 Objectives are cards as well, despite being located in a separate stack. (50+10=60)

MarthWMaster said:

You should quote the entire portion of the text I've written to see the complete sense of it.

And I also gave other games as examples.

I just discovered this pod building idea, and I don't have a significant problem with it right off the cuff. I darn well better be able to play an R2/Chewie/Lando deck, though.

I think I will be stuck playing casual only here because I really don't want to play the Empire. It's basically the only change from the original version that rubs me the wrong way so far. Even the game's tagline at the top of the page, which we've had for a year plus now only mentions "Take command of a Rebel strike force in the Star Wars universe!" and doesn't say anything about the Empire. I may change my mind with time, but until then I'll just have to stick to casual games with people willing to only play Empire against me. I prefer to be the Big Darn Hero in my gaming fantasy life.

Sorry for the tangent. I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach on the new and interesting deck building concept until I see a card list and a rulebook. Like the factions in FFG's Netrunner (absent in original Netrunner), it could genuinely end up being interesting but it could also be too restrictive. No way to know just yet.

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

However, as far as I can tell it does not bring any other cards with it and is not itself an objective card.