Okay so i havent really played any card type games since i stopped playing deciphers version and i was just wondering is anyone else worried (sad, disappointed? ) about the lack of collectibility that seems to be involved in the game? Yes it will be great not to have to dole out hundreds of dollars per expansion, to get what you want, but i always found the collectibility of SWCCG (and other similar games) one of the more appealing aspects (addicting).

So far this new rendition of a SW card game looks like fun and in my opinion its success will hinge on the deck building mechanics ability to be vast enough to maintain an (always) evolving meta and not have players relying on new expansions to "renew" or establish the current meta.

For those that have played similar style LCG does the lack of an after market environment (i assume there is no singles market for cards) effect the game?

Does anyone know how they plan to run tournaments?

BTW any ghetto squad members here? Team Albany?

TX

rogue 3

It definitely affects the game, but I would say it does so in a positive way. With the LCG format, the wallet no longer factors into a player's ability to compete, as everyone has access to the same cardpool. Thus, pure deckbuilding skill becomes the sole determinant of who has the deck advantage in a given game. Furthermore, while the overall pool grows at a roughly similar rate to most successful CCGs, the LCG's monthly release format causes the meta to develop more steadily, versus the more static environment that tends to occur between quarterly expansions. I'm not an especially active player, but this has been my take overall.

Rogue 3 said:

The whole point of LCGs is to do away with that random collectibility that forces you to spend tons of money to get that one last super awesome epicest ever rare card to finish your deck of doom. So no I am not missing that. It is why I play LCG's. You still get the deckbuilding experience of a CCG but LCGs are more about skill of your deckbuilding and your playing of the game rather than how much money you can spend on your deck. This article does a great job of explaining and pointing out the strengths of the formats: docbelmont.wordpress.com/2012/09/09/fantasy-flight-games-breathing-new-life-into-collectible-card-games/

There is not really singles market as it is really not necessary. You used to be able to buy some singles from the core sets on ebay for AGoT.

Tournaments will be run similar to Netrunner in that you go with two decks, one Light side and one Dark side to use in each round.

Yes and no. I don't miss the money pit aspect of CCGs, but I do miss the metagame(or lack thereof) involved in SWCCG. I'll back that last statement up. In a SWCCG tournament, you could easily see as many different decks as there were players, times two! And the neat thing about this was that almost any of those decks(if built with a level of intelligence) could win. So the meta, while easier to understand especially with all the silver bullets flying around, was more difficult to implement due to the large variety of decks. Not so in LCGs, or really any CCGs out today. The meta is almost predetermined either by design or done ahead of time by internet research. The top strategies generally already exist and are unlocked by a small percentage of the community. Meta can also be fairly irrelevant if the game balance is way off. Has Warhammer: Invasion balanced out Chaos yet? They were basically unplayable competitively for the entire time I was playing. That was 2 deluxe expansions and 12 battlepacks into the game.

It's a bit of a switch. I moved from games like Pokemon, YuGiOh and Magic into the LCG format, and after three years in the format, trying to go back to Magic and try picking up Vanguard in the traditional CCG/TCG format has been a pain. I tried to get myself to buy my shock and dual lands the other day, but after realizing that the 100 for ten or eleven cards could also go into the missing Chapter Packs for Thrones and pre-ordering my Netrunner data packs and second Star Wars set for roughly the same price, and let me build far more decks, I kind of took the LCG stuff.

Everyone's right, the card pool being both gradually expanding and easily obtainable makes for fun, skill based games. Small LCG's like Star Wars and Netrunner don't show this well yet, I assume a lot of people will be playing Jedi/Sith well into 2013's regional season, but larger ones like Thrones and Cthulu display vibrant, variant metagames that outside rogue decks, like the Joust Champion's hand control deck this year, that have an equal chance of winning against established, "tier 1" decks, all based on player skill. Granted, there's still bad decks (My Stark/Bara Melee Joust deck probably won't be wrecking any championships any time soon), but they can still surprise and win games on occasion and through pure underexposure.

It's why I've fallen in love with the LCG format. Your skill determines more than anything, as each LCG features one or more skill-based components that remove reliance on luck or "power" cards to win the game for you.

As far as the game stalemating, yes, it can happen. We're gonna get hit by it in thrones a little bit by the House of Dreams agenda. We went through it with Maester's Path. Martell has been a powerhouse ever since Princes of the Sun released. It's probably the greatest achilles heel of the format, because outright banning or putting eratta on cards is difficult, and can seriously unbalance cards. We're not able to wait out a super powered card like Magic can.

Is AGoT that good? I have the core set and an unused copy of Princes of the Sun. My play group tried it and the basic response was so so to negative. I've been thinking of selling it for a while now.

qwertyuiop said:

Thrones is awesome. And great in that it is good 2 player and multiplayer instead of one or the other. If you do decide to sell send me a PM.

qwertyuiop said:

The game is great, but I feel like the core set is a horrible gateway to the game. The new 2-player standalone box does a much better job of giving you a feel for the game. Unfortunately, that box is not compatible with the actual game.

Rogue 3 said:

miss the worst part of customizable card games, never.

Rogue 3 said:

There is no need for a singles market and that is what makes LCGs awesome.

Toqtamish said:

Thanks for the link!

The only part that I would really miss playing a LCG is the opportunities for limited play. Sure you can play sealed events when big expansions are released, but draft format in some of the other TCGs is a great format. Some people I know play it almost exclusively as they feel it it the format that provides the greatest and ever changing challenge. I definitely won't miss collecting cards as I've pretty much given upon on constructed in any other TCG I play. This one it feels like they've finally gotten right on distribution and I'm ready to jump in.

As far as tournaments, I would almost like to see them run like the old Decipher events where you switched opponents each time. Bascially half were split in to Light and played a Dark player round 1. Then you would switch sides and play a different person. Redo do it each 2 rounds. It would increase the number of different players you play. It wasn't horrible from a logistics standpoint. Although Decipher had a Force differential to further split the players to assign opponents. I can see them wanting to go the Netrunner route so they don't have to mess with the whole Light/Dark thing, but that presents its own problems. Depending on how long they expect a games to go, time limit could become a factor if they give a single time limit to complete both games. Also what is the tie-breaker going to be for games that do go to time? It don't see as concrete of a scoring system in this game as other games do. Might have to come up with something based on the DS Dial vs the number of Objective the LS has destroyed, that could work like the old Decipher Force differential too.

The Cube Draft option is fun, but requires a huge investment of time and money that makes it impractical. What might be interesting, is if FFG were to explore some kind of event kit designed to emulate the Limited/Sealed format, with a randomized set of cards from various packs and expansions. But I don't think this would work for SWLCG in particular, due to the set-based system, unless that rule were not in effect for such events. But then it would kind of suck afterward, having some of the cards that go together, but having to use the copies already in your collection to complete various sets.

I'm actually not a big fan of FFG tournament LCG support. There isn't really any incentive to play in any tournaments except to try to make regionals -- aka attend regional tournaments only. Event organizers have very little incentive to draw people out to play for a non-official tournament.

FFG needs to step up their community-bricknmortar support kits for LCGs. I remember the first Warhammer Invasion kit, it was fun, but really was too expensive for what it offered.

Wizards of the Coast does tournament support the right way. They support Friday Night Magic, prerelease kits, and regional tournaments, amongst other support kits.

Some great support kits would include things like "alternate" art variants of LCG cards, "foil" or "artist signed" variants of LCG cards, special deck boxes, tokens, or playmats. And the kits should be able to support more than 8 players.

If there was more incentive for players to go to a bricknmortar to play in non-official tournaments, FFG could see their LCG lines/brands grow even bigger.

FiendishDevil said:

www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/index.html/_/articles/ffg-organized-play-news-r367

Game Night Kits will now include a Tournament Organizer Prize

Game Night Kits will eventually include alternate art promotional cards that are reprints of existing cards with new/different/better art. The exception to this is Star Wars, which will receive Aurebesh texted cards. For those that don't know, Aurebesh is the name of the font that the signs and written communication of the Star Wars universe is. These cards will have the title and flavor text replaced with Aurebesh translations.

There's just something really fun about ripping open boosters that I will miss… however, I won't miss the paying for boosters/singles.

dbmeboy said:

That was back when booster wrappers were pliable. Now the stuff they use takes over half a minute to get into. You could have just as much fun ripping open a Force Pack, if you didn't want to save the box for later use.

Most of the time it takes me only a couple of seconds to open a MtG booster… still, I'm looking forward to actually being able to afford to be competetive for once.

Toqtamish said:

Didn't hear about this until you linked that article. Great news that they're gonna up support. Can't wait to see how it pans out I still stand by my original statement tho until I'm proven wrong

houjix1138 said:

Is there a way to make a draft format that involves randomly choosing objectives and building your deck from those? Say, randomly choose 15 objectives and choose to keep 10 or more. There are a lot of problems with this, the major one being that not everyone will have access to the same packs, but it's something that could at least be fun in casual play.

You could certainly get some kind of card pool and draft it with some friends. I'd stick with drafting entire objective sets, as you recommended.