Which is fine, because what we really want to do with the Challenge decks is provide a way for an odd-numbered group of players to play.

3 players = 1 Challenge game

4 players = 1 2v2 game

5 players = 1 Challenge game, 1 two-player game

Yeah, at worlds we saw that with 3 it was significantly easier. There was, of course, a degree of novelty in seeing new cards and watching a single player go toe to toe with multiples.

Didn't they say the LS challenge deck was balanced against 2 players, with 3 as "easy mode", whereas the DS deck is made to face 3, with 2 as "hard mode"?

Didn't they say the LS challenge deck was balanced against 2 players, with 3 as "easy mode", whereas the DS deck is made to face 3, with 2 as "hard mode"?

No both are explicitly geared to two, with three as an easier option. It's in the Balance rulebook. As the other person who helped demo the Challenge decks (and I did mostly the DS one), I can tell you, that in my experience, the LS one scales a bit better for three people than the DS one appears to.

Didn't they say the LS challenge deck was balanced against 2 players, with 3 as "easy mode", whereas the DS deck is made to face 3, with 2 as "hard mode"?

No both are explicitly geared to two, with three as an easier option. It's in the Balance rulebook. As the other person who helped demo the Challenge decks (and I did mostly the DS one), I can tell you, that in my experience, the LS one scales a bit better for three people than the DS one appears to.

Yeah, I have thought a lot about why this is and I think it comes down to the number of objectives that can be engaged in a turn and the number of units. For the LS, you cannot engage all of the objectives, but rather a much smaller number at any time can be engaged, making the number of units at their disposal feel like a bigger obstacle to overcome.

Yeah, it really feels like the challenge decks in general (though perhaps more of a problem for DS) could have trouble winning enough edge battles. Especially if the first attacker is heavy on tactics, forcing the challenge deck player to care about those edge battles. By the time the next player attacks with their blast damage, the challenge deck is probably out of good edge cards.

So I just picked it up and was looking through the cards. I have to say that after several months of nothing new, I'm a little disappointed by the content in BotF. I don't feel like it really adds anything to the 1v1 game at all. I know the point of it was to introduce the multiplayer aspect to the game, but I figured that it would still have 1v1 implications. For example, the Edge of Darkness pack had plenty of good stuff for the non-smugglers/scum affiliations, even if that was their main focus.

But as someone who doesn't see myself playing the same challenge deck over and over, I feel completely jipped. 6 pods for 1v1, all of which have to do with multiplayer - the jedi and sith objectives are useless in 1v1, and all 6 pods have the 1 force icon fate card that's useless in 1player. Not to mention several of the card texts / events are pointless (though the B wing is still rather powerful without its text, I still feel I'm being slighted when I can't preform the text).

I bought two, one for me and one for my gf as we both play the game quite a bit, but after going through all the cards, I'm planning on returning the second one. I doubt there'll ever be a time where we both want the same limit 1 objective in our 1v1 deck. And if we're playing 2v2, we can't have the same objective anyways. It seems like you really only need 1 BotF per two players. =/ Oh well. At least the next booster packs are coming out soon, right!?

It is disappointing how most of the new pods are garbage for 1v1, but the Jedi one looks at least decent and the Imperial looks legitimately great (and of course it's god-tier for multi). And, I guess you don't realize this, but you count as a "friendly player" to yourself. Meaning Supporting Fire is far from useless in 1v1.

Yeah, I sat back down and look through them again and evaluated them for what they were in 1v1, and I guess they're not all so bad. While the Jedi only has 4 of 6 cards useful, I'm genuinely excited about all of those cards. Obi wan is much better this time around, the non-uniques have a great ability that make them exciting and change the dynamic of the playfield when they've been discarded. I can't wait to discard one in an edge battle to win by 3 and then put it in play. The enhancement is nice - basically make any character elite+.

Getting 3 icons, even if two of them are edge dependent, for 2 cost makes the B wing a pretty good bargain. Blue leader is like a mini-Home One, but much cheaper. And lets be honest, how often does that splash on both of them help out that much? It's typically useful on one but not so much on the other (or at least in my experience). And the 1 cost - do 1 damage to 1 unit (er, actually to 2 units of different players, but that's irrelevant in most cases - except maybe on Leia or Chewy) is just a mini- Rebel Assault... half the damage for half the cost.

I don't remember the other pods that much, but they all seem to have 3-4 good cards in them. The stupid fate is a throwaway card, and two of the objectives are useless... But I guess they're not horrible for 1v1. I was still expecting to have a few "must have" pods in there to shake up the meta for awhile.

The stupid fate is a throwaway card

Okay, I guess you're still not getting it. Even in 1v1, you still count as your own "friendly player," meaning you can use Supporting Fire to see whether or not you're going to win the edge battle (or get twisted) before commiting to throwing away one of your big guns. It's huge.

What The Gas said. Supporting Fire is still amazing in 1v1. The Rebel and Jedi sets are reasonable in 1v1, though not perfectly efficient. The Smugglers and Navy sets are very usable in 1v1 and I expect will see plenty of play. I'm not a huge fan of the scum set for 1v1, but I'm sure somebody will find a use for it. The Sith set is my least favorite of the new sets for 1v1, but Mara is still excellent and Join Me will have some uses... Agent of the Hand is pretty much what kills the set for me.

I happen to think that Supporting Fire is a great card, especially against a potential Twist of Fate in your opponents edge stack.

Does one need to buy one or two balance of the force?

Does one need to buy one or two balance of the force?

You'll only need one. It comes with both challenge decks, the multiplayer death star dial, and one copy each of the 6 new objective sets (which are all limit 1 sets).

I think the plan was to have BotF for the World Championship weekend, with the new Force cycle happening shortly thereafter.

I have no issue with the OSets being better tuned for the multiplayer experience. I also think it was good marketing and design to make them each "limit 1" objectives. TBH, I see all of the sets playable - at least casually. Not all of them are as competitive in the 1v1 environment, but that is okay as well.

Any news about the European release? It was announced for monday, but it's not in stock in any store here, be it online or physical.

What would be the usual delay for them to ship to Europe? I'd expect a week, but don't have a clue, really.

Not that I'm terribly excited about it. In the holidays it's hard to get the player group together anyways.