I am a new player to the game and I have a few questions about the damage cards. Thanks for any help.

How many damage cards are needed in one game? There are 33 cards in the core and I have two cores, so how many of them do I use? What is the tournament requirements for damage cards? Can I make my damage deck, or does it have to be what was in the core?

You need to keep the two decks separate. The damage cards need to stay in the decks they came in. As for how many decks you need. You can play with one deck (both players pulling their damage off the same deck) or with each player playing with their own deck.

Changing the composition of a damage deck is grounds for disqualification from a tournament.

The 33 cards of a damage deck are as follows:

7 Direct Hit!

2 of everything else.

Standard recommendation: sleeve one deck, and not the other. Makes them easy to distinguish but keep you can use both for two player games.

I put a tiny sharpie mark on all of my decks except one. It's in a different spot on each deck so they are easy to separate if they ever get mixed or we use a double deck for anything.

I put a tiny sharpie mark on all of my decks except one. It's in a different spot on each deck so they are easy to separate if they ever get mixed or we use a double deck for anything.

I put a tiny sharpie mark on all of my decks except one. It's in a different spot on each deck so they are easy to separate if they ever get mixed or we use a double deck for anything.

Hmm... marked cards? I hope those aren't the ones you are using in tournaments. I'm not accusing you of cheating but your opponents might.

Thanks for the responses! I didn't see that mentioned in the rule book, so you all have helped out a lot, thanks again

I get the need to maintain the ratio of each card in the deck. But surely it is acceptable to use multiple full decks mixed together for larger than 100 pt games?

I get the need to maintain the ratio of each card in the deck. But surely it is acceptable to use multiple full decks mixed together for larger than 100 pt games?

The rules (pg 16) state that damage cards from destroyed ships go into a face-up discard pile next to the Damage deck and when the Damage deck is depleted you shuffle the discard pile. So I would say, no, it is not acceptable to use multiple decks.

Ok, since there are rules in the game like Marek's that affect the deck, I guess I can respect that.

and you should check your decks to make sure you indeed have 33

guy from our playgroup was constantly telling us it's supposed to be at 34 cards, because it turned out by sheer crazy coincidence he had 2 separate decks that both had 34 cards so he had to find out which ones were extras and remove the imposters

The 33 cards of a damage deck are as follows:

7 Direct Hit!

2 of everything else.

i'm fairly certain that's accurate

I wish you could get back mini-american sleeves but I can't find them

FFG sells mini-sleeves. My FLGS has a bunch of them, which I immediately bought after about a weeks of being sad that I couldn't find anything. A friend noticed them, saying "look at the adorable little baby sleeves!" and I grabbed like all of them. It was like $3 for 50 or something.

FFG sells mini-sleeves. My FLGS has a bunch of them, which I immediately bought after about a weeks of being sad that I couldn't find anything. A friend noticed them, saying "look at the adorable little baby sleeves!" and I grabbed like all of them. It was like $3 for 50 or something.

I have 3 decks but also do tournaments, 2 of my decks are in storage, but I wouldn't mind having a second set with designs on the sleeves like you get for Magic or Yugi-oh

I have asked FFG about doing damage/upgrade sized sleeves in multiple colored backs. No idea if it will happen. I like the FFG sleeves best myself. However, I also reached out to Mayday who makes sleeves and they responded saying they liked the idea and would try and get something on the market. Hopefully we will have some options sometime soonish. We are also going to have two more damage decks for the Rebel Transport, and presumably two more for the Tantive IV as well. It's a damage deckatopia!

Booyah, I mix 2 decks together!

Booyah, I mix 2 decks together!

I had no idea, so that's what I did. But we just play at home, and they are well shuffled, so does it matter?

Not really no. With two decks the chances of any one card occurring are the same as they for one deck.

I actually think it would be neat to deliberately have a set of only the really bad critical hits, to increase the difficulty.

My buddy did the 2 deck shuffle... totally fine... Until you pull 9 direct hits... on your side only... during a game. Sometimes a swarm does die to 3 ship rebel {scum} builds... but only when the rebel {scum} cheat!

I have like 5 or 6 decks of damage cards, I keep them split into two decks: 1) standard 33 card deck 2) combined deck of everything else. Deck 1 is for official games and deck 2 is for anything else. But I tend to use deck 1 for most everything just because it is smaller.

1 deck or 10, to me it makes no difference as long as the cards are all in the same ratios.

When full, two decks mixed together will have the same chance at drawing any given card. However after that first card is draw, especially if it is face up, the odds get mutilated.

If there are 7 direct hit cards in a standard 33 card deck at 2 of everything else you have a 6.06% chance of drawing one of those "everything else cards" but if the first card drawn is one of those the odds of the next being that drop to 3.13%. Now if you shuffle two decks together the odds of drawing a given card are still 6.06% but the odds that the second is the same card INCREASED to 4.62%. So you see mixing two decks together DOES change the odds.

If you want a similar experience try playing Poker with two decks mixed together. Guess what, that introduces the possibility of having five of a kind or even pairs mixed in with a flush. It greatly alters the game by mixing two decks together.

When full, two decks mixed together will have the same chance at drawing any given card. However after that first card is draw, especially if it is face up, the odds get mutilated.

If there are 7 direct hit cards in a standard 33 card deck at 2 of everything else you have a 6.06% chance of drawing one of those "everything else cards" but if the first card drawn is one of those the odds of the next being that drop to 3.13%. Now if you shuffle two decks together the odds of drawing a given card are still 6.06% but the odds that the second is the same card INCREASED to 4.62%. So you see mixing two decks together DOES change the odds.

If you want a similar experience try playing Poker with two decks mixed together. Guess what, that introduces the possibility of having five of a kind or even pairs mixed in with a flush. It greatly alters the game by mixing two decks together.

This is why they insist on a single 33 card deck for tournaments.

I do wonder how often people check their opponent's damage deck for accuracy. It may be easy enough to count cards but is some circles I could see "cheaters" trading out cards very harmful against their squad for ones that aren't so detrimental. How many swarms care if they get hit by the critical that forces the ship to "discard a secondary weapon" when they never carry any?