STAR WARS STATISTICAL INFO AND ANSWERS TO SOME INITIAL DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONS

The following information is copyrighted by Decipher Inc. 1995; however, it can be freely disseminated online or by traditional publishing means as long as this copyright notice is attached. TM, (R) & (C) 1995 Lucasfilm, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Star Wars and related marks are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. Used under authorization by Decipher, Inc. Authorized User.

STAR WARS STATISTICAL INFO AND ANSWERS TO SOME INITIAL DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONS

This is Tom Braunlich again, pinch-hitting for DAnswerMan this Xmas.

Here I list information about Star Wars: CCG which I hope will clear up some of the confusion going around. Judging from the posts and email I've seen today, there are three major misconceptions out there:

1) Misconception #1 -- "there are only 48 rare cards." I have not been able to locate the source of this rumor. Perhaps it was a misprint in some past FAQ, or perhaps one of the many wild rumors that fly about the net. In any case, in fact there are 108 rare cards, 108 uncommon, and 108 common cards in SW:CCG. (see the details below, because there are further frequencies within each group). Since the game is divided into the Light and Dark side (162 cards in each), this means within each side there are 54 rare, 54 uncommon, and 54 common.
I know that many people have been trying to puzzle this out, and am sorry for the inconvenience this misinformation might have caused you. I talked to Dpresident (Warren Holland) about it, and later today he is going to provide me with the full card list which also lists the rarity level of each card, and I will post it at that time. This will, I hope, provide the needed information. I apologize for not posting it on Friday, the release date -- I should have anticipated that the unusual structure of the card frequencies might cause confusion.

2) Misconception #2 -- "All the major characters were supposed to be Common. What gives?"
Dpresident and I were surprised to hear that this concept was still out there. Here is the explanation: Early last Spring, in a President's Letter FAQ written by Dpresident, he noted that we were planning to make all the main characters common. At that time it was true; we had a scheme in which they were common but the stuff you needed to make really good use of them was rare. This plan had to be greatly changed, however.
Why? Because we received an electronic mountain of outraged email saying please don't do it! Collectors who had already pre-ordered boxes were angry that the most collectible characters would be relegated to a cheap card. There would be little to trade, and the collectibility (which is, after all, a part of the fun) would be "ruined", even if the game played well that way (which, as we later found out, it didn't).
The change in plans was announced, but apparently a lot of people didn't get this notice. (That's one of the drags about the internet -- any information you release sticks around forever, percolating through the net, and does not adjust itself if a change needs to be made.)
Instead, we found an approach that would please both collectors and players, which of course is the goal. Here is what we did, and why:
The main characters are rare cards. There is just no way around this (although we made several of the most collectible cards "Rare - B", which is more common (see the statistics section posted below)). It is in all our interests to design it this way -- it's not just "greed" on Decipher's part. We originally tried to avoid this, as discussed above, but it just wasn't possible. Not only does it hurt collectibility if the main characters are common, but our playtesting found that the playability was also unsatisfactory -- and it also lacked logic since common cards can't be stronger than rare cards, and thus the remaining cards in that set made little sense relative to rarity. It just didn't work. In one of my emails a player asked, "How can you trade if it is so hard to get Leia, etc.?" How could you trade otherwise? If the main characters were common, no one would trade them and few other cards would be desirable for trading either. The most popular cards simply must be relatively hard to find; that's the nature of these games.
Yet, of course, we recognize that unlike Star Trek (which has a big cast and a huge number of guest stars), in Star Wars most of the action revolves around only a dozen or so characters. Therefore, our design challenge was to make the gameplay still be fun even if you don't have all the main characters, as well as to provide people with ways to make better use of the main characters which they actually do have. This we did in the game design in several ways:

1) First, remember that this is "Star Wars", not "The Luke and Leia Show." This game is a simulation of the ENTIRE Star Wars universe -- not just limited to a recycling of the plot we have all seen a hundred times in the movies. The game provides you with ALL the elements of the Star Wars world, not just the main characters, and lets you explore aspects of that world not seen in the movie. You can concentrate on the main characters if you want; or you can play out other intriguing scenarios with the many other interesting characters in the SW universe. It brings alive all those aliens in that cantina, each of whom has their own story, or it allows you to concentrate on any particular aspect, etc. How would a horde of Jawas or Tusken Raiders do against the main characters, for example? It is as if the Star Wars movie is one possible outcome that might be generated out of an infinite number of games with these card elements.
In other words, the first point is that the game is designed to play well even without the main characters, so that you don't have to collect a full set to play -- which is in response to another major piece of feedback we got from players during the design, that the "average player" with a small collection should be able to play and compete even against an "all-star" deck owned by a big collector. You do not have to have Han and Darth to play the game -- in fact, as you will soon discover, there are many deck strategies which would make these characters almost extraneous, and you might intentionally leave them out if you want. They are certainly good characters, but not necessary characters.
One other thing -- many character which are minor in the movie have been bolstered and are quite good in this game, and many are uncommon and a few even common. This includes people like Motti and Tagge, many of the aliens like Djhas'pur, etc. They rival the main characters in playability, if not psychologically.
But of course, Han and Leia, etc. are all our favorites, and psychologically people want them to both collect and to play with. With this in mind, we did some other things to make this as easy as we could:
2) The "TWO-PLAYER INTRODUCTORY GAME" version of SW:CCG, which will be out shortly, not only provides a lot of basic cards and thus serves as a good starting point for people, but also has common versions of LUKE and VADER in it, which help even casual players easily get some main characters. (This set -- by the way -- will also have four additional cards in it which are not in the basic SW:CCG set.) True, the Luke and Vader provided here are weakened relative to the Luke and Darth Vader in the normal set, in order to protect the value of those key cards of course, but they are quite good in play, and "work with" cards that refer to Luke or Vader. More on this later; Decipher will be providing the full details.
3) The "Back" cards, are an example of many subtle elements which "bring out" the main characters while helping players get more out of what rare cards they do have. Cards like "Han's Back", "The Empire's Back", etc., essentially allow you to get extra duty out of these rare cards. The back cards are uncommon, but allow you to play as if you have extra rares -- one Han Solo, for example, could be used as if you had several of them in your deck. This allows players to design decks which are "built around" one of the major characters that they DO have, without the need to get multiples of certain rare characters.
4) There are also many "integrated cards" which have "secondary uses" that give advantages when certain main characters are in play like Luke or Obi-Wan (in addition to a more common use). This method of design on such cards allowed us to make sure the game still plays well normally even with a lot of common characters, and yet still to have ways to build upon the rare characters that you do have, making them stronger and more valuable to you. It is possible to design your decks around the rare characters you currently have, and make those decks very effective, by using cards which have these secondary use bonuses. This is important because it means that you do not need all the main characters to have a very strong deck -- in fact, a deck which focuses on 1-3 rare characters might be better than one which just has a lot of rare characters in it. This is all strategy stuff, of course, but is an example of a lot of subtle elements we endeavored to put into the gameplay which are aimed at allowing players who cannot get or cannot afford a full set to still have many ways of creating strong, competitive decks.
It was inevitable that the main characters be rare. It just has to be that way, and it is best that way for all involved. Dpresident might have more to say about this later.

3) Misconception #3 -- "the distribution of the cards is all screwed up." Actually, it isn't. I'm sure there might be some instances in which particular cases were packed incorrectly by the printers, and so on, and Decipher's customer service department will take care of those. This misconception simply comes from the wrong assumptions about the structure of the card frequencies, as discussed above. See the attached information about the "Statistics" of the game for more details.

Please remember that SW:CCG has a lot of unusual features about it that are going to be different from what you are used to. Drawing conclusions by comparing the game to Magic is bound to be off-focus. Essentially there are two card sets here -- Light and Dark side, with 162 cards in each, even though they are packaged together in equal proportions.

I think you will also discover many subtleties in the strategy of the game which, once you see how they work, will explain why certain things in the design are the way they are. That doesn't mean the design is perfect, of course, so please keep providing us with your feedback and suggestions. :-)

Q: Where is R2D2, Chewbacca, Wedge, Boba Fett, etc?