Mattr0polis said:

That's how I look at it as well.  I think we all have our own ideas of what we would like to run as a theme in a Star Wars card game, and initially, I suspect few of us will feel that "complete" experience.  That said, the decks I got the most out of, that were theme-heavy in SWCCG involved batches of cards across different expansions.

If you just played SWCCG with the Premiere set, it would be "ok", but not nearly as fun as when you can really focus a deck onto one or two aspects of the movies and run with those cards.

I like that we're getting hints of Flight Squadron synergy with the "Black Squadron Assault" Objective, which pairs with Black Squadron Pilot, I'm On the Leader, TIE Advanced (I can't see the pod number of the graphic, so maybe not?) and Vader's TIE Advanced.  Nothing about this pod is really "dead weight" in an obvious way, and you have the option to apparently put the Black Squadron Pilot on his own, in the TIE Advanced, or in Vader's TIE Advanced, contributing his card effect to add to the Fighter's damage output to Units and Objectives.  The Objective itself allows you to both attack with the TIE Advanced in question and presumably DEFEND with it, assuming you can take an Action with the Objective after declaring an attack with your TIE Advanced.

Also I'm assuming the opposite would work; defend with the TIE Advanced combo, then focus the Objective to strike back.  Both the TIE Advanced and Vader's TIE are pretty interesting on their own, and the added pilot just makes it better.  I'm on the Leader makes sure they don't answer with their own Fighter unit.  I've also noticed only 4 (that I saw on cardgamedb) cards in that pod.  Is it possible there's a Vader pilot card for that set coming in Core? Either way, I wonder what that 5th card for the Black Squadron pod would be.

Also Heart of the Empire pairing with Coruscant Defence Fleet, and There is No Escape can be interesting in itself.  If you were coming down to the wire at the endgame, and had the Defense Fleet sitting quietly in your hand all game, you could play There is No Escape to wipe the board clean, then proceed to drop the Defense Fleet and put a severe damage output threat on the board.  Bonus if you actually have Heart of the Empire out to use Defense Fleet to soak up Objective damage if your opponent thinks they're going to put all their efforts into taking that Objective out for the win.

Again, I see the pods as looking like decent groups of cards that work together. If the Core comes with one of each Objective and card pod, then buy 2 Cores and focus more on what you like, assuming you can run with two copies of the Objective and its associated cards.

Then, when the expansions come out, it just goes outward from there into customizing that Objective stack to be more in keeping with your own theme of what "Star Wars" means to you.

If you really do feel a certain card in the pod is of no value to you, toss it in an edge battle or use it as a discard fodder somewhere else.

Mattr0polis said:

Yeah, that's what I was trying to suggest. The other cards won't be useless, but FFG can balance pods by pairing powerful individual cards with several other less spectacular ones. That way, the overall power level can be kept relatively consistent across pods while still allowing the designers to make Vader/Boba/et al. as awesome as they should be. 

Now, I don't know if this will ACTUALLY happen, but the option is certainly there. Maintaining balance in this game should be easier than leveling the playing field in almost any other CCG/LCG.

The pod-building mechanic also creates a justifiable method of ensuring that Empire players are running a full cadre of troops that can't shoot worth a darn (because they really wanted to include that impractically huge battle station with the glaring weakness :P).

 Just give me a pod pack with a Death Star!

starhawk77 said:

That's true, but I'm not sure they can avoid effectively obsoleting earlier pods with their new ones.  Basically, I'm worried that every probably games like MtG or SWCCG have had with power creep via cards will instead become power creep on the "pod" level.  They have to keep everyone buying the new products, after all.

Indeed, there is no way to assess the precise "value" of a pod as the sum of its parts. It may be that less-useful cards become less frequent. Hopefully it won't happen for a few years yet, though.

 As was the case with SWCCG, and could be the case here, future expansions can also bring new utility to existing cards.  I remember when ISB Operations came out for SWCCG, it forced me to go back through my collection and dig out all the cards that would work with the Objective and I was definitely using stuff I never would have before.

If you can do that with your game design, it lets the players' collections of cards have more life and not just be restricted to the current expansions.  The other benefit, from a business perspective, is that it keeps the purchasing of all of your expansion packs worthwhile for players that come late to the game.  Sure, there might be "that" cycle, that everyone points new players towards getting first, but ultimately having the full collection should be fruitful.

Looking at cards we know from the demo, there is the Coruscant Defense Fleet that helps protect your Heart of the Empire Objective, which has the "Coruscant" resource on the card.  I can imagine there will be at least one more Coruscant-type Objective in the Core Set; there are at least 2 each for Executor and Death Star from what I recall.  Right there, you have a good strategy for a Dark Side deck; double up on "Heart of the Empire" (which I believe is paired with Coruscant Defense Fleet) and another Coruscant Objective, and you can likely have one, if not both Defense Fleet cards out getting in the way of the Light Side running on your Objectives.  If you got lucky enough to have all 3 Objectives on the table be Coruscant Objectives, you can basically focus all efforts on boosting the Defense Fleet with support so the Light Side can't break through.

That's just a conjecture-based strategy, obviously, but I think it highlights the potential for some decent deck-building design around a core concept; turtle up and run out the clock.  The Dark Side doesn't need to actually attack the Light Side to win, per se, just get that counter across the finish line.  If you're not trying too hard to break through and wreck Light Side Objectives, you can just lock up Coruscant and try and win the Force each turn to speed up the game for you.

Theme-wise, I think that really translates to the universe as well; you would expect that a Rebel incursion into Coruscant at the height of the Empire would be a very difficult undertaking.  As cheap as that tactic sounds, remember that if the Light Side somehow breaks through and wrecks your Objective, you also lose the game immediately, so it balances out all the extreme effort your opponent would need to expend to get there.

There is always posibility to power greep. For example we get Luke in one pod from core set.

Later we can get another pod with different Luke. Either the new Luce or new "extra" cards can make the old Luke or the block obsolete (in power greep).

But it is allso possible that later we will get anoher Pod, that work wery well together with the older Luke, so the old pod would be usefull again (or the new pod will make the newer Luke pod even more better). So the consept does not gurantee anything about the power greep. It is up to the designers to deside what will happen. And like in many games (including lcg) there will become some God combos that cause havok with the game balance. For Example Zigil miner in LOTR lcg that became too powerfull, with many cards that allow you to control the player deck etc. So it will happen allso in SW lcg when there are enough force packs (and so more pods available). It is not a "bad" thing. It is something that any card game that gets expansions is likely to meet.

The another this is force greep that is made in purpose to sell more new sets. That is really bad and I hope that lcg FFG would avoid that, but lcg environment by itself does not protect against that either.