So let's all have this laid out. Clearly this game is in its infancy and thus we will have to see how the deckbuilding plays out in the long run. I'm a high level agot player ( whatever that means) and I find deckbuilding in star wars far more difficult and complex. Here's an example. Let's say in agot thee is one card that causes my deck a problem. I can include an answer for that card. Let's say in star wars a prevalent card causes my deck issues ie the blaster emplacement. Now the obvious answer is to play tear this ship apart which targets enhancements. However to add two copies you have to retool the entire deck. Now I can see how that might turn some off but it is certainly a lot more difficult than adding in 2 newly made lords to handle some troublesome locations. So far I'm really liking this unique approach to deckbuilding. I'm not saying I like it better than the traditional way but thus far it has certainly been interesting.

Ok, so clearly we have fewer decision points, which each of which makes a bigger impact on the game, but part of this mechanic has deeper game implications.  The baseline idea, is that in a game with loosly fixed resources (minimum 4, max about 7), the cards resource costs **do not perfectly reflect their power**

I will repeat this.  Cards of the same cost are not the same strength, and this is explicitly ballanced via the set mechanic.

Yoda:  

Elite (Remove 1 additional focus durring refresh)

Tactics, [Unit Dmg], [Objective Dmg].

for *each* enhancement on Yoda: [Unit] [Objective]

5 Force Icons.

2 HP

All for the low, low cost, of…

3.

Freaking 3.  Get lucky and you could play that twice on your first turn if he wasn't unique.  Besides.  5 force icons?  It'll destroy any Edge battle you throw him in.

The set mechanic requres 4 other cards in your command deck.  The limit two means 2 yodas and you've got 20% of your deck built.  But this serves a really good role.  If the set mechanic wasn't in place, then, sooner or later, you'd have nothing but Luke/Obi/Yoda vs Vader/Palpatine.  There would be no reason for Stormtroopers or Y-Wings in your deck, because all the big names have a much more bang for your buck.  You can fix this (sort of).  Water him down, but then who wants a sucky Yoda.  Up his mana cost, but then your Objective/Resource system is broken because no one can afford to play him.  I suppose you then up the number of resources per objective, but then that furthers the "little guys suck" angle.

In a game where you can be drawing 6 cards a turn, and you throw half your hand every turn into Edge battles, there is plenty of room for cannon fodder.  Trust me guys, there is a method to all this.  This is a brand new game (with growing pains), and I'd rather see something different than play Magic the Gathering with a Star Wars lisence.  The resources are tight enough that you can always do something, but you can never do everything, and drawing Vader really is exciting.

Btw, tonight Yoda sent a ripple through the force to distract Palpatine (tactics) so a Jedi Loyalist could strike him down while his attention was elsewhere.  It was super cool.  If you haven't played it yet, give it a try (or three… it takes a few games to get comfortable).

I respect them for trying something new, however since you are not going to be relying on traditional multiples of cards (even with 2x a given objective) you are much more likely to suffer from bad draws, particularly in a resource based game.

signoftheserpent said:

You go through far more cards in Star Wars than AGoT. It's very common in AGoT for me not to see all of my cards, in Star Wars it's very common for you to run through most of your deck. 

signoftheserpent said:

I've suffered bad draws in this game FAR less than I ever have in MtG or any other card game I've played. Like the guy above me said, you go through cards so fast that bad draws don't have nearly the impact they do in other games.

Many things to answer:

-By all crap, I was kinda exagerating. Maybe some of them are good or even great, but like I said, it's clear that Han is a power card and the chances that he is paired with cards of the same power level is slim to none.

-The argument that all decks will eventually lead to Han/Leia/Yoda if you remove the restrictions is flawed. This all depend on the game mecanics and how they build the cards. You can look at multiple games and check if the statement is true. Exemple:

1) Star Wars Decipher the original SW game was all about the "Mains". For multiple reasons, but one of the big reason was that non main cards were in general, shit. Especially the first expantions then it got slightly better. Fodders existed also but were mostly non generic. Exemple, Red 6 was the best fodder ship due to it's destiny of 6. Wedge was incredibly strong for a cost 2 character with a destiny of 4 and +3 piloting power, etc. Compared to that you had stormtroopers with destiny of 1, 1 power an 2 forfeit that were mostly unplayable.

2) Then they redid the game with nearly the same mecanics with Wars CCG in 2004 and balanced things differently. Unique cards were still very strong but in general it was better to have 1 unique only + non-unique due to deployment restrictions of uniques. They were strong, but not dominant like they were in sw wars ccg. Generics had strongs stackable effects and the 6 "vader" deck didn't make much sense.

They also avoided mega synergy cards that become just too good when you have them all together, examples would be in the old set how Vader + Tarkin + Vader Light's Saber + sense/alter + cards like I have you now, etc, all stack and synergize on vader.

Basically don't make mega combo like that, make sure the generics cards are strong enough based on their cost, etc, and you can avoid the pitfalls.

In the current game you can compare red 2/red 5 vs xwing. At first glance it seem ok since the x-wing only cost 1, provide at least 1 fighting icon and got 2 lifes versus red 2/5 costing 3 (and in the case of red 5, only having bombardments icons).