Talk me into keeping the Star Wars LCG

So I got a huge collection of Star Wars LCG stuff in trade but it's starting to look like I'll never play it. I just can't get anyone interested and my wife flat out refuses to play it since she did some work for it and thigs turned South in a big, bad way.

Anyone still play it? Thoughts? Do I sell this to get the new X-Wing ships?

I'm in the same boat, although I think I could get my wife to play. I'm just too lazy to build a deck. I'd rather just play all in with gigantic decks, but that's probably stupid.

I'd love a deck randomizer app, like the one that exists for Dominion. (One may exist and I'm simply unaware.) I don't give a shit about balance. I'd play the hell out of this thing if the pre-game heavy lifting was done for me.

I actually wanted it because the deckbuilding was so much lighter.

Ditto. I thought the deckbuilding would be simplified enough for me (never played Magic or any other deckbuilder) but I still can't build up the initiative to do it.

i didn't like it, at all. Heres my rant about the game: fortressat.com/blogs-by-members/4618

JJ might give you a good counter view, and the issues I had may not resonate with you.

The deck building is pretty mint. The only downside is you end up having to resort the game out into its packs every time you want to change something. The guy i played with just had you resort after every game and build new decks at the start of every game. This was sort of cool, but also sort of time consuming.

I'm keeping mine. I played the shit out of it when I first picked it up with this guy at work who I game with at lunch. I have the whole first cycle and the first half of the second one. I've got ten decks on the go and I build and save them all on

www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/starwars/star-wars-deckbuilder

which I really like. It shows you a good deal of stats on how your deck is built and allows you to get random hands. Playing around with that site has inspired me to build decks I wouldn't have otherwise, great tool. We got off of it for about year after that initial rush, which I think lasted until the second cycle got started. Then there was like a year or so where we didn't play anymore... well, we started back up a month ago and we're right back into it again. I now plan to finish of this second cycle and I've already started tweaking some of my shit decks.

I absolutely love this game but I do find that the learning curve is unusually high. Some elements of the game aren't clear until after dozens of plays and I keep learning new strategies... that's a good thing but I think it also inhibits people from getting into it and can cause some frustrating moments in the first few games.

I've had some success playing it with a couple of buddies just giving them decks I've made and playing my shittiest ones myself, it kind of works and I think that if I lost my playing partner at work I'd still keep it just for those situations. Because even though it can be pretty tricky to work it all out various ways it can play out there's still some decks that are simpler and entry level play isn't too bad.

I'd recommend at least getting into building some decks with the database and seeing how they work out, if it doesn't grab you once you get into that aspect of the game then there's no point in keeping it. The deck building is pretty easy but it can be tempting to get bogged down with it too. Don't worry so much about every card in a pod, usually there are only one or two you're going for, try to just find a nice balance between characters and action cards and make sure you have enough force icons to win the odd edge battle and some extra resources.. Obviously play to a factions strength... with scum and villainy for example it's important to ensure you have lots of ways to capture cards because they get way more powerful if you can do that regularly.

In other words keep all thoughts broad. It can feel just as difficult as CoC or Magic if you spend too long thinking about what each card will do to your deck... many of them will just be edge battles and you can dump lots of cards each turn. If you can do that then deck building will be fast and hopefully fun. There's too many permutations to do it any other way in my mind.

There are problems people have with the game, intense abstraction and awkward battles... that's all about how you approach it and how imagine it and entirely in your hands but I'm assuming that if you've gone this far you don't have special problems with that aspect and are just looking for a push to start building and playing.

Speaking as a fan of several CCGs, there are two key questions to answer if you are wondering about keeping a CCG:

1. Do you enjoy playing the game?

2. Will anybody play it with you?

If you can't answer yes to both questions, then either let it go or accept that you are a collector and you are keeping the cards for your collection.

Realistically I won't get to play it until my kids get older but it seems like a good game and I love looking at the cards. Feels like when I was kid buying those Topps Star Wars trading cards. They should come with that shitty "bubble gum." Loved that smell.

I really liked it and bought up through the second "big box" expansion. Got a couple of friends to play it, but they weren't buying their own cards. Thus, I was basically slapping together decks and saying "here, play with this."

The problem is that like a lot of CCG-style games, they're really only as good as the people you are playing with, so to speak. If you have a regular gang that all gets into it, everybody buys cards and shows up on game night with a new deck ready to go...then that's the kind of commitment you need for these kinds of games to really work like they are supposed to. If it's just you and somebody that doesnt' really care about the game, doesn't really invest the time in learning the cards...every game is effectively the first game, and CCGs aren't usually in their prime until the 20th game.

But I held on to it...because Star Wars. But Josh, this is how I talked myself into selling. I thought about ALL of the really cool Star Wars stuff I don't have and have successfully lived without. Let alone that I've got several hundreds of dollars worth of X-Wing, Epic Duels, OT Risk, and now the little CIA vs. KGB retheme and Imperial Assault on my shelf.

I also realized that I had gotten really fatigued with keeping up with the monthly packs. I got behind two releases and I was ready to bounce.

You should definitey play it though, it is a good one. Back wnen I had my store, I probably would have forced it on most of my regulars, ran OP and all of that.

CCGs are a young man's game.

I traded some coveted euro game for about $250 worth of Star Wars LCG stuff and have played it once. It's good, but I don't know anyone that plays it. I know people who play Netrunner, Magic, Blood Bowl, and X-Wing. This is the bane of such games and why the CCG bubble burst. As someone who came into gaming through Magic, I appreciate the customisable format is still alive, but even with just a dozen or so CCGs out there, it's too many for an area to support. It's frustrating because the games are fun, but you can't play them properly.

I think Summoner Wars addresses this best in their model. They have deckbuilding rules, but every (most, I think they stopped their reinforcements line) pack they sell is a fully playable army.

Answer: if it isn't getting played and that bugs you, move it along.

I'm trying very, very hard to stick to Conquest's core set. Having 3 Drop Pods is alluring but it opens the door to hell...