There has always been this divide of players. Always. Actually over the 5 years this game has been around i've drifted from being purely fun (and resentful of the competitive environment) to cut throat competitive as well as fun.

The difference between competitive and fun players tends to be that the former will push the extent of the rules in a tourney or casual environment to test squads for their effectiveness. They'll use the best pieces and practice with them so when a tourney comes about they know where the top lies.
Fun players want to try interesting and unusual combos no matter what the rules set often avoiding the real competitive gimmicks because they don't want to be 'that guy' who plays these cut throat teams.

These days the gap is more noticeable not because there is larger split of players but because the strength of the game
at the top and bottom is widening.

I remember when R2 was the broken piece. We had a tourney where we altered the rules of override because of its strength.
Then it became r2 astromech.
Then thrawn became dominant with auto init.
Double override.
Then JWMs entered.
Boba BH brought R2 back
Now MTBs are problems.

When your playing just for fun where do you start to draw the line as to what is 'fun' and what is too competitive for teh casual game when what was once seen as competitive is now t2 or t3?

Its a difficult distinction because you then get an arbitrary level of what is fun and not depending on the opinion of the player and its due to the fact that the game is becoming quite vast in its scope.

The only way to really decide between players is either make up a set of rules that you can both explore the strongest squads within or you construct squads together.



Its this really true? You play PUHR justice and are constantly trucked by Thrawn+ss, Mara and Han GH with MTB, San hill etc until you come up against a squad you actually beat and then you can say that the last 9 games which weren't even games they were so one sided were worth it?

Wouldn't it be better to define a set of rules that allows squads like these to compete so the game is exciting?



Many players, including competitive players like these formats because the rules are set so you can just go to town coming up with the strongest squads within.




These people exist but i think they are fewer in number than you realize. Some of the strongest game stores (lobo's game store for example) have casual tourneys where the rules are messed around in order to allow people to come up with weird and wacky squads.



I quite agree with this, i think its the same point as the first one I made but i think there is always a way back. You just implement house rules to play a more fun style.

Example - 200 points, no super-stealth, no MT, no mas, max 2 uniques, and at least 15 troopers per side.

Set for an imperial v rebel trooper war right there. I think imperials might have the edge with all their defense but the rebels do have twin, missiles and Bothans.


i agree and disagree with this.
The fun players are just as equally likely to drop the game because its 'stupid' as a competitive gamer is likely to drop the game because the meta is 'stupid'.

The crux of this argument is that there arn't really SWM players who play totally competitively. There is really no prize support for this game so you don't have professional players like magic. You have people who like to win more than others but the game still draws its base from StarWars fans and that is the key point that binds the people who play this game.

I haven't met one person who plays and collects this game that doesn't love star wars. I don't really see this point changing because WotC just doesn't want to invest too much money in something that isn't their sole intellectual property.
They make money off a good product and they are probably happy with that but they can't bank on this game being around for years because LF can take away the game any time they decide the license has run its course.

The game will always be what you make it. WotC do design a competitive sphere of SWM and a lot of people enjoy figuring out what squads that entails but the game has so much depth to it that you can taylor it to have any kind of battle you want, the results just might not be what you thought (imperial slaughter instead of rebel victory).

To get back to the topic of the OP.

This game still feels like starwars to me, even at the highest competitive level.

On SUnday i had General Dodonna instructing Old man Han, Mara and Kyle on how to defeat luke in his snowspeeder, Wat tambor and his troop of droids, and Kota with Cade and R2. It felt like my squad was a post RotJ band.

The main characters pop out at you. When you play a Han it feels like Han, play a leia and she feels and contributes like you imagine she would. Lukes are finally being made like you imagine he should be. R2 is always annoying. Thrawn is the mastermind who controls his army. Boba is the most feared BH in the galaxy.
There aren't many pieces that make to stop and think, 'ew thats not how it should be'.

there are always wierd and wonderful SW alien species all over the board from uggies, kel dors, grans, biths, Chagrins etc that bring the cantina atmosphere to life.

There are more and more pieces coming in from the fringe and EU so it may feel slightly less like the OT but the whole game exudes the star wars feel.

When the strongest figures are always made to be the most recognizable i don't see how you can imagine it being anything else. The game mechanics might change but its always gonna be han, leia, r2, thrawn, vader, boba, aurra or some EU general running the show. Can't get anymore star wars than that.

Fool I agree with you, there are groups. You may say I ONLY play Competitive, but that's not true. I love fun games, and I do them once in a while on Vassal. But I use Vassal more for testing new stuff then anything. In real life I can do any point value, but on Vassal I refuse to do anything about 200. The reason being on Vassal they take FOREVER and the person always "mysteriously" has to go when you're winning. Or the person decided to take a walk around the block. Things come up I understand, but when this happens 9 times out of 10, I had enough.
And when I ask for a "Fun" game and the person agrees, I don't expect to see Boba BH, R2 Astro and such. There is a few people I know as good friends and trust to use a Fun squad and I do the same, but almost any other person I tell them I want to try something. Real life is where I like to have fun squads, variety, and big point games.

Yes.

The gap between competitive and fun players has widened because they've decided to keep spreading unfun gimicks to all factions. SS vs SS, MTB vs MTB and so forth. When some goober Munn and Calixe become focuses of a squad it's just weird.

It's fine this way I guess since they keep expanding the universe, but it dampens my enthusiasm to go drive 1 hour to play at a tourney

I know exactly what you mean.

I like most of the people who post on here grew up on SW and SW gaming. Growing up on (and still playing) Decipher's SWCCG gave me a whole new insight into the SW universe. However with it's life cut short I have turned to SWM as my next step in my SW obession.

The EU that wizards produces for us does an excellent job at giving the characters a SW feel.

I think that the biggest problem is not with the characters we are being given, but competitive gaming in general. At some point people start looking at nuances in game play and start abusing those to win, then it becomes more about the special abilities of characters than the actual theme of the game itself.

So yes I do feel that this game still feels like star wars!!!!

To expand on this point. Its not that people start looking at nuances, its that the designers deliberately instill competitive mechanics each and every set that are undoubtedly stronger that what was there before. As a result the comptitve sphere of squads sharpens to a knife edge and limits the number of squads and pieces that are truely competitive.

Once you understand the top end gimmicks (gatekeepers) you can then design squads that can deal with these mechanincs but you have to first understand the gatekeepers and to do this you must play with them.

For fun players dislike the lack of freedom in their squad choices as its the variety of characters that first attracted them.
To the competitive soul it doesn't matter because when they win its enjoyable even if the game was tedious (i'm like this to a point although I hate walking over players as much as I hate being walked over, i prefer an exciting competitive match).



see, this opportunity i would relish even if i was building to beat only him.

While competitive gaming does contribute to non-traditional strategies, I think most of the over-powered gimmicks in SWM is just due to poor design. Even in Decipher's Star Wars: CCG, where they had thousands more cards to deal with (and hundreds more combinations to keep an eye on) than Wizards has miniatures, you would never see absurd things like R2-D2 flying Boba Fett around. In fact, in SWCCG, the gimmicks and theme decks (i.e. Echo Base Ops decks, Objective decks, Trooper decks, Death Star Blow-up decks) started off as very underpowered and Decipher slowly increased their power by adding new cards... but they were never over-powered.

Also, while on the subject, SWCCG felt a lot more like Star Wars to me than SWM because the power of the cards were more in-line with the reality of the Star Wars Universe. Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Executor, Blizzard 1, etc. were all power cards that were in every competitive deck (of their respective faction). That's not to say you couldn't effectively use other cards in the game... General Veers, Admiral Ozzel, Djas Puhr, Garindan, Kal'falnl C'dros, DS-61-3, etc. were all found regularly in tournament-winning decks (and were actually more useful than they are in SWM). But you would never see complete gimick Lobot/Ugnaught/R2-D2 decks (except the Never Tell me the Odds droid numbers deck which quickly vanished after Decipher saw how cheap it was). And the difference between competitive and fun play in SWCCG was almost negligent (the only thing I can think of is putting a limit on Senses and Alters in your deck).

So I guess my main point is this: Wizards COULD have made fun play competitive. It's been done before. Capturing the essence of Star Wars doesn't need to be at odds with competitive play (as some people have suggested). And making main characters powerful doesn't need to come at the expense of other less known characters even in competitive play (SWCCG has proven that). A smart designer can use all of these things to their benefit. But Wizards either lacked the foresight, desire, or grasp of game balance to do this.

But I'll still buy the mini's for collecting and play with house rules.

i don't see how you can compare a card game to a a mini's game.

one relies on combinations and Draw probability

the other relies on combinations, spatial relationships, movement possibilities and die probablilities.

Nor is your telling of it accurate.... My favorite two decks used to wipe the floor with most opponents without them ever doing anything at all.... I think you played at a venue that wasn't cut throat competitive. BTW, my two tournament deck styles of choice were Watch Your Step and My Kind of Scum. I usually won each game by drains alone against a smart opponent, and against a poor one, I won with one battle if they were dumb enough to fight either deck (in space or on Tatooine respectively).

Minis is actually much much better for the Fun player than the CCG ever was once it introduced Objectives to the game. The difference for minis is, that you don't automatically lose by putting together a squad of your favorite characters (which would happen in the CCG all the time). You can win bad matchups - card games, including the CCG, certain matchups even among competitive decks were auto - loses. And in the CCG, competitive play was never as wide open as it is in minis, because of the spacial elements of maps, and the randomness of dice.

In CCGs - the best decks win (and among mirrors, the best player of the best decks win). In minis, the best player fairs far better than the best squad. Boris can elaborate, but several of the top squads from the 07 champ were played by players at the very bottom of the tournament as well.

True, you can't compare game mechanics (though SWCCG did rely on movement, placement and the die luck factor as well - in the form of destiny draws) but I was comparing them in this way: 1. Can you play main characters competively? 2. Can you play lesser known characters competitively? 3. Are gimmick squads/decks overpowered compared to fun squads/decks?

The purpose of these questions is they make some contribution toward whether the game feels like Star Wars or not. In that comparison (those 3 questions), I feel Decipher did a much better job than Wizards. I'm not comparing if a miniature game is better than a card game in general though.



Actually, I was ranked in the top 100 in the world consistently (in a tournament system that dwarfed SWM, going by sheer number of players as well as support) and played in the venue of Littleton, Colorado playing on a regular basis against the #1 ranked player in the world, Brian Hunter. I would also play in tournaments in Colorado Springs which housed numerous top 100 players. I did quit the game just before Endor came out (which was like the 9th or so expansion), so my experience may be a little different from yours (Objectives weren't common then), but at the highest levels of play, my account of SWCCG is accurate. And when I say my account, I mean: 1. Main characters were in the most powerful decks, 2. Non-main characters (i.e. lesser knowns) were also in the most powerful decks, and 3. Gimmicks were not regional winners. Going by this standard, SWCCG succeeded in making both mains and non-mains competitive while eradicating absurd gimmick decks from competitive play. This is something Wizards has failed to do (going by what people in this thread, as well as many on Wizards boards, are complaining about - I don't pretend to be an expert on competitive SWM play myself).



In a CCG like Star Wars, there's a lot more to playing a deck than you give credit for. The "best deck" doesn't always win, far from it; I've seen good players consistently outplay lesser players using strategy that has nothing to do with carbon-copy deck-building. And apart from that, part of the skill of the player is in creating a good and flexible deck.



I can't comment on Objectives since I quit before Objectives were popular, but your account of SWCCG (specifically the auto-win) is skewed from what I saw and played against the top-rated players in the world. A non-gimmick deck will not lose to any deck automatically. A gimmick deck might. One reason non-main characters were used in decks so often is because flexible decks were necessary. By the way, I'm not saying that mini's doesn't require skill or strategy (I don't play it very competitvely so I couldn't say that)... but I am saying that SWCCG also requires skill. I wasn't comparing the two games in how much strategy they required. I believe both require strategy. However, one game can interweave a Star Wars feel to it (i.e. Darth Vader and other mains are used competitively as well as lesser knowns like Djas Puhr) and leave out gimmicks (i.e. General Dodonna and Ugnaught x10 or R2 Astromech) while the other one seems to have trouble doing that in competitive play.

Also, before someone makes the assumption that I hate mini's and I think it's inferior to SWCCG, I like mini's and I think the mini format can capture Star Wars much better than the card game format. I just wish Wizards would do more to make the fun part of the game align more with the competitive part of the game. Competitive play and fun (in the sense of capturing Star Wars) do not have to be mutually exclusive as some have suggested. A lot of it has to do with how well the game is designed and the objectives when designing the game, as well as the foresight of the designers.

And these are the comparisons that I was taking issue with. Just in the example I raised earlier, I had one "main" character in either of my two decks, and that was Luke, but he was not central to its power at all, just a good pilot. In my dark, the closest I had was Jabba the Hutt. And both relied on what I see you defining as an absurd gimmick. And by the way, both were used in some form as World Championship decks. The gimmick of WYS was rediculous destiny draws and the quickness of getting the pilots on their ships. I would say it was absolutely rediculous when my lone X-wing and its unique pilot would take down a Star Destroyer and cost my opponent an additional 6-10 force loss in a battle. Yeah, thats not rediculous at all....

Then we turn to the MKOS dark deck, which relied on pulling all its locations out in 3 turns, all its low destiny characters as well, and continually recycling 14 completely free, power 4 figures (with a 4 destiny) over and over again. Really was fair for an opponent to drop his Luke, Han, Obi, etc all down in one big turn to fight my lone drainer thinking he would win. Then I would drop down 6-8 free cards, use some additional destiny draws and end up with 50-60 dmg and 3-4 destinies of 4-6 each.

Not gimmicky at all.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the Decipher game as well. But your comparison is not accurate. While you may consider R2- towing Boba around a gimmick (and it is), its also a plausible concept given the story of the two characters. And with this gimmick in particular, I will suggest you look into the list of squads for the 07 Champ. There were about 30 towed Boba's in play. If it was so good, more than 1 would have made the top 8, or at least have been close. The truth of the matter is, having played both games competitively, Minis in general rely less on squad construction than Card games do on deck construction. Its just a fact. And what might not feel like star wars to you, (towed Boba) certainly isn't any less rediculous than Dash Rendar flying the Outrider taking down the Executer all by himself.....

As far as main characters in competitive play, the complaints tend to be from the opposite end. The main characters are almost required to compete. There are lots of exceptions as this is not a game completely based on power, but if anything the complaints are that Boba is too powerful, or that Lord Vader should not have twin, etc. Let me list for your the champ squads from 07 (main character wise and I will include EU fan favorites as the movies are not the sole focus of the game).

1st Boba, R2
2nd Luke and Obi (Landspeeder), Leia, R2, Han
3rd Boba, Aurra (fan favorite)
4th Non-unique swarm with Bossk as the only Unique
5th Han, Leia, R2, and Non-unique Wookiees
6th Boba, Aurra (different Boba than 1-3)
7th Han, Leia, R2, and Non-unique Wookiees
8th Non-unique swarm with Aurra (different Aurra) and R2

What you may notice is that Boba and Han were the most common mains. And that is no mistake - the maps dictated that shooters had the best chances so the two best shooters ruled the day. Only one towed Boba made it (and admittedly he won) but he didn't win because his squad was vastly superior to any of the others, or most of the rest of the field.

Edit - I just read where it said you left before Objectives. That's why our views are so different. Prior to objectives, the game was all about mains and sticks and a few variances. While it might have been star wars to you, it was pretty devoid of variety until objectives came out.

Objectives came out during the last few sets of the game (near the end of its life). I thought the game had a very good run and a ton of variety up to that point. Actually, that was the game's main problem, it was too complex. And Objectives made an already complex game even more complicated.

It's good that the top squads for mini's have some variety (a game with no variety is a total failure). But where's Mace Windu? Yoda? Obi-Wan Kenobi? Jango Fett? We have enough Darth Vaders, why is Lord Vader the only competitive one? Did Wizards really think Jacen Solo would be playable competively when they designed him? Could the designers really be that blind? Or do they just not care? I want to use more of my mini's!! I bought them, why can't I use them to some useful effect? I think the standard of Wizards (as far as individual mini gameplay design) should be much higher. The sculptors are doing a good job, but the gameplay designers I think are slacking when looking at what this game COULD be.

At any given time there was only 1 competitive version of the mains in the CCG. In the minis, there are quite a few.

Han's
Han in Stormtrooper
Han Rogue
Han RH
Han Scoundrel

Vader
Lord Vader
Vader Cots
Vader Unleashed
Vader IC
Vader JH

Luke's
Luke HPU
Luke's Snowspeeder
Luke's Landspeeder
Luke and Yoda

Boba
Boba BH
Boba Merc
Boba MC

Yoda
Yoda of Dagobah
Yoda (Clone Strike)
Luke and Yoda

Leia
Princess Leia
Leia of CC
Leia Senator
Leia RH

I think you get my point. At no time did the CCG ever have that level of competition. And the CCG had what, 360 cards per set to work with, while the Minis Game has 60.

I'm not sure where your experience is coming from or how high your rating has ever been, but this opinion (if it's based on pre-Endor, which I'm assuming it is because you said "at no time...ever") is completely false and I've played with the best to back up my claim (read: #1 rated player and about 5-8 top 100 rateds in a tournament system that included tens of thousands of players). I've been playing SW:CCG since Premiere Limited Edition (the very first set). When did you start playing competitively? How many 1st place Decipher shirts do you have? Sorry if I'm being direct but it's a little annoying when I hear people saying plainly false things if they don't have the experience to back it up.

First of all, the card game didn't have very many versions of mains in the first few years of its life. For example, in the first few years there was only 1 version of Darth Vader (the unlimited promo retail version wasn't in any regular set so no one counted that). When Special Edition came out, that made it two versions. Both were played competitively. There was only 1 version of Han for the first couple years and when Cloud City came out, there were two versions. Both Han Solo and Captain Han Solo were competitive. Chewbacca only had one version for even longer than that. Then beginners got mad that mains were so hard to get, so Decipher allowed players to buy a new version of mains directly through Enhanced packs. And even some of these (Han Solo with Blaster, Leia with Blaster) were on equal footing with previous versions and seen in competitive decks. Toward the end of the game's life (the last 2-3 years of the game), there were other versions that were released and that made it easy to get but I left the tournament scene by then so I can't comment on those accurately. Still, by that time the game had already passed its prime and was on its last leg of life.

And besides, my main point wasn't even about SWCCG. The only reason I commented on that was because I felt inclined to set the record straight that much of your account of SWCCG is either inaccurate or limited to the last years of its life (and you're making statements as if that's how the game has always been). My point of the previous posts was that Wizards could have made SWM where more characters were used competitively and gimmicks could have been less powerful. This isn't a revolutionary statement. The reason I even made it though is because some people here have said that competitive/awkward strategy play will always be at odds with fun play. I'm saying a well-designed game doesn't put these things at odds. And if SWCCG never existed, I still would stand by my statement that a well-designed game would not make competition and fun factor (capturing Star Wars reality) mutually exclusive. It's been done in numerous games. And if this isn't an issue with SWM, then why does this thread even exist? And why do so many people complain about gimmick decks and there being limited variety in squads? Only 1 Boba BH and R2 Astro squad made the top 8, but why were there even 30 others in the tournament? Doesn't that fact say something by itself? Is it really that fun to play against the same squad numerous times? Is it likely that a squad with Corran Horn or Mace Windu or Yoda will beat a purely competitive squad? Forget SWCCG existed and let's get to the point that this game could have been designed better.



And your definition of competitive may be different from mine... but are you serious... Darth Vader CotS over Lord Vader??? Leia Senator as good as Princess Leia? The Han's and Boba's make sense but those are two characters that Wizards did right (at least relative to different versions of the same character).

In certain builds at certain point levels yes. For example, in 100, Vader Cots and Aurra is a solid squad. People have been playing around with Vader Cots at 200 as well quite a bit lately, especially with the new Kel Dor BH.

Leia Senator has always been one of the best Leias. Today she is still competitive at 200 especially with Garm and double attack shooters like Cade BH, Jango BH and Boba Merc.

I'm going to have to agree with Bill here. CotS Vader can be extremely good in certain builds, while Lord Vader is COMPLETELY Nerfed by someone using a character with Force Defence. As for Leia Senator, she is an AMAZING piece for people who only have Double and with Garm as Bill stated. It seems to me aaronksw, that you greatly underestimate a lot of pieces.

That's great if Vader CotS and Leia Senator are actually good competitively. I knew Vader CotS had great defensive capabilities, he just seemed to be very limited in how much damage he could dish out, and his CE seemed risky. For Leia Senator, I must not understand the complexities of the game or combos as much to know why she's so good. Actually, I know I don't have a good grasp of high-level competitive mini's since most of my knowledge on it comes secondhand.

And Jango BH is good? If I knew how to use him, I'd be playing him more often but I can't understand why I would choose him over Boba BH? (except that I like him more)

Try out this combo:

Garm 45
Jango BH 56
Han RH 35
Leia Senator 13
Bossk BH 25
Dodonna 9
Ugo X3 9
Wicket 8

200pts, 10+ activations, and great synergy with Garm, Jango, Bossk and Leia. Han adds accurate shot, and a potencially useful CE especially late in the game. You can change him for Han Rogue if you need to keep the init control fair, but this works pretty well as is.

What's great about Jango is flight, the double and jedi hunter. Sniper has its uses as it works situationally against SS, and to hit some shots your opponent may not see. You also have auto dmg in two flamers and missles when useful.

The trick with Leia and Garm is this. Garm allows you to move and double/triple, etc. So Jango can pop out, moving 3, then double. Then if within 6 of Leia, at the end of his turn, he can move two more. So you give him a sort of mobile. He has a higher dmg potencial against force users than Boba, and with mobile, you won't really have to worry about evade, especially since Dodonna will let you go last in most cases.

With Garm, I like to bring either a Golan Tower (Sniper works past it for no cover shots) or a Rebel Leader and a couple of Mon Cals. If you drop Han RH for ROgue, then trade out Bossk for Chewy RH. He becomes a powerful spotter/bg when you bring the leader in.