New FAQ and Tournament Rules are Available for Star Wars: The Card Game

The 2014 Star Wars™: The Card Game Regional Championship season is almost upon us, and Rebels and Imperials alike are preparing for the next big battle. Will the Rebels find another foothold against the oppressive force of the Empire, or will the Imperials crush the spirits of the Rebel Scum?

Knowledge is power, and there’s no better way to prepare for an upcoming tournament than reading the new Star Wars: The Card Game FAQ (pdf, 18.1 MB) and Tournament Rules (pdf, 8 MB)!

Click on the thumbnails above to download the new FAQ (left) and Tournament Rules (right)

Below are a few words from our developers, Nate and Erik, on the recent changes.

A Word from the Developers

Hello Star Wars: The Card Game players!

With Store Championships wrapping up, we have prepared an FAQ and Tournament Rules update for the start of Regional season.

In the Tournament Rules document, we have revised the “authorized cards” section to clear up some misunderstanding regarding sanctioned sets. The general rule is that a card is legal upon release of the product in which it was printed to the general public. Some large events may need to depart from this general rule for timing or distribution purposes, in which case the legal products for a specific event may be listed individually here.

Additionally, we have made a slight adjustment to the tournament scoring system in response to feedback we have received. Some players have reported confusion over the scoring, unsure as to whether the system was attempting to monitor matches or games, and one point that was brought up repeatedly was that a split match with a tiebreaker (scored 5-4) provided more total points to the two players than a sweep (scored 8-0). The desire is for a tournament environment that rewards players who play for the win in each individual game, and to re-emphasize this we have added a bonus point to the scoring so that any match in which a player wins both games is now scored 9-0.

The purpose of the tiebreaker point in a match where each player wins one game was never to encourage players to consciously play for match wins (as opposed to game wins) round after round. It was created out of an awareness that too many “true draws” would be unsatisfying in the Swiss rounds and that a means of advancing a winner in the case of a split match would be necessary for elimination rounds. This revised scoring system will be used for Regional Championships, and we will continue to collect feedback and explore means of improving the tournament scoring for future events.

In the FAQ, the most far-reaching entry is likely item 3.6, which establishes that an ability cannot be triggered just to pay its cost. This is a reversal of prior rulings that have been made on cards like Tribal Support (Core 0151) and The Killing Cold (Hoth 0190). We feel that this new handling of these situations enforces a more intuitive interpretation of card text and promotes a play environment that is more appropriate to the source material. Costs are intended to be paid in order to do something else; when paying the cost with no intention of doing anything else becomes too commonplace, an important narrative foundation has been eroded.

In addition to the above change, we have clarified what happens to enhancements when the card they are attached to changes control (they remain attached, but do not themselves change control), formalized the fact that a player can only pay costs with cards and game elements under his or her control, established the means for handling how cards under another player’s control leave play, and explained the concepts of “Lasting Effects” and “Triggered Abilities.”

With this update, and the release of the Echoes of the Force expansion cycle, the Regional season for Star Wars: The Card Game is set to commence. May the Force be with you!

Nate French & Erik Dahlman
Fantasy Flight Games

Thanks guys!

Whoever has the most up-to-date information is sure to have the upper hand in the ongoing galactic conflict. Download the FAQ and Tournament Rules now and gain an edge on your next opponent.

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