What Does Rotation Mean for STAR WARS (TM): The Card Game?

In 2014, Fantasy Flight Games’ Living Card Game® (LCG) category is the strongest it has ever been, and its success owes a great deal to Star Wars™: The Card Game and its many fans.

Since we first introduced the LCG model in 2008, we have learned much about how these games function differently than collectible card games, and we have taken many steps to apply the lessons we’ve learned. We have established the standard that our monthly expansion packs offer a complete playset of each new card within them. We have grown our Organized Play programs, introducing Restricted lists when necessary to balance the evolving metagames. And with both Star Wars™: The Card Game and Warhammer 40,000: Conquest, we have discovered how the LCG model permits and encourages new takes on the classic deck-building model.

Since its release in 2012, Star Wars: The Card Game has been a major part of the LCG category’s continued success, and fans of the game have much to which they can still look forward. After the release of two deluxe expansions and two complete cycles of Force Packs, fans can now enjoy the game in standard one-on-one play, as teams of two against two, or by tackling the challenge decks from Balance of the Force. Additionally, we are looking forward to new cards and tactics that will soon be permitted by the upcoming Between the Shadows deluxe expansion and the Force Packs from the Rogue Squadron cycle.

Star Wars™: The Card Game has quickly grown to become FFG’s second largest LCG.

Rotation and Star Wars: The Card Game

Our LCG department hosted an LCG State of the Union and addressed those players who arrived early to our World Championship Weekend. In the address, our LCG team acknowledged the category’s growth and its increased importance to Fantasy Flight Games as a key business category. However, in order to ensure that our LCGs continue to grow and remain healthy, we also looked toward the future. We realized that our LCGs would suffer if we were to let them continue to grow unchecked, so we decided to introduce rotation to our competitive card games.

For more about rotation and why we’re introducing it to our LCGs, see the article, “A New Stage of Growth.”

Our new rotation policy dictates that each game’s standard play environment consists of the game’s Core Set, its deluxe expansions, and its five to seven latest cycles of monthly expansion packs.

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What does this mean for Star Wars: The Card Game?

It means that you still have a long time to enjoy all the cards you own and look forward to adding to your decks. At this point, we are just two cycles into the game’s card pool, and that means that barring any unforeseen delays, we expect to retire the cards from the Hoth Cycle and Echoes of the Force cycle only once the first Force Pack for the game’s eighth cycle arrives sometime in Spring 2018.

Moreover, because all the cards from the game’s Core Set and its deluxe expansions will remain available in standard play, along with all the cards from the Rogue Squadron cycle through the game’s seventh cycle, when the Hoth Cycle and the Echoes of the Force cycle do rotate out of standard play, they’ll represent a small fraction of the entire card pool. At that time, their departure won’t impact long-time veterans too much, but the thinning of the card pool will make the game significantly more attractive to newer players and will help prevent the game from breaking down, easing the potential need for any restrictions or bans of existing cards.

Rotation will eventually become necessary for the continued health of Star Wars: The Card Game, but it’s not coming anytime soon. You’ll have years to enjoy the cards you currently own, as well as those coming down the line, and we believe this is the solution that best ensures you’ll have many more years to enjoy your battles for the fate of the Star Wars galaxy!

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