On July 14th, the Star Wars Players Committee (PC) made a major announcement that changes Star Wars CGG going forward.
There is going to be Reset on all V cards. A base set (set 0) will consist of 150 total cards – 75 each side – that have the exact copy that they have currently. Set 1 will be released shortly afterwards with cards that were key V cards but needed to be powered down or changed in some way.
There will continue to be a Legacy format which uses all the current V cards and they will be put into a PDF which can still be played in tournaments.
One of the members of the reset team is Kevin Shannon. Shannon did a live podcast talking about the processes of resetting the cards and gave us lots of great information. Shannon mentions a change coming with Defensive Shields, that none of the Decipher cards will be changed and that we are going to have an environment close to that of 2001, just with 150 extra cards that should make for a fun playing environment. These 150 cards will not have any edits from their current V text version and you can use the older slips for these cards. The new V set 1 will consist of good V cards, something like Mace Windu, but powered down, losing something like his immunity to attrition and have it be less than 6 or less instead.
Now I’ve heard people voice opinions on both sides, both for and against the reset. I’ll give you the key reason I’m excited for it – it makes the game simpler. Simple is good, it brings it back to a point where many of us remember or left the game.
I’ve had many emails this past week asking me what I thought and how it is going to change the value on cards. I’ve had questions on if people are selling their collections and leaving and I’ve had people asking if players are coming back.
From the initial reactions I’ve seen, players that don’t normally play with V cards are interested and those that left the game over the past few years are very interested in playing again. Those that appear to be upset with it are those that returned to the game recently and have learned what all the V cards do and are upset that they have to unlearn the cards. There is still a large amount of ‘kitchen table’ players that don’t use V cards and this appears to be the group that would be most willing to try V cards at this point.
As far as sales for the game, they have been up since the announcement. This past weekend was one of the best C1G has ever had. That might also be because the site has been heavily restocked and because of the interest in returning players. There has been a larger increase of new customers to the site.
As far as card pricing goes, I don’t expect there to be much movement in pricing. CategoryOneGames is not going to raise/lower prices on any cards while going through this process unless it is obvious that a card is not going to be re-virtualized and the price needs to drop.
Over the past couple of years, the only cards that have seen an increase in price are Emperor Palpatine, Stone Pile, Slave 1, Chewie Enraged, and Lando System while the rest have either stayed the same or seen a slight decrease.
With the game returning to a 2001 environment with 150 V cards, I expect to see these decks/cards see a bump in play which could eventually lead to an increase in price:
- Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight
- Emperor Palpatine – Hunt Down will be back and if AOBS and ROPS comes back it will make him more vital. We have already seen around a $20 jump in this cards value over the past six months.
- Hunt Down staples – Darth Vader, DLOTS, Mara Jade.
- ISB – Big Blue and drop and drain
- Watch Your Step staples – this includes the regular and Palace Raider versions.
- Watto – Watto, Maul, Maul’s Ship and other Big Ships – this could easily be the best deck for DS and LS might have to play Hyperdrive just to compensate for it being so strong in the environment. Which then leads to the question, what Hyperdrive cards will stay in the reset? This really depends on if the PC keeps The Professor as a Defensive Shield or not. If this is removed, this deck will be very strong, even if Endor Shield isn’t a V card.
- Senate for both sides, look for staples like All Wings Combo to return to 2005 pricing of around $20 and Queen Amidala, Ruler of Naboo to see a bump.
- LS Yavin 4 start with Twix (2/0) sites.
- ROPS – depending on if any helpers stay V’ed or are released in the first few sets.
- P-59 and P-60 should see more play.
- There is Good In Him – this deck should see a big return. I’ve already sold ten of the objective since the PC announced their plans.
- To prevent Hunt Down from being as big a deck in this environment M-HYD “Binary” Droid could stay V’ed and it will continue to hold its value, otherwise it will drop and Hunt Down will make a large comeback.
These cards are already good without V cards and shouldn’t see a decrease in play/price:
- Mara Jade
- Mara Jade the Emperor’s Hand
- Chewie, Enraged – Even with Chewmuning being a popular deck, Chewie Enraged saw just a slight bump in price. This is a card that sits at the $4-5 range and always sells out for me when it comes in, with or without Chewmuning.
These cards could see a slight drop but won’t move much because they are from Coruscant/Endor and the expectation of being V’ed again with new text:
- Master Qui-Gon
- Mace Windu
- AT-ST Cannon
- Destroyer Droids and the setup for Invasion could see slight decrease as V cards help make this deck viable.
These cards rely completely on being V’ed to hold value and without the V text, hold next to no value in the market. The expectation is that they will be re-V’ed in V set 1 with new text that will be like the original but if they aren’t re-V’ed, they will see a drop in price and a return to the back of the binder:
- Stone Pile
- Let The Wookiee Win
- Rebel Leadership
- Imperial Atrocity
- Imperial Propaganda
- Lando System?
- All Too Easy
- Advantage
- Slave 1
- IG-2000
- M-HYD “Binary” Droid
- Just about every card from Jabba’s Palace that saw any increase because of being V’ed – even if it was just a $.05 boost.
Overall, I see this as something great for the game and community. It has gotten a lot of people talking about Star Wars CCG that haven’t even thought about it in years.
Let us know what you think about the Reset. What cards do you see making a comeback or completely going away? Let us know bellow, on the PC message boards, through Facebook or Twitter.
