Star Wars: Destiny Adds a New Spin on the CCG Genre

Star Wars: Destiny, Fantasy Flight Games

<p><em>Star Wars&colon; Destiny<&sol;em> is the latest collectible card game &lpar;CCG&rpar; from <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;fantasyflightgames&period;com&sol;en&sol;products&sol;star-wars-destiny&sol;">Fantasy Flight Games<&sol;a>&comma; and is about to release very soon&period; What you should know is that Fantasy Flight Games handle a number of licensed properties such as <em>Star Wars<&sol;em> and <em>Game of Thrones<&sol;em>&comma; but are not known for CCGs&period; They mostly deal in miniatures such as the X-Wing miniatures game&comma; or what they call Living Card Games&comma; which are atypical card games that eschew the popular blind-pack format of CCGs&period; Instead&comma; Living Card Games give players access to a total card pool&&num;8212&semi;they do not force collectors to rely on lucky packs to get powerful cards&period; So&comma; it has caught the attention of many a gamer&comma; including me&comma; that Fantasy Flight is getting back into CCGs&comma; and with a <em>Star Wars<&sol;em> product&period; I was lucky enough to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;unpluggedgamestore&period;com&sol;collections&sol;star-wars-legion"><strong>visit here<&sol;strong><&sol;a> to have my own <em>Star Wars card games&excl; <&sol;em>I also attended a launch party for the game over the weekend and got to see what the game was all about&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"3gPu9pp2WOM" data-param-t&equals;"351s" title&equals;"Star Wars™ Destiny Gameplay Tutorial"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;3gPu9pp2WOM&amp&semi;t&equals;351s"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;3gPu9pp2WOM&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"Star Wars™ Destiny Gameplay Tutorial"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>An important thing to note is that while a traditional CCG&comma; such as <em>Magic&colon; The Gathering<&sol;em> &lpar;the grandfather of all CCGs&rpar;&comma; uses only the cards with minimal modifiers&comma; dice play a key role in <em>Star Wars&colon; Destiny<&sol;em>&period; Most characters you will use&comma; and a number of upgrades that you get&comma; use large&comma; colorful&comma; 6-sided dice for the key gameplay mechanics&period; Additionally&comma; there are tokens galore that keep track of resources&comma; damage done&comma; and shields for characters&comma; so the game has a very tactile feel to it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I arrived at my local game store&comma; excited to get my hands on some product and to start rolling some dice&period; I picked up my event package&comma; which consisted of a Rey starter deck &lpar;you could have also chosen the dark side option with Kylo Ren&rpar;&comma; a box to hold my cards in&comma; an art print&comma; a promo card featuring Rey&comma; and six more packs&period; The event organizer let us know that we could play our first game with just our starter decks&comma; and then modify it afterward with the cards we got out of our packs&period; I definitely didn&&num;8217&semi;t want to wait until after my first game to open some packs&comma; so I got that out of the way first&period; The first pack that I opened contained Captain Phasma&comma; a legendary card&comma; which was surprising&comma; although not as surprising as getting Poe Dameron a few packs later&period; The chances of getting a legendary are about 1 per every 6 packs&comma; so I was hoping to get just one&semi; I got 2&period; After cracking my packs&comma; I found an opponent and started up a game to finally see it in action&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;115491" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-115491" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-115491" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;11&sol;20074805&sol;swd01&lowbar;cardfan&lowbar;106-1024x942&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Star Wars Destiny&comma; Fantasy Flight Games" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"883" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-115491" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Star Wars Destiny&comma; Fantasy Flight Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Star Wars&colon; Destiny<&sol;em> plays very smoothly&comma; and generally has rapid-fire bursts of players alternating actions&period; As opposed to most CCGs I&&num;8217&semi;ve played&comma; <em>Destiny<&sol;em> does not make you wait for your opponent to go through their turn or merely react to what they are doing&period; On any given turn&comma; the players alternate back and forth taking actions&period; For example&comma; a player may activate one of their characters to roll their dice&comma; they will take a look at what they rolled&comma; and then they will pass this side-turn sequence back to the other player who will roll their dice&period; The play then goes back to the main turn&comma; where the first player decides what to do with the outcome of previous two dice rolls&period; For example&comma; they can choose to damage one of the opponent&&num;8217&semi;s characters&period; The game continues with more dice rolls&comma; card selections&comma; support character additions&&num;8212&semi;like BB-8&&num;8212&semi;until both players pass their actions to begin a new turn&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;115492" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-115492" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-115492 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;11&sol;20075201&sol;15095467&lowbar;10153982841102703&lowbar;7552093907267490111&lowbar;n-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Haul from the event&comma; author's photo" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"960" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-115492" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;My haul from the event&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I managed to play a couple of games&comma; and tweak my decks and try out some new strategies&comma; all the while having great chats with opponents and other people that had showed up to play the game&period; The event was sold out&comma; and our area of the store had plenty of sounds of cheering&comma; groaning&comma; and rolling dice&period; There were epic matches consisting of Kylo Ren and First Order Stormtroopers vs&period; Luke Skywalker and Qui-Gon Jinn&comma; or Jabba the Hutt and General Grievous facing off against Finn and Poe&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The event was a success and the game itself is fantastic to play&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m predicting that it will also have a very healthy competitive scene&comma; as Fantasy Flight has been on the ball with their organized play events&period; I look forward to supporting the game right out of the gate when it releases on December 1 at most local game stores&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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