Transcript
Speaker: Okay, so where do we live?
Speaker: That's how you're going to start this?
Speaker: We've restarted this podcast two times now, three times now.
Speaker: I'm not restarting it again.
Speaker: It's completely reasonable.
Speaker: We'll fix it in post.
Speaker: We'll fix it in post.
Speaker: Fuck it, we'll do it live!
Speaker: We're lucky this isn't a live podcast.
Speaker: Some of our other contemporaries have live podcasts.
Speaker: Welcome, everyone.
Speaker: I'm going to be the lead on this, lead us through some introductions.
Speaker: This group here is... You might recognize us from Star Wars Destiny.
Speaker: That's most recently where all of us came from.
Speaker: A lot of us are...
Speaker: loosely or more strongly affiliated with the old Artificery Crew.
Speaker: And we'll probably still go with that naming going forward.
Speaker: There might be a sub name like Artificery Unlimited or Unleashed or Somewhat Limited or Artificery We're Ready to Be Heard Again.
Speaker: I think Artificially Limited sounds really good.
Speaker: Artificially Limited?
Speaker: Just completely break both things.
Speaker: But we want to reuse our Artificery Playmat, so we've got to keep that in there.
Speaker: I gotta make sure I get the domain renewed too.
Speaker: I have jerseys.
Speaker: Don't let us laugh.
Speaker: I never got a jersey, so I'm hoping that this is successful enough for a second printing.
Speaker: Otherwise, I'm out.
Speaker: Anyway, let's get started with introductions.
Speaker: I'll go first.
Speaker: My name is Nick Nelson, aka TheGandork.
Speaker: You're probably the most well-known in the community already of everyone here, but hopefully we'll all be
Speaker: well-known in short order.
Speaker: Uh, you'll see me commonly in the community discord.
Speaker: I'm a mob there, uh, as well as I'm the rules guy or self, you know, at this point kind of self-appointed rules guy, but I was a rules guy for star Wars destiny for a long time.
Speaker: Um, I had worked as a technical editor with fantasy flight games on star Wars destiny for the last half of the game cycle, like sets five through the end of the game.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: You know, worked with Jeremy a lot on that.
Speaker: I'm not working with FFG for Star Wars Unlimited, just coming to this as a fan.
Speaker: But I'm still super interested in rules stuff.
Speaker: So you'll come and see me answering rules questions.
Speaker: And, you know, if I give a source is, you know, me or I've checked with someone, it's because I'm friends with people at FFG like Jeremy.
Speaker: And I'm not afraid to ask them questions if they come up with the community to try to get decent answers and they'll talk to me.
Speaker: What's Jeremy's favorite ice cream color flavor?
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: That one.
Speaker: I actually honestly don't know, but knowing his personality, he's probably a vanilla guy.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Can we have that answer by next podcast?
Speaker: I probably could find out, but.
Speaker: I think we need to lead with that.
Speaker: Also, for those of you at home who are watching, if you want to imagine this as a boy band, Nick is the brainy one.
Speaker: I'm the sensitive one.
Speaker: Damn it, I was going to take that.
Speaker: I'm the more sensitive one.
Speaker: Anyway, that's my introduction.
Speaker: I'm going to hand it over to Garrett to give his introduction.
Speaker: I am Garrett, a.k.a.
Speaker: Zeran.
Speaker: I'm Garrett.
Speaker: Look, writing a note card while everyone else writes an essay would be just like my wedding vows.
Speaker: Nailed it.
Speaker: I played Destiny like everyone else here.
Speaker: I still play X-Wing quite a lot.
Speaker: I also did the Artificiary cast for Destiny for a few episodes.
Speaker: So if you recognize my voice, that's why.
Speaker: I have been trying to remember what we called the podcast for so long now.
Speaker: It was the Artificiary cast.
Speaker: That's a very uninspired name.
Speaker: The fact that you don't know that is hilarious and also very true to form.
Speaker: I was the one that did all the editing of the podcast too.
Speaker: So it goes to show.
Speaker: Anyway, Wyatt, introduce yourself.
Speaker: Hi, hello, my name is Wyatt.
Speaker: Kylo's friend is the name I used in Star Wars Destiny.
Speaker: And I use that name because a few of us- He's Kylo's friend.
Speaker: I'm not Kylo's friend.
Speaker: It's because I like Star Wars and I like Brandon Sanderson books and I'm trying to attract those type of friends.
Speaker: It's really that simple.
Speaker: And you know, it worked.
Speaker: I found exactly one person combining both of those things in the community, and it's Sean.
Speaker: And so here we are.
Speaker: And he doesn't like you, so that's weird.
Speaker: I know, I know.
Speaker: Unrequited love is a hell of a thing.
Speaker: So anyway, my name is Wyatt.
Speaker: I used to work on a podcast called The Dice of Failure for Death Star Wars Destiny.
Speaker: That's how I met everyone here.
Speaker: I drove to tournaments, and coincidentally, I only played set five through the end, so for as long as I was in the Star Wars Destiny scene, Nick the Gandork was just rules Jesus to me, because I didn't know any better.
Speaker: I assumed he had been, was, and would be forever, and so here we are.
Speaker: And yeah, I loved Star Wars Destiny.
Speaker: It was the first time I ever fell hard for a card game.
Speaker: It found me right at that point of crippling depression in my life and became the thing I focused all my attention on.
Speaker: And then it left me too.
Speaker: And so I'm still mad, still hurt.
Speaker: I don't particularly like FFG.
Speaker: I'm going to be the sad, bad one.
Speaker: I'll be like the emo one for this band.
Speaker: But yeah, I am reluctantly excited to be here because I do like the most of the people that we'll be having on this podcast.
Speaker: And you know, I also, I like getting in the weeds on power level and cards, being right and having no one recognize it and then taking my ball and going home.
Speaker: So this will be great.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Sean, go ahead.
Speaker: I feel like I've got the tiny note card to everybody else's essay.
Speaker: Yeah, so full disclosure, this is the second time we've done intros.
Speaker: We had to toss out the last ones because Wyatt did such a bad job.
Speaker: I'm tired of taking the blame for my own mistakes.
Speaker: But I would say I kind of like the title of this podcast, Being Reluctantly Excited.
Speaker: I will say that's where my feels are at right now.
Speaker: The first time we did intros, Garrett did a really good job of taking us through some of the FFG games he's played that have gone by the wayside ever since.
Speaker: That's easy to use for every game they've ever made.
Speaker: My first FFG game that I bought was Starcraft, the board game.
Speaker: And I don't know if they were planning on doing anything more.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: I didn't know FFG made that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was a $200 board game.
Speaker: I want to say that was like my third real paycheck out of college was buying that expensive board game.
Speaker: So I love that.
Speaker: And I followed that up with Forbidden Stars, which they like almost immediately lost the license to.
Speaker: So that really started me off on a good trajectory with FFG of playing games that get a decent amount of support and then
Speaker: sometimes fall by the wayside.
Speaker: But I definitely love Destiny.
Speaker: I guess I started Artificery.
Speaker: There's a story in that.
Speaker: We'll wait until episode five for an Artificery naming story.
Speaker: But my thing was Nick was the rules guy.
Speaker: I guess I was kind of the events guy.
Speaker: I liked putting on events.
Speaker: So Artificery did a bunch of online tournaments.
Speaker: It started off as one-off tournaments, so single-day online play.
Speaker: It progressed into league formats, and we got enough clout, I guess, that we actually were able to put on some pretty big events, so a couple of hundred-person-plus tournaments.
Speaker: Regionals.
Speaker: Hey, Nick.
Speaker: Hey, other Nick.
Speaker: And we also hosted the very last Nationals, very last big event that Star Wars Destiny had.
Speaker: And that was a big blast.
Speaker: So doing all those events, we traveled a lot.
Speaker: We needed places to stay.
Speaker: So these guys and others,
Speaker: I think the last thing that we did together at clocked in at 26 people total just became travel companions.
Speaker: So Airbnbs across this beautiful country playing Star Wars Destiny and Battlestar Galactica, the board game, far too late into the night.
Speaker: Some of us slept outside in like 30 degree weather.
Speaker: Are you making that sound like it was you?
Speaker: Because that was me.
Speaker: That was you.
Speaker: Some of us only slept comfortably and remember it fondly.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I've spooned many of other artificially remember and remember it fondly.
Speaker: I know how much each and every one of you snore.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Anyway, we started over again, and now our fifth partner, the fifth member of this boy band.
Speaker: The member of our fruple.
Speaker: The member of fruple.
Speaker: He's the manly one with the beard.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But that is Nick, a.k.a.
Speaker: Taxter.
Speaker: Go ahead and reintroduce yourself, Nick.
Speaker: We call him the Machismo.
Speaker: I'm Nick.
Speaker: Other Nick.
Speaker: Original Nick.
Speaker: Better Nick.
Speaker: Whatever you want to call him.
Speaker: Extra spicy.
Speaker: Extra spicy.
Speaker: I have the long beard, not the wide beard.
Speaker: I changed mine up too.
Speaker: Like you never know.
Speaker: Next week I'll have like button chops.
Speaker: We'll see how it goes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I go by text or I star Wars.
Speaker: Destiny was my first competitive game and I probably only got into it because it's star Wars and I'm really excited to get into unlimited because it's star Wars and, and all the friends I made along the way, which was,
Speaker: pretty great.
Speaker: Did a lot of tournaments.
Speaker: Did pretty well in the tournaments.
Speaker: Everybody knows me as Mr. Second Place because I could never win anything, but did pretty well.
Speaker: Pretty good at getting up to the top, but failing at the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hopefully I don't bomb out too much in this game.
Speaker: If you bomb out, I'll be right there waiting for you at the bottom of the ladder where I belong.
Speaker: You can't blame bad rolls on this one.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: I mean, I still can, but you know.
Speaker: I'll be bringing Destiny dice out and rolling them just to prove a point.
Speaker: Let's see who starts with the initiative.
Speaker: My Greedo died.
Speaker: Here's my box of Greedo dice.
Speaker: That doesn't work?
Speaker: Anyway, that's our introductions.
Speaker: I don't know if we want to like...
Speaker: like talk about whatever goals with this podcast is like, what are we trying to do?
Speaker: Or like, maybe all of us have different goals that they want to do with this podcast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not necessarily like a big version of this, but I think in brief, why are you here?
Speaker: Why am I here?
Speaker: Well, 37 years ago, a man can go first.
Speaker: I raised my hand.
Speaker: Damn it.
Speaker: I'm here to get hyped on the game.
Speaker: So I feel like, uh,
Speaker: I'm looking at least three people that are on the hype train so far.
Speaker: Wyatt, I don't know if you've found it or not.
Speaker: Are you familiar with the caboose?
Speaker: Okay, you're on the hype caboose.
Speaker: My friends who I played a Star Wars CCG with are excited about this Star Wars CCG, and I trust their opinion when it comes to board and card games.
Speaker: So I'm honestly here to have you guys hype me up on this game.
Speaker: I won't say I'm here for you to teach me the rules.
Speaker: I read the rule book the other day and I've played two games of unlimited on felt.
Speaker: So I am, I am ready.
Speaker: I was going to say playing enough board games with you.
Speaker: I know you reading the rules doesn't mean anything.
Speaker: So it wouldn't do any good.
Speaker: Hey, Garrett, why are you here?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Garrett, why are you here?
Speaker: I have the podcast bug right now.
Speaker: I miss it.
Speaker: I used to do a wrestling podcast.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: He doesn't care about the game.
Speaker: He just wanted a podcast.
Speaker: It's like whatever you guys want to talk about.
Speaker: That's partially true, but also I'm very excited for this game.
Speaker: I want to entertain.
Speaker: I want to get people excited, and I want to play a game with friends that I enjoy and talk about it.
Speaker: So I don't have to bother my wife by talking about this game endlessly.
Speaker: Dirty stuff.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: TAC, why are you here?
Speaker: Precursor.
Speaker: I'm not, I'm not really, I'm not really like, I mean, I like podcasting, but I'm not like, you know, for the glory or anything like that.
Speaker: The glory of podcasting.
Speaker: I'm just here to just give my deep, deeply flawed, deep analysis of everything.
Speaker: How many, how many podcasts did you do with Knights of Ren on Destiny?
Speaker: I mean, mostly weekly for like two years, so.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Probably not 100, but probably close to that.
Speaker: It's like 97 more podcasts than I've done.
Speaker: And it shows.
Speaker: It shows.
Speaker: I'm so much more exposed here.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Why am I here?
Speaker: Why is Wyatt here?
Speaker: Because four of his friends told him to be
Speaker: Look, at a certain point, and this is true for everything else that happened the moment FFG canceled this game that I did like and started announcing other games that I wasn't sure about yet.
Speaker: I was worried that the people left behind wouldn't carry the torch of disappointment as well as I could and that their opinions would be wrong.
Speaker: So I'm here to set the record straight.
Speaker: And also because I like these people and I can be really easily convinced to wax poetic about card games.
Speaker: And there's a chance.
Speaker: There's a chance I could be wrong and this game will be fun and worth playing and biggest and I won't be hurt again.
Speaker: You're totally stealing the role that I wanted for myself on this podcast.
Speaker: And now I have to find a new role.
Speaker: So now I'm here.
Speaker: So get Shrek, son.
Speaker: I'm here to be educated.
Speaker: You're here to be salty.
Speaker: All right, fine.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I guess the answer for myself, why am I here?
Speaker: I would, I think I'm pretty safely saying I'm probably the most bought in from anybody else at this point.
Speaker: Probably the most knowledgeable, the most like completely on board at this point.
Speaker: Whatever the boost is, that's what he is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, uh, like my motivation, even when I like, I don't know, I have a long history.
Speaker: I've been playing card games since like I was nine years old and I picked up magic, the gallery, cause like my cousins and like some younger uncles like got into it and they're all bunch of super nerds and started playing with like unlimited.
Speaker: And I remember like getting my first shiv and dragon and like my life has been card games ever, ever since that point, I played the original star Wars CCG, uh,
Speaker: played destiny, like through the whole thing.
Speaker: I got in on tech editing destiny, which was just, I've told that story before in various places, but like at the point that I played destiny, I was already feeling like I was getting kind of old in the, in the car gaming community.
Speaker: And when I started destiny, like I had gone into it with like, I didn't want to try to be a competitive player.
Speaker: I wanted to try to grow the community, like whatever way I could, my local community.
Speaker: And then I like somehow fell into growing the national community and
Speaker: And I see myself taking that same role in Star Wars Unlimited.
Speaker: Like that's what I hope my goal to be.
Speaker: And like a podcast is a good way to one help grow the community.
Speaker: And I help with rules to help grow the community.
Speaker: And I hope to judge events and do all those things.
Speaker: So that's why I'm here.
Speaker: Goddammit, if I can let my salt just go by the wayside for half a second.
Speaker: I also, this is warming the stupid fond memories of my heart because for Destiny in our local scene, like, yeah, this game found me at the right place when I started playing Destiny.
Speaker: And like, I ended up being kind of the chief person to organize within our store scene.
Speaker: Like the store owner was happy to do, like, you know, have people there, but like someone in the community had to push it forward.
Speaker: And I think that's true for everyone on this call.
Speaker: Everyone's talked about how they kind of organized.
Speaker: And so each of us were, you know,
Speaker: people that really loved the last game and wanted to succeed and wanted to find, you know, friendship and community and like a sense of belonging.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: That's probably also why I'm here.
Speaker: I'm here to be salty and sincere.
Speaker: Salty and sincere.
Speaker: I was the local organizer for Destiny, and I am already the local organizer for Unlimited.
Speaker: News today.
Speaker: So, like, we had a stream today.
Speaker: And actually, I want to take a step back before talking about the news today and talk to at least Sean and Wyatt as the naysayers.
Speaker: Have you guys been, like, keeping attention or paying attention to, like,
Speaker: how often FFG has been communicating news about this game, because like that is probably one of the key indicators that this ain't your mama's FFG.
Speaker: We've had weekly slash bi-weekly like streams.
Speaker: We've had like articles.
Speaker: We've had two, three spoilers getting launched every week from FFG social media channels.
Speaker: Does anybody want to comment on that?
Speaker: Sean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Anybody new to this scene who hasn't been following how FFG has done things in the past, what do they usually have?
Speaker: It was really one stream a year.
Speaker: It was a state of play thing.
Speaker: It had a flight in a minute.
Speaker: It was a Gen Con thing, yeah.
Speaker: It was like the flight report or something like that?
Speaker: So they basically had like one stream a year.
Speaker: It did heavy lifting for every single product that they had.
Speaker: And they were managing a lot of products back then.
Speaker: So like your game probably got five minutes of limelight.
Speaker: And then in between that, what, maybe two or three news drops at the FFG site?
Speaker: Um, and that was it.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Maybe a couple articles per set.
Speaker: It was some spoilers from FFG proper.
Speaker: So this, this does seem like a very different FFG than the FFG of, you know, 20, 2018 ish time period.
Speaker: Yeah, we only have one competitive game now.
Speaker: I will say, Wyatt stole the salty roll for me.
Speaker: I'm just the noob roll, apparently.
Speaker: But no, I think that bodes really well.
Speaker: So, I mean, they seem to understand that a little bit more communication is needed at the beginning of a game.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: I think everybody here but Wyatt, because Wyatt sucks.
Speaker: I was there before Destiny was released.
Speaker: And the hype that they were generating around it, they kind of released a game that it almost seemed like they didn't believe in it just because its own reception, I guess, at Gen Con and the pre-orders from stores were lukewarm.
Speaker: So that early game support that they had
Speaker: They just didn't really throw very much into it.
Speaker: But once the game got into the hands of players, it was red hot.
Speaker: Everybody who played Destiny wanted to buy more Destiny product.
Speaker: And there was not Destiny product to be had because FFG did not make it.
Speaker: And that was really rough.
Speaker: I bought like all six boxes in my city.
Speaker: There was six.
Speaker: I bought them all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nobody else could get it.
Speaker: I was buying Destiny from, you know, off the backs of trucks in Canada to, you know, to get my fix and to get it to local people.
Speaker: I'm about so much illicit Destiny, he started becoming the guy who sold you illicit Destiny.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: This is the same, similar to like, like Lurkana launching with product shortages.
Speaker: Lurkana is significantly way more, way bigger than Destiny ever was, I feel like, out of the rib.
Speaker: Well, that's because it has the backing of a Disney product.
Speaker: Wait.
Speaker: Boy, that's also Star Wars.
Speaker: I mean, I do think the collectors for Disney proper, like there's just a lot more of them than even Star Wars.
Speaker: Like I feel like it's different.
Speaker: Like Star Wars has a lot of fans, but Disney fans are even more and crazier.
Speaker: Star Wars fans don't get toys or like, you know, obsessively keep things in boxes like Sean.
Speaker: There's definitely no market there.
Speaker: So that's a good point.
Speaker: So I guess before we end this point, like we were all old crotchety men.
Speaker: that are kind of mad that our game Destiny didn't have the run that we wanted it to.
Speaker: So we've spent years talking about the what ifs.
Speaker: And one of those big what ifs was what if the lead up to the launch was better?
Speaker: What if the launch itself was better?
Speaker: So far, the lead up to this, it's kind of meeting those what if scenarios that we were talking about.
Speaker: So I'm hoping that post-launch, they kind of keep on that trajectory.
Speaker: If they do... Discord is way bigger than I thought it would be for a game that only has 90 cards right now.
Speaker: I mean, it's consistently getting new people every day.
Speaker: I don't know, like 10 a day.
Speaker: Maybe that's a good pace to...
Speaker: I think we're like the 15th podcast for this game.
Speaker: Hell yeah, we're here in the first top 30.
Speaker: That's important.
Speaker: To FFG's strategy on this one, I think.
Speaker: Look, I've played FFG competitive games since I got Netrunner, so I don't want to give them praise if they don't deserve it.
Speaker: But their strategy for this, I think, has been really good so far.
Speaker: And I think it's also kind of showing the community...
Speaker: Probably a lot of Destiny.
Speaker: I know there's, I mean, other podcasts are also former Destiny people.
Speaker: I think a lot of us miss it.
Speaker: And we just want, we want something that can fill that hole.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think to answer that question, because I've, I've, I'm really good at that.
Speaker: No, I'm particularly, you know, versed in the not paying attention to this game.
Speaker: So I think I'm the right person to answer right now.
Speaker: Here's what I know about it.
Speaker: I know that it's a card game that's Star Wars based that doesn't use dice because that's going to keep production costs way better.
Speaker: It's going to go off a booster pack model that there's a lot more variety of rarity in terms of like foil and presentation of cards in boxes than the old one had that Destiny was more limited, like, you know, alternate arts were kind of like event merch or special stuff that wasn't typically in the package.
Speaker: So I'm excited about that.
Speaker: And so there's hopefully a better secondary market because that rarity normally creates chase and that's important for collectors and also for local stores and resale.
Speaker: I also know that it's going to have at least a year's worth of product.
Speaker: And so that's a good thing.
Speaker: Specific card stuff, I really only know the core concepts from playing one or two test games.
Speaker: And I know it kind of keeps the pacing that Destiny had of the I go, you go, we both take an action and then the next person takes an action model, which was part of the flow of the game that made Destiny so good and made you feel like you could respond and interact and participate and that you were having a conversation.
Speaker: and not just a monologue like I'm doing right now.
Speaker: As the salty noob, having to choose cards in your hand to resource, I know you have as few games as I do.
Speaker: Has that been hard?
Speaker: It's so hard.
Speaker: So I will say it's interesting that that concept of like choosing a card to resource comes kind of at the same time that a bunch of other games that I've both seen in development and hitting the market are doing the same thing.
Speaker: So that type of decision making at least isn't super hard because it's kind of a motif right now.
Speaker: But I like it.
Speaker: I like the idea of like, again, energy or mana or whatever we're going to call it.
Speaker: built into part of deck management.
Speaker: So anyway, the core structure seems sound.
Speaker: The product seems sound.
Speaker: I think if I was first encountering this and I had friends say, you really need to play this cool Star Wars card game, and I didn't have the baggage I was bringing in, I'd probably be genuinely excited, which is why I'm reluctantly excited.
Speaker: But I don't know a lot
Speaker: And I'm very intentionally not getting deep into the weeds on card interactions and content until the set drops.
Speaker: I really want to come into it pretty excited with somewhat fresh eyes because that's how I first encountered Destiny.
Speaker: And that sense of discovery, not of a couple cards at a time, but of the whole playground to that point was part of what made it so fun.
Speaker: And so I'm definitely looking forward to experiencing that with this.
Speaker: I know part of saying yes to this podcast means I'll know more.
Speaker: I mean, this is a bad idea.
Speaker: Like if you...
Speaker: I'm going to do a podcast but not know anything about the game.
Speaker: Let me be clear.
Speaker: Disappointing my own goals by being here sits with the sad, bad theme that I'm going for here.
Speaker: So don't worry.
Speaker: I'll be disappointed either way.
Speaker: Well, let's segue into that to when the game releases or pre-releases as it is.
Speaker: And look at the stuff that they talked about today.
Speaker: So I'm going to pop up my browser here.
Speaker: And oh, God, that's way off center.
Speaker: Let me fix that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So first thing that they talked about today and the first thing in their article today is the Spark of Rebellion pre-release box.
Speaker: So this MSRP is at $29.99.
Speaker: And right before the launch of the set, a week before, according to what they've said, you'll be able to take part in a pre-release event.
Speaker: I can't talk all of a sudden.
Speaker: Take a part in a pre-release event at your participating local game store.
Speaker: And this is a picture of the kit that they have for pre-release events.
Speaker: So you show up to the store, you pay your 30 bucks.
Speaker: You get this kit, which has six booster packs, which you're going to use for a sealed event, essentially.
Speaker: You're going to have two promo cards, which they showed it on the stream.
Speaker: It's another version of the Luke Invader that we already got as Gen Con promos.
Speaker: um and then there's the quick start rules you got the damage counters play a deck building guide a deck box um i think that's a sleeve i don't people have been asking like what the the thing that looks like a sleeve with all the characters on it it i think it's a sleeve but it doesn't say a sleeve in in the instructions but it's probably just the back half
Speaker: Oh, yeah, maybe.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I thought it would be cool if it had sleeves, but I have a feeling like for $29.99, like... A lot.
Speaker: Sleeves will not be included.
Speaker: It's a lot for $29.99 already.
Speaker: I'm assuming it's a cardboard deck box.
Speaker: Yeah, I assume it's a cardboard deck.
Speaker: deck box.
Speaker: I know magic has done similar things to this with some of their pre-release events where like they release like a little kit thing instead of, you know, just getting packs earlier, whatever it is.
Speaker: But, um, thoughts on this.
Speaker: Let's go to Garrett.
Speaker: Like, what do you think?
Speaker: Like you show up to your, your event and this is what they have for you for your 30 bucks.
Speaker: How do you feel?
Speaker: I mean, it's good.
Speaker: Like you're, you're playing a sealed event with six packs, um, which is pretty on par with magic.
Speaker: Cause I put a lot of magic to, um,
Speaker: You're getting a deck box, which you always need deck boxes when you play a card game.
Speaker: You get your damage counters.
Speaker: You're getting the rules.
Speaker: So, I mean, I think for $30, $5 a pack, you know, plus extras, it's not bad.
Speaker: Yeah, which we haven't got to the MSRP on the packs, but the MSRP on the pack, spoiler, is $4.99.
Speaker: So your six packs is the $30.
Speaker: It's like they're throwing in all this other stuff for free?
Speaker: Question mark?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, deck boxes, I have a jillion deck boxes because I've played card games for 20 years.
Speaker: So my house is half deck boxes at this point.
Speaker: I only have the ones that Destiny gave you for free, mostly.
Speaker: I only play with ultimate guard deck boxes.
Speaker: They did not sponsor this podcast.
Speaker: But if you want to...
Speaker: Move over, Ultimate Guard, because it's time to get on that Game Genics.
Speaker: That Game Genics stuff is so good.
Speaker: I have an article to talk about that coming up, too.
Speaker: Anybody else have any thoughts on the pre-release stuff?
Speaker: I'm really hyped for that.
Speaker: This is probably one of the best...
Speaker: pre-release kits i've seen for any game particularly a new game like they've said like they need people to be able to show up that have nothing and be able to participate and you can do that because you got your damage counters you got a deck box you got your instructions you got everything you need so i think risk wise it's you can they can store can buy a bunch of these because like at the end of the day if you don't use them all you can just sell the rest at the same price as booster box yeah there's still booster packs in them
Speaker: And it's a low risk if you want to just try it.
Speaker: Because like 30 bucks, if you're a card game player, 30 bucks is nothing.
Speaker: Like you're dropping that regularly.
Speaker: Yeah, my wife and I went Christmas shopping years and years ago.
Speaker: And we went to a board game store.
Speaker: I think it was Cloud Cap Games in Selwood.
Speaker: Great board game store if you're in Portland.
Speaker: And on that day, that was the Destiny pre-release event.
Speaker: And the manager running that store that day, he was joking about it, but he would just walk up to you and shake a Destiny starter at you and be like, join the pre-release.
Speaker: And I was just like, dude, I'm just Christmas shopping.
Speaker: I'm here to buy Wingspan or something for in-laws.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Little did Sean help.
Speaker: And we left that board game store.
Speaker: And on the drive back, I looked over at my wife and was like, would you mind if I dropped you off at home?
Speaker: Because I'm going to go back to that pre-release event.
Speaker: So yeah, having a compelling product for pre-release, it's great.
Speaker: It's going to get people excited to go.
Speaker: And if it's good enough, it'll get people to play that didn't even know that that was happening on the day that they found out about it.
Speaker: Because that's what happened to me.
Speaker: Yeah, I think the shield in this will be bad though.
Speaker: Yeah, I was going to say the Destiny of Destiny pre-release with the starter decks, that's like the worst way to experience.
Speaker: They have starter decks.
Speaker: They're not even real decks.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: I think you got to choose a deck and you got like three or six boosters was the Destiny pre-release.
Speaker: So like it was okay.
Speaker: There's still no actual, what's it called?
Speaker: Sealed or draft or anything like that.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Destiny's biggest problem was always sealed events because...
Speaker: they just weren't that fun.
Speaker: I loved 95% of Destiny, and that 5% was sealed.
Speaker: I love sealed events, actually.
Speaker: I feel like everybody in my Destiny community wanted to play Draft, and we tried.
Speaker: Some people I still think liked it, and I don't know how, because it just wasn't that great.
Speaker: I did so many Drafts.
Speaker: I was really good at it.
Speaker: You never knew how to embrace the jank like the good players.
Speaker: I'll say for this product,
Speaker: there's one thing I really like about it and one thing I'm on the fence about.
Speaker: The thing I like is pure aesthetic.
Speaker: I miss Destiny's black and red phase.
Speaker: I showed up by the time it was all white boxes.
Speaker: And so that's my favorite color scheme.
Speaker: And I'm immediately hyped by the look of these boxes.
Speaker: So again, if you take away all my baggage with FFG and I look at this product, it's Star Wars and it's pretty.
Speaker: And I've
Speaker: fucking want it.
Speaker: Which you're supposed to do.
Speaker: You're supposed to be wanting to play the game by its cover and this cover does in fact work for me.
Speaker: The thing I'm a little on the fence about, generally speaking, I think that a promo set should be a bit of a loss leader.
Speaker: And so right now, like the quick start rules, the damage counters, the deck building guide, the deck box, I can't decide how much that actually is value over just buying packs.
Speaker: I know it's you've got utility, but like I ended up with a lot of extra like draft kits when I play Destiny because I also like to host those at home.
Speaker: And so that was a product that actually I chased to have extra copies to host and do more with.
Speaker: When I look at this, its cost isn't much better than just buying six packs.
Speaker: And I can't tell if its content is really that good because if we get into this game, it's all end up with custom tokens anyway.
Speaker: So I think it's good, but I almost wish and think the FFG probably could have made it a little bit cheaper and more attractive to lure people in.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: Is this a pre-release only product?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it says pre-release on the box.
Speaker: Yes, it's the pre-release thing.
Speaker: It's not something you bring with you from there on.
Speaker: It's like you open your six packs, you play one single sealed event with it, and then... That makes sense.
Speaker: I do like that for local stores, you guys are exactly right.
Speaker: There's no real, like, lost cost for the store if they get to have those packs.
Speaker: Yeah, if the store buys too many, they're not out with some really crappy product.
Speaker: They still have six packs in them for $30.
Speaker: I mean, you just open them up and put the packs on sale.
Speaker: Yeah, open it up for the packs on sale.
Speaker: Set the stuff aside.
Speaker: If like, hey, Joe Schmo showed up for a draft and he doesn't have tokens or rules.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: Like, you can still do that kind of thing.
Speaker: If there's not one guaranteed legendary in every pack, I'm out.
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: I don't think there's a guarantee of any amount of legendaries in any box either.
Speaker: Like, there wasn't Destiny, so, like, I don't...
Speaker: think we have not that we know of yet i don't know they've gone that far and like what they haven't told us maybe maybe there is some level of like we know the odds of the rough odds of pulling them but i don't think the rough odds pretty similar to magic yeah they are exactly this pretty damn if it's similar to magic then there should be at least some predictability for certain like thresholds you should see in a box or a crate which is good
Speaker: Like we'll probably see five or so legendaries a box.
Speaker: Like that's my guess.
Speaker: We're going to move on.
Speaker: We'll get to the boxes in a sec, but let's talk about the two player starter to begin with.
Speaker: They introduced us to the two player starter, I think on the stream a couple weeks ago, if I remember correctly, or maybe it was one a couple weeks before that where they actually sat and played with the starters.
Speaker: But this is the two player Sparker Rebellion starter.
Speaker: MSRP we found out today was $34.99, which personally I think is a little high considering it's all cards and tokens that people are already going to have if they did a pre-release.
Speaker: But yeah, you get good things about this is that it comes with two pre-built 50-card decks that are going to be completely legal, tournament legal right out of the gate, which is something Destiny didn't do.
Speaker: You get the quick start rules, two paper play mats, two cardboard foldable deck boxes,
Speaker: This is obviously aimed at new players.
Speaker: Let's go with Sean.
Speaker: What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker: It makes me... So Destiny had this black and red thing that Wyatt was talking about to denote the first cycle of Destiny.
Speaker: Destiny did not get a two-player starter pack until its second or third year.
Speaker: It was right at the start of the year, but yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so at least from a release perspective, it's really good to see them putting this out.
Speaker: I know Magic trades a lot on its 1v1 product that they sell.
Speaker: I bought a lot of versus decks over the years with Magic.
Speaker: It's a really fun way to just dip your toes into a thing, play a little bit of Magic, and not go whole hog into it.
Speaker: So I'm excited to see this from that perspective.
Speaker: Destiny, like the, these, these, these decks are different though too, right?
Speaker: Like these are, these are 50 card decks.
Speaker: Like what, what, what is the tournament?
Speaker: These are a hundred percent tournament legal.
Speaker: You can take them and play them in a tournament right out of the box.
Speaker: So that was something that until like destiny never had a pre-made product that was tournament legal.
Speaker: You know, tournament viable is quite,
Speaker: No, Destiny never came out with a full 30-card deck.
Speaker: It was always like 20-card games.
Speaker: Or they might have been close.
Speaker: You now have to get two two-player starters to make them.
Speaker: Well, yeah, not only that.
Speaker: So the Destiny starters were $15 each.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you got two of them for $30, but then you'd still need two more of them to have the full set.
Speaker: And then you get a bunch of extra crap you didn't necessarily want.
Speaker: So like...
Speaker: I mean, it's just like for this, you literally get everything you need for 35.
Speaker: I'm remembering the flaws.
Speaker: The veneer is washing off, and maybe no game is perfect, and this will be okay.
Speaker: Well, I think, so Nick, I think you were in the same spot I was in a lot.
Speaker: You're running a local Destiny tournament.
Speaker: Some person walks in off the street.
Speaker: They're really interested.
Speaker: They're ready to jump in.
Speaker: And they ask, what should they buy?
Speaker: And there's nothing on the shelf for you to point at to say like, oh dude, just go grab that thing.
Speaker: It's not the best deck in the world, but like you can play it here.
Speaker: You could not do that with destiny at all.
Speaker: But this is already a product where I can point at it and be like, you can buy this and choose Luke or Vader and just like jump in with us and, you know, play and we'll have, we'll have good fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the only downside is that $35 price tag is still
Speaker: Maybe a lot.
Speaker: Like there's, there's no single.
Speaker: It would have been 35 years ago.
Speaker: That's inflation, man.
Speaker: 30 to 30.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Like that's the hard part.
Speaker: So like same scenario, someone comes into your store, like magic has at least single decks like that you can buy.
Speaker: This is, I'm pointing out like you have to buy this two player starter, this 35.
Speaker: um to be able to jump in and like other people like oh people don't have extra decks to borrow like sometimes people don't have extra decks to borrow or people are already borrowing the extra decks but i don't know i think that's the only downside i i was hoping this would come in closer to 30 i don't i'm not super upset that it's 35 i think it's a product that is going to make the collectors that are diving in more happy than maybe the more casual player i don't know like it's
Speaker: like from the perspective of, I know I'm going whole hog into this game.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Unlike destiny, where I had to buy four $15 starters, I can buy one for 35.
Speaker: Uh, by the way, I didn't mention all the starter only cards come in a full play set.
Speaker: So you don't have to buy more than one.
Speaker: One of these will have, he's a play set.
Speaker: Let's do one of three of three.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So this game, a play set is three copies of a card.
Speaker: So there are starter only cards, but it comes with three copies of all the cards that are starter only.
Speaker: So a deck may consist of like 16 three-ofs and then one two-of.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: You're good at math.
Speaker: Nailed it.
Speaker: I guess I just now thought of the issue where if you're trying to field multiple decks, it did always kind of feel good to have double play sets of things just to be able to not have to switch things up.
Speaker: As someone who bought a lot of starter decks, yes, that's true.
Speaker: I mean, it's still cheaper than destiny.
Speaker: Cause you can buy two and get two play sets where destiny.
Speaker: If you wanted to play sets, you were buying 15 bucks.
Speaker: That's about right.
Speaker: So, so one thing I'll say to your source throws, $120 in destiny is still cheaper than the 70 here or still more expensive.
Speaker: This is cheaper at 70.
Speaker: It's still cheaper to have collected overall.
Speaker: I think that this is going to be, but we'll see.
Speaker: Looking at this, I do love that there are 10 full play sets, so that's 30 cards out of the 100 that are unique to this product.
Speaker: 30 cards that are unique to this product, if they're playable and worth having in decks, is actually not a bad ratio for something like this and makes this a product that's, like, if it's actually good to teach and it brings me cards I can't get somewhere else that are worth playing, this is a reasonable price point for a product that will be used to both play casually and potentially competitively.
Speaker: I guess I'll say if somebody walks in off the street and is unwilling to spend $35 to jump into a CCG They were never playing the CCG I'm not here to shill for the absolute money pit that CCGs can turn into but they do cost a little bit of money to jump into
Speaker: And I mean, I don't know if going forward, we're going to have a two player starter like this, you know, later, it might be single decks like magic does now.
Speaker: But I think it's the right call for the first set.
Speaker: Because you get two decks.
Speaker: So you try to recruit someone else to play with you.
Speaker: I would hope this works in that there's an annual release of two decks with new concepts each time.
Speaker: From the local game store owner perspective, they love having this two-player product instead of single decks.
Speaker: Because the single deck problem runs into like, everybody wants Vader, but not as many people want Luke.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden there's 30 Lukes on the shelf and no Vaders.
Speaker: And they just eat the cost of that product.
Speaker: That can't happen here.
Speaker: It's like, you want Vader?
Speaker: You have to buy Luke.
Speaker: You get them both.
Speaker: Any like multiple sets of things.
Speaker: It's just really hard to probably inventory what's the right ratio.
Speaker: But if there's only the one set of double starters for the entire thing, then.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nothing to worry.
Speaker: Like magic runs into that issue all the time with like some of the commander decks and stuff like.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Still out of one and they'll have other crappy ones.
Speaker: They can't move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It seems like they produce the exact same amount of all of their starters, but then the community figures out which one's the best and the other ones linger on the shelf.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I'm trying to think about value of packs and CCD.
Speaker: And I'm remembering that I think back when I bought Destiny product, I didn't have a mortgage.
Speaker: And so all of my perspective on this is probably completely out of whack because I have a lot of Destiny product because I didn't have a mortgage.
Speaker: Destiny was $3 a pack?
Speaker: I didn't have a mortgage or a child.
Speaker: Yeah, $3 a pack.
Speaker: But you got dice, so now we pay more and we don't get dice.
Speaker: And it was only five cards.
Speaker: Yeah, Destiny was $3, but only five cards and a die.
Speaker: Was it only five cards?
Speaker: Is that real?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then Destiny...
Speaker: Destiny did have a problem is that there were no chase cards in the pack, which I think made the singles market a lot more expensive for the power cards because there was like no chases to bring the box values or, you know, bring the singles values down for more common things.
Speaker: One last mention before we move off the two player starter that I also think might have been a misstep.
Speaker: I think they should have put at least a booster pack in there if they could.
Speaker: like lorkana did that with their starter decks and i think it's like that's the tie-in like if you if they're gonna put this in like big box like target or whatever which they probably will um like lorkana's in target uh and you know malmart or wherever like you need you need you need to give the whoever buys this that hit you know give them the booster pack here's your first taste for free uh they don't have that i think that's that's a miss too i would have been fine if
Speaker: When packaging up a product of cocaine, you want to have a little side hit of fentanyl in there just to get them on the good stuff.
Speaker: This is marketing and manipulation 101.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: If it was 35 with a booster pack, I'm all on board.
Speaker: That would be amazing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would take that.
Speaker: Maybe they'll do it next time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm also X because like, man, like then you got to fight over like, this is probably like way too in the weeds about like how product sales go, but not, not everything from the, uh, uh, the, the, the middleman perspective.
Speaker: I think Asmodee is like direct now, but like the Alliance games and whatnot out there,
Speaker: Not every product has the exact same difference between like what a game store pays for it and when it gets sold to the customer.
Speaker: So I'm kind of curious, like if this starter deck is going to have the same margin as just the booster packs or if it's going to be better or worse.
Speaker: A lot of times what we saw with Destiny was like, you would get these buy six of the two player deck and we'll kick in this other thing on top of it, or we will kick in a bigger discount.
Speaker: And that's coming from like, I kind of ran a game store for Destiny.
Speaker: So I got to see like some of these weird things behind the scenes.
Speaker: Basically just try to get product behind the counter so that when people walk in, they can see it to buy it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I really do hope that they support local stores in the way they make their product this time stronger.
Speaker: And it looks like they are again, having more chase cards, like things that support the secondary market, not including dice so that you're raising the cost of all shipping for every secondary, you know, player that wants to participate so much of the lifeblood of a game.
Speaker: And it's, you know, stores hosting events is, is getting people that want to buy it and also building that secondary market.
Speaker: And like, you know,
Speaker: being a partner with the store owner and this product already looks like it's ready to be a better partner.
Speaker: So that's exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Moving on the, the spark of rebellion booster packs.
Speaker: We saw the box art a month ago or so.
Speaker: But today we found out that there'd been a lot of speculation.
Speaker: Was it going to be $4 a pack?
Speaker: Was it going to be $6 pack?
Speaker: Like Larkana, they came in right where I thought they would at 499 a pack, which,
Speaker: you know with inflation everything i thought that was perfectly fair um they are bigger packs i think than any of the other games on the market at 16 i don't even think magic is 16 right now even with all the even if you count for like lands and shit yeah i think magic is 14 or 15 so i think it's a pack over met or a card over magic magic is still at four dollars a pack though but they get the benefit of what's that magic's 15.
Speaker: Yeah, they're 15, but yeah, they're still at $3.99 a pack, which I think Magic just gets a little... They're the big dog, so they can undersell their product, I think, to some extent, because they sell so much of it.
Speaker: But I think $4.99 seemed reasonable.
Speaker: This puts a booster box MSRP at $119.
Speaker: Just call it $120, $119.76.
Speaker: Tack, thoughts on booster packs?
Speaker: I'll take the analysis from like, uh, I had a license to sell FFG product for years.
Speaker: Um, the, the, the actual price of these, if, uh, FFG hasn't changed map policies, which is minimum advertised price.
Speaker: Um, these would be 399 packs.
Speaker: If stores want to do that race to the bottom.
Speaker: Oh, like the 20% discount thing.
Speaker: It's 20%.
Speaker: So while FFG might say $4.99, your local game store can say $3.99.
Speaker: They cannot say anything less than that.
Speaker: That is the minimum that they can advertise their pricing.
Speaker: So these are somewhere between $3.99 and $4.99 packs, just depending on how... That means like miniatures market or...
Speaker: All the big online ones are probably going to be offering them closer to that usually.
Speaker: Unless there's a shortage.
Speaker: Fingers crossed.
Speaker: Unless there's a shortage.
Speaker: I really hope there's not a shortage.
Speaker: And I don't know how you do that.
Speaker: Like, I want this marketing for this game to be good.
Speaker: I want this game to launch.
Speaker: I want it to get big.
Speaker: But I also, like, don't want it to be short either.
Speaker: I cannot imagine they haven't been watching Lorkana and be like, oh, no, we cannot have a shortage.
Speaker: They experienced it firsthand with Destiny.
Speaker: They're seeing it with Lorkana.
Speaker: They have there is also hands on deck.
Speaker: Like, I feel like at this point, I don't I feel like almost all of FSG's resources are going to this game.
Speaker: I mean, maybe that's not true.
Speaker: It feels like most of them are.
Speaker: They don't have many other games to support.
Speaker: So it's just I know some other relatively recent CCGs had that initial shortage thing that like really hurt, like flesh and blood had a huge like first and second set shortage that
Speaker: really helped like her adoption of the game.
Speaker: I'd probably be playing, uh, flesh and blood if it didn't cost an arm and a leg to get to the game early on.
Speaker: Um, did they have a shortage issue with key forge?
Speaker: Like it's sold out.
Speaker: Like that was like, people were trying to fish for packs too.
Speaker: Like people were buying way too much.
Speaker: I never, I know that.
Speaker: I know that was like a whale sale game, but I know they, I know they ran out of key forge at like,
Speaker: rare pretty early on because of the nature of the game somebody's gonna have a deck you could like literally hence have someone hand you their shitter deck like i don't know like if you want to play the game it like it was doable quick quick value question i want to throw out weird for so so destiny remind me was it five cards including the dice card or five cards plus a card for six including five including and there were 36 packs in a box uh-huh
Speaker: Okay, so you used to get 180 cards and 36 dice in a Destiny booster box, and that was, what, 90 MSRP?
Speaker: And so... 104 or 114 MSRP?
Speaker: I mean, it was 3 times 36.
Speaker: Come on, math boy.
Speaker: No, I was 90 at our store.
Speaker: That's what I remember.
Speaker: So anyway, that means that the new one, you're going to get 384 cards for $120 plus tax, which is pretty good, actually.
Speaker: I mean, that's 200 more per booster box than you got from Destiny.
Speaker: So that's actually a much better acquisition rate for those that are looking to just get product and start sorting it and figuring out what they have.
Speaker: So yeah, map this one out for me.
Speaker: My favorite way ever since I could afford a full box of magic back when I was combining lawn mowing money with my cousin when we were like 14,
Speaker: was to buy a box of magic and then for a weekend put packs put decks together from that box and only that box and play games because you could get it was a whole like two or three weekends worth of just entertainment out of that before they became part of like the rest of the collection i would love to see the ability just playing draft like i'm gonna like buy it i'll buy one box maybe maybe a little bit more but i want to buy like one box to start at least
Speaker: Maybe a whole case.
Speaker: If I go crazy.
Speaker: Four cases tops.
Speaker: Two cases.
Speaker: Really committing.
Speaker: One pallet.
Speaker: Speaking of other things that local game starters love, and Sean will probably love, I see a case of these being roughly the same size as a single booster box of Destiny.
Speaker: which this matters to stores because they only have so much space to keep product.
Speaker: I mean, it's... Destiny boxes were huge.
Speaker: And the white ones were smaller.
Speaker: They used to be bigger when they started with the first stuff.
Speaker: No, it's the other way around.
Speaker: The black ones were smaller at the very beginning because they were so small, the product stuffed in bent.
Speaker: So you'd end up opening bent cards for your brand new product.
Speaker: So again, I can't stress...
Speaker: People are going to pop packs of this and the card tournament gets pristine.
Speaker: And that's a feeling that you didn't get early in Destiny.
Speaker: So congrats.
Speaker: Yeah, the likelihood your local game store's stock room is probably slightly bigger than the bathroom that they have.
Speaker: So if you don't see it out on the floor,
Speaker: They've got about a bathroom's worth of space to stock it on there.
Speaker: Destiny took up so much shelf space.
Speaker: They took up so much shelf space.
Speaker: You could pack in thousands of more dollars of magic in the shelf space that a similar amount of Destiny would take up.
Speaker: Like if you want to be like, can you buy this game and put it on your shelves?
Speaker: Like it's a selling point.
Speaker: Whether you're like, I have these giant destiny boxes or, Oh, you only need like this much space on your shelf to like have our game there.
Speaker: So people can see it to buy it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And like I said before, when the distributors and even the direct from the publisher, they're trying to sell stuff to you as a board game store, they're usually doing these promotional items of buy 10, get this thing.
Speaker: And we haven't gotten there yet, but buy six booster boxes of Star Wars Unlimited, and we will kick in a free organized play kit.
Speaker: And like free is kind of big when it comes to a local game store when those organized play kits can cost like $20 to $40.
Speaker: That's $20 or $40 that they're basically buying for free so that their customers have something to come and enjoy and play.
Speaker: We should talk about organized play kit before we ramp up.
Speaker: Oh yeah, we definitely got to talk about that.
Speaker: Yeah, well, we'll talk about the casual play kit.
Speaker: So they announced the various... We don't know the cost, right, to the store?
Speaker: We do not know the cost.
Speaker: They did not share the cost for any of the OP stuff.
Speaker: So we don't know what the cost is to the store.
Speaker: But they talked about the casual play kit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They've talked about what the... They expect the weekly play to be participation-based, not tournament-based.
Speaker: If you show up and build decks, play with your friends, hang out and talk about the game, you can get one of these packs, supposedly, is how they're marketing this to the stores.
Speaker: Um, the, it looks almost like a booster box, but these are three card packs, uh, for weekly play boosters.
Speaker: Uh, I believe they spoiled the day that there's 20 different promo cards in the spark of rebellion ones.
Speaker: And each pack contains, uh, one rare and two commons.
Speaker: And that rarity is based off of like the promos, not like it doesn't correspond to the rarity in the set.
Speaker: So like, for example, they shared a Sabine Ren, um,
Speaker: uh one of the promos from the packs and in the pack she's a rare but she's only an uncommon in the set but she's one of the rare promos very surprised if there were legendaries though in these just because like being able to do one of these through organy i don't know organized play would be pretty crazy there's got to be some
Speaker: Yeah, I think if they like pick one, there's one really cool one.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: They might not actually know.
Speaker: I kind of agree with you.
Speaker: They might not touch legendaries because I think that would like crater the price of legendaries.
Speaker: And that's going to be like your top tier.
Speaker: Like you're maybe fine if you crater a rare, but I don't think you want to crater legendaries.
Speaker: They did say that in the kind of interesting thing to me that these packs do contain some of the starter only promos.
Speaker: So theoretically, you could get starter-only promo playsets without actually having to buy a starter deck.
Speaker: Moving on to the other store support, they have the store showdown kits, which this is your more competitively slanted thing where it supports a 32-player store showdown event.
Speaker: I don't remember if they... Oh, wait, no, they did show the takedown promo.
Speaker: This was the takedown promo.
Speaker: So it will have a promo that everyone gets.
Speaker: I'm not sure...
Speaker: I think it comes with booster packs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't remember exactly what all the parts were from this, but I know they had shown the takedown and the store showdown.
Speaker: This was the alternate art takedown, which is also a new spoiler for today, but we don't need to necessarily talk about that for now.
Speaker: So just talking at least on, you know, this is the OP support.
Speaker: I expect my one worry personally is that I hope they have some sort of store program.
Speaker: That actually limits the OP kits a little bit because one of the issues that destiny had, um, and I was fine with it cause my store supported it, but like the destiny kits, you just bought them and like, yeah, my store would order like,
Speaker: 40, not, not 40, they'd order like 20 of each, like enough that everybody that walked in would get every single promo, even the rare ones in play sets.
Speaker: And then they still had a box left over of like all of them.
Speaker: They were basically worthless.
Speaker: It didn't feel like you were getting anything of any value.
Speaker: It was just kind of, it was cool for collectors to collect, but I think,
Speaker: I would prefer if like you got one of these three card boosters and if you got one of the rares, you could like trade it for something like, I mean, I had the total opposite experience.
Speaker: More than once a week.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had the total opposite experience.
Speaker: I think the game stores I started playing destiny at and like probably within the, I don't,
Speaker: By three months into Destiny, I was running my local events.
Speaker: So that first OP kit, every store may be ordered two.
Speaker: So the big chase thing in the OP kits, if you got first place, you would get a token set.
Speaker: And every OP kit, I think for Destiny was made for two events, two 16 person events, I think is what it was.
Speaker: So I guess 32 total.
Speaker: So there'd be two of those tokens in there.
Speaker: And I, were the first tokens resources?
Speaker: Um, it went through a few different resources, damage,
Speaker: I think the first ones were resources and like they were flip resources and like everybody wanted them and like they're in Portland.
Speaker: There was probably like six sets of them to fight over.
Speaker: Um, so those were big, like nerd bragging rights and we never, yeah, let the nerds fight.
Speaker: So I, you know, when I over, when I took over, I think the biggest order I ever did for an OP kit was, uh, maybe four, like with a week or with legacies, I probably ordered four.
Speaker: So I was like artificially limiting the amount of OP that was available in the region.
Speaker: Not on purpose.
Speaker: Not on purpose.
Speaker: I just was afraid of asking the board game store to order too much.
Speaker: I didn't want to waste their money.
Speaker: If I remember, the kits were like five bucks in Destiny, most of them.
Speaker: They were five to ten bucks each.
Speaker: They went fast.
Speaker: Like literally, like, yeah.
Speaker: This kit is meant for eight people for eight weeks.
Speaker: Like, you get one pack a week for going, and each pack...
Speaker: Each one would be, so essentially eight people for eight weeks.
Speaker: So the longevity is supposed to be there.
Speaker: I mean, how many weeks are in four months?
Speaker: Like, you really only, like, 16 weeks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little bit more, you know, like.
Speaker: 17-ish.
Speaker: But yeah, no, the kits for Destiny were like five bucks.
Speaker: And my store owner was like, I didn't even have to ask him.
Speaker: He's like, oh, every time it comes up, I just, oh, we got 10 players that play.
Speaker: I'm going to buy 30 of them.
Speaker: And they would get shipped 30.
Speaker: And everybody would get a token set.
Speaker: Everybody would get all the rare.
Speaker: Like we would just have everything.
Speaker: It would be like new players would come in and it would be like, here's all of the promo kits for the past year.
Speaker: You can have all of them.
Speaker: The tokens were the only thing that ended up being limited in ours.
Speaker: But that's when it was a bigger crowd and then it thinned out and that wasn't the case.
Speaker: There's no tokens in this.
Speaker: I guess like you guys were speculating is there going to be rares and legendaries in here to chase down?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I find that stuff to be fun.
Speaker: There's definitely rares.
Speaker: They don't even know if there's rares.
Speaker: They only showed an uncommon.
Speaker: Oh, well, right, right, right.
Speaker: There is a rare slot.
Speaker: There is a rare slot, but the card isn't necessarily a rare in the set.
Speaker: So Sabine is a rare promo, and she has the rare symbol in the packs, but she's only an uncommon in the real set packs.
Speaker: And that's the only card they shared, and then they share that there's going to be 20 of them for the first set.
Speaker: I mean, I still think it's cool regardless because they did this for X-Wing and for Destiny towards the end of Destiny where you just come and play your three games and you just get promo cards.
Speaker: So people just came and played.
Speaker: The hyperspace variant cards for the starters is separate from those booster packs, right?
Speaker: That's just also in the kit?
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: No, they're in the packs, I believe.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It says it comes with a special three card blind pack of promos that are exclusive to weekly play, including some special alternate art cards and hyperspace variants of cards that normally can't have one, which the ones that can't have one are the starter cards because they're only available in starters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I don't know, but this seems like a cool format.
Speaker: 20 is yeah.
Speaker: So the Friday Night Magic kind of set the expectations for people for what they're going to get out from an organized play event.
Speaker: And your game store does math.
Speaker: So if you've got 12 people coming, putting in $10 to play in an organized play event,
Speaker: Some of that money goes to cover whatever the organized play kit is, usually straight at cost.
Speaker: A couple bucks are taken from every single player to cover just butts and seats, and the rest of it goes in the product.
Speaker: So that's where the booster packs come out from like, oh, 12 people came, so we're going to throw 18 booster packs into the prize pool for the end of the night.
Speaker: First player gets six, then we'll divvy up the rest from everybody else, that sort of thing.
Speaker: This seems to be a really good organized play kit to support something like that.
Speaker: And if your store is cool, they at least give the packs at cost for prize support.
Speaker: Some don't, but they should get butts in seats.
Speaker: I mean, the prize support is definitely like, I don't know if they're going to release any kind of guides of like how stores should run tournaments or anything like that.
Speaker: I think they said at least the OP kit will have...
Speaker: Some like the regular OP kits aren't tournament based.
Speaker: So it's just like more.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Like they have like they mentioned something like they would have some sort of tracker card where they can track.
Speaker: Oh, like, you know, Nick showed up this week.
Speaker: Check him off.
Speaker: Here's your pack for the week kind of thing to track who they've given packs to.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Um, that's all the news we've heard today.
Speaker: Uh, and we're sitting at about over an hour, so probably better wrap this up unless anybody really wants to talk about this takedown promo.
Speaker: This, uh, the promo and the regular version was spoiled today.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: faded in.
Speaker: This is a vigilance card, blue, as you might call it.
Speaker: It's an event, costs four, single blue aspect, and it just defeats a unit with five or less remaining HP.
Speaker: Sean or Wyatt know nothing about the game.
Speaker: Do you want to weigh in?
Speaker: Is this good or not?
Speaker: This is completely unbalanced based on what I know.
Speaker: So a removal card you can play on turn three, round three, right?
Speaker: Round three.
Speaker: Also, for you guys who don't know, but it does not have the stipulation that a lot of the removal cards we've seen, it does not exclude leaders.
Speaker: It does not say a non-leader unit.
Speaker: So you can defeat a leader if it has five or less remaining HP.
Speaker: That seems good to me.
Speaker: Always keeping board position in games like this is super strong, so not sacrificing one of your
Speaker: what are things called in this game that you control?
Speaker: Units?
Speaker: Units.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not sacrificing one of your G units to take out board control from your opponent.
Speaker: If you can just do it with a card out of hand, that's always really strong.
Speaker: And then use the things on board to go attack that base.
Speaker: So yeah, seems like a good card to me.
Speaker: I mean, it's some of the price.
Speaker: I mean, it seems like a blue staple that's going to be better than Vanquish in a lot of places, so I expect every blue to have three of that.
Speaker: Again, that means that I can spend four to do, you know, potentially five directly to face for my opponent in the game, so it's a blue card that still fits a red deck win, is that correct?
Speaker: It doesn't do damage.
Speaker: It defeats a unit that has five or less remaining.
Speaker: It'll defeat their sentinel if they have a sentinel.
Speaker: Sure, I'll take that.
Speaker: All that salt has gone to Wyatt's brain.
Speaker: Not only is that true, but I'm going to be real.
Speaker: I just educated myself on rarity and all the alt arts.
Speaker: I don't care if cards are good.
Speaker: I'm just about to whore myself out for the possibility of getting those sweet, sweet foils.
Speaker: That didn't take long.
Speaker: I just checked in there.
Speaker: Mark's in my veins.
Speaker: Where do I pre-order?
Speaker: How much money do I need?
Speaker: We've already convinced him.
Speaker: He's all in, in one podcast.
Speaker: I can do more than tax here.
Speaker: I can get two pallets.
Speaker: They call me Wyatt Forklift Spren over here.
Speaker: What do we got?
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The number of chase, chase cards in the packs is kind of insane to me.
Speaker: And they covered this, you know, two weeks ago, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it was last week or two weeks ago.
Speaker: I'll sell the ones I don't want.
Speaker: So yeah, every, every pack has a foil slot that could be a foil of anything, but the common bases, the token bases.
Speaker: So you can get anything in foil and then they have a hyperspace variant, which is like a full art that can show up.
Speaker: That can be anything.
Speaker: It will not replace your rare or legendary.
Speaker: It'll replace an uncommon.
Speaker: So you can't get jipped out of a rare legendary, but I think it can show up in any of the uncommon slots or common slots.
Speaker: I don't remember.
Speaker: I did really bad at researches, but anyway, that's another chase.
Speaker: And then the one per 12 boxes showcase is,
Speaker: variant we're assuming all the leaders i don't know if they verified that it's all the leaders can have the showcase variant but they showed the leia one and it's one in 12 boxes to have it's an alternate full art leader that's not the same as with a special foil i guess with a special foil foil all full all the things um
Speaker: It's a thousand dollar card.
Speaker: At least that's how it's mapping out to be about.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it's looking like it'll be really up there.
Speaker: And I mean, I think I was just doing about a hundred bucks at
Speaker: discount of it's going to be like 12 boxes about a thousand bucks in that ballpark yeah but you're going to get how upteen number of hyperspace and other foils in there that are going to eat up part of that costs like yeah i mean assuming perfect distribution i think it's something like three legendaries a box 16 hyperspace is a box at least one hyperspace rare legendary a box and then like a foil hyperspace for legendary every two boxes so yeah it's a it's spicy
Speaker: We should bring in our friend Das to do some card cost analysis in the blind.
Speaker: He's good at it.
Speaker: The very last thing I'll say about this rarity, and I'm suddenly on board with people talking about how FFG is doing a better job of presenting their product this time around.
Speaker: There is a carousel built into the UI on this page where I can scroll through the types of rarities, and there was never anything that fancy on a given page for the store.
Speaker: So my god, I feel like I'm living in the future, and it's a long, long time ago, and my wallet's empty again.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like hopefully, and I think their goal at least with all these chases is that hopefully the single market singles market for the regular ones, like regular treatments will be way down.
Speaker: Like it's the Pokemon approach.
Speaker: If any of you are familiar with Pokemon, but they have a bajillion alt arts and variants and foils and secret rares that just get, Oh, people open the packs just to chase those and then sell off the singles.
Speaker: Like, and it results in like, if you want to buy like a top tier competitive product,
Speaker: Pokemon deck, like every single card, all singles off of like TCG player, you spend like 40 bucks.
Speaker: That's getting everything you need for like a competitive deck.
Speaker: Like no other game comes close to that.
Speaker: It's really nice to have whales open products so that the rest of the product is affordable for everybody else.
Speaker: I mean, I love that because I'm not going to chase these things.
Speaker: Like if I get them, I'll appreciate the ones I have.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I don't need to chase everything.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because as a reminder, since the start of the last Star Wars TCG, I'm a married man now and no longer on the singles market.
Speaker: You'll be on this singles market.
Speaker: No, I'm pretty sure that with shared financing and being an adult, I won't be on this singles market.
Speaker: Remember, there's a mortgage, but I can open boxes and gamble.
Speaker: So let's go...
Speaker: I mean, if you got a mortgage, have you heard of a second mortgage?
Speaker: Well, look, you can pay off your mortgage if you get the car.
Speaker: All I need is three showcases and I can make rent.
Speaker: This is going to be great.
Speaker: Like, hear me out.
Speaker: Twelve boxes is cheaper than your mortgage.
Speaker: Someone do the math.
Speaker: Is that true?
Speaker: That might be true.
Speaker: If it's the same thing with Destiny's release, you and I are just going to, we're going to meet up in Montreal.
Speaker: We're going to rent a...
Speaker: u-haul track i assume they've got those in canada and we're just gonna load up on unlimited and bring it back to the states and uh all right guys i'm really excited about this uh except for the part where i'm salty and this is gonna fucking suck so thanks and uh thank yeah let's change your tune by the next time you can be all right
Speaker: I get to be salty next time.
Speaker: Let's wrap it up.
Speaker: Sign off.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker: I don't know if this is going to be good or not, but we'll be back next week and see if we can't polish this turd.
Speaker: This format will be cleaner.
Speaker: Bye.
