Star Wars: Customizable Card Game (SW:CCG) is an out-of-print customizable card game based on the Star Wars fictional universe. It was created by Decipher, Inc., which also produced the Star Trek Customizable Card Game and The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. The game was produced from December 1995 until December 2001. Since 2002, the game has been maintained by the Star Wars CCG Players Committee, with new virtual cards being released every few months and the capability to play both in person and online.

History

Star Wars CCG was first released in December 1995. Over the years, Decipher added 11 full expansions to the original card base, as well as numerous smaller expansions, special purpose sets, and promotional releases. The last set, Theed Palace, was offered in the fall of 2001. The original game spanned all of the classic Star Wars trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi). During several years of the game's run, between 1995 and 1998, it was a top-selling CCG, second only to Magic: The Gathering and occasionally surpassing Magic, according to both InQuest and Scrye magazines. Lucasfilm renewed Decipher's license in 1998 to include intellectual property from The Phantom Menace, the first film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In addition to expansion sets based on the films, Decipher planned to release sets based on the novels and computer games, and a new trading card game base on the prequel trilogy films. At the end of 2001, after much negotiation, Lucasfilm chose not to renew Decipher's license to use the Star Wars intellectual property. The license was granted to Wizards of the Coast, which used it to create their own game, the Star Wars Trading Card Game. Decipher could no longer legally create new expansions to SWCCG; many cards that were in development were never released to the public. In January 2002, Decipher CEO Warren Holland announced the formation of a "Players' Committee". Decipher would turn over stewardship of the game to this group, originally composed of six player advocates, who would continue to organize sanctioned tournaments, as well as designing and releasing new "virtual cards" to keep the game fresh. Over two decades later, the Players' Committee still supports an active player base around the world, organizing several major tournaments each year, providing a platform for online play, and releasing new sets of virtual cards every few months.

Gameplay

Each game requires one player to play the light side of the Force while the other plays the dark side. In friendly play, a player can specialize in one side or the other, but for tournaments, players need both Dark and Light decks. This two-sided aspect is rare in customizable card games (Star Wars: The Card Game and Netrunner being the other notable examples). The action of the game occurs at various "Location" cards (both interstellar and planet-bound) familiar from the Star Wars Universe. Locations can be deployed as the game progresses; furthermore, most locations come in both Dark and Light-side versions, and an on-the-table location can be "converted" (changed to the other side) at any time. Most locations affect game play in some way; all also provide "Force icons", which represent the amount of "Force" a player can activate per turn. Force is the game's resource and its defining trait. Each unit of "Force" is simply a card from the top of a player's deck, placed off to one side in the "Force Pile". When used to deploy something, each unit of Force is placed on the "Used Pile", which then cycles back to the bottom of the deck. Unused Force remains in the Force Pile, and can be conserved for the next turn or drawn into the player's hand. The objective of the game is to force the opponent to discard all of their Life Force (consisting of Reserve Deck, Force pile and Used pile). This is accomplished via "Force Drains" (forcing the opponent to discard cards by controlling, unopposed, a location with their Force Icons on it), battling opposing characters, and resolving certain climatic situations (for instance, freezing a character in carbonite, winning a pod race, dueling a Jedi). The game system also features "Destiny draws", which represent the elements of chance, uncertainty, luck, random chance and the Force. Each card has a destiny number, from 0 to 7, at the top-right corner (except locations, which count as destiny 0), and rather than using dice for generating random numbers, players "draw destiny" from the top of their deck, revealing the top card and using its destiny number as the result. This is used for a variety of purposes, from determining weapon hits to mandatory losses incurred by the opponent to resolving whether a character passes a Jedi Test. The drawn Destiny card goes to the Used Pile and is recycled into the deck. Through this system, a skillful player can legally count cards, remembering where the high-destiny cards are in the deck. Stronger (or rarer) cards generally have lower Destiny values (with some exceptions); as a result, less-experienced (or economically challenged) players are more likely to find that "The Force is with [them]".

Sets

Full expansion sets

The following full sets were created by Decipher: Unlimited white-border editions of the sets A New Hope, Hoth, and Dagobah were released in August 1998 after their original limited edition print run had sold out.

World Champions

Reception

In the April 1996 edition of Arcane (Issue 5), Andy Butcher gave the game a top rating of 10 out of 10 despite stating that "Star Wars is let down by two things: its rulebook and the distribution of the cards.". In the June 1996 edition of Dragon (Issue 230), Rick Swan liked the "first-rate presentation" of the cards. But he was disappointed with gameplay, saying "if only Star Wars played as good as it looked. But alas, it is merely okay." He found the rules "a bit clunky". The game "loses steam toward the end, when the outcome becomes all but inevitable." And he felt that the starter packs of only 60 cards made for a limited game, stating "You'll need a much larger pool – I'd guess at least 100 Dark Side cards and 100 Light Siders – to make Star Wars come alive." He concluded by giving it an average rating of 3 out of 6, saying, "In today's deck-drenched market... it's just another card game, eminently playable but nothing to squander the rent money on." In 2006, Trading Card Games For Dummies highlighted that the "Decipher Star Wars: Customizable Card Game enjoyed a huge following, spawning world tournaments, gorgeous trophies, dedicated fans and a great card game. Then Decipher's Star Wars license expires and this game, too, faded into near-obscurity. Although cards are no longer available, Star Wars still enjoys a devoted, albeit small, following. Players organize tournaments, trade, and talk about deck design, which is quite a commendation for a game that's been out of print for several years. [...] Decipher's Star Wars game plays very differently than its namesake published by Wizards of the Coast".

Reviews