Star Wars Customizable Card Game - Gameplay

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 (Netrunner being the other notable example). 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 flavors, 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, similar to "mana" from Magic: the Gathering; however, it is executed quite differently and is the game's 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 another pile, 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 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 climactic situations (for instance, freezing a character in carbonite, winning a pod race, dueling a Jedi).

The game system also features "Destiny draws," which represents 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 your opponent incurred 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. Finally, the stronger (or rarer) cards generally had lower Destiny values (though there were exceptions); as a result, less-experienced (or economically challenged) players are more likely to find that "The Force is with ."

While Decipher oversaw the game, no card was ever banned from tournament play. Instead, when a card or strategy was deemed abusive or too powerful, Decipher chose to release "magic bullets," new cards which were specifically designed to counter the offending strategy. In some cases, Decipher also used errata, modifications to game text of a card that supersede the actual printed version. The use of errata also contributes to a steep learning curve, since players need to be aware of the current meta-game at all times. Finally, the game was known for its quirky humor and inside jokes: one card, depicting Luke's protracted hand-stand during The Empire Strikes Back, was printed with all text upside-down. Another described a character as being Boba Fett's twin brother, since the same actor (Jeremy Bulloch) played both roles.