Pre-release
Its existence was first hinted at in January 2002, shortly after Decipher revealed to the public that it was losing the Lucasfilm license for the Star Wars CCG (SWCCG). In late April 2004, the game was officially announced in a Radio Free Decipher webcast as the spiritual follow-up to SWCCG, and the game immediately attracted massive attention from the hobby industry. For instance, at its public debut at Gen Con 2005, an introductory tournament using free demo decks is still Decipher's best-attended event in its existence, numbering over 200 people. There are still open-ended issues with the cash winners from that event never getting their prizes paid out to them.
Its official name was in constant flux between April and August 2004. The game was originally called WARS: The Mumon Rip, then WARS: The Mumon Rift following a player suggestion on Decipher's old Calder forums. The game then went through a logo change and was referred to officially as The Mumon Rift WARS Trading Card Game before undergoing a final logo change the day before Gen Con 2005 and simplified to WARS Trading Card Game. It is most commonly referred to as Wars TCG without the idiosyncratic capitalization of the entire first word; or, simply as Wars and less commonly as wtcg.
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