TheForce.Net - CCG - Flashback Premiere

Decipher's card games have always given players a sense of community as well as generating many memories over the years. Here is a collection of some of the ones sent into us...

I remember when it first came out and I sold all my other CCG cards to help pay for my first few starter decks and booster packs. I have been a HUGE Star Wars fan for over 20 years and when this game came out I couldn't pass it up. I remember getting my first main character (Obi Wan Kenobi) and drooling over the few Darth Vaders and Han Solos that other people got. My First black border Darth Vader was even more special than their's though because it is signed by David Prowse! My first attempt at playing was an adventure with another new player and we fumbled along every planet in the game fighting little battles here and there not really knowing what was going on. I believe my first successfull deck was merely a bunch of guys and troops with weapons and all the Tatooine sites, where we staged huge battles! Eventually though several people got into Star Wars at my local card shop and we even had one guy who began to sanction tournaments. I remember the first tournament we had fondly for several reasons. One, I won it, hehe, and I still have the Decipher original Obi Wan Kenobi card t-shirt that I got as a prize. And two I will always look back and remember watching the second place match where my friend at some point managed to get Grand Moff Tarkin and a stormtrooper riding a bantha across Tatooine! It was very funy at the time and we all had a blast! I have made a few friends and lots and lots of memories from playing the Star Wars CCG then and now (I even play a little Young Jedi now) and I would like to thank anyone who had to do with it's conception and production. Keep up the good work and let's keep playing!

Paul E.

Star Wars. My first an only CCG. I remember that Christmas in 1998 when I recieved the "Star Wars CCG: Two-Player Introductory Game" I remember that New Years day when I got my first expansion pack of Premire for $3.99. At first I loved every card, appriciated every one, took care of them. My collection grew slowly, yet steadily. Year: February 1999. I got the second anthology, which gave me my first to major rares: Grand Moff Tarkin and Leia. I remember sending in for the Free Jedi pack, an getting The Death Star in my very first pack of ANH, an The Falcon an Tagge in my first non-preconstructed Starter Deck. My first ISD, Avenger, in a Dagobah Expansion Pack. I started to seperate my rares and uncommon-commons. I realized I had enough to start sorting. I remember how I gave a report of SWCCG as my favorite hobbie. My first Touny: Beta-Shyyk 2001. My DS deck: Blow Up Aldeeran. LS: Cloud City. I recieved so much my first day, showing the hospitality by the other experienced players. I remember signing my first Command Card, and how, well its hard to describe, but I remember how it felt. The TD, Josh, was incredibly helpful and nice, giving me cards I never thought I would get. Hes helped me so much, an so have the other players, helping me make decks. I realize how much Ive gotten better. I freshly rember my first foil, B-Wing attack squadron. Sweet. And my most recent memory: getting Luke Skywalker: Jedi Knight, Lord Vader, Foil Vader w/ Saber, and Case Topper Vader. LSJD, an Lord Vader came in some DSII packs my brother graciously bought for me. Ironically, as I was just typing this story, I was opening a Courascant and Reflections III pack. Got Foil Qui-gon's Saber, Mauls double-bladed, and a Sandcrawler. Without SWCCG, my life would be that much move boring.

Brian O'C.

I remember buying the first pack of cards and thinking they looked cool. A friend and I then learned how to play. This was well before I had the internet, so we just played against each other. We didn't have any mains, so we didn't use a lot of interrupts, but we quickly learned the power of Elis Helrot and Nabrun Leids. Then we learned the power of sense and alter. But with BoShek and Djas Puhr as our high ability characters they were less useful interrupts. After playing amongst ourselves I decided to see if anyone else played this game, so I ventured to our neighborhood card store (Coaches Corner home of 2 regional tournaments) on open game day and found someone to play. Now since neither my friend or I had any background in CCG's we assumed you needed weapons to battle. It didn't say so in the rule book but it didn't say really anything in those days. So I deployed a lone Stormtrooper and since he didn't have a blaster I assumed he was safe, he couldn't force drain since he had no weapon (I know how dumb this now sounds) but whatever. He was met by the happy bunch of Han, Luke, Leia, and Obi-wan. 3 Destiny adders later and that was game. I decided to learn from that. I went to college in the fall and used the internet to find Deciphers web site. There I signed up for the list serve. Wow, all these strategy and rules questions, all this knowledge. I quickly learned and became better. When a tournament came up my friend and I went. Even though it was the day after High School Graduation and an all night party. We found that 30+ people came together to play this game. This was just after Dagobah came out. we had a great time and both finished 3-3 with big differentials, so we were happy. My friend never went to another tourney, and later gave me and another friend who came into the game much later all his cards. I however was hooked, and have now played over (I believe) 500 sanctioned games and are heading to GenCon for the first time in 2 weeks.

Some memories of fun games and strategies that are now gone by the wayside. Scanning Crew, 10-12 in a deck was about the right number, only aliens got deployed, and at the time those were fairly few and weak. Numbers I know everyone else will bitch that numbers were a poor strategy that almost killed the game, but I never really had trouble with them until Skrilling odds. the Dagobah numbers decks never were a problem, since both sides had character with decent destiny that were okay at the time (Dr. E and Myo for DS, Wedge and Torryn Farr for LS). Sense and Alter wars were always fun, and Nabruning all across the galaxy, to try and beat up that lone character.

I have played for a long time and seen the game at highs and lows, but as long as we can use virtual cards to keep the game from getting stale, and people can keep coming up with new strategies I hope to see SWCCG live for a long, long time.

Garrett L.

I was thinking about some of my memorable SWCCG moments... one of the tops has got to be the first time that my wife Debbie tried a Kessel Run. She targeted Chewbacca who was piloting the Homeone at the Yavin System. Also on board the flagship were Admiral Ackbar, Mon Mothma, Leia with Blaster Rifle, and Ketwol. They made the trip to Kessel but I drew a location for destiny and she lost all that power in one tragic-dark-side draw... she was exceptionally unthrilled, I was totally cracking up in disbeleif!

Fred D.

I remeber back to 1995, I bought the Introductory Two-Player Box Set that was out, at a local Toys-R-Us. At first, I didnt know what I was exactly buying, all I knew is that I was a star wars fan, and I thought it was cool. After opening the box, I saw that I had cards of Luke and Vader, thinking that I got lucky I was psyched. Then I found out that this was just a starting deck, so I began to buy more individual packs. Soon my friends got into the game, and we would always buy cards, my decks and cards being "crappy" compared to theirs, and I always lost, since my deck design was horrible.

A year later, at Christmas, I bought a box of the cards (premiere). It was in the box, where I got all the good cards at the time, and set up an invasion/destroy all type deck. As the new sets came out, I continued to buy cards. My first rare, directly out of a single pack was Obi wan Kenobi.

This trend continued, until I stopped playing when Jabbas Palace came out. Now I am back in the game, and trying to update my set.

Adam A.

I remember at the time we all played Magic. Thats what I was going in the store to buy the day I first saw Star Wars starter decks and packs. I freaked. Immediately I bought two starter decks and went to convert my friends to the new game in town.

It was difficult to get anybody to play. They took a look at the rulebook and refused, saying it looked 'too complicated.' Finally I convinced one friend to play. He took the Dark Side Cards, I took the Light Side cards, and we each went home with a rulebook with the intention of playing the next day after some study of the rules. The next day, we were both sorely confused. i remember all the rules we misinterpreted- the worst being that you could only activate Force from a location if the opponent didn't control it, and that you could not deploy to locations the opponent already controlled. Unless it was a spy. But I had no spies yet. My only non-common character was the Dark Side Myo.

As you might guess, I didn't convert anybody to SWCCG. They played Magic, and I quit to follow my favorite galaxy's card adventures. I managed to find a few people who played locally, however, and we discovered the great imbalance between Dark Side and Light. It was so impossible for Light Side to win. Mainly due to nobody having pulled any good R1 Light Side Characters, while I luckily had pulled Vader & Tarkin. HAHAHA!

The R1 & R2 rarity sorting was a bunch of crap. You would end up with so many duplicate useless rares that everyone else already had. It was the same with uncommons. I remember pulling 22 Captain Prajis before I got my first Imperial Class Star Destroyer. I never did pull an Obi-Wan Kenobi or a Luke Skywalker out of a pack, but I managed to pull 4 Han Solos and 5 Millennium Falcons to trade with.

Overall, I was happy to be able to do battle with my favorite heroes and villains. The SWCCG was the best card idea anyone ever had. Even if i played by the wrong rules for over 2 years. My first tournament taught me a lot of things, heh heh heh.

Joey K.

My name is James [and] I live in Canada. I started playing SWCCG around 1996 when i was only 11. My friend Spencer and I had seen Return of The Jedi Special Edition (best star wars movie ever, and no Empire Strikes Back is not the best) and after the movie we went to this card store just by the movie theatre called Collage (its now closed and there are not card stores in my town). They had this machine that you put a quarter in the machine and you get star wars cards out. I put one in it and i got 3 cards, 2 death star sites and an interrupt, it might not seem like much, but those 3 cards started me on my way to playing and loving the game. After that I started buying a few packs with what money i could scrape up and at school we would talk about it and couldn't wait to get out for recess and trade and talk about star wars. At this time we still did not know what we could do with the cards except trade, but we just loved star wars so we didn't care what they did they were just cool. As the years went on we were able to buy more and more packs and getting better cards and understanding the game alittle but really not trying to play. It wasn't until special edition came out we were finally able to play the game and today we still do, not one of my 4 friends who actually played the game when special edition came out has stopped playing the game even though decipher lost the rights to print SWCCG....

It's 6 years later and I am now 17 and still a die hard star wars fan and i won't ever stop being on, when i get older i might have to stop the game, but I will always keep my cards because they have so many great memories, and i know many people feel the same way. I hope that people still stay in the game, just like me and my friends and have just as much fun with it as we do.

James S.

Star Wars card gaming originally came upon me in the form of Young Jedi. Doug Taylor and Martin Norris were hosting a Star Wars Reflections booster draft and a Young Jedi Demo at a local Sci-Fi convention.

Having never played a customizable card game and being in the company of my 2 younger children (10 and 8 at that time), we sat down with Martin Norris. Martin was demo-ing Young Jedi. He impressed upon us the importance of the number 6 and ensured all 4 of us (my wife, 2 children, and I) actually played at least 1 game. Once we appeared comfortable with the rules and were no longer impressed by the abbreviated version of the game that the demo decks provided, Martin went the extra mile. He pulled out his personal decks. He introduced us to the 6x10 deck building mechanic and had us playing full games. We couldn't wait to get home and open up all the free starter and booster product Martin gave the 4 of us.

The months following found us investing in even more product and experiencing the Battle of Naboo release. The 4 of us were playing less frequently at home, since it was essentially a 2-player game, so my son and I started attending local tournaments. I won my share of local tournaments and wanted to expand my CCG experience into a more robust game. While attending these tournaments, I would watch pickup games of Star Wars. I bought a 2-player premiere game and read through the rules to get a feel for what I was watching. My son and I sat down and learned to play with these decks and found it to be far less exciting than the fast-paced Young Jedi. That would have been the end of it, except that I would go on to win a few more Young Jedi tournaments. One those was being run by Doug Taylor. We had previously discussed my disappointment in the less than exciting Star Wars CCG. He encouraged me to try again with 'real' decks and gave me SWCCG Enhanced Premiere product as prize support for winning the YJ tournament. He also suggested picking up some Reflections product which would provide cards from the other sets. EPP Luke and EPP Vader quickly replaced the 2 player versions. My first 4 Reflections packs scored me a URF Darth Vader, Darth Vader DLOTS, Captain Han Solo, SRF Obi Wan Kenobi and a few other foils and minor rares. After a lot more Reflections and enhanced product, I took a Court and a Hidden Base deck to my first tournament and proceeded to get wiped out. A humbling experience for sure, but it also provided me an opportunity to learn from experienced players and I had a lot of fun.

My son and I continued to play Star Wars. Going to tournaments and participating in an unofficial 'league' format developed by Doug Taylor. During this time we heard the news of the forthcoming Jedi Knights game. With it's multiplayer rules, I saw it as an opportunity to play Star Wars as a family again. And we did. We attended the league as a family. We even attended the Hyperlight Open as a family. Which I managed to win and earned a bye into the second round of the Jedi Knights World Championships that would later be cancelled by Decipher. I was excited to attend my first big convention. Needless to say, I was as equally disappointed to find out I wouldn't be.

I'm not sure if it was the canceling of the Championships or the loss of the license that 'calmed' my playing habits. At any rate, I no longer play competitively, but still enjoy playing with my family. The games are each as fun to play as the day I first learned them. So much so, that I will likely be teaching my newborn son to play them in a few short years. Long after Decipher is able to produce new product, these games will be introduced to another generation.

Eddie

How distant that moment seems right now. I can hardly remember what it was that made me buy my first Star Wars CCG cards. At the time I was just an 15 year old boy in a small village in Finland. No-one to play with, no-one to talk about the cards. Well soon I realized how amazingly facinating the cards were and I was able to talk a friend of mine into the game as well. Together we headed towards the nearest bookstore and we both bought a starter deck and three boosters. Of course neither of us knew about any rares or commons, but still we had great time learning the rules from the little booklet that game along with the starter deck. With the faint idea how the game works, we started to build our very first decks. We only had cards for one deck each so decided that one of us should make a dark side deck and the other one a light side deck. I was going trough my cards and I found a Obi-Wan Kenobi and at the same time my friend discovered his first Imperial-Class Star Destroyer. It wasn't a hard decision which side decks we were going to build. After this we made a bold decision. I gave him all my dark side cards and he gave me all of his light side cards. Naturally our decks were full of characters and starships. Not many interrupts or effects got lost in the groud, but maybe that was the best way to learn the basics of the game. Not often these days can Wuher be the critical character on the table, but at the time it was no wonder if he drained my last life force. One day I was going through my cards and I discovered Obi-Wan's lightsaber. Oh what a joy it was to wipe all the annoying little jawas of the table. After this it didn't take long until my friend bought a Vader and his lightsaber and we had our first duels. Within the few months after my first visit to the bookstore thay had run out of the cards and I had three friends playing the game. We had to talk to the owner of the store to order more cards and what a surprise it was when the cards game. A New Hope had made its first appearance in our village. Soon we figured out all kinds of new deck designs and the game really conquered our hearts. There was no return after this. The decks were no longer just clashing of the sabers and figuring out who will survive; Darth Vader or Obi-Wan Kenobi. Unfortunately the game never really took its place in Finland and we were unable to get our hands on the new cards. For a few months we were playing with the existing Premier and New Hope cards, but the thrill of opening new boosters was growing within us. Then finally the Ebay opened its gates. Soon after discovering the wonderland of auctions, the first booster boxes were on the way to Finland. And what a joy it was to open the first Hoth booster back and pulling a AT-AT. After this all the cards have been available to us and there was nothing to stop our beloved hobby. These are some of my greatest memories related to the Star Wars CCG. I can't really remember any specific victory or loss, but the times we sat on the floor of my room and discussed about the cards. Those memories are golden and I wish I never forget them.

Jussi S.

It took me months to realize I would never pull a Boba Fett card out of a Premiere pack. Back in early 1996, as I (and the world) was waking up to the Star Wars CCG, all I wanted was to put the notorious bounty hunter in play alongside my Darth Vader. I didn't know about decipher.com - hey, I didn't even really know about Decipher - and those Premiere rulebooks didn't come with a card checklist for me to scan through and discover that there was no Boba Fett card. So I just bought pack after pack, getting more into the game and more anxious to finally find that Fett rare (I knew enough to know it would have to be a rare). Somehow the complete lack of any cards from either Empire or Jedi, to say nothing of the Expanded Universe, didn't dampen my hope that he was in the next pack. Then, in my college's computer lab then one day I got online for the first time. Decipher.com became one of the few sites that I regularly looked at, and sooner or later I stumbled upon the card list page where I saw Mr. Fett's name notably missing. The good news was that by then, I didn't care as much since I was busy enough trying to build jawa/tusken raider decks. My brothers and I took one box of commons and uncommons with us to Germany and built some of the greatest decks ever out of those scraped-up and bent cards. Those decks would never have stood up in a tournament, but on the floor of our rented beach cottage they ruled. We didn't quite get the rules (to this day I don't get the X-Y rule or what that even was all about) and so we sometimes argued a bit about who won battles and who had to die by attrition and who didn't. We learned how to play and we also learned, after a brief scolding from our mother, to not get so wrapped up in winning and losing. We learned to just play. And so, of course, Big D had us hooked. We bought A New Hope cards and were enthralled with the Hoth set and somewhere in there First Anthology was released. So then I had my first Boba Fett and, of course, I wanted more.

Sebastian B.