OFFICIAL RELEASE FROM DECIPHER INC.
December 24, 1995

STAR WARS STATISTICAL INFO
AND ANSWERS TO SOME INITIAL DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONS


The following information is copyrighted by Decipher Inc. 1995; however, it
can be freely disseminated online or by traditional publishing means as long
as this copyright notice is attached. TM, (R) & (C) 1995 Lucasfilm, Ltd. All
Rights Reserved. Star Wars and related marks are trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd.
Used under authorization by Decipher, Inc. Authorized User.


STAR WARS STATISTICAL INFO
AND ANSWERS TO SOME INITIAL DISTRIBUTION QUESTIONS

This is Tom Braunlich again, pinch-hitting for DAnswerMan this Xmas.

Here I list information about Star Wars: CCG which I hope will clear up some
of the confusion going around. Judging from the posts and email I've seen
today, there are three major misconceptions out there:

1) Misconception #1 -- "there are only 48 rare cards." I have not been able
to locate the source of this rumor. Perhaps it was a misprint in some past
FAQ, or perhaps one of the many wild rumors that fly about the net. In any
case, in fact there are 108 rare cards, 108 uncommon, and 108 common cards in
SW:CCG. (see the details below, because there are further frequencies within
each group).  Since the game is divided into the Light and Dark side (162
cards in each), this means within each side there are 54 rare, 54 uncommon,
and 54 common.
      I know that many people have been trying to puzzle this out, and am
sorry for the inconvenience this misinformation might have caused you. I
talked to Dpresident (Warren Holland) about it, and later today he is going
to provide me with the full card list which also lists the rarity level of
each card, and I will post it at that time. This will, I hope, provide the
needed information. I apologize for not posting it on Friday, the release
date -- I should have anticipated that the unusual structure of the card
frequencies might cause confusion.

2) Misconception #2 -- "All the major characters were supposed to be Common.
What gives?"
          Dpresident and I were surprised to hear that this concept was still
out there. Here is the explanation:  Early last Spring, in a President's
Letter FAQ written by Dpresident, he noted that we were planning to make all
the main characters common. At that time it was true; we had a scheme in
which they were common but the stuff you needed to make really good use of
them was rare. This plan had to be greatly changed, however.
           Why? Because we received an electronic mountain of outraged email
saying please don't do it! Collectors who had already pre-ordered boxes were
angry that the most collectible characters would be relegated to a cheap
card. There would be little to trade, and the collectibility (which is, after
all, a part of the fun) would be "ruined", even if the game played well that
way (which, as we later found out, it didn't). 
            The change in plans was announced, but apparently a lot of people
didn't get this notice. (That's one of the drags about the internet -- any
information you release sticks around forever, percolating through the net,
and does not adjust itself if a change needs to be made.)
           Instead, we found an approach that would please both collectors
and players, which of course is the goal. Here is what we did, and why:
           The main characters are rare cards. There is just no way around
this (although we made several of the most collectible cards "Rare - B",
which is more common (see the statistics section posted below)). It is in all
our interests to design it this way -- it's not just "greed" on Decipher's
part. We originally tried to avoid this, as discussed above, but it just
wasn't possible. Not only does it hurt collectibility if the main characters
are common, but our playtesting found that the playability was also
unsatisfactory -- and it also lacked logic since common cards can't be
stronger than rare cards, and thus the remaining cards in that set made
little sense relative to rarity. It just didn't work. In one of my emails a
player asked, "How can you trade if it is so hard to get Leia, etc.?" How
could you trade otherwise? If the main characters were common, no one would
trade them and few other cards would be desirable for trading either. The
most popular cards simply must be relatively hard to find; that's the nature
of these games.
            Yet, of course, we recognize that unlike Star Trek (which has a
big cast and a huge number of guest stars), in Star Wars most of the action
revolves around only a dozen or so characters. Therefore, our design
challenge was to make the gameplay still be fun even if you don't have all
the main characters, as well as to provide people with ways to make better
use of the main characters which they actually do have. This we did in the
game design in several ways:

      1) First, remember that this is "Star Wars", not "The Luke and Leia
Show." This game is a simulation of the ENTIRE Star Wars universe -- not just
limited to a recycling of the plot we have all seen a hundred times in the
movies. The game provides you with ALL the elements of the Star Wars world,
not just the main characters, and lets you explore aspects of that world not
seen in the movie. You can concentrate on the main characters if you want; or
you can play out other intriguing scenarios with the many other interesting
characters in the SW universe. It brings alive all those aliens in that
cantina, each of whom has their own story, or it allows you to concentrate on
any particular aspect, etc. How would a horde of Jawas or Tusken Raiders do
against the main characters,  for example? It is as if the Star Wars movie is
one possible outcome that might be generated out of an infinite number of
games with these card elements. 
           In other words, the first point is that the game is designed to
play well even without the main characters, so that you don't have to collect
a full set to play -- which is in response to another major piece of feedback
we got from players during the design, that the "average player" with a small
collection should be able to play and compete even against an "all-star" deck
owned by a big collector. You do not have to have Han and Darth to play the
game -- in fact, as you will soon discover, there are many deck strategies
which would make these characters almost extraneous, and you might
intentionally leave them out if you want. They are certainly good characters,
but not necessary characters.
          One other thing -- many character which are minor in the movie have
been bolstered and are quite good in this game, and many are uncommon and a
few even common. This includes people like Motti and Tagge, many of the
aliens like Djhas'pur, etc. They rival the main characters in playability, if
not psychologically.
          But of course, Han and Leia, etc. are all our favorites, and
psychologically people want them to both collect and to play with. With this
in mind, we did some other things to make this as easy as we could:
         2) The "TWO-PLAYER INTRODUCTORY GAME" version of SW:CCG, which will
be out shortly, not only provides a lot of basic cards and thus serves as a
good starting point for people, but also has common versions of LUKE and
VADER in it, which help even casual players easily get some main characters.
(This set -- by the way -- will also have four additional cards in it which
are not in the basic SW:CCG set.) True, the Luke and Vader provided here are
weakened relative to the Luke and Darth Vader in the normal set, in order to
protect the value of those key cards of course, but they are quite good in
play, and "work with" cards that refer to Luke or Vader. More on this later;
Decipher will be providing the full details.
           3) The "Back" cards, are an example of many subtle elements which
"bring out" the main characters while helping players get more out of what
rare cards they do have. Cards like "Han's Back", "The Empire's Back", etc.,
essentially allow you to get extra duty out of these rare cards. The back
cards are uncommon, but allow you to play as if you have extra rares -- one
Han Solo, for example, could be used as if you had several of them in your
deck. This allows players to design decks which are "built around" one of the
major characters that they DO have, without the need to get multiples of
certain rare characters.
          4) There are also many "integrated cards" which have "secondary
uses" that give advantages when certain main characters are in play like Luke
or Obi-Wan (in addition to a more common use). This method of design on such
cards allowed us to make sure the game still plays well normally even with a
lot of common characters, and yet still to have ways to build upon the rare
characters that you do have, making them stronger and more valuable to you.
It is possible to design your decks around the rare characters you currently
have, and make those decks very effective, by using cards which have these
secondary use bonuses. This is important because it means that you do not
need all the main characters to have a very strong deck -- in fact, a deck
which focuses on 1-3 rare characters might be better than one which just has
a lot of rare characters in it. This is all strategy stuff, of course, but is
an example of a lot of subtle elements we endeavored to put into the gameplay
which are aimed at allowing players who cannot get or cannot afford a full
set to still have many ways of creating strong, competitive decks.

It was inevitable that the main characters be rare. It just has to be that
way, and it is best that way for all involved. Dpresident might have more to
say about this later.

3) Misconception #3 --  "the distribution of the cards is all screwed up."
Actually, it isn't. I'm sure there might be some instances in which
particular cases were packed incorrectly by the printers, and so on, and
Decipher's customer service department will take care of those. This
misconception simply comes from the wrong assumptions about the structure of
the card frequencies, as discussed above. See the attached information about
the "Statistics" of the game for more details.

Please remember that SW:CCG has a lot of unusual features about it that are
going to be different from what you are used to. Drawing conclusions by
comparing the game to Magic is bound to be off-focus. Essentially there are
two card sets here -- Light and Dark side, with 162 cards in each, even
though they are packaged together in equal proportions.

I think you will also discover many subtleties in the strategy of the game
which, once you see how they work, will explain why certain things in the
design are the way they are. That doesn't mean the design is perfect, of
course, so please keep providing us with your feedback and suggestions.   :-)


Q:  Where is R2D2, Chewbacca, Wedge, Boba Fett, etc?

A:          Don't worry, all the cool stuff and cool characters you know and
love will be in the game (and more!). But we can't put them all in at once!
The game is being released in stages called "Expansion Sets", in rough
chronological order. Popular characters like Boba Fett, who appeared in The
Empire Strikes Back, will come into the game at the appropriate time.
           The first expansion set, which we are now working on, is called "A
New Hope" and completes the two sets required to cover the first movie. The
initial set is called the "Premier" set, because it provides the solid
foundation upon which the rest of the expansions will be built. We have many
plans for the structure we will build on this foundation! What you see now is
just the beginning; the game will evolve in many ways and will grow in scope
just like the three movies in the Classic Trilogy do. (That's what Lucas
calls them now, the "Classic" trilogy, as opposed to the coming prequels
trilogy.)
            In view of these plans, we have to some extent "saved" certain
features of the game to introduce in later sets. Bounty hunters, for example,
will be a big thing in the future. In some cases, we have introduced them
here (like Smugglers), but intend to develop them more later, etc.
           We did also decide to save a few main characters for the ANH
expansion in order to help keep anticipation of that set high. These include
R2D2, Chewie, Wedge, and Greedo; plus lots of other cool stuff which are not
characters, such as cards related to the Death Star and its super weapon,
etc. Lots of juicy stuff!  You might say this is a pure marketing thing by
Decipher and to some extent yes it is -- yet you would also want Decipher to
make sure that the expansions are cool and interesting too, not just the
first set right? This requires them to be somewhat choosy, to spread out the
goods in a logical manner. So, some things were reserved for later, where
they AND THEIR RELATED CARDS can be properly introduced. I feel that we were
able to pack an enourmous amount of cool stuff into the Premiere set, and
hope you will agree that it serves as a good foundation for what is to come.



STAR WARS -- SOME STATISTICS

Here is the basic statistical data on the SW:CCG game. A more detailed FAQ
will be posted on this later.

INDIVIDUAL CARDS:
There are 324 individual cards in the set.
The cards are packaged in a random assorting method.
162 are "Light Side", 162 are "Dark Side" (differentiated by the card backs)
108 are Rare, 108 are Uncommon, and 108 are Common
(Within the Rare, Uncommon, and Common frequencies, there are two sub-groups,
which are explained below.)


SUB-LEVELS OF CARD FREQUENCY:
Important:  Each Level of Rarity is broken into TWO SUB-SETS, "A" and "B", as
follows:

For EACH side (Light and Dark), there are:
       54 Rare Cards,   54 Uncommon Cards,     and 54 Common Cards

However, on the printing sheets, there is a further breakdown into two groups
because some cards are doubled-up on the sheet, as follows:

       RARE CARDS     (Out of 78 slots on the sheet, there are:)
30 cards single    (RARE - A)
24 cards double   (RARE - B)   (i.e., there are two of these particular cards
on the sheet)

       UNCOMMON CARDS       (Out of 78 slots on the sheet, there are:)
30 cards single    (UNCOMMON - A)
24 cards double   (UNCOMMON - B)

       COMMON CARDS      (Out of 99 slots on the sheet, there are:)
10 cards single     (COMMON - A)
43 cards double    (COMMON - B)
  1 card triple        (COMMON - C)   
(The Common - C's on each side are the "Trooper" cards, excellent when used
in multiple)


STATISTICS ON THE TOTAL NUMBERS OF CARDS

The run of limited edition was 199,800,000 cards for the U.S. (half of which
were released by Decipher Inc. on the 22nd of December 1995) and 101,520,000
cards for international distribution (The second half of the U.S.
distribution and all of the international distribution is scheduled for
release in January 1996.)

United States:
Starters          20,000 cases x 6 displays x 12 starters =
          86,400,000
Expansions    35,000 cases x 6 displays x 36 expansions =  113,400,000
                 Total =   199,800,000

International:
Starters          10,000 cases x 6 displays x 12 starters =        43,200,000
Expansions   18,000 cases x 6 displays x 36 expansions =  58,320,000
                 Total =    101,520,000

OTHER LIMITED EDITION STATS:
30,000 Cases of Starters:
Common (A, B &C)  30,000 x 72 x 44 =  95,040,000
Uncommon (A & B)  30,000 x 72 x 14 =  30,240,000
Rare (A & B)             30,000 x 72 x 2 =      4,320,000

53,000 Cases of Expansion sets:
Common (A, B &C)    53,000 x 216 x 10 =  114,480,000
Uncommon (A & B)    53,000 x 216 x 4 =     45,792,000
Rare (A & B)               53,000 x 216 x 1 =      11,448,000
           Total = 301,320,000

Note: Decipher ran 1,000 uncut sheets of each common, uncommon, rare cards.
Most of these sheet will be cut and are targeted as special sets to be used
in promotions and company gifts. These sheets are not for sale.