A Concept Set That Can Really Beef Up Your Deck Enhanced Cloud City Satisfies!

| | | The Good: Easy-to-play, Collectible value, Images, Concepts
The Bad: Still has a load of recycled cards!
The Basics: Arguably the first truly worthwhile deluxe draft deck product from Decipher, Enhanced Cloud City does more than simply recycle crap for the fans!.


When a company tries something new, it is always interesting to me to see how the fans of that company’s product will take the change. With so many companies, especially food companies, new products are simply a way to prevent the company from stagnating in a market because having a single successful product is hard to continue marketing to the people who already like it. This is why we have eight flavors of Doritos on the shelves at any given time, but only the regular and cool ranch flavors endure – Frito Lay had a good idea, made a good product, but because they can’t count on people to remember to buy Doritos or Cool Ranch Doritos each time they go out, they keep churning out crap that fails. With gaming cards, the strategy was slightly different. Decipher, the premiere gaming card company after Wizards Of The Coast during the huge boom of CCGs in the late 1990s, sought to clear their warehouses. To that end, they just repackaged their packs of cards with a few inexpensive-to-make premiums to lure fans into paying for (mostly) what they already owned (which, comparatively, is like when Doritos added lenticular cards to their packs of chips and Pepsi made limited edition cans with Star Wars characters on them for the Special Edition releases of the films!). They called the re-releases “deluxe draft decks” and the first one, Enhanced Premiere (reviewed here!), did not really take off in the marketplace. Enhanced Cloud City was part of their "deluxe draft deck" scheme and it did what Decipher needed it to do; it blew out old product with the promise of twelve new cards. The unique aspects of Enhanced Cloud City have remained popular to this day.

To be sure, Enhanced Cloud City is not just "Cloud City" (reviewed here!): it includes packs from that set, but was essentially the twelve unique cards found in one of four Deluxe Draft Packs.

Basics/Set Composition

The Star Wars Customizable Card Game Enhanced Cloud City set was not a true expansion and was the second of the "Enhanced" sets Decipher did. The Enhanced "Cloud City" set is a 12 card set focusing on characters, ships, weapons and scenarios presented in The Empire Strikes Back, as well as concepts implied in the heroic and criminal elements of the Star Wars universe. This set is centered on the events on Cloud City where Lando and Chewbacca work to flee Bespin and bounty hunters ruthlessly hunt Han Solo. The set consists of 5 Light Side and 7 Dark Side cards which are all premium cards.

The 12 card set features 4 Characters with weapons (Droids, Rebels and Aliens who make up the primary characters for playing with and come already armed and ready to do battle, like Chewie With Blaster Rifle and IG-88 With Riot Gun), 3 Characters with ships (Primary characters already in their space vehicles for the instant ability to do battles along the spaceline, like Boba Fett In Slave I or Lando In Millennium Falcon), 1 Effect (long-term changes to gameplay, in this case Vader’s quest to Crush The Rebellion), 2 Epic Effects (Changes to the situations which allow for movement during the game, like Lando Calrissian asserting that he runs a "Quiet Mining Colony / Independent Operation"), 1 Interrupt (cards that make instant changes to keep gameplay fresh, in this case “Any Methods Necessary”), and 1 Ship (cards representing space transport, like the Z-95 Bespin Defense Fighter). This set is heavily balanced to the Dark Side and finally offers a new, powerful rogue Dark Side characters for players to play with.

The deluxe draft pack comes with four packs of Cloud City cards and one special packet of three of the exclusive enhanced cards. Thus, in order to collect the full set, one has to buy four draft boxes to get all of the exclusive cards.

Playability

At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The starting purpose of the game is to drain your opponent of Force without depleting your own Force and to survive the trip around the Star Wars Universe with whatever your player throws at you. The basic idea is to assemble a sixty card deck (for beginners), lay out the board (spaceline) and play against an opponent. In laying out the board, players get the power from the Force they need to play other cards.

Locations form the board for the game and almost all of them have an indicator which puts into play Light Side and Dark Side Force points, which the player may then tap into to "buy" characters, ships, weapons and tactical cards to thwart their opponent. Events represent the obstacles that opponents can use to make the game more than just a basic search and kill game. The rulebook clearly defines what each deck must possess in terms of numbers of the card types. But basically, one starts by laying out a board, assembling a starship and its crew and traveling along the planets and through space to either crush the Empire or put down the Rebellion.

This is a very complex customizable card game, but it represents a level of gaming sophistication designed to appeal to younger adults and actually challenge them, which is a decent idea given the thematic complexity of the Star Wars universe. The problem, of course, is that most people who would be most stimulated by this game do not have the time or effort/interest to learn to play it. As a result, the late-teens that basically run the CCG players world seem to have had mixed impressions about this game.

The twelve cards in Enhanced Cloud City are not enough to actually play the game with, though they may enhance one's game quite nicely.

Rules/Rule Changes

There is no rulebook in this set of cards. Instead, one has to get a revised rulebook from the Special Edition set (reviewed here!). In this set, there are no new card types or rules.

Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of Star Wars will appreciate the image quality and concept cards based upon The Empire Strikes Back and the expanded Star Wars universe in Cloud City, especially because this fleshes out the popular bounty hunters in the Star Wars universe very well and adds a lot of menace to the Light Side player's experience. Most fans geeked out over having another Boba Fett and getting an armed Chewie, but for my money, they are not the best cards in the Enhanced Cloud City selection.

For a highlight, I go with IG-88 With Riot Gun. IG-88 is a powerful droid and his armor makes him resistant to a number of attacks while his native weapon makes him a cool killer. With an armor of 5 this IG-88 is strong and while it deploys for 5 Force, it is worth it as its riot gun targets for free. Unlike many of the droids, IG-88 With Riot Gun is immune to both Restraining Bolt and Purchase, so it cannot be taken out of the game that easily! The picture is cool and a concept shot, not one which appeared in The Empire Strikes Back.

Collectibility

The Enhanced Cloud City set has good collectability. Because it was only released in one printing (though later some of the cards were made into Reflections foils), the Enhanced Cloud City set is one of the sets which was rare enough to retain its value, so most collectors are likely to be pleased with it.

Overview

Despite the fact that to get the exclusive cards, one is saddled with extra packs of "Cloud City" cards, the Enhanced Cloud City cards are a surprisingly good investment and fun to play with, making it an enduring winner for Star Wars fans, card collectors and the Star Wars CCG players.

This set culls material from The Empire Strikes Back, which is reviewed here!

This set was preceded by Death Star II (reviewed here!) and followed by the Star Wars CCG expansion "Tatooine," reviewed here!

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store! For my current inventory, please visit the Star Wars CCG Category!

7/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Short Stack, The Enhanced Premiere Set Is An Expensive Way To Unload Star Wars CCGs!

The Good: Easy-to-play, Collectible value, Images
The Bad: Still has a load of recycled cards, Very small set, Most common possible recycled cards.
The Basics: The Star Wars Enhanced Premiere set provides players with character cards with their weapons and a shitton of cards they likely already have.


The most unfortunate aspect of the way Decipher marketed its Star Wars gaming cards was that when it differentiated between the limited and unlimited (printed many, many times) versions of their cards, players and collectors were often goaded into rebuying the same cards multiple times. In addition to deflating the value of the initial cards, the premiums Decipher used to try to lure fans into rebuying the same old stuff often did not hold their value. One of the exceptions to that was the Enhanced Premiere set of Star Wars cards.

To be sure, Enhanced Premiere is not just "Premiere" (reviewed here!), though it was not much more than that! The Enhanced Premiere boxes included packs from that set, but was essentially the six unique cards found in one of six Deluxe Draft Packs.

Basics/Set Composition

The Star Wars Customizable Card Game Enhanced Premiere set was not a true expansion and was the first of the "Enhanced" sets Decipher did. The Enhanced "Premiere" set is a 6 card set focusing on characters and weapons presented in The Empire Strikes Back. The set consists of 4 Light Side and 2 Dark Side cards which are all premium cards.

The 6 card set features 6 Characters With Weapons, all of whom are major characters – Han Solo, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. This set is heavily balanced to the Light Side and has nothing incredibly new, just combines the principle characters with their weapons.

The deluxe draft pack comes with four packs of Premiere cards and one exclusive enhanced cards. Thus, in order to collect the full set, one has to buy six draft boxes to get all of the exclusive cards.

Playability

At its most basic level, this is a board game where one constructs the board and pieces out of a selection of cards. The starting purpose of the game is to drain your opponent of Force without depleting your own Force and to survive the trip around the Star Wars Universe with whatever your player throws at you. The basic idea is to assemble a sixty card deck (for beginners), lay out the board (spaceline) and play against an opponent. In laying out the board, players get the power from the Force they need to play other cards.

Locations form the board for the game and almost all of them have an indicator which puts into play Light Side and Dark Side Force points, which the player may then tap into to "buy" characters, ships, weapons and tactical cards to thwart their opponent. Events represent the obstacles that opponents can use to make the game more than just a basic search and kill game. The rulebook clearly defines what each deck must possess in terms of numbers of the card types. But basically, one starts by laying out a board, assembling a starship and its crew and traveling along the planets and through space to either crush the Empire or put down the Rebellion.

This is a very complex customizable card game, but it represents a level of gaming sophistication designed to appeal to younger adults and actually challenge them, which is a decent idea given the thematic complexity of the Star Wars universe. The problem, of course, is that most people who would be most stimulated by this game do not have the time or effort/interest to learn to play it. As a result, the late-teens that basically run the CCG players world seem to have had mixed impressions about this game.

The six cards in Enhanced Premiere are not nearly enough to actually play the game with. However, because they combine characters with their weapons, they can help one reduce their hand count and make gameplay easier!

Rules/Rule Changes

There is no rulebook in this set of cards. Instead, one has to get a revised rulebook from the Special Edition set (reviewed here!). In this set, there are no new card types or rules.

Highlights

Players, collectors and fans of Star Wars will appreciate the image quality of the situations from The Empire Strikes Back and the expanded Star Wars universe in Premiere, especially because this fleshes out the major heroes and villains in the Star Wars universe very well and adds a lot of flexibility and power to the Light Side player's experience. Most fans geeked out over the new Leia and the powerful Luke cards.

For a highlight, I go with Boba Fett With Blaster Rifle. The Dark Side Alien card features Boba Fett on Bespin. For only five Force, Boba Fett may be played with his weapons and enhanced play options. The image is cool and it is a card that adds 3 to any vehicle it pilots, making for a distinct and powerful card!

Collectibility

The Enhanced Premiere set has good collectability. Because the exclusive cards were only released in one printing (though later some of the cards were made into Reflections foils), the Enhanced Premiere set is one of the sets which was rare enough to retain its value, so most collectors are likely to be pleased with it. Unfortunately, the cards that come with the premiums are incredibly over-common.

Overview

The Star Wars Enhanced Premiere cards might recycle a great number of cards, but the set itself is cool, filled with powerful cards, and has retained its value!

This set culls material from The Empire Strikes Back, which is reviewed here!

This set was preceded by Death Star II (reviewed here!) and followed by the Star Wars CCG expansion "Tatooine," reviewed here!

5.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Abysmal Star Wars Gaming Set: "Jedi Knights" Is An Utter Waste Of Time!

The Good: Can be found cheap enough
The Bad: No rulebook, Not clear to play, Computer-generated images, Not at all collectible.
The Basics: Arguably the worst Star Wars product - and worst product period - ever produced by Decipher, "Jedi Knights" is a lame game!


Have you ever encountered a game that you've taken on the challenge of reviewing only to wonder "what's the point?" I mean, some things are just so poorly made that it's hard to muster up the energy to bother with reviewing them. That's where I am with my consideration of Star Wars "Jedi Knights," arguably the lamest gaming set to ever be created by Decipher, Inc.

The thing is, Decipher had an amazing game with Star Wars Customizable Card Game. It was popular, it survived the release of The Phantom Menace and fans and collectors found great value in it. With the release of The Phantom Menace (reviewed here!), Decipher released "Young Jedi," a new game mechanic to allow players to play with more Jedi knights and all sorts of fun that way. It was more of a kid's game, but it tied in with the movie well and there was a purpose; it prevented Decipher from having to do a complete overhaul on the game because of the sudden prevalence of Jedi in the Star Wars universe. Why then they ever created "Jedi Knights" is a complete and utter mystery.

Basics/Set Composition

"Jedi Knights" is the first in a limited gaming mechanic by the same name. "Jedi Knights" included 154 gaming cards unique to this set, all of which feature computer generated artwork images of characters and situations from the original Star Wars trilogy (reviewed here!). As a result, there are computer-generated images that look like airbrushed images of Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett, Leia, Emperor Palpatine and Luke Skywalker. Cards came in packs of nine cards, with thirty-six packs per box.

In addition to looking terribly ugly, there is nothing exceptional or unique here; many of the cards actually have the same titles as earlier cards from the vastly superior "Star Wars CCG." That said, the cards are broken down more or less evenly between Light and Dark Side cards and the set is comprised of 40 Common, 40 Uncommon, 50 Rare and 24 Fixed cards that are only available in the starter decks.

The cards are broken down as: 17 Alliance Character (cards featuring heroes to play with as agents of the Light Side, like Luke or Han Solo), 18 Independent Character (cards featuring neutral character for either side to play with, like Momaw Nadon or Greedo), 23 Empire Character (cards featuring villains like Darth Vader or Grand Moff Tarkin), 36 Event (cards featuring temporary conditions, like Local Trouble or realizing That's No Moon), 15 Starship (cards featuring means of transport, like Gold Five or the Millennium Falcon), 3 Theme (cards featuring longer-term conditions in the game, like The Force Is Strong In That One or You Like Me Because I'm A Scoundrel), 22 Weapon (cards featuring means of harming other character cards, like Han Solo's Blaster or Boba Fett's Blaster Rifle), 10 Force (cards depicting actions of the force, more mechanical to the game than interesting), and 8 Location cards (which form the playing field for the game).

Playability

This is a terrible game when it comes to game mechanics. First off, there is no rulebook in the booster boxes, so one needs to pick up starter decks just to get the rules. This is a customizable card game that involves a payment system; that's where the Force cards come in. After drawing Force, you spend it on bringing characters, weapons, ships into play and playing them against your opponent; the goal of the game is not entirely clear, save to kill your opponent's characters and not get shot yourself (in the game or in real life, I suppose).

The thing is, the game alternates between utterly incomprehensible and so simplistic as to not be fun at all. The best CCGs are games with strategy that have some element of cunning to playing them. This is much more a game of luck and a poor one at that.

Rule Changes

As this is the first set, there are no rule changes. Rules are laid out in a thirty page rulebook not found in this pack.


Highlights

This is such a tough sell as it is. First, in a rather irksome twist, many of the rares have a left and right version which are used when put in a pair of special glasses (not included) to provide the lame artwork in three-d. This is another desperate attempt to sell a lame looking, poor card and it failed completely. Thus, in addition to more cards to collect and devices needed to get the most out of them, the artwork is so poor that it's hard to say any cards are better than the others. Moreover, as far as playability goes, there's no highlight because the game is so random in how it is played.

I'm going with 46R - Boba Fett, Relentless Hunter. At least it looks cool.

Collectibility

This set was vastly overproduced in relation to its demand. As a result, these cards are ridiculously easy to find. Gimmicks like the left and right card versions for the stereoscopic viewers actually devalued the rares more than enhanced their value. As well, Decipher attempted a lame trick where they slapped a "First Day Of Printing" sticker on random packs. This did not increase the value of the packs or the cards inside.

In other words, the poor game mechanic, lame images and overproduction of "Jedi Knights" made it virtually worthless.

Overview

There are plenty of great trading card games out there. This is not one of them. If you're looking for things to get signed at conventions, these cards - featuring poor CG-renditions of characters - represent the lowest possible form of card to get signed. There is nothing to recommend spending any money, time or attention on this product.

For other gaming card reviews, please be sure to check out my takes on:
Star Wars CCG White Border Premiere
Star Wars Young Jedi The Menace Of Darth Maul
The Lord Of The Rings Trading Card Game The Fellowship Of The Ring
Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG White Border Premiere

0/10

For other card reviews, please be sure to visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Value Is In The Eye Of The Beholder: "Young Jedi Reflections" Largely Underwhelm!

The Good: Nice foils, Easy to learn, Good way to enhance a collection, Underproduced and valuable
The Bad: Mostly foil reprints, Mostly extra non-foil cards, Still a lame game
The Basics: Objectively, this set is a waste of money, but the market continues to declare that even by-the-pack Young Jedi Reflections cards are extremely valuable, making them worth hunting down!


There is a real crapshoot in trying to figure out how to rate and review the Young Jedi Reflections gaming cards. Young Jedi was a terrible unpopular gaming mechanic and the first three sets were so grossly overproduced that it is virtually impossible to get excited about them at all. On the flip side, the last three sets were remarkably underproduced and as a side effect of that tend to be remarkably valuable. In fact, one of the most valuable - for collectors and investors - Star Wars gaming card sets is Young Jedi Reflections. It was so underproduced that packs of the cards sell for $5.00 - $10.00 each when they can be found and that is an infrequent thing.

Moreover, packs tend to be chock full of goodies, so even by the pack it is hard not to do well as a buyer. But these packs of twenty cards yield few unique cards and a lot left over, making it hard to laud the product as well. The result is a very valuable foil card set, bogged down by a ton of extra cards per pack that players, investors and collectors will either already have or largely not be able to use.

Basics/Set Composition

The "Reflections" was the fifth set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG would have expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"Reflections" is a 100 card gaming card set comprised of 60 foil reprints and forty unique foil cards. Of the unique cards, the cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting twenty of each. The 40 cards for the set were comprised of 12 Armed And Dangerous (cards depicting personnel with weapons or equipment, like Boss Nass, Gungan Chief & Fambaa and P-59, Destroyer Droid Commander & Multi Troop Transport), 14 Combo Battle Cards (cards illustrating combinations of equipment and moves to maximize damage when playing characters together like Jedi Force Push/We're Not In Trouble Yet and At Last We Will Have Our Revenge/Sith Force Push),and 14 Double Impact (cards that detail effects of battle, like Gungan City/Gungan Energy Shield and Starfighter Screen/Blockade).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "Reflections" was originally released in boxes that had 24 packs of twenty cards each. Booster packs came with 1 reprint foil, 1 Reflections unique card and eighteen cards from the prior four sets randomly inserted.


Playability

Young Jedi introduced a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

"Reflections" requires other cards from other expansions as there are no location cards in this expansion. As a result, it is impossible to play the game with just cards from these packs. Ironically, the packs might include all of the cards needed to play the game, but the Reflections set of 100 cards is woefully inadequate for players.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again.

Rule Changes

"Reflections" is the fifth Young Jedi set. There are no starter decks, so one must track down a starter deck from one of the first three expansions for rules. Starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. "Reflections" follows the same rules laid out in "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) with no changes to the core game.

It is best to find a "Battle Of Naboo" starter deck, as "Battle Of Naboo" expanded the game by adding a new planet to it and provided new rules for the new card type. The new card type was Effects and "Reflections" essentially has them with the combo cards. Effects (Double Impact and Combo Battle cards) essentially allow one to play cards together and most every one has text on it with explicit directions on how to use it for play.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "Reflections" for the images of a number of very popular Star Wars characters. In addition to foil reprints of earlier rare characters like C-3P0, Shmi Skywalker, and Sebulba, there are brand new combinations that make some lesser characters suddenly powerful, like Toonbuck Toora, Senator & Coruscant Taxi.

But for the best card of the set, I'd have to go with card A7 Aurra Sing, Trophy Collector & Jedi Lightsaber, Stolen By Aurra Sing. This card basically arms a bounty hunter with a Jedi weapon, increases her damages such that for the minimal cost it takes to play her she becomes enough of a match for any light side player (certainly the unarmed ones!).

Collectibility

"Reflections" was beautifully underproduced, for a change and as a result - and the fact that the set was so small - made it one of the harder ones to find. Many dealers did not even get it in and as a result, it sold out quickly and has been a tougher set to find on the secondary market.

The thing is, like any Reflections foil product, one has to balance the foil reprints with the unique cards and the fact that in order to get those cards in, one will be getting nine times the stock in cards one already has. This almost guts the collectibility, save that the packs seem to still be near impossible to find.

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, and if one is looking to invest in the product, "Reflections" is the strongest way to go, even if one ends up with so many leftovers!

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Reflections" was preceded by "Duel Of The Fates" (reviewed here!) and was followed by "Boonta Eve Podrace" (reviewed here!).

5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Sidegame Ends "Young Jedi" With The Lame (But Valuable) "Boonta Eve Podrace!"

The Good: Small, Easy-to-collect (if you can find it!)
The Bad: Lack of any incentive cards, Small set, Uninspired sidegame.
The Basics: "Boonta Eve Podrace" is a depressingly small set which investors have found more value in than collectors or players, finishing "Young Jedi" with a whimper.


When Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace finally fulfilled its destiny and appeared on the big screen, I had finally come to terms with the concept that I was a picky person who had something even I was beginning to recognize as high standards. As a result, when the podrace scene came around and many of my peers in the theater sat dazzled, I sat bored and asked "What does this have to do with anything?" In fact, at the time, I was on a first date with a person I would eventually marry and I remembered how I had read that the podrace was ten minutes long in a magazine earlier in the day. So, I nudged my date and commented "That's ten minutes of our lives we can never get back." So when "Young Jedi," the trading card game based solely upon The Phantom Menace was wrapping itself up - it never achieved what anyone might call popularity - the choice to do an expansion based solely on the podrace scene seemed right away to me like the final nail in the game's coffin.

The final set was "Boonta Eve Podrace" and it sold out quickly, largely because it was so much more limited than the earlier releases and only was available in boxes of booster packs. It remains (oddly enough) one of the harder to find Decipher Star Wars sets largely because of its quick sellout! In addition to selling out quickly, it appears to be one of the least produced card sets Decipher ever released. So, while one might note that supply and demand needs can drive price up, there was such low demand for "Boonta Eve Podrace" that Decipher created only a tiny supply.


Basics/Set Composition

The "Boonta Eve Podrace" was the sixth full set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG ultimately had expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"Boonta Eve Podrace" is a 60 card gaming card set comprised of 20 common, 20 uncommon, and 20 rare cards. The cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting thirty of each. The 60 cards for the set were comprised of 32 Character (cards depicting personnel like Shmi Skywalker and Meddun), 10 Weapon (cards illustrating weapons that enhance a character's ability to do battle, like a Pull-out Blaster or Gaderffi Stick), 8 Battle (cards that provide playable actions for the characters, like All-Out Attack and No Gimben Up), 6 Effect (cards that determine consequences for battle actions, like What Does Your Heart Tell You? and He Always Wins!), and 2 Objective (extended Effect cards which provide goals for the game), and 2 Starship cards (which provide vehicles to move characters from one location to another, like a Viceroy's Battleship and Amidala's Starship).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "Boonta Eve Podrace" was originally released in boxes that had 36 packs of eleven cards each. Booster packs came with 1 rare, three uncommon and seven common cards. There were no foil cards in this set. The "Boonta Eve Podrace" cards are distinguished from subsequent sets by the small Sebulba head in the lower right corner of each card.

Playability

Young Jedi introduced a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

"Boonta Eve Podrace" requires other cards from other expansions as there are no location cards in this expansion. As a result, it is impossible to play the game with just cards from these boxes.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again. But more than anything, "Boonta Eve Podrace" is hampered by the fact that this expansion is focused almost solely on being a sidegame to the main game allowing players to race one another in podracers, without a strong game mechanic to make the outcome of such races truly variable. In other words, with the right cards, Anakin will win every single time.

Rule Changes

"Boonta Eve Podrace" is the final Young Jedi set. There are no starter decks, so one must track down a starter deck from one of the first three expansions for rules. Starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. "Boonta Eve Podrace" follows the same rules laid out in "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) with no changes to the core game.

It is best to find a "Battle Of Naboo" starter deck, as "Battle Of Naboo" expanded the game by adding a new planet to it and provided new rules for the new card type. The new card type was Effects and "Boonta Eve Podrace" has them, too. Effects essentially allow one to play cards together and most every one has text on it with explicit directions on how to use it for play.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "Boonta Eve Podrace" for the images of all sorts of obscure characters from the film. Unlike most of the expansions which capitalize on the familiar faces and known recurring characters and situations, "Boonta Eve Podrace" is more obsessed with the minutia surrounding the podrace. As a result, obscure podracer pilots and bounty hunters seen on screen for about a frame make up most of the set along with podracers for the characters to participate in the sidegame with.

But for the best card of the set, I'd have to go with card the rare Aurra Sing, Formidable Adversary. If this seems an odd choice, one need recall that Sing's lone scene in The Phantom Menace is the Podrace scene. Aurra Sing is a bounty hunter with enough power to take on Jedi and be used as a sniper to kill Anakin from a distance. She is the most useful card, not for this set, but rather for the overall game.

Collectibility

"Boonta Eve Podrace" was incredibly underproduced and as a result - and the fact that the set was so small - made it one of the harder ones to find. Many dealers did not even get it in and as a result, it sold out quickly and has been a tougher set to find on the secondary market. As well, without any foils, the set is easier to collect, though there were very few collectors or players left who wanted to!

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, and if one is looking to invest in the product, "Boonta Eve Podrace" is one of the strongest ways to go, even if one cannot play the game right out of this box. Still, players have shunned the product, so its value is relative and the cards themselves are hardly the best "Young Jedi" ever produced.

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Boonta Eve Podrace" was preceded by "Reflections" (reviewed here!) and was the final set (not followed by anything).

3/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Rarer Now, "Duel Of The Fates" Almost Makes "Young Jedi" Worth Picking Up!

The Good: Decent sized images, Easy to learn game, No lame foil reprints, Value has increased
The Bad: Lame game mechanic, Cannot be played with only cards from this expansion
The Basics: A surprisingly strong expansion, "Duel Of The Fates" was underproduced and enhances decks well, despite not being playable on its own!


There is some irony to the way Decipher created its Young Jedi game. When it did not appear to take off with the first three sets, it deprioritized it, scrapped most of the next set and that underproduced work became one of the best sellers for that new customizable card game! Yes, fans didn't have to like it, they just had to buy it!

The fourth set was "Duel Of The Fates" and it sold out quickly, largely because it was so much more limited than the earlier releases and only was available in boxes of booster packs. It remains (oddly enough) one of the harder to find Decipher Star Wars sets largely because of its quick sell-out!


Basics/Set Composition

The "Duel Of The Fates" was the fourth set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG would have expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"Duel Of The Fates" is a 60 card gaming card set comprised of 20 common, 20 uncommon, 18 rare cards and 2 ultra rare cards. The cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting seventy of each. The 60 cards for the set were comprised of 21 Character (cards depicting personnel like Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Sideous), 5 Weapon (cards illustrating weapons that enhance a character's ability to do battle, like a Jedi Lightsaber, Stolen By Aurra Sing or a Booma), 20 Battle (cards that provide playable actions for the characters, like Power Of The Sith or Gungan Mounted Troops), 12 Effect (cards that determine consequences for battle actions, like Pounded Unto Death or Blockade) and 2 Starship cards (which provide vehicles to move characters from one location to another, like a Naboo Starfighter or Droid Starfighter).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "Duel Of The Fates" was originally released in boxes that had 36 packs of eleven cards each. Booster packs came with 1 rare, three uncommon and seven common cards. There were no foil cards in this set. The "Duel Of The Fates" cards are distinguished from subsequent sets by the small Obi-Wan Kenobi head in the lower right corner of each card.


Playability

Young Jedi introduced a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

"Duel Of The Fates" requires other cards from other expansions as there are no location cards in this expansion. As a result, it is impossible to play the game with just cards from these boxes.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again.

Rule Changes

"Duel Of The Fates" is the fourth Young Jedi set. There are no starter decks, so one must track down a starter deck from one of the first three expansions for rules. Starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. "Duel Of The Fates" follows the same rules laid out in "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) with no changes to the core game.

It is best to find a "Battle Of Naboo" starter deck, as "Battle Of Naboo" expanded the game by adding a new planet to it and provided new rules for the new card type. The new card type was Effects and "Duel Of The Fates" has them, too. Effects essentially allow one to play cards together and most every one has text on it with explicit directions on how to use it for play.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "Duel Of The Fates" for the images of a number of very popular Star Wars characters. In addition to familiar characters like R2-D2, Yoda and the young Obi-Wan, "Duel Of The Fates" includes such new favorites as Ki-Adi Mundi, Valorum, Watto and Nute Gunray.

But for the best card of the set, I'd have to go with card the ultra rare 31 Darth Maul, Student Of The Dark Side. First, this Maul is sufficiently powerful to hold his own against most anyone, with six power and five damage. But the real kicker is he gets additional power by fighting Jedi. Let's face it, who else are you going to use a Darth Maul against but a Jedi?! So with eight power, this is the supreme Jedi killer!

Collectibility

"Duel Of The Fates" was beautifully underproduced, for a change ans as a result - and the fact that the set was so small - made it one of the harder ones to find. Many dealers did not even get it in and as a result, it sold out quickly and has been a tougher set to find on the secondary market. As well, without any foils, the set is easier to collect, even with the ultra rares!

Ultra rares seem to pop up about one per box, so it is not difficult to make a master set of these cards, but collectors are likely to be left with a lot of leftovers, even if they only purchase two boxes.

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, and if one is looking to invest in the product, "Duel Of The Fates" is one of the strongest ways to go, even if one cannot play the game right out of this box.

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Duel Of The Fates" was preceded by "Battle Of Naboo" (reviewed here!) and was followed by "Young Jedi Reflections" ((reviewed here!)).

5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Enhanced" "Menace Of Darth Maul" Hardly Makes Rebuying Worthwhile, But It Does Have Merit!

The Good: Interesting premiums, Decent way to get the old set, Usually inexpensive enough
The Bad: Impossible to make a maser set from, Very little that is actually new
The Basics: For those who are just now getting into Young Jedi, start your collection with "Enhanced" "Menace Of Darth Maul," if you can find it cheap!


Young Jedi, one of Decipher's Star Wars CCG games - designed to promote The Phantom Menace - was barely around long enough for it to degenerate into repackaging itself to sell off the old stock. As a result, there were very few releases in the game that were re-released with minor incentives to try to help clear out Decipher's warehouses of the extra stock. No, "Young Jedi" flopped fast and hard.

One of the few products from Young Jedi that was recycled was "Menace Of Darth Maul," the very first set of Young Jedi cards. In addition to appearing initially in three different forms (Starter decks, Booster boxes, and collector's boxes), the product was part of a pathetically simple repack, called "Enhanced" "Menace Of Darth Maul" and later the packs would be stripped and the cards would be used in "Reflections." But as for "Enhanced" "Menace Of Darth Maul," this was a pretty weak repack and very few fans actually bought into it. But for those coming late to the game, this can offer some real value if it is found cheap!

Basics/Set Composition

The Enhanced set is comprised of only six cards. Yes, when Decipher repackages, it goes for cheap and easy. Indeed, the Enhanced "Menace Of Darth Maul" is a set made up of only six cards. It is all about the packaging, though. The six exclusive cards were found in what has come to be known as draft decks. This listing is for a box of the draft decks.

A draft deck of Enhanced "Menace Of Darth Maul" consisted of four booster packs of "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) and one of the six premium cards unique to the "Enhanced" set. The front of each draft deck clearly shows the premium card in the box and there are no surprises as a result. The box of draft decks comes with two of each draft deck, so each box has two complete Enhanced sets as well as forty-eight (not thirty, despite what the listing here says - and this product was ONLY released the one way!) factory-sealed "Menace Of Darth Maul" packs.

Playability

The Enhanced set is not playable right out of the box. Sadly enough, one would need to buy a starter deck (from any set) just to play the game. This is because the location cards were only in starter decks for the first three sets. As a result, no combination of booster packs or the six enhanced cards will net players the right cards needed to play the Young Jedi game.

Basically, though, "Menace Of Darth Maul" is a trading card game, so one assembles a deck and combats other players who have built decks to take control of a planet in the Star Wars universe. This is the happy medium between role playing and card games. Young Jedi, though, operated on a new mechanic unique to itself, one that was terrifically unpopular at the time and has become no more popular since. The result is that finding people to play with is virtually impossible, making the enduring playability of the game quite low.

As for the Enhanced set, the six cards alone are characters and as a result are not enough to play the game.

Rule Changes

There are no rule changes in "Enhanced" "Menace Of Darth Maul." As well, there are no rulebooks. Again, one needs a starter deck to play this game and that does have a rulebook and it is quite clear. The six premium cards in this set are not subject to any different rules than they were when the game was first released.

Highlights

The set of six Enhanced cards is remarkably simple, with three light side characters and three dark side characters. Fans of the series will be happy to see Qui-Gon Jinn, Amidala and Mace Windu are given premium status and those who like trying to defeat them will find it easier with the new Sebulba or Trade Federation Tank.

The highlight of the enhanced set has to be Darth Maul himself. P4 Darth Maul, Sith Assassin, can travel to any planet, has a power of 6 (which makes him rival to the most powerful Jedi) and a damage of 5. As well, he has a damage modifier when playing this particular Maul with "Darth Maul's Lightsaber." This makes the card especially wicked and well worth the effort of finding it! As well, the image of Maul with his double-sided lightsaber ignited is just a very cool shot!

Collectibility

Collectibility in this case is a real mixed bag. The six premium cards are easy enough to find, but there are so few collectors who are still collecting them that it makes it a pretty tough call to advise people to buy. This is another case where serious collectors end up with a lot of stuff they already have (from the packs of cards) just in order to get the new premiums.

That said, the new cards are of popular characters and items that make collectors want to keep getting them. The ideal here is actually people who are getting into the game now. I've found boxes of the Enhanced "Menace Of Darth Maul" for $7.00. At that price, it is hard not to get into buying them and sell off one of the Enhanced sets and the unopened packs for more than I paid initially! Despite the lack of popularity of the game, the Enhanced singles alone still sell and bring in decent amounts. This can be a good investment set.

Overview

Enhanced "Menace Of Darth Maul" is a real crapshoot, but there is enough value and the premium cards are powerful enough to recommend the boxes to those just getting into the game, if not those who already have the original release.

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Enhanced Menace Of Darth Maul" was squeezed in between "Battle Of Naboo" (reviewed here!) and "Duel Of The Fates" (reviewed here!).

6/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Continuing The Fair Game, With Little To Recommend It: "The Battle Of Naboo."

The Good: Decent sized images, Easy to learn game
The Bad: Incredibly overproduced, Lame game mechanic, Collectibility issues (with foil cards), disproportionately expensive by-the-pack
The Basics: An otherwise adequate expansion, for a generally dismal Trading Card Game, "Battle Of Naboo" is a fair way to invest one's Star Wars fan dollars.


As I continue to work my way through the various trading and gaming cards in my inventory for review, I find myself yet again sitting, staring at a set of Young Jedi cards. With the third expansion, "Battle Of Naboo," I found myself finally getting into some of the new characters, but increasingly bored with the game mechanic. And after all of this time, it is hard to go back and get psyched about products that were designed around capitalizing on the enthusiasm of Star Wars "Episode 1."

"Battle Of Naboo," rather predictably, expands the Young Jedi game to Naboo, so it is loaded with Gungans and royal court personnel, as well as battle droids. It might well be an average set for an average game, but it is still not the worst CCG I’ve ever played.

Basics/Set Composition

The "Battle Of Naboo" was the third set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG would have expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"Battle Of Naboo" is a 158 card gaming card set comprised of 60 common, 40 uncommon, 10 starter deck exclusive and 30 rare cards and eighteen foil reprint cards that were available approximately one in every nine packs. The cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting seventy of each. The 140 unique cards for the set were comprised of 71 Character (cards picting personnel like Sio Bibble or OOM-9), 19 Weapon (cards illustrating weapons that enhance a character's ability to do battle, like Captain Tarpals' Electropole or Darth Maul's Electrobinoculars), 26 Battle (cards that provide playable actions for the characters, like A Thousand Terrible Things or Your Occupation Here Has Ended), 10 Effects (cards that create consequences to battle actions, like We Wish To Form An Alliance or After Her!), 6 Locations (cards that act as a "board" for the game, all of which are on Coruscant in this expansion) and 8 Starship cards (which provide vehicles to move characters from one location to another, like Amidala's Starship or a Droid Starfighter).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "Battle Of Naboo" was originally released in boxes that had 36 packs of eleven cards each. Booster packs came with 1 rare, three uncommon and seven common cards. Foil cards replaced a rare in about every nine packs and finding loose packs is often indicative of culling for the foils. In other words, there is far less value to buying by the pack than getting a full box. The "Battle Of Naboo" cards are distinguished from subsequent sets by the small Queen Amidala head in the lower right corner of each card.


Playability

Young Jedi introduced a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

With the "Battle Of Naboo" set all of the battles are fought on Naboo and the game may be won by either taking control of the three planets by winning each location or by playing in such a way that your opponent runs out of cards before you do. Either way, the game is not the most exciting CCG ever and truth be told the simplicity of it is likely to drive away players who like a good game of skill.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again.

Rule Changes

"Battle Of Naboo" is the third Young Jedi set. The starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. "Battle Of Naboo" follows the same rules laid out in "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) with no changes to the core game.

However, "Battle Of Naboo" does expand the game by adding a new planet to it. As a result, there are now rules added governing the movement of characters between planets and ways to achieve victory in the overall game with more than one planet in play. As well, there is the new card type, Effects. Effects essentially allow one to play cards together and most every one has text on it with explicit directions on how to use it for play.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "Battle Of Naboo" for the images of a number of very popular Star Wars characters. In addition to familiar characters like R2-D2, Yoda and the young Obi-Wan, "Battle Of Naboo" includes such new favorites as Jar Jar Binks, Tarpals, Rune Haako, and Aurra Sing.

And for the best card of the set, I would have to go with 75 Aurra Sing, Mercenary. With five points power, she can hold her own with most of the Jedi. Sure, she only has three points damage, but she is a bounty hunter and they always look cool. As well, she may be augmented for greater damage with Aurra Sing's Blaster Rifle from one of the earlier sets and become a Jedi killer! She is a powerful rare and essential to winning the game for most Dark Side players!

Collectibility

"Battle Of Naboo" was grossly overproduced in relation to its demand. This is a very easy set of gaming cards to find and conversely one of the worst investments for those who look to trading and gaming cards to make money.

One of the big issues with "Battle Of Naboo," though, are the foil cards. Foil cards have rarities of their own and two of them are exceptionally rare, popping up one in every hundred packs or so. This makes is a ridiculous set to try to collect because of all of the extras one is left trying to assemble a master set with the foils. Moreover, it is not cost-effective for most dealers to break open the boxes to try to assemble sets for people, whatwith the lack of demand and the overall expense of assembling sets of these cards.

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, but "Battle Of Naboo" was so simplistic and overproduced it is almost astonishing that Decipher bothered to continue with this Episode 1 gaming set. Don't get me wrong, this is an adequate expansion, but especially by the pack, it is hard to get excited about this product!

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Battle Of Naboo" was preceded by "The Jedi Council" (reviewed here!) and followed by "Duel Of The Fates" (reviewed here!).

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Lame Game, Decent Expansion, "The Jedi Council" Continues "Young Jedi" Well Enough.

The Good: Decent sized images, Easy to learn game
The Bad: Incredibly overproduced, Lame game mechanic, Collectibility issues (with foil cards)
The Basics: An adequate expansion, "The Jedi Council" sadly trundles along in a deeply unsatisfying game!


As the year winds down and I find more products still needing to be reviewed, I consider my future as a reviewer and it seems strangely bright to me. Even with my ratings philosophy (check it out here!), I feel confident, because I never seem to be in a rut for things to review and, frankly, to pan. So while some might complain that they're almost through all of the things they like, I continue to prolifically produce, knowing that there is a decent balance of items left for me to weigh in on, including a large number of things I find average.

I consider this while looking over "The Jedi Council," the first expansion to the "Young Jedi" set after its debut. It was not a popular game and the mechanic is generally lousy, but "The Jedi Council" adequately continued the series as it was begun. The problem is, even at its best, the game is still a disappointing waste of time and money.

Basics/Set Composition

The "The Jedi Council" was the second set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG would have expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"The Jedi Council" is a 158 card gaming card set comprised of 60 common, 40 uncommon, 10 starter deck exclusive and 30 rare cards and eighteen foil reprint cards that were available approximately one in every nine packs. The cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting seventy of each. The 140 unique cards for the set were comprised of 74 Character (cards depicting personnel like Ki-Adi Mundi or a Galactic Delegate), 26 Weapon (cards illustrating weapons that enhance a character's ability to do battle, like Adi Gallia's Lightsaber or a Multi Troop Transport), 28 Battle (cards that provide playable actions for the characters, like Let Them Make The First Move or ), 6 Locations (cards that act as a "board" for the game, all of which are on Coruscant in this expansion) and 6 Starship cards (which provide vehicles to move characters from one location to another, like Radiant VII or a Sith Infiltrator).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "The Jedi Council" was originally released in boxes that had 36 packs of eleven cards each. Booster packs came with 1 rare, three uncommon and seven common cards. Foil cards replaced a rare in about every nine packs and finding loose packs is often indicative of culling for the foils. The "The Jedi Council" cards are distinguished from subsequent sets by the small Mace Windu head in the lower right corner of each card.

Playability

Young Jedi introduced a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

With the "The Jedi Council" set all of the battles are fought on Coruscant and the game may be won by either taking control of the planet by winning each location or by playing in such a way that your opponent runs out of cards before you do. Either way, the game is not the most exciting CCG ever and truth be told the simplicity of it is likely to drive away players who like a good game of skill.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again.

Rule Changes

"The Jedi Council" is the first Young Jedi set. The starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. "The Jedi Council" follows the same rules laid out in "Menace Of Darth Maul," with no changes to the core game.

However, "The Jedi Council" does expand the game by adding a new planet to it. As a result, there are now rules added governing the movement of characters between planets and ways to achieve victory in the overall game with more than one planet in play.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "The Jedi Council" for the images of a number of very popular Star Wars characters. In addition to familiar characters like R2-D2, Yoda and the young Obi-Wan, "The Jedi Council" includes such new favorites as Ki-Adi Mundi, Valorum, Watto and Nute Gunray.

But for the best card of the set, I'd have to go with card 7 Mace Windu, Senior Jedi Council Member. In addition to having a great shot of a very laid-back looking Samuel L. Jackson, the card is arguably the most powerful one in the deck. With more power than Darth Sidious and more damage than Darth Maul, Mace Windu is the perfect defense against the Dark Side in this game. Yes, this card alone can take on one of the Droid Army tanks . . . and win!

Collectibility

"The Jedi Council" was grossly overproduced in relation to its demand. This is a very easy set of gaming cards to find and conversely one of the worst investments for those who look to trading and gaming cards to make money.

One of the big issues with "The Jedi Council," though, are the foil cards. Foil cards have rarities of their own and two of them are exceptionally rare, popping up one in every hundred packs or so. This makes is a ridiculous set to try to collect because of all of the extras one is left trying to assemble a master set with the foils. Moreover, it is not cost-effective for most dealers to break open the boxes to try to assemble sets for people, whatwith the lack of demand and the overall expense of assembling sets of these cards.

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, but "The Jedi Council" was so simplistic and overproduced it is almost astonishing that Decipher bothered to continue with this Episode 1 gaming set. Don't get me wrong, this is an adequate expansion, but the game is still not worth it!

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"The Jedi Council" was preceded by "Menace Of Darth Maul" (reviewed here!) and followed by "Battle Of Naboo" (reviewed here!).

4/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Menace This, Darth Maul! "Young Jedi" Starts Out Mediocre With "Menace Of Darth Maul!"

The Good: Decent sized images, Easy to learn game
The Bad: Lame game mechanic, Collectibility issues (with foil cards), By-the-pack is a terrible value.
The Basics: By the pack, the lackluster "Menace Of Darth Maul" gaming set becomes one that is impossible to get excited about investing in or playing.


Does anyone remember how, before the release of Star Wars: Episode 1 all of the merchandising was capitalizing on Darth Maul? Darth Maul was mysterious and powerful, dark and badass in a way that fans of the franchise were excited about. Darth Maul became instantaneously the most common fan costume from Star Wars at the conventions and some collectors made collections of all of the Darth Maul memorabilia they could find (and let's face it, there was a lot of Star Wars swag with Darth Maul on it at the time!). Of course, it only took one viewing of The Phantom Menace for most of us to see through they hype; Maul might look pretty cool, but in his tenure on screen, he takes out one Jedi (who more or less let him) before getting split in half by an enraged young Obi-Wan. Not exactly the most powerful Sith we ever see.

So, one assumes it was all hype when Decipher, makers of the Star Wars CCG launched their new game mechanic, Young Jedi, with the "Menace Of Darth Maul" set. I mean, beyond the hype, there's not much menace to Darth Maul. Sadly, there's not much fun to be had from this first Young Jedi set, either. More than that, the average gaming set is plummeted into territory not worth purchasing when sold by the pack.

Basics/Set Composition

The "Menace Of Darth Maul" was the first set Decipher produced to capitalize on the excitement surrounding the release of The Phantom Menace. While their enormously popular Star Wars CCG would have expansions that contained characters and themes from Episode 1, that game was not designed for the heavy influence of Jedi Knights that the time period of The Phantom Menace demanded. As a result, they decided to create a new game, called Young Jedi. Young Jedi was also geared toward a slightly younger audience than the late-teen and twentysomething crowd that ate up the Star Wars CCG.

"Menace Of Darth Maul" is a 158 card gaming card set comprised of 60 common, 40 uncommon, 10 starter deck exclusive and 30 rare cards and eighteen foil reprint cards that were available approximately one in every nine packs. The cards were broken down between Light and Dark Side cards with each side getting seventy of each. The 140 unique cards for the set were comprised of 68 Character (cards depicting personnel like Qui-Gon Jinn or Darth Sidious), 27 Weapon (cards illustrating weapons that enhance a character's ability to do battle, like Aurra Sing's Blaster Rifle or an Electropole), 32 Battle (cards that provide playable actions for the characters, like the appearance of an Opee Sea Killer or Amidala's insistence that I've Been Trained In Defense), 6 Locations (cards that act as a "board" for the game) and 6 Starship cards (which provide vehicles to move characters from one location to another).

The images on the Young Jedi cards are as close to full bleed as possible, minimizing the borders and texts to provide cards that are actually nice to look at. "Menace Of Darth Maul" was originally released in boxes that had 36 packs of eleven cards each. Booster packs came with 1 rare, three uncommon and seven common cards. Foil cards replaced a rare in about every nine packs and finding loose packs is often indicative of culling for the foils. The "Menace Of Darth Maul" cards are distinguished from subsequent sets by the small Maul head in the lower right corner of each card.

Playability

Young Jedi introduces a new gaming mechanic unique to this game. The game is played with sixty-card decks and the rulebook (not included in the booster packs or boxes) describes how to assemble a deck to play the game and achieve victory against your opponent. This is essentially a strategy game played with cards that have different values and functions. Players draw cards to their hand, stock up a location with characters and do battle.

With the "Menace Of Darth Maul" set all of the battles are fought on Tatooine and the game may be won by either taking control of the planet by winning each location or by playing in such a way that your opponent runs out of cards before you do. Either way, the game is not the most exciting CCG ever and truth be told the simplicity of it is likely to drive away players who like a good game of skill.

Most of the cards, especially the Battle cards define actions and tell the player how to use them. This is an easy game to learn, but consequently one that is not challenging to master and therefore less exciting to play over and over again.

Rule Changes

"Menace Of Darth Maul" is the first Young Jedi set. The starter decks come with a rulebook (not included in booster packs). Given that the rules take up 29 pages of a little book, it's not so much the point of a review to list the rules for readers. It is, however, a very easy game for anyone over twelve to learn and master. As the first set, "Menace Of Darth Maul" does not have any rule changes.

Highlights

Fans of The Phantom Menace will likely enjoy "Menace Of Darth Maul" for the images of a number of very popular Star Wars characters. In addition to familiar characters like R2-D2, Yoda and the incomplete C-3P0, "Menace Of Darth Maul" includes such favorites as the young Obi-Wan, the very young Anakin Skywalker and the mysterious Darth Sidious. As well, there are a whole bevy of characters introduced in The Phantom Menace, like Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, Darth Maul, and Jar Jar Binks.

But for the best card of the set, I'd have to go with card 71 Darth Maul, Sith Apprentice. In addition to having a damage that makes him equal to Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon, he has more power than Qui-Gon and can move between locations expertly. As well, this card has a great image of the dreaded Darth Maul, so he's great for casual fans as well as those who play the game.

Collectibility

"Menace Of Darth Maul" was grossly overproduced in relation to its demand. This is one of the easiest sets of gaming cards to find and conversely one of the worst investments for those who look to trading and gaming cards to make money. Disportionately expensive by the pack, sets can still be assembled rather inexpensively via the booster boxes and starter decks.

One of the big issues with "Menace Of Darth Maul," though are the foil cards. Foil cards have rarities of their own and two of them are exceptionally rare, popping up one in every hundred packs or so. This makes is a ridiculous set to try to collect because of all of the extras one is left trying to assemble a master set with the foils. Moreover, it is not cost-effective for most dealers to break open the product to try to assemble sets for people, whatwith the lack of demand and the overall expense of assembling sets of these cards.

Overview

Young Jedi might be an agreeably diverting game, but "Menace Of Darth Maul" was so simplistic and overproduced it is almost astonishing that Decipher bothered to continue with this Episode 1 gaming set. What might be a sub-average game is sucked down into "avoid it" territory when purchased by the pack, which will cause a collector to spend a lot more money on the essentially worthless product than they need to.

This set utilizes images from Star Wars The Phantom Menace reviewed here!

"Menace Of Darth Maul" was the first Young Jedi set and was followed by "The Jedi Council," reviewed here!

For other Star Wars product reviews, please check out my takes on:
Star Wars Premiere CCG
2011 Vintage Collection Boba Fett action figure
Hoth Han Solo Mighty Muggz

3.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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