History of Star Wars CCG formats
History of Star Wars CCG formats traces what "format" and "constructed" meant over the life of the game: how Decipher described its tournaments from 1996 to 2001, how the Players Committee named its card pools after 2002, and why this wiki gives each historical card pool its own name. The list of formats themselves is on Formats.
Decipher: one game, growing pool (1995–2001)
"Any and all cards"
Decipher's first organizer's guide, released in August 1996, set no card pool at all: "Any and all cards from the Star Wars™ Customizable Card Game™ universe are allowed in play at tournaments." A standard tournament deck was 60 cards, with no limit on copies of a card.[1] The rule held for the rest of Decipher's run. Its 1999 guide said: "In sanctioned tournaments, of any format, there are no restrictions on any particular cards in the game", and cards were "allowable for use in tournaments as soon as they are released".[2] By 2001 the only exception was a one-week delay before new cards were legal at Championship Circuit events.[3]
So in Decipher's eyes there was one constructed game, and each new expansion simply joined it. Decipher had no name for "the cards legal in July 1999"; a player in 1999 and a player in 2001 were both just playing Star Wars CCG.
What Decipher called a format
For Decipher, a format was a kind of tournament, not a card pool. Its names for the standard two-deck Swiss event changed over the years:[1][4][2][5][6]
| Year | Decipher's name for constructed play | Other sanctioned formats |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | "The Decipher System", Swiss style (sanctioned) | sealed deck, elimination and simple Swiss (not sanctioned) |
| 1998 | "Swiss" | Junior Swiss; Sealed Deck (sanctioned, with the "enhanced format") |
| May 1999 | "the Decipher Swiss format" | the Decipher Junior format; the Decipher sealed deck format |
| June 1999 – 2000 | Constructed Deck | Junior; Sealed Deck |
| 2001 | "Standard Constructed Deck" | Sealed Deck; Closed Environment; Junior Constructed Deck |
The June 1999 guide, rewritten to cover all of Decipher's card games, put it plainly: "Decipher sanctions three basic formats: Constructed Deck, Junior, and Sealed Deck." Constructed Deck meant each player came "with decks already constructed according to the standard rules for that game".[5][7] Each format had its own player rating.[2]
Sealed deck and the "enhanced format"
Sealed deck began as an unsanctioned beginner's event: "By simply bringing one sealed starter deck to a tournament everyone will be playing with the 'fate' of the cards."[1] By 1998 it was sanctioned, and Decipher made the Official Tournament Sealed Deck product for it, designating every event run with it as the "enhanced format".[8] Product-based variants followed: OTSD Booster Draft, EPP Overdrive (1999), Endor Draft (1999) and Jabba's Palace Sealed Deck (2000). Unlike constructed play, these formats were fixed: the product defined the pool. See Sealed Deck and Enhanced Format Sealed Deck.
Closed environments (2000–2001)
The first time Decipher limited the constructed card pool was in 2000. It launched "three new sanctioned Tournament Formats" built from the Endor and Death Star II cards, then renamed them: "In order to place the focus where it belongs - on the dynamic new Death Star II cards - the formats are renamed 'Death Star II Closed Environment.'"[9] The Death Star II Closed Environment covered constructed, booster draft and sealed play. In August 2001 the Episode I Closed Environment followed: "a format where players build decks using only cards that have an Episode I icon".[10] From 1 January 2001 Decipher kept a separate Closed Environment rating, and its 2001 program called the normal game the "Standard Constructed Deck" format to tell the two apart.[6] Players also spoke of the Episode I environment as "Type II"[11] (see Episode I Closed Environment); no Decipher page found uses that term.
At conventions Decipher ran one-off variants such as Highlander, Kibitzing, Race for Alderaan Constructed and Turning of a Skywalker Constructed at DecipherCon 2000, and Iron Man and No Such Thing As Luck at DecipherCon 1999.
"Open"
In Decipher's material "Open" described who could play, not which cards: the 1999 "Wild Card" Open Championship, the 2001 "World Championship Open Qualifiers" ("Any player may play in these events"), and the 2002 Territorial Open, Open and Mini-Open championships.[12][13][14] No Decipher page found uses "Open" as the name of a card pool.
Players Committee (2002–)
From March 2002 the Players Committee added its own Virtual Sets to the Decipher pool, and championship constructed again meant "everything legal on the day", now including the latest virtual cards (see Virtual Original). In July 2014 the PC reset the virtual pool and named two constructed formats: Standard (post-reset virtual cards) and Legacy (the earlier ones).[15] The PC's 2015 Alternate Format Tournament Guide and its 2019 formats page use those names, while the GEMP client calls the current pool Open, and PC articles used "Open" by December 2020.[16] Like Decipher, the PC names the current pool rather than each period's: "Standard" or "Open" in 2016 and in 2026 are both just the latest cards, although the virtual sets and errata in between changed the game.
How this wiki names historical card pools
Because neither Decipher nor the Players Committee named the card pool of a given period, this wiki does, after the last set it contains: Premiere - Endor is every Decipher card legal from June 1999 (the 1999 Decipher World Championship pool), Premiere - Death Star II the 2000 Decipher World Championship pool, and Premiere - Original VS3 the pool of the 2002 World Championship. The names describe what was actually legal, which is what a player needs to rebuild or replay a deck of the time. Formats whose definition never changed, such as a sealed product or a closed environment, keep their originator's own name, with other names noted on their pages. Many of these period names are also GEMP formats, where retro events are played today.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Organizer's Guide: Tournament Rules System, August 1996 Release (PDF), Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Tournament Guide: II. Formats, Decipher (May 1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Release Dates and Tournament Legality, Decipher (2001). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Tournaments overview, Decipher (1998). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Decipher Customizable Card Group Tournament Guide ("TD GUIDE 6.99", PDF), Decipher (June 1999). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Additions to the 2001 Sanctioned Tournament Program, Decipher (2001). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Official Tournament Guide: II. Tournament Types and Formats, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Using the Official Tournament Sealed Deck, Decipher (1998). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Death Star II Closed Environment, Decipher (2000). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Episode I Closed Environment Tournament Format, Decipher (2001). Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Dredlox's Type II HardCore Senators, Neal Razi, DeckTech (31 August 2001): "a type II(Ep 1) dedicated Senate Deck". Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ DecipherCon 1999 events, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Championship Circuit 2001, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2002 Championship Circuit, Decipher. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.
- ↑ Reset of Standard Format, Advocate Council (byline darkjediknight11), Players Committee (25 July 2014). Preserved copy: Internet Archive, 6 March 2017
- ↑ Star Wars CCG Alternate Format Tournament Guide (revised 09/2015), Players Committee. Preserved copy: Internet Archive.