Well, at least Jabba's Palace is above Dagobah. I still remember how back around 2010 or so there were loads of Jabba's Palace at Dollar Tree. Good times.
Great video! If you do this again, try this style: Go through the content (e.g. "Ranking all Luke personas") in order of release date, not in order of tier position. Adds suspense to where each item will go. I've usually seen tier maker videos done in that style as opposed to bottom-to-top.
My favorite is Endor. No better set as a standalone where you could buy a box, build decks, and play several games with. Super thematic with cool stuff: mains, commandos, troopers, AT-STs, and the furballs. S: Endor, Death Star II A: Reflections II, Special Edition, Hoth B: Premiere, A New Hope, Coruscant, Cloud City C: Tatooine, Jabba's Palace, Theed Palace D: Reflections III, Dagobah
This is a solid list. I understand putting ref3 so low. I thought about the same. It’s a pretty controversial set that came out three months before the game went out of print but it did have a lot of stuff that were intended as fixes, it’s curious that while they were developing these fixes they fully knew the game is toast.
I’ll agree Dagobah was a low point re Asteroid Sanctuary and numbers and avoid damage. However as someone of many of us who lived through it and boycotted tournaments for several months following release, SE was almost as broken with ops and pre errata HB. I recall buying a case of SE for me and some mates, and they came around to break boxes. One of the guys was talking to the U.K. guys at the Worlds (it was happening at the same time) and explained and showed how broken ops were after a few boxes were open. Our jaws dropped. I’ll agree, objectives and a lot of other cards were great though, suddenly you had to know your local meta and what decks to counter for a lot more. My best sets? DS2 worked great, Coruscant and Ref3. Don’t think JP should get as much hate though.
SE was definitely broken until ops was fixed. I think the innovation with objectives and changing the play game completely from just a starting location to much more is what does it for me.
Ok, after finishing the video, I think the rankings are mostly good, but I'd make some changes, including dropping the 'S' ranking in favor of an 'F' ranking to align the grades with, you know, grading scales. I'm going to leave Coruscant, Theed, and REF3 unranked as i don't know enough about them. A: DS2, SE B: Premiere, ANH, Endor, REF2 C: Hoth, Cloud City D: Jabba's Palace E: Dagobah, Tatooine In essence, I move ANH, CC, Jabba's Palace, and Endor up a ranking, and Hoth and Tatooine down one.
Love this video. You should tier list out the movie block sets of LOTR TCG some time! I love how this is a fun vehicle for talking about the impact of the sets on the game as they were coming out.
This is on my to do list! Was debating doing all 19 sets or just movie block. I think just movie block makes the most sense. Adding in 11+ seems like it might kinda ruin things.
Fun video! Agree with everything, though for gameplay only, I'd bump Coruscant to B tier, it's the collectability that makes everyone love it. The Jedi Council mains being underwhelming and Senate outweighs how cool P-59 and Maul YA are for me. Jabba's Palace is the set that I've changed my opinion the most on since I was a kid. When it came out I thought it rocked - it was like the Pokemon of SWCCG. A set full of weird aliens - gotta catch 'em all! Dagobah on the other hand, even 7th grade me knew that set was horrible.
Tatooine and theed palace I would have put in A or B, I loved the episode 1 movie and the cards and places from there to play in were fun for me. Getting quigon and maul was so exciting. Love this though. You should do one of these for Lord of the Rings too!
My list: S: Death Star II, Special Edition A: Endor, Reflections II, Hoth, Premiere B: A New Hope, Jabba's Palace, Cloud City C: Theed Palace, Coruscant, Tatooine D: Dagobah, Reflections III The ep 1 sets are hard to rank. I think the ep1 cards are cool in their own format, but the way they mixed them with OT cards was awkward imo.
I think that’s right. They’re sort of an outlier and frankly it’s funny to have padme played next to Leia fighting Vader. It thematically is a a bit weird.
Thanks for all your effort making these video Matt! I've really been enjoying your content. I'm curious about the GEMP experience for new players? What do you think the best way of getting back into SWCCG for someone who hasn't played in 30 years lol. Been a collector for 5-6 years now and just looking to move away from MTG into something I want to enjoy again.
I came back to GEMP about 1.5 years ago and found the interface to be a bit challenging at first but you do get used to it and the new interface (it’s in beta) feels a bit more modern. I’d suggest checking out the discord because there’s lots of folks that are really helpful and can help you find games and play. I think my biggest suggestion is just to jump back in. There’s a retro league which is really friendly and is filled with good folks. I lose games most of the time but usually have fun doing so.
If I remember correctly, Cloud City introduced the Bounty Hunting and Sabacc rules and they became some of my favorite optional mechanisms in the whole game. Maybe the set overall wasn't amazing but I think it might have been my third favorite behind Special Edition and Death Star II to buy and open packs for. I played SWCCG casually but regularly from Premier up until about Reflections II. I think my favorite "era" of the game probably starts with Cloud City and ends after Special Edition.
Those were fun mini games. I think I just didn’t have the brain power to keep all the rules straight between holotable rules, Sabbacc rules, hoth defensive shield rules, asteroid rules, the list goes on. There’s just a lot of special cases rules wise that makes it challenging to get someone new into it without having them read a 100 page rule manual.
@@boardmatt Agreed. That was simultaneously the game's greatest strength (the variety and sheer thematic depth) and greatest weakness of the game as it went along. There have been a few times over the past 5 years or so where I've thought about teaching some friends how to play. The primary barrier is just the sheer complexity of rules and trying to find the "sweet spot" in terms of what expansions to include to balance variety and simplicity is honestly a difficult task. I think if I were teaching this game to new players for the first time, I would maybe limit the content to only Endor + Death Star II, and even then, perhaps only introducing one set at a time.
Thanks for the fun video, guys. Got me wanting to join in the fun. Just listing Premier through Reflections 3 as I don't play anything from Episode 1. S: Premier - Death Star ll. You could just buy boosters and starters from these sets and still have a blast playing. All the mains and toys (except Chewie and R2) with so many cards still being used today. A: Reflections 2 - Special Edition. These two sets contributed some awesome elements, Objectives and Combos. B. A New Hope - Hoth - Cloud City. Some great additions, mains, toys, and lots of playable commons and uncommon. C. Reflections 3 - Dagobah. Some great ideas but didn't hit the mark. Son of Skywalker is the most underrated Luke in the game and we get the Bounty Hunters. To be candid, I don't play shields yet but hear they fix alot. Lower on my list for being overpriced. D. Jabba's Palace - Endor. Jabba's Palace had some fun elements but under achieved. Starting Interrupts and for once, Red Cards are what you want to pull. Endor, the most overrated set in the game. What is good in this set aside from reacting AT-STs and one or two red cards. Also very, very, very overpriced. The foils didn't do anything for me.
This is a great list! Endor has a special place in my heart as I loved Ewoks (bad take, I know) but I do think the foils were clunky. Episode one was probably skippable tbh. Introduced some bad mechanics but so it goes with games.
Ya, the Ewoks are kinda cool overall. Collecting wise, I see the appeal. But do they see any play in today’s environments? Maybe there is a mechanic I’m missing. I don’t own much Endor.
"What is the best set?" is a question i understand as "If i would only get one SWCCG set, which should it be?". In that sense, Death Star II is not S-tier in isolation, but only if you consider it together with Endor. Special Edition is very fair S-tier in isolation indeed, and Cloud City and Jabba's Palace would be much better ranked - possibly A-tier. Plot twist: i think Theed Palace would be the best closed environment set if only most of the Naboo sites were not in Coruscant instead (which by the way is really odd).
I’d actually love to play an episode one format with senate nerfed and podracing banned. I think it would just be battling in watto’s junkyard and theed palace battles. Seems kind of fun!
@@boardmatt That sounds like a great theme for a cube! The Episode I closed environment seemed well crafted, with many "remastered" versions of classics that made it quite self-sufficient (SAC, grabbers, starting interrupts, docking bay effects, matching pilot effects...).
Yeah Dagobah was a low point. Unfortunately it was around Cloud City and Dagobah when i decide to start buying multiple boxes on release. I hated the Jedi tests. They just tried to shove too many game mechanics in what was already a complex game and a game whose foundation was already a but shaky (why they didn't go with something like MTG had with life and instead made the entire gane revolve around running the other guy out of cards I'll never know, I despised playing against mill decks in MTG and every deck in SWCCG is a mill deck). They printed so many useless cards and cards that read "cancel or cancel or cancel or cancel".
I played SWCCG mostly between Dagobah and Jabba’s Palace. I put most of my 14 year old allowance into those sets. Beginning of the video: Let’s name the worst sets: Dagobah, Jabba’s Palace, & Cloud City Great.
Great video guys👍 Is EP1 only a possible format then, or indeed SE standalone? All the formats seem to start from Premiere, with the only standalone I’ve heard of being Endor
I personally would lower Coruscant and Ref III. Too many degenerate cards in those sets (although I do like the concept of shields in general which gives Ref III a bump). Glad to see Special Edition up there, most important SWCCG set due to the introduction of objectives IMO. I would flip ANH and Cloud City. While ANH is classic in some of the cards it adds, CC brought more to the game in terms of mechanics and immersion (although I know Sabacc can be a NPE at times)
Completely disagree with the assessment of Endor. Both objs were playable, just Endor Ops didnt really do anything. It was playable but the benefit of it was too low to be of much benefit. RST/Deactivate was totally playable and feasible to accomplish. yes theres a few cards that improve play but none are really needed. The Shield is Down only adds more force retrieval (non V) or site pulls (V). Neither function is needed for you to blow anything. You got a ton of cool vehicles, troops, mains, and weapons. Plus, ewoks! Ok, ewoks are un-useful, but compared to everything else, this was not a B-level set.
I love endor as a set. To me it was just a bit overshadowed by Death Star 2, which came shortly after and was just a better set overall. RST is playable but not competitively in any format that doesn’t have V cards or Tatooine. Shield is down helps but they made that card so good because they saw that having two scouts at three different endor locations was near impossible so get people to blow up the bunker instead.
As I understand it, it originates from Japanese culture and school grading systems, where an "S" grade (for "shuu", meaning "excellent") is the highest category.
Well, at least Jabba's Palace is above Dagobah. I still remember how back around 2010 or so there were loads of Jabba's Palace at Dollar Tree. Good times.
Great video!
If you do this again, try this style: Go through the content (e.g. "Ranking all Luke personas") in order of release date, not in order of tier position. Adds suspense to where each item will go. I've usually seen tier maker videos done in that style as opposed to bottom-to-top.
That’s a really fun idea! This was our first crack at tier lists so very good suggestion.
Really enjoyed this one. Took me 2 to 3 sessions to finish, and wasn’t expecting thus, but this was one of my favorites watches yet.
My favorite is Endor. No better set as a standalone where you could buy a box, build decks, and play several games with. Super thematic with cool stuff: mains, commandos, troopers, AT-STs, and the furballs.
S: Endor, Death Star II
A: Reflections II, Special Edition, Hoth
B: Premiere, A New Hope, Coruscant, Cloud City
C: Tatooine, Jabba's Palace, Theed Palace
D: Reflections III, Dagobah
This is a solid list. I understand putting ref3 so low. I thought about the same. It’s a pretty controversial set that came out three months before the game went out of print but it did have a lot of stuff that were intended as fixes, it’s curious that while they were developing these fixes they fully knew the game is toast.
I also really liked Endor, especially in a "limited" type of environment.
Love the convo, best part of tier lists is if people actually talk about it
I’ll agree Dagobah was a low point re Asteroid Sanctuary and numbers and avoid damage. However as someone of many of us who lived through it and boycotted tournaments for several months following release, SE was almost as broken with ops and pre errata HB.
I recall buying a case of SE for me and some mates, and they came around to break boxes. One of the guys was talking to the U.K. guys at the Worlds (it was happening at the same time) and explained and showed how broken ops were after a few boxes were open. Our jaws dropped. I’ll agree, objectives and a lot of other cards were great though, suddenly you had to know your local meta and what decks to counter for a lot more.
My best sets? DS2 worked great, Coruscant and Ref3. Don’t think JP should get as much hate though.
SE was definitely broken until ops was fixed. I think the innovation with objectives and changing the play game completely from just a starting location to much more is what does it for me.
Very Informative! Thanks for sharing your guys input/knowledge!
Thanks man! I give you band a listen on occasion at work, helps me process my feelings about working :).
Ok, after finishing the video, I think the rankings are mostly good, but I'd make some changes, including dropping the 'S' ranking in favor of an 'F' ranking to align the grades with, you know, grading scales. I'm going to leave Coruscant, Theed, and REF3 unranked as i don't know enough about them.
A: DS2, SE
B: Premiere, ANH, Endor, REF2
C: Hoth, Cloud City
D: Jabba's Palace
E: Dagobah, Tatooine
In essence, I move ANH, CC, Jabba's Palace, and Endor up a ranking, and Hoth and Tatooine down one.
Love this video. You should tier list out the movie block sets of LOTR TCG some time! I love how this is a fun vehicle for talking about the impact of the sets on the game as they were coming out.
This is on my to do list! Was debating doing all 19 sets or just movie block. I think just movie block makes the most sense. Adding in 11+ seems like it might kinda ruin things.
@@boardmatt Better yet -- 2 videos! Movie block, then second video with the later sets
Fun video! Agree with everything, though for gameplay only, I'd bump Coruscant to B tier, it's the collectability that makes everyone love it. The Jedi Council mains being underwhelming and Senate outweighs how cool P-59 and Maul YA are for me.
Jabba's Palace is the set that I've changed my opinion the most on since I was a kid. When it came out I thought it rocked - it was like the Pokemon of SWCCG. A set full of weird aliens - gotta catch 'em all! Dagobah on the other hand, even 7th grade me knew that set was horrible.
Tatooine and theed palace I would have put in A or B, I loved the episode 1 movie and the cards and places from there to play in were fun for me. Getting quigon and maul was so exciting. Love this though. You should do one of these for Lord of the Rings too!
This is on my to do list! I have many thoughts on lotr tcg!
Jabba is so fun for limited I can't see it that low. Fun video though :) Endor is best standalone set in the game - great for sealed too!
I would actually love to play jabba limited. Maybe with the enhanced tho
My list:
S: Death Star II, Special Edition
A: Endor, Reflections II, Hoth, Premiere
B: A New Hope, Jabba's Palace, Cloud City
C: Theed Palace, Coruscant, Tatooine
D: Dagobah, Reflections III
The ep 1 sets are hard to rank. I think the ep1 cards are cool in their own format, but the way they mixed them with OT cards was awkward imo.
I think that’s right. They’re sort of an outlier and frankly it’s funny to have padme played next to Leia fighting Vader. It thematically is a a bit weird.
Thanks for all your effort making these video Matt! I've really been enjoying your content. I'm curious about the GEMP experience for new players? What do you think the best way of getting back into SWCCG for someone who hasn't played in 30 years lol. Been a collector for 5-6 years now and just looking to move away from MTG into something I want to enjoy again.
I came back to GEMP about 1.5 years ago and found the interface to be a bit challenging at first but you do get used to it and the new interface (it’s in beta) feels a bit more modern. I’d suggest checking out the discord because there’s lots of folks that are really helpful and can help you find games and play.
I think my biggest suggestion is just to jump back in. There’s a retro league which is really friendly and is filled with good folks. I lose games most of the time but usually have fun doing so.
Good stuff
If I remember correctly, Cloud City introduced the Bounty Hunting and Sabacc rules and they became some of my favorite optional mechanisms in the whole game. Maybe the set overall wasn't amazing but I think it might have been my third favorite behind Special Edition and Death Star II to buy and open packs for.
I played SWCCG casually but regularly from Premier up until about Reflections II. I think my favorite "era" of the game probably starts with Cloud City and ends after Special Edition.
Those were fun mini games. I think I just didn’t have the brain power to keep all the rules straight between holotable rules, Sabbacc rules, hoth defensive shield rules, asteroid rules, the list goes on. There’s just a lot of special cases rules wise that makes it challenging to get someone new into it without having them read a 100 page rule manual.
@@boardmatt Agreed. That was simultaneously the game's greatest strength (the variety and sheer thematic depth) and greatest weakness of the game as it went along. There have been a few times over the past 5 years or so where I've thought about teaching some friends how to play. The primary barrier is just the sheer complexity of rules and trying to find the "sweet spot" in terms of what expansions to include to balance variety and simplicity is honestly a difficult task. I think if I were teaching this game to new players for the first time, I would maybe limit the content to only Endor + Death Star II, and even then, perhaps only introducing one set at a time.
Thanks for the fun video, guys. Got me wanting to join in the fun. Just listing Premier through Reflections 3 as I don't play anything from Episode 1.
S: Premier - Death Star ll. You could just buy boosters and starters from these sets and still have a blast playing. All the mains and toys (except Chewie and R2) with so many cards still being used today.
A: Reflections 2 - Special Edition. These two sets contributed some awesome elements, Objectives and Combos.
B. A New Hope - Hoth - Cloud City. Some great additions, mains, toys, and lots of playable commons and uncommon.
C. Reflections 3 - Dagobah. Some great ideas but didn't hit the mark. Son of Skywalker is the most underrated Luke in the game and we get the Bounty Hunters. To be candid, I don't play shields yet but hear they fix alot. Lower on my list for being overpriced.
D. Jabba's Palace - Endor. Jabba's Palace had some fun elements but under achieved. Starting Interrupts and for once, Red Cards are what you want to pull. Endor, the most overrated set in the game. What is good in this set aside from reacting AT-STs and one or two red cards. Also very, very, very overpriced. The foils didn't do anything for me.
This is a great list! Endor has a special place in my heart as I loved Ewoks (bad take, I know) but I do think the foils were clunky.
Episode one was probably skippable tbh. Introduced some bad mechanics but so it goes with games.
Ya, the Ewoks are kinda cool overall. Collecting wise, I see the appeal. But do they see any play in today’s environments? Maybe there is a mechanic I’m missing. I don’t own much Endor.
"What is the best set?" is a question i understand as "If i would only get one SWCCG set, which should it be?". In that sense, Death Star II is not S-tier in isolation, but only if you consider it together with Endor. Special Edition is very fair S-tier in isolation indeed, and Cloud City and Jabba's Palace would be much better ranked - possibly A-tier.
Plot twist: i think Theed Palace would be the best closed environment set if only most of the Naboo sites were not in Coruscant instead (which by the way is really odd).
I’d actually love to play an episode one format with senate nerfed and podracing banned. I think it would just be battling in watto’s junkyard and theed palace battles. Seems kind of fun!
@@boardmatt That sounds like a great theme for a cube! The Episode I closed environment seemed well crafted, with many "remastered" versions of classics that made it quite self-sufficient (SAC, grabbers, starting interrupts, docking bay effects, matching pilot effects...).
I really liked Cloud City
Yeah Dagobah was a low point. Unfortunately it was around Cloud City and Dagobah when i decide to start buying multiple boxes on release. I hated the Jedi tests. They just tried to shove too many game mechanics in what was already a complex game and a game whose foundation was already a but shaky (why they didn't go with something like MTG had with life and instead made the entire gane revolve around running the other guy out of cards I'll never know, I despised playing against mill decks in MTG and every deck in SWCCG is a mill deck). They printed so many useless cards and cards that read "cancel or cancel or cancel or cancel".
This is why banning cards should have been the path instead of cards that counter it. Too many must includes in case your opponent does X imho.
I played SWCCG mostly between Dagobah and Jabba’s Palace. I put most of my 14 year old allowance into those sets.
Beginning of the video: Let’s name the worst sets: Dagobah, Jabba’s Palace, & Cloud City
Great.
Hahah, it did get much better after that! I came into the game right around Jabba’s as a 14 year old as well. It got much better with endor and ds2.
Great video guys👍
Is EP1 only a possible format then, or indeed SE standalone? All the formats seem to start from Premiere, with the only standalone I’ve heard of being Endor
I personally would lower Coruscant and Ref III. Too many degenerate cards in those sets (although I do like the concept of shields in general which gives Ref III a bump). Glad to see Special Edition up there, most important SWCCG set due to the introduction of objectives IMO. I would flip ANH and Cloud City. While ANH is classic in some of the cards it adds, CC brought more to the game in terms of mechanics and immersion (although I know Sabacc can be a NPE at times)
Very good points! I sort of think of anh as a continuation of prem. I just don’t love CC as a set. It was a bit too techy for me.
They're all S tier!!
I liked Jabba's Palace but I have a soft spot for goofy aliens
I understand. It was kind of fun to pull random guy from Jabba’s barge.
Great video, thanks!
Glad you liked it!
Completely disagree with the assessment of Endor. Both objs were playable, just Endor Ops didnt really do anything. It was playable but the benefit of it was too low to be of much benefit.
RST/Deactivate was totally playable and feasible to accomplish. yes theres a few cards that improve play but none are really needed. The Shield is Down only adds more force retrieval (non V) or site pulls (V). Neither function is needed for you to blow anything.
You got a ton of cool vehicles, troops, mains, and weapons.
Plus, ewoks! Ok, ewoks are un-useful, but compared to everything else, this was not a B-level set.
I love endor as a set. To me it was just a bit overshadowed by Death Star 2, which came shortly after and was just a better set overall. RST is playable but not competitively in any format that doesn’t have V cards or Tatooine. Shield is down helps but they made that card so good because they saw that having two scouts at three different endor locations was near impossible so get people to blow up the bunker instead.
Of course Special edition is top tier.. it has sy snootles!!!
Ok, so why is 'S' at the top???
As I understand it, it originates from Japanese culture and school grading systems, where an "S" grade (for "shuu", meaning "excellent") is the highest category.
Thanks for the explanation! I had no idea myself.
@@boardmatt Then why use it? 😆
Ha, it’s just the norm and I remember it from chocobo racing in FF7! It’s fun to have a tier above A!
Go watch any video game related ranking system like this and S is always at the top. People need to watch more videos, haha.
Poor quality video.
Thanks for the viewing the poor quality video friend! Hope to see you again!