Star Wars Trading Card Game

The Star Wars Trading Card Game was a game produced by Wizards of the Coast after the license for collectible card games was given to that company. Prior to this, Decipher held the license, and used it to produce the Star Wars Customizable Card Game. 10 expansions were made until, near the end of 2005, Wizards of the Coast announced that the TCG game would be put on a indefinite hold, although they would still retain the license.

WotC still produces the Star Wars Miniatures game as well as the Star Wars Roleplaying Game.

WotC no longer produces the Star wars Trading Card Game. Production was stopped in October 2005. However, a non-profit, player-elected community called the Independent Development Committee, or IDC for short, began making virtual cards that can be downloaded and printed out to continue gameplay. 3 expansions have been developed with creation of a fourth underway. The IDC have also expanded on the last rulebook to be released by Wizards of the Coast with clarifications on particular rules and abilities.

Gameplay
In the Star Wars TCG, cards are placed in three different arenas: Space, Ground and Character. The object of the game is to control two of these three arenas. To control these arenas, the two sides (light and dark side with neutral in either) must fight each other in these arenas- Space cards fight in Space arena, etc.

Types of Cards
There are seven different types of cards- space (colored blue), ground (green), character (purple), battle (red), mission (yellow), location (depending on the arena they are played in) and equipment (silver). Space, Ground and Character cards all fight in their respective arenas (unless using a special ability), battle cards are cards that can be played at any time to cause an effect (eg prevent damage, add extra power), missions are like battle cards except they must be played at a certain time, location cards give the user a continuous special effect for an arena, and equipment cards give special effects to the units they are attached to.

Parts of a Card
On every Space, Ground and Character card (all are called unit cards) on the left side, there are three sets of numbers. The top number (with a small "s" to the right of it) is the speed of the card. The speed determines the order in which the cards can attack or use their special effects in. The power of the card (located below the speed and has a small "p" to the right of it) is the amount of dice that can be rolled in an attack. Below the power is the health which is the amount of damage from the attacks that the card can withstand before it is discarded.

To the right of the speed, power and health amounts is the area that contains the special effects that the card has, as well as "flavor text" (text added such as quotes from a character or general information related to the card). For some cards (mainly characters), there is a small letter in a circle. Some units have more than one version of the same unit (eg Yoda has a version A, version B, version C, etc.). If two cards of the same unique unit are played (e.g. Darth Vader A and B), then these cards must be stacked.* The top left corner of the card is the unit's build cost (the amount of build points needed to put the unit into play). To the right is the unit's name as well as the arena it is to be played in and the type of unit they are (e.g. Jedi Master, Bounty Hunter). In the top right corner is the side that the card is on (light, dark or neutral).

Other information on the card not related to gameplay is the number of the card from the expansion it is in, and the rarity. The rarity is how hard it is to get that card. Common (shown by a circle) are the easiest to get, followed by uncommon (a diamond) and rare (a star). This information is found at the bottom right of unit cards and on the bottom left of the other cards. Also is the Expansion symbol, depicting which expansion that card comes from. This is found in the colored section to the right of the ability and flavor text.


 * Some cards have different names but can be stacked because they are the same person, such as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious/Emperor Palpatine

Preparing for the game
Each player must bring to the game a deck. One must be the 'dark side' and the other the 'light side'. The dark side player cannot have light side cards in his/her deck, but can have a mix of dark and neutral cards. Alternatively, the light side player cannot have any dark side cards, but a mix of light and neutral cards. Each deck must have a minimum of 60 cards. There can be no more than 4 copies of the same card. A minimum of 12 ground, space and character cards must be included, however there can not be twice as many cards of one unit type than another (example: you can't have 25 space units if you only have 12 character units). Some cards are Banned, where they CANNOT be used in the game at all, or Restricted, where only one copy of the card is allowed.

Beginning the game
After the decks are shuffled, both players draw the top seven cards from their deck. They can then, in turn "build" a card and put it into play. In the beginning of the game, up to 30 build points can be used. When a card is put down, another must then be picked up. When the player has reached or nearly reached 30 build points (if 30 build points are not reached, a card can be partially built and not put into play until the full build point total is reached), a dice is rolled to see how many more build points are to be gained to begin the first turn. If a player has at least one unit in each arena, then they gain one more build point than is displayed on the dice. Players then spend their buid points, make sure they have 4 Force, pick up a card and enter the Battle phase.

Expansions

 * TCG: Attack of the Clones
 * TCG: Sith Rising
 * TCG: A New Hope
 * TCG: Battle of Yavin
 * TCG: Jedi Guardians
 * TCG: The Empire Strikes Back
 * TCG: Rogues and Scoundrels
 * TCG: The Phantom Menace
 * TCG: Return of the Jedi
 * TCG: Revenge of the Sith
 * TCG: Fall of the Republic
 * TCG: Scum and Villainy
 * TCG: Battle of Endor