The Juz Files

A while back, I asked who was on the listserve, and generally got a negative response, so, what I thought I would do is report on things that Justin Pajkes and Mark Tuttle say on the Listserve (These guys are the rules man for Decipher and the Decipher net Rep respectively, so what they say is official)

I will put the report basically in a Question, answer format. IF you want me to ask these guys anything, I can, but there's no guarantee that they will answer.

OK, here's todays inaugrial report...

Question: Hey, the card images for RIII are different from the Pdf
Answer (Juz): The Pdf is the correct document.

Question: Why can No match for a Sith affect a Jedi anywhere, even at another system? That's so dumb!
Answer (Juz): Why does it matter since the power = 0 only lasts til the end of the battle?
EDIT: Someone came up with a useful situation: Deploy a vine snake on a Jedi anywhere. Start a battle that has Maul with a saber and play "No Match for a Sith". With a lucky draw, the Jedi with the Vine Snake will be power = 0 and thus eaten!

Question: Are there box toppers in RIII?
Answer (Juz): Yes- the rules sheet

 

Juz is worse on the SM list

 

Hey Red84, long time, no see!

 

1) I have not seen anything in the rules to prevent me from packing a few of
>those Defensive Shields in my deck as normal cards. Is there anything to
>stop me from doing just that? I wouldn't really want to with their destiny 0
>and all, but still...

Answer (Juz):Knock yourself out. (thats a yes, you can if you want to).

) Pre-Ref3 decklists for large tournaments were required to list all 60
>cards on their decklist. Will there be a new decklist for the Defensive
>Shields (ie 70 cards now) or are players allowed to change those 10 cards
>around as they see fit - between games?

Answer (Juz): Bojo will decide on this, but I imagine a system like Trek's - you must
list your 'sidedeck', and must keep it the same thorughout the event.

 

I would think that you can change your Defensive Shields from game to game. The wording on the Starting Effect seems to support this.

 

Hmm, tough call. I can come up with good arguments for either side. On the one hand, you shouldn't be able to change them, since you'd probably do it based on what the other guy is playing. Even though there are quite a few ways to find out beforehand what your opponent is playing (people on the listserv mentioned counting your opponent's deck to see their objective, word of mouth at the tournament, or simply coming up against the same player twice in a tourney), the spirit of the Starting Effects is that you're not SUPPOSED to know (since you choose shields before starting cards are revealed, and thus should not have seen their objective or what have you yet), so you should be forced to act as such even if it's not the case.

On the other hand, someone on listserv mentioned that you might start out using Battle Plan, and then discover you just can't meet the requirements and it ends up hurting you. In that case, switching shields between games would sound reasonable.

In the end, I'd have to go with not switching for two reasons. One is that if playing a shield like Battle Plan is gonna hurt instead of help, you should have known better before the tournament and it's your own fault for not having playtested enough. After all, if you found that some non-Shield card was hurting you more than it helped(Chasm/Abyss, Battle Order/Plan, Locationx3, and a myriad of others) or that something else would work better, then you should have thought of it earlier and you're stuck with your bad choice. The other is that if you were allowed to change shields because of reasons like the Battle Plan example, you KNOW there are plenty of folks who would find out what their opponent is playing before the game through some sneaky, underhanded means (that count-to-see-the-objective thing is vile if you ask me) and claim they were changing shields because of something like the Battle Plan example.

 

An answer has been given to the Sheild/ Tournament list question:

Answer (Juz): You can list up to ten cards on your decklist under the sideboard.
They MUST be in your sideboard before any game begins.

 

Question: This Defensive Shield card says:
"When opponent plays an Interrupt and has 3 smugglers on table, if that
Interrupt is placed in Lost Pile, place it out of play."

What if opponent has 4 smugglers on table? Or more? Does this card only
work if the opponent has EXACTLY THREE smugglers on table? If so, it's
even more "Useless" than it seems.

Answer: (Juz- point: this was answered after much discussion):You have 4 apples.
Someone asks you "do you have 3 apples?".
For Star Wars CCG, your answer must be YES.

No different to "If you have a Jedi..." functipons working when you have
two Jedi there.

(My interpretation):In other words, when the card says if opponent has three smugglers it means at least three smugglers.

 

Scenario: I've got a Senator at a site participating in a battle. I play
I've Decided To Go Back to add one battle destiny and power=0 until end of
turn. My next action I play Stay Here, Where It's Safe to draw destiny to
add to power & be immune to attrition<destiny for remainder of turn.

If I draw a five, is the Senator power 0 or power 5? And if it's power
0, s/he would still have the immunity, right? In other words, which
interrupts takes precedence?
Answer (Mark Tuttle): Power=0 is setting the power to an unmodifiable. So, you still
have immunity from the second interrupt, but the first part is
essentially ignored. Dig out your glossary and turn to page 137
under "unmodifiable".

 

Of course, I could have answered that question too.

 

Bib, these aren't my questions. They're things the guys and gals are asking over on the listserve.

Statement: I have managed to get my hands on 5 boxes of R3.
>> All i can say is it is VERY bad...
>> haven`t completed any sets i.e. premium (light or dark), any of the foils.
>> need another 17 foils 2 premium cards to complete the set.
>>
>> On the other hand i got like 10 double sabers, that i can use. Only one maul
>> from 5 boxes and 10 sabers doesn`t exactly match up.
>>
>> I got a lot of doubles of foils. up to 4. (I have You Now)
>>
>> On opening my 4th box i managed to get my first and last Lord Maul, Aurra
>> weapon and energy barrier (light). And that is really annoying.
>>
>> The distribution of cards in this set is even worse than R2. for every box
>> there is one set of premium (which is due to the low number of premiums)
>> I think it would take about 6 boxes to get a set of premiums which is way to
>> high..

That is incorrect (on average), but a possible permutation. As is 2
boxes, as is 10 boxes.

what do you all think ?

Response: (Juz)I think you need to take a course on probability. That sort of
occurrence is quite normal, regardless of how good the distribution
is. And you lack adequate data to make any accurate statement as
to the quality of the distribution.

I haven't got a complete list handy, and indeed I am not gonna try and
count it for you, but this set reversed the trend in that all the Mains
and new theme cards are on there 3 times, and most of the 2 times ones
are Defensive Shields (cause you don't need many of them).

Thank me for that one! ;-)


Indeed, Lord Maul and Maul's Double Bladed Saber are on the press sheet
the same number of times, 3, which is the "most common" rare duplication.
You will find nearly all the big name premium cards are on their 3 times,
thus should be found more than you may expect.

Of course, it's also psuedo-random. So I can't guarantee anything, just
probabilities.

 

Nothing from Juz or Mark since the last time I posted on this thread. There has, as can be expected, a heap of talk about RIII boxes. There have been many claims and counter-claims about the distribution. Here are a few tidbits that have been picked up:

"I opened 2 Boxes of RIII today and I got the same premium cards in the second in both boxes... even the packaging was the same (example that I remembered clearly: Lord Maul, Unusual Amount Of Fear, Lando, Scoundrel).

I got cards 0,2 or 4 times and since I got every main in doublicates (save Han, Chewie And The Falcon AND Leia, Rebel Princess) I'm not complaining THAT much... I would have given up some of the cards to get a better distribution. That way I wouldn't be missing 20 cards or so now.

I think Decipher should consider Randomizing in a different way... this is Clearly NOT working."

"This is possible, but extremely unlikely. I'm sorry this happened to
you, but unfortunately it's a statistically possible result (though
extremely low probability).

So far, the number of reports like yours are extremely low that I have
seen. If they increase I'll take some action."

"On Fri, 2 Nov 2001 05:25:34 -0800 (PST) Erich Hurst <ehurst30@yahoo.com>
writes:
> I was hoping R3 would have at least some Endor and DS II in
> it -- I didn't expect to see any Tat or Coruscant, being so
> new and all. But I am SERIOUSLY disappointed that we get 5
> WB Premiere cards in each pack (5?!? How much wb Premiere
> do you guys have, Decipher??) and nothing beyond Special
> Edition. It's the same junk we had in Reflections and Ref
> 2, nothing new.
I am getting my boxes tomorrow or Monday, so I was wondering exactly what
"other" cards are included. I heard some people say that they got
sprinkles of D*II in the packs - is this true? I though I read something
that "all sets" were included in the set (and by this I hope that they
didn't mean that all sets were represented in the random portion and the
foil portion of the packs), but with all of the stuff that is
misinterpreted and misunderstood, and how rumors can grow out of
proportion, this may have been fabricated.
Are there any D*II or Endor (or Tatooine/Coruscant for that matter) in
the set? Like I've said before, I think it'd be cool if Ref II was in
there - meaning that you could get a premium/combo card from Ref II, or
even a foil from Ref II as part of the random portion, but I can
understand why it wouldn't be (although, wouldn't that be easier for
Decipher? Just use over the left over Ref II to supply Ref III with the
random parts of the packs. Open up a pack, shove a few new rares and a
different foil in it, seal it back up and then just write an extra "I" at
the end of Reflections II. ;-)
Just windering what sets were included in the packs,"

Yes, I opened four boxes yesterday and every pack had one Death Star II card
in it." (Bluethrawn, if you want to check with him. People on the BBS will know who I'm on about)

(In response to the previous statement:"Weird. I opened 2 boxes on Thursday, and all my rares were from Premiere,
Hoth, Cloud City, Jabbas Palace and SE. No ANH. No Dagobah. And definitely nothing post-SE."

"I've opened two boxes and 4 packs of Ref III. And have a complete set of
the premium cards, with multiples of all the characters except Fett and Qui
Gonn. Very happy!"

"I opened 3 boxes yesterday and got nothing but
premiere through Special Edition. Although, I got a
BB new hope rare in every pack.

Oh, and 3 boxes - no complete set "

 

This was an annouincement put on the BBS:

This is planned for today's website push, but unfortunatley hardware failures have stopped the website update as well as the discussion lists.

So I post it here first hoping you guys can spread the word!

=======
To address a game play situation involving repeated taking into hand of the Dark Side card Closed Door (destiny 7 card), primarily for lightsaber combat, the following game text erratum has been issued by the Rules Committee and is in force immediately.

Please ensure your tournament director and fellow players are aware of this change.


Conduct Your Search
(Reflections III, Dark Side Effect).
Game text erratum. New game text reads:

"Deploy on table. Once during your deploy phase, you may deploy a non-Interrupt card with "door" in title from your Reserve Deck; reshuffle. At Endor sites where you have a scout, Rebel scouts are power -1 and forfeit -3. (Immune to Alter.)


Cheers,
Juz
jediknight@decipher.com

 

Juz had a fair bit to say since my last report. Not all was gameplay or "useful", but some did focus on the darn licence (thanks to Pants for the spelling tip)


Question: If I use the Hutts Are Gangsters to put a card down, can I put it anywhere
within the used pile, on top, on bottom within it?

Answer: (Juz) No. Place In X Pile always means "on top".

Quote from Juz:

"We have been telling you guys for MONTHs what the situation is, as soon
as the license rumours began. We stated when our license expires, and
that it is up for renegotiation. IN fact, we posted a quote from Warren
on exactly that issue to assure players their concerns were felt at the
highest level. We stated then that this is all we could state (either due
to insufficient knowledge, legal obligation, or both).

Since then , we have not changed our message once. We have restated what
is known, and explained that all else could not be stated at this time.

And after answering that question for the thousandth time, we stopped.
There ar eno new facts, and no new news, so the story remains the same.

I don't consider this lies, and I don't even consider this a
"half-truth."

I understand the emotional issues from a player perspective. It is just
as emotional form this end because we are (oe were) players, most of us
came to Decipher because of Star Wars CCG and still love it, and our
company livelihood (thus our jobs) is intimately connected with that
license."


Cheers,
Juz

 

Question: This question came up on the BBS, & it seems very
>interesting to me:
>
>With Duel Of The Fates on table, if Yoda is at a site,
>with Yoda's Gimer Stick deployed on him, can he
>initiate battle or not?
>
>Relevant gametext:
>
>DotF:
>While this side up, you may not Force drain or
>initiate battle at any location where you have a Jedi.
>
>Yoda's Gimer Stick:
>Deploy on Yoda. You may initiate battles and attacks
>where present.


Answer (Juz): I am gonna go with "DOTF wins".

That is, Gimer text is superceded in this "card text -v- card text"
battle. In general, text negating or removing something wins out over
permissive text (e.g. canceling immunity -v- granting immunity).



Cheers,
Juz

Here's an interesting one:

(Question):>I have one lone question for Decipher, which I would really appreciate an answer from everyone and anyone who is quallified to answer it:
*IF* Decipher were to lose the Star Wars license would, they:
(a) be allowed to continue supporting the game (e.g. continue this listserve, BBS, website content, possible prize support, update rulings/CRDs, etc.)

(Juz): As I understand our current licensing agreement (not that I have read it!), upon expiration it removes our right to produce and sell the actual cards.

This would **not** affect our ability to support that which you mention above (prize support, tournament support, web content, ratings, worlds, BBs, email, rulings etc.

(b) assuming that they were allowed to do this legally, WOULD they willing to do this (financially, etc.)

That's TWO questions!

I can't see why not. SWCCG has a great community, and I think the game would live on in one form or another beyond such issues, and we would be happy that way!

Mind you, I am having an "educated guess", and am not in possession of the actual facts.

BPJ: Heh Heh, Of course, we still be able to talk CCG here on Theforce.net!

 

Question: BTW, does anyone else find it silly that Darth Sidious and Emperor Palpatine can team up to fight Senator Palpatine?

Answer (Juz): Don't tell to us! Talk to George!

 

QUESTION: 4lom w/ gun says "(may target a character for free; target may not use its
game text for remainder of turn)."
qui-gon jinn, jedi master says "qui-gon's game text may not be canceled."

4lom doesn't say he cancels game text (specifically)... so does 4lom work on
>qui or no?

ANSWER: (JUZ)-Nope.
Qui-Gon cannot have his game text removed, deleted, canceled, revoked,
made unable to use, blanked, voided or chutzpahed.