Hello from your 7.2/7.3 Design Team!

As Sonn mentioned a while back, he is having minimal involvement with the design aspects of sets 7.2 and 7.3. In his place, there is a 3-member design team. Since we have this new site and blog set up, we are going to be taking the (idiotic) risk of introducing ourselves to the players at large. Quite frankly, all of us want to be held accountable for these next two sets. If you like what we’ve done, and you are cool with us continuing, we would love to continue working for you. On the flip (7) side, if we aren’t getting the job done then someone else should have their shot.

At any rate, after our introductory posts, in future ones (which we plan on releasing about every week or so) we will be talking about our experiences as designers and share some new things about the upcoming sets.

Name Mike Tomashewski
Age 29
Location Pittsburgh, PA
Favorite LS Deck hmmm…. I have a soft spot for TIGIH, I think it was my go-to deck when I returned to the game and loved the Obi OOP tech.
Favorite DS Deck Hunt Down, no doubt. I love sending my guys against the LS and enforcing Visage damage.
History within the PC Around v12 I was added to the proofing team. I helped write up the proofing style guide and IMO helped set the groundwork for the nice work they do to this day. Over time, and I think since I did a lot of random crap when asked, I became a proofing lead, and started to interact w/ the development teams. At one point Scott asked for a player card development volunteer, and I signed up, which has been a lot of fun. Aaron Nelson and I now switch taking the lead on a set-by-set basis. Then in the fall, Scott asked me to be on design and I jumped at the opportunity.
Personal design philosophy Remember Decipher’s motto/slogan “If it’s in your head, it’s in the game?” – I really resonate with that part of SWCCG and I want my designs to reflect that. There are a ton of new places we can take a virtual set, but I love it when we explore new territory and mechanics that are grounded in some of the best parts of the EU and the movies. I want to add those moments to the game in a way that is fun and interactive. I also think that we have created a lot of interesting decks that don’t see a lot of play, and I’d like to see that changed via helpers.
Your ideal meta I feel like there should be 4 big types of decks, defined by who makes up your deck. Space, Mains, Scrubs, Vehicles. Now, many decks will have more than one of these focuses (at least space + some manner of ground), which is fine. I would like these decks to all be somewhat playable… meaning that vehicles just don’t get blown out since decks play interior sites and laugh at them, stuff like that. As far as the meta at top tables, I like it when we have a small number of tier 1 decks but then a larger number of tier 1.5 decks. For instance, pre 7.1′s release the consensus was that LS’ top options were WYS and TRM. But the dominance of those two decks made it so that a number of tier 1.5 decks like Profit, WYSv, or Rebel Senate were almost just as viable since the focus was on the big two. I think this sort of deck diversity is pretty healthy and I hope that through our designs we can achieve that on both sides of the Force.