There’s been a lot of doom and gloom about the cancellation of Destiny by FFG. I’m not going to deny I was pretty saddened by the decision too, but thought I’d write up the reasons to look on the bright side and not get angry.

1. I don’t have to give FFG any more money

Destiny is not a cheap game. A full playset (2 of every card) seems to sell for around £400 if bought around the time of release (I’ve seen prices ranging from £330 to £500), about the same price as enough boxes to complete your playset set after a bit of trading (the latter leaving you with 2 spare legendaries and an average of 4 of every rare).

Sure you could get playsets for much less than this if you waited, but if you wanted full playsets, just after release day, you’re looking at spending a minimum of £1200 per year. Casual players could spend a lot less, but to give yourself a couple of competitive decks at each release you’re probably still looking at around £300 per year.

After Covert Missions gets released, I’ll finally have money for other things (like clothes and food).

2. The future of the game is now in our hands

After FFG cancelled the game, a large group of players immediately got together with the plan of creating additional releases (now known as SWD: A Renewed Hope) much like the SW:CCG players committee did when Decipher lost the license.

Though still in its infancy, this group appears to have strong leadership, a design team, a testing team, and support from the vast majority of the community.

I can’t wait to see what they come up with, and hope that they produce solid and exciting concepts, while avoiding the temptation of power creep.

No more will we be beholden to the vagaries and vicissitudes of a corporate entity: we, as a community, are now masters of our own fate.

3. I can finally host my own tournaments

FFG had a ‘Bricks and Mortar’ only rule for running tournaments. When my Local Game Store ceased their support of the game, I had to start travelling increasingly far to attend tournaments, which was difficult as I have a baby to care for.

The new players’ committee early on made it clear that once FFG cease Organized Play support, anyone will be able to host a tournament, and assuming they stick to this pledge, I’m looking forward to doing so.

4. We’ve been left with a large legacy

Over 1500 cards have been printed to date. There’s huge potential in that reservoir, with a total of over 500,000 character combinations in standard alone, and over 1.2 million lineups if you play infinite.

We could keep playing this game for years and barely scratch the surface with the cards we’ve got. Sure, the most powerful combinations have probably all been played, but the potential for casual and themed night is still huge, especially if you play 40/40 decks.

Even if you are just interested in playing competitively, this very long Prime season continues to demonstrate the potential for variety, with new decks cropping up and winning Primes on a regular basis. As it stands, deck variation at tournaments has never been higher, despite the fact this is the longest meta in the game’s short history.

Once we have Covert Missions and then finally Wild Horizons, the potential for decks is going to be massive, even without any contribution from a players’ committee.

Draft can also continue to be a fun way of mixing it up. You can play draft with Rivals or Allies of Necessity, and these days you can pick up booster boxes from older sets for around £20 (that works out to about 50p per booster pack).

Alternatively, you can build your own cube (a pre-built reservoir of cards for drafting from instead of cracking packs). We might publish our own at some point, but in the meantime, there’s plenty of articles on the subject from other content providers: Artificery, the Sons of Mandalore and the Hyperloops.

Maybe I would have preferred it if FFG had kept supporting Destiny and releasing sets. Sure, they could have handled it better. But I cannot fault them for the fact that, at the end of the day, they produced a very good game which I will continue to enjoy for many years.

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