(Thank you to Destruct1 for assisting with writing this)
The Season 10 Playtesting Phase is finally over, and we have our final results after 2 weeks of community voting. 16 players, members of the community just like you, answered the call and participated in an open voting process available to everyone and cast their votes for the cards that should be permanently added to the Imperial Assault IACP skirmish project. Thank you everyone that chose to participate and welcome to all of our new players that have been slowly growing the ranks of this amazing community.
Of the cards on the ballot from Season 10 and held over from Season 9, two cards went over the 30% threshold to trigger being removed from IACP competitive play: You Will Not Deny Me (Fifth Brother’s unique Command Card) and the 3 point update to Meditation. These were both cards that achieved “Continued Testing” status in Season 9. The remainder of the “Continued Testing” Season 9 cards were fully approved.
Additionally, not every card from Season 10 reached the necessary number of fully approved votes to be permanently added. Cards that did not receive a Fully Approved vote from 50% of voters or more will continue to be allowed in IACP competitive play for the remainder of the season, but will have to be voted on again during the next season for a final vote to see if they will be permanently added to the IACP card pool. They may also receive changes in a future season’s playtest period. These cards will have the words “Continued Testing” listed on the bottom of the card in the IACP Official Changes and FAQ document and printable sheets rather than “IACP Approved”.
The two cards that will have the “Continued Testing Status” in Season 10 are: Rogue One (skirmish upgrade), and Dengar. Both of these cards will be returning to the ballot come Season 11 to be voted on again. Note that for Dengar, the most recent Season 10 version will be the version permitted in competitive play. However, should he be disapproved in a subsequent season, his Deployment Card will revert to the pre-Season 10 version.
Additionally, there were three fully approved cards that the Steering Committee found necessary to make alterations to for the sake of maintaining a healthy game balance: Clan of Two, Rancor, and Bodhi Rook. Please see the following article for an explanation of the changes and why they were implemented. The Steering Committee does not take lightly the act of changing previously approved cards, and therefore the most minimally invasive changes to achieve balance were selected. While these changes were not voted on by the community, we strongly believe that they were absolutely necessary to maintaining balance in the meta moving forward.
Below please find the voting results for each card:
| Card Name | Fully Approve Votes | Disapprove Votes | Result |
| Meditation | 43.75% | 31.25% | Disapproved |
| You Will Not Deny Me | 37.50% | 43.75% | Disapproved |
| Ewok Warrior | 68.75% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| A New Hope | 56.25% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| Elite Imperial Officer | 68.75% | 18.75% | Fully Approved |
| Fennec Shand | 87.50% | 6.25% | Fully Approved |
| Dangerous Prey | 75.00% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| Capitalize | 56.25% | 18.75% | Fully Approved |
| Close the Gap | 68.75% | 6.25% | Fully Approved |
| Smoke Grenade | 62.50% | 18.75% | Fully Approved |
| Take Position | 87.50% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| Tauntaun | 81.25% | 6.25% | Fully Approved |
| Tress Hacnua | 68.75% | 6.25% | Fully Approved |
| Nemik’s Manifesto | 62.50% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Rogue One | 43.75% | 12.50% | Continued Testing |
| 74-Z Speeder Bike | 68.75% | 18.75% | Fully Approved |
| Moff Gideon | 62.50% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| Cross-Training | 87.50% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Dengar | 31.25% | 18.75% | Continued Testing |
| Wing Guard | 62.50% | 0.00% | Fully Approved |
| Paz Vizsla | 81.25% | 12.50% | Fully Approved |
| Overheated | 68.75% | 6.25% | Fully Approved |
Individual feedback on the balance of each card varied. For many cards, while some indicated a bias towards them being too strong, other individuals found them too weak. In a small community, this likely reflects a preference for different playstyles and strengths of players. Mixed opinions on the strength of a card generally reflect that it is likely approximately balanced for use in competitive gameplay. The Steering Committee will of course keep an eye on the state of the meta as these cards are used in competitive settings such as tournaments.
With regards to the disapprovals of Meditation and You Will Not Deny Me: The main gripe expressed by most players with both Command Cards was that they would be difficult to play effectively, mostly only impacting the game in the round after the card is drawn and played. In many cases, this might be too late to justify taking the card in the first place, especially if it cannot be predictably searched out of the deck early in the game. While the Steering Committee believes that the design space for Command Cards that have future impacts still has potential, we will keep this feedback in mind for future iterations of Command Cards.
With regards to the conditional approvals: both Dengar and Rogue One went through significant changes throughout the playtesting process, and many voters felt that there was insufficient time to evaluate the broader impacts of these cards prior to the vote. This is quite understandable, and sometimes unavoidable due to the more rapid nature of playtesting in the shorter season format. This is what the Continued Testing status was created for. We hope that players will continue to give feedback about these cards over the course of the Season 10 competitive period.
Highest approval cards (Season 10): Tauntauns and Cross-Training both received >80% approval. Cross-Training was frequently cited as a way to make non-Vader’s Finest-equipping troopers more relevant, and we think it has achieved that goal well. Additionally, many players reported that Tauntauns were simply very fun to play, and had a somewhat different playstyle for Rebels.
New Season Structure Feedback
Starting with Season 9 we tried a new playtesting and season structure where we released half the number of cards per season and reduced the public playtesting period from 4 months to 2 months and the competitive season from 8 months to 4 months, allowing for shorter playtesting periods and 2 season releases per year.
We have gotten some mixed feedback on these changes. The majority of responses with comments expressed that you are happy to be getting new content more frequently and like the new schedule. Several also expressed appreciation for the fact that issues that arise can be addressed more rapidly, and minimized “dead times”. A few of you expressed that 2 months did not feel like enough playtesting time to get the cards right, and that the seasons should be slower, which is certainly reflected in four cards that did not meet approval criteria. Most, however, felt that the number of cards released was sufficient to maintain interest.
This season we also introduced a new form of closed Beta testing that we named the preplaytesting program, or PPP for short. This program was available and advertised to any players in the community who were willing to participate, but we kept the discussions and processes of the program closed behind a separate private discord server so that players who wished to wait for the public release could do so without being spoiled or distracted from the current competitive season. We hoped that this would allow us to gain the benefit from a longer playtesting period without the burden on the wider community of needing to keep up with constant monthly updates to playtest cards for a long period of time, as well reduce the amount of formal public communications needed from the steering committee. We found this playtesting invaluable to rapidly refine new ideas with additional input, as fresh sets of eyeballs are often welcome on designs that have been looked at again and again. We thank the playtesters for their contributions. We plan to maintain this process in place prior to the release of Season 11 cards.
Last Thoughts and Your Requests for the Future
The change to Season 9-10’s playtest process was a big shake-up that will ultimately lead to a more sustainable process for us long-term, but has also shown us more areas for improvement when it comes to our design and playtesting process. Extending the playtest period again but moving some of it to an internal and private process (but still open to anyone who wants to join in) has helped with giving us more time to make the necessary changes to cards without slowing down our momentum going from the playtesting period into competitive and approved play. So far the month-long vassal tournaments have proven to be more successful than our previous attempts at online organized play, so hopefully we can keep this momentum going into the winter and the next Season.
Some frequent requests that we observed in the voting that we will also try to keep in mind:
- Revitalizing single-session tournaments
- Re-balancing FFG cards that have not yet been touched (many specific requests!) or some that only got re-costed when brought into IACP with no mechanics changed.
- Grow the community (we try!) and play more games with the community (we will try!)
- Ensuring a healthy gameplay dynamic and meta balance
We greatly appreciate the contributions of all players in the Playtesting League, and we look forward to seeing what new list designs, synergies, and strategies you can cook up going into the monthly tournaments!
Welcome to 2 new members of the IACP Steering Committee
Finally, I’d like to publicly welcome 2 new members to the IACP Steering Committee. Alex (Destruct1) and Justin (Rivian). These players have shown they have developed valuable skills and expertise related to the game and have been eager to help out the committee in various ways in past seasons, and have accepted an invitation to join the steering committee in order for them to more directly put their experience and passion for the game to use in developing new cards and engaging with the community. We will be working with these new members and potentially adding more members to the committee going forward as we look at making changes and improvements to our internal development and communication processes to distribute the workload of this endeavor across more and more passionate community members.