Even though the release of the new Force Awakens cards has been awesome, the really intriguing thing that I want to talk about has nothing to do with that directly. Smuggler’s Den is a new feature on the game, and I wanted to spend some time going through some of my thoughts.

Background

Base cards, as a whole, have pretty much been played out as much as possible – save one new element I discussed earlier last week. Thanks to hoarding contests, base cards have a new life in the app, and I have a feeling that was partially why something like this feature was even discussed. With many of the week 1 base counts reaching past one million now, the apps potential depends on doing something worthwhile with those cards.

Additionally, the trade in experience provides a way to launch releases that havent been possible in the past, of which I definitely have some ideas. Up until this point, SWCT has been about opening packs and collecting sets. With the addition of Smuggler’s Den, those two main elements go into hyper drive.

Exchange Rates

If you are just looking to trade in your base to complete sets, here is how it works.  Yellow to Gold seems a bit costly at first, but when you actually take a look at how many of them you have, you might want to figure out how to migrate your cards up the scale to complete the offer. Many of the golds are still rare by base card standards, and that makes them good trade bait for trading on the feed as throw ins.

• Yellow to Gold: 20 cards
• Red to Yellow: 10 cards
• Blue to Red: 5 cards
• White to Blue: 5 cards

I would guess white to white is coming, although its not guaranteed. Similarly, you can only trade in cards of the same guy to the same guy, so its not like you can trade in someone you dont hoard for someone you do – yet. It would really be a shame if character transfer trades werent eventually in the cards.

Ideas

In the article’s recent updates, some of the ideas I was going to suggest have already been added. This includes trading in base for monument inserts and other things like that. Here are some other ideas I have been playing around with, things that I believe would be a lot of fun.

• Set Collections – Make award cards instantaneous when you can collect the whole set. Forget waiting for the card, it will make completing the whole set early much more attractive. Since the den reduces card count, it will also come with a penalty. Sure – you will have your award early for trading purposes, but you will also lose a copy of your set. Similarly, if the offer does not expire, the value of dead cards could stay a bit higher, knowing that you can retrieve the offer at any time. However, as mentioned before, it means sacrificing your set to do it after the deadline.
• Base Variants – It would be awesome to trade in an entire gold set and get a new color variant of your favorite character. Its expensive enough that only certain people will use the offer, but worth a shot. Similarly, trading in sets of base for nice rewards would be awesome, especially if you could trade in a character “rainbow” (all base colors) for a cool card. I could also see trading in your base cards for all sorts of different things, and packs should be one of those available rewards. If available, Boba Fett packs should be a trade collectors can make.
• Coin Rewards – You could include coin redemptions in packs that would be traded in through the Den. Think about pulling a 250k coin redemption that you could either trade for some major goods on the feed, or redeem for the reward? That would be awesome. In another fashion, putting bounties out on certain cards would be really cool, especially for people who open a lot of packs. Say something like, “the first person to pull and trade in XXXX card will get 500k coins. The next 10 people will get 50k, and the next 100 will get 10k.”
• Pack Rewards – Similar to coin rewards, redemptions for free packs should be a great way to use the den. This could provide some added reason to keep busting packs, especially if you know that you could get a card for a free pack or more.
• Insert Variants – When chasing a set, there are a lot of times when you pull multiple cards of a certain type, especially if the counts are high. For Icons, I had at least 3 of each. Would have been cool to be able to do something with those extras that I wasnt trading to complete my set. I could also see trading in multiples of a Vintage or a Widevision for a special variant or award card. The great thing about Smuggler’s den is multiple different offers could exist at once. You could even structure it like light vs dark side, depending on which trade you want to do. Then, based on your first trade, other offers would populate. Choose your own adventure type thing.

The main issue with using offers is that you have to make the choice between keeping the card or redeeming it. We saw that with the premiere set, only a handful of people were willing to give up their cards for the villain award, and that was a real dilemma those individuals faced. Ultimately, the best offers in the den will be creating cards that are worthless on their own to hold onto, and very valuable when traded in. Coin and pack redemptions are similar in that respect.

Neil Kleid, who oversees all the design elements of the apps has mentioned puzzle cards, which will definitely function in that fashion. As long as the cards are tradeable, the dilemma will exist. This tension is key to the success of this feature. Do I trade in the card for myself, or trade it away for something I want? Therein lies the question.