Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 CCG Card (reverse)
Designer(s)	Ran Ackels, Edi Birsan, David Hewitt, Paul Brown, John Myler, Kevin Tewart
Publisher(s)	Precedence Entertainment
Players	2+ but typically 4 or 5
Age range	10+
Setup time	10+ minutes, excluding deck construction
Playing time	max 2 hours (tournament)
Random chance	limited (draw)
Skill(s) required	CCG knowledgeable Arithmetic Interpersonal communication

The Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game (B5 CCG) is a discontinued collectible card game set in the Babylon 5 universe. The game is ideally set for 5 players but can be played from a minimum of two players to as many as 20 if using multiple Non-Aligned Factions and Home Factions. This CCG is distinct from most others of the genre for being specifically designed to be played by more than two players. The gameplay tends to have strong political elements encouraging significant player interaction aka "table talk" which is appropriate for a game based on a series which featured such a strong element of political intrigue. During its brief six-year existence under the Precedence Entertainment banner it released two core sets, five expansions sets and one revision set. There were two World Championships during that time. The game still continues to have a cult following as two further releases were made available online.

After the successful release of Premiere, which hit store shelves on December 11, 1997 in North America, Precedence began to hire more staff to promote the B5 CCG as quickly and completely as possible. A large part of their success came with their promoting of the game. Not only would they give free starter decks at major conventions but they offered solid prize support for local tournaments through their Ranger program. Precedence was also the first company to begin a successful promo chase card program, where various promo cards were made available through different means of acquiring them, some more difficult then others. This, as opposed to other companies who offered relatively common cards as promos, gave Precedence an edge in marketing not seen before. They followed up their debut with the Shadows expansion and within the same year released the Deluxe edition, which was a cleaner slimmer version of Premiere (minus the starter decks) and the Great War stand alone expansion, an expansion pits the greater forces of the shadows and the Vorlons against each other and includes the First Ones, this may have been a replacement for the cancelled War of Worlds starter expansion which never materialized. By the beginning of 1999, they found themselves near the top of the CCG market at that time.

"1998 was a year of triple digit growth for Precedence, much of it spurred on by the broad based international success of our Babylon 5 Collectible Card Game," reports Precedence Entertainment CEO Paul W. Brown III

"For some months now, Babylon 5 has been one of the best selling and most played hobby card games in every country where the game is sold; particularly in North America, the UK and as far abroad as Australia. The enthusiasm and support of the fans has been overwhelming," stated Brown. "We're most proud of the game's reputation for being true to the show. When your die- hard players even include people who have written for the actual series, like Babylon 5's original executive story editor Larry Ditillio, you know you're doing something right."