For fans of the anime-infused CCG Shadowverse a whole new class – Portalcraft – being added to the game. Even more importantly, however, it will also introduce formats to the game. From December 28 onwards, there will be two options for ranked play – Unlimited and Rotation. Unlimited is what you’re playing right now – every card in the game is allowed. Rotation, however, will drastically restrict the cards that are able to be played. Just Basic cards and the last five sets: Rise of Bahamut, Tempest of the Gods, Wonderland Dreams, Starforged Legends and Chronogenesis.

It’s a hugely exciting time for any card game - and a necessary step, too, as anyone familiar with Magic the Gathering or Hearthstone can attest. What follows is an excerpt of my conversation with Yuito Kimura, Game Producer and Executive Director at Cygames and Lead Game Designer Naoyuki Miyashita focused on formats. You can also read what they had to say about designing the new Portalcraft class here and I GN’s exclusive Bloodcraft card reveals here

“ “We initially planned the rotation format to have the six most recent expansions…” – Yuito Kimura.

The seventh card set is Chronogenesis.

“ "If you do half-yearly or yearly base rotation then the period of time you can use a particular card is different depending on when the expansion came out..." - Yuito Kimura.

A Forestcraft foundation. As important as ramp in Dragon.

“ "If there are cards that are moderate in Rotation, but really strong in Unlimited then we’ll consider banning that card in Unlimited or possibly putting a restriction on it, meaning only one copy of the card can be put in a deck."- Yuito Kimura.

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A couple of things we want to mention here. We want to make sure that players who pick up the game for the first time don’t have to collect and memorise tonnes of cards. And we also want the current players to get something out of the formats. Formats provide a healthy game environment and it also helps casual players to enjoy a gaming experience that’s always fresh.What you mentioned is definitely one of the reasons. When Starforged Legends came out, we had over 900 cards, and we knew that with the introduction of this new expansion we would go over the thousand mark. In addition to that, we also had a new class being introduced at the same time.We definitely thought of lots of different possibilities. We also thought about things being rotated out every half a year… about doing two expansions each, but what we have now is what we ended up with.Another thing is that we wanted to make sure the cards in a particular expansion - the duration that you can use the cards, stayed the same between different expansions. Darkness Evolved is one exception here, but going forward, each set of cards in a particular card set, the time it takes until those cards are out of Rotation is the same, and if you do half-yearly or yearly base rotation then the period of time you can use a particular card is different depending on when the expansion came out, so that’s how we ended up with this format.11 per class and 8 neutral cards. These Basic cards, which are cards you can get without spending any money… literally make the base of the classes… so if we rotate them out, we would have to make similar cards, that also become the base of the classes, such as Dragon Oracle in Dragoncraft and Fairy Whisperer in Forestcraft.It’s a combination of mistranslation and the limits of terminology. In Japanese, the term for Basic cards also actually refers to several different types of cards, which also includes pre-built deck cards and other things, and so that was translated into ‘some of the Basic cards’.We knew from very early on there was a good possibility we were going to introduce something like this Rotation format, so these basic cards were initially designed to stay in the game. Long story short, all of the Basic cards can be used in the Rotation.The type of restriction we’re thinking of is having only one copy of a particular card in your deck, and the reason we’re considering these things is because we predict there will be cards that are particularly strong in Unlimited, but not so much in Rotation and vice versa. If there are cards that are moderate in Rotation, but really strong in Unlimited then we’ll consider banning that card in Unlimited or possibly putting a restriction on it, meaning only one copy of the card can be put in a deck. We also think that by putting those restrictions in place, in some cases the actual gameplay experience might be better. It might make it more interesting to play those cards, and if it improves the environment or experience, then why not?We would definitely consider adjusting cards that are only in Unlimited as well, but we’d also consider putting restrictions on them.Rotation is a whole new idea for all of us and it’s really hard for us to predict what’s going to happen, unlike with past expansions, when we knew every single card that was going to be available in your card pool, so we’re excited to explore and try out different things and try to find the answers along with the players.We would like both formats to be enjoyable for all players and that’s the goal we had in mind when we were making these formats. So the ideal answer would be for an equal number of players to be playing both formats, and in-game we’re not necessarily making Rotation out to be the main mode at all. When it comes to tournaments and other real life events we are doing both formats, so that’s what we have in mind.It’s not something that will be there all the time, but we’re going to have limited time events at regular intervals.There will be preliminary rounds, and the players who win those rounds will advance to the final round. It’s not that we have a set time frame for those matches, you can just play them when you can play.You’ll be matched up against other participants of the preliminary round as a whole.

Cam Shea is senior editor in IGN's Sydney office and plays a lot of Shadowverse and Hearthstone. He's on Twitter