Just thought I’d toss some speculation out there. The graph in FFG’s latest article suggests they’re hoping to keep the card pool at a maximum of 1500:
1280 at the first rolation represents 600 (5 x complete cycles) + 20 (1 x new data pack) + 113 (core) + 547 (remainder from deluxe sets). At 55 unique cards per deluxe that is only 3 cards out from being exactly 10 deluxe sets. Discuss 
This is actually interesting but I guess it is just an example. I like them saying “We want to keep this game accessible for new players” with 10 deluxe sets.
I agree, the whole rotation policy seems ludicrous - not the idea in and of itself, but the execution of it seems not to be aligned with the goals. I was expecting more like 3-5 cycles to stay current, such that the shelf life of a card was about 2 years.
Edit: Math mistakes
That’s not quite right. The rotation happens at the point when the first pack of cycle 8 hits, at which point we lose two whole cycles. That takes us back to 5 full cycles plus the new pack. The numbers are as shown on the graph - i.e. we lose 220 cards at the point of rotation, taking us from ~1500 to ~1280.
Nevermind, I thought you did the math with 1500 cards and not 1280. Still early here, my apologies.
Yeah, to actually achieve their goals of making something that isn’t intimidating to newcomers and has a consistently fresh meta, they need to be rotating much more aggressively.
3x Cores @ $40 = $120
10x Deluxes @ $30 = $300
6x Cycles @ 6 x $15 ($90) = $540
Total Cost of Entry when rotation starts: $960
It will also be interesting to see how this works with their stated goal of providing silver-bullet counters to power cards or strategies. What’s the point of a silver bullet if the card it counters is rotated out? Or vice-versa?
Actually, that’s not quite right, because at the point the rotation starts you only have 5 full cycles to buy, plus the odd data pack - so that’s $75 off straight away (although are you really paying $15 for them, I would have thought less if you shop around).
In reality, of course, you’d pick stuff up second-hand for much less (from all the whingers who are quitting, lol) and it may well be that my speculation of 10 deluxes is off-base. I would think 4 seems more likely (and is in-keeping with what their other LCGs have done in terms of one per faction). That would then mean the design team can concentrate on keeping to a release schedule that means the season rotation happens at a fixed time each year, as opposed to being delayed based on when product hits the shelves.
That also makes the design space about 330 less, which seems more reasonable. I know that makes for fewer unique cards than MtG, but bear in mind MtG has functionally equivalent cards in 5 different colours and functionally similar cards at multiple rarities - this greatly reduces the amount of design and testing they need to do.
I reckon the retail cost to get into the game by the time rotation hits will probably be closer to $700 - which is still steep, but also still nothing like what is required to break into MtG.
Better to think of it as ‘expect our next press conference before the 10th deluxe’.