A Happy SWUsgiving: What I'm Thankful For

It’s the holiday season, and in a matter of hours it’ll finally be time for Mariah Carey to awaken from her seasonal hibernation to assault your eardrums for just under a calendar month.

This time of year is about gathering with family, friends and loved ones to celebrate the things you are most grateful for. Some are thankful for health, some for wealth, and others for the little things that make us smile.

But if you’re like us here at Deploy Your Leader Gaming, you must also be thankful for the simple joys of Star Wars: Unlimited.

Today, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m going to highlight some of the things that I’m thankful for as we approach the end of a great year in SWU.

No Leftovers

Those of you who are familiar with Roll On Gaming may remember that we started creating content during the dark times - that is, when Star Wars: Destiny was still a game that existed.

While my cohost/brother and I loved SWD, there were some inherent frustrations with the game that I am grateful to say did not carry over to SWU.

The largest and most impactful of those? NO DICE.

I’m a deck builder at heart, and I cannot begin to describe the amount of time that I spend tweaking, re-tweaking and micro-analyzing all of the decks I build.

As a reward for spending that much time on my decks, I hope to take a list into an event or tournament and play reasonably well with it. I may not win every game, but I have a sense of my deck’s strengths and weaknesses, and whatever minimal amount of player skill I possess can play a role in supplementing my deck in either direction.

There’s no defense, though, for rolling blanks in a critical moment, or being unable to keep dice on the table long enough to make an impact.

I have been continuously motivated to keep playing Star Wars: Unlimited because that piece of the puzzle was removed, and quite frankly I don’t ever want to see a dice game again.

I am also thankful for the way that the designers of SWU have handled the concept of action-cheating, which ran rampant for a time during the Destiny days.

Aside from the “Lieutenant” cards and events/upgrades that buff an attack - see: The Force Is With Me (SOR 55) and Hotshot DL-44 Blaster (SHD 174) - there have not been a bevy of consistent methods in which to go beyond the one-action threshold.

While Leia Organa, Alliance General (SOR 9) and Rebel Assault (SOR 103) made waves early on in the Spark of Rebellion metagame, other cards with similar effects haven’t taken off in the same way.

Headhunting (SHD 145) would be a much better card if the three units it allowed you to attack with could hit bases. And with decklists being as tight as they are with 3 sets in play, it’s been difficult to find room for cards like Outflank (SHD 128) or MagnaGuard Wing Leader (TWI 82).

You won’t hear me complaining, though - the pace of the games is dictated by the cards being played, not by the excess of actions you can take, and it’s a design that I am definitely in favor of.

Fireside Chats

It may have been difficult to find Star Wars: Unlimited packs for a while, but one thing there has been no shortage of during the lifespan of SWU so far has been communication by the developers, and that is another aspect of this game I am very thankful for.

Since the announcement of the game, FFG has hung their hat on the promise of greater transparency and engagement with the player base. 

It’s one thing to promise, but it’s another thing to deliver, and deliver they have. Consider:

1. When product became scarce in Spark of Rebellion, FFG dedicated an entire livestream to explaining the shortage and educating players on a reprint timeline and adjustments being made for future sets.
2. When Planetary Qualifier prizes were met with incredulity over a lack of participation prizing, the SWU team made sure to send additional promos to every store, and also addressed the planned increase of PQ sites.
3. When Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty (SOR 15) dominated PQ season, lead designer Danny Schaefer stepped up to the mic and announced the suspension of Boba Fett for Premier play, and took ownership for pushing the design a bit too far.

Xander Tabler and Game Design Lead Danny Schaefer announce and discuss the Boba suspension during the November 6th FFG Live stream. 

Every time that past regimes could have taken the easy way out and shut down all comms to the community, the SWU team has risen to the challenge and provided openness and clarity at the highest level they are able.

It’s been a very refreshing facet of being a part of this game, and I look forward to that trend continuing.

Peaches And Theme

A Star Wars card game should do two things at a minimum: contain a fun play experience, and feel like Star Wars.

Fortunately, Star Wars: Unlimited does both, but the latter is what I’m most thankful for.

At any given time, your tabletop can be utterly steeped in thematic characters and scenarios, and in those moments it doesn’t feel like you're out of place for operating thematically.

Quite possibly the largest triumph of themes began with the first set, and bear with me, because your first reaction will be something along the lines of, “Duh.”

Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

I know, seriously, hear me out.

For a set that was always going to be centered around the Galactic Civil War, and the inaugural set of the game’s inception, there was never a world that existed where the 2-Player Starter didn’t feature decks led by Luke and Vader.

It just wasn’t going to happen, and it’s obviously a smart thing that they realized and executed that.

But aside from the no-brainer optics, now that we are three sets deep into Star Wars: Unlimited, there are other victories to be highlighted specifically in the themes of Set 1; not the least of which, the Spark of Rebellion 2-Player Starter still feels like the most balanced introductory play experience of any of the sets since.

Luke and Vader’s abilities contrast each other directly, the decks are both basic yet intriguing, and the cards therein contain some of the most iconic characters that you could ever hope for in a Star Wars product.

Moff Gideon and The Mandalorian didn’t really interact at all, and the Ahsoka Tano and General Grievous decks were built more to showcase new mechanics than to serve as foils to one another.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, Spark of Rebellion provided something that no set has provided since: legendary units to complement the Starter Leaders.

Before you start throwing tomatoes, look at it this way: both Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight (SOR 51) and Darth Vader, Commanding The First Legion (SOR 87) remain two of the most valuable chase cards in SOR, and they exist in the same aspect pairings as the Luke and Vader starter decks.

Yes, The Mandalorian, Wherever I Go, He Goes (SHD 49) can fit in The Mandalorian starter deck, but where’s the Moff Gideon unit? And the Twilight of the Republic Leaders find their unit counterparts in different aspects entirely.

It’s a small thing, but it makes all the difference when you’re trying to establish a theme.

That’s not to say that Shadows of the Galaxy and Twilight of the Republic aren’t thematic as sets, by the way. It would have been very easy for the SWU design team to say, “Well, we gave you Rebels and Imperials, have fun!”

Instead, each set has provided an intriguing trait focus that you can choose to take advantage of or not. From the Bounty Hunters and Mandalorians in SHD...

to the Clones and Separatists in TWI.

This attention to theme ensures that every type of player can find something that speaks to them. That should always be a goal for a game designed to gather people from across the globe for a product that they all can enjoy.  

Dinner And A Show

Finally, I want to talk about something that I think all SWU fans will be thankful for, including myself… despite the lamentations of all of our wallets.

Variants in Star Wars: Unlimited are undefeated.

I haven’t played a ton of TCG’s, but I would still be hard-pressed to find a pack-opening experience better than the one SWU provides.

Sure, you’ll have the occasional dud pack, but more often than not there is something to whet your appetite within those 16 cards.

It’s the full-art variants that get me the most hyped, though; hyperspaces and hyperfoils are nothing new in the card world, but in the Star Wars IP? Stop, I’m getting all hot and bothered.

Add to that the absolute heart-stopping thrill of pulling a showcase, and I want to keep opening SWU packs for as long as I live.

I was finally able to experience pulling not one, but two showcases while opening Twilight of the Republic packs, and even though they weren’t the most sought-after Leaders, it was still an amazing feeling. Shoutout to my bros Nute Gunray and Wat Tambor - your sacrifice (sold to finance a Maul showcase) will be remembered forever.

And For Dessert…

We’re winding down this meal of gratitude and thoughtfulness, which means it’s time for me to say something sappy about Star Wars: Unlimited being not just about playing cards, but the friends we made along the way.

Gross. I would never say such things… except that…

Yes, I’m thankful for the highs and lows of competitive and casual play, the endless cracking of packs, and the sleepless nights of theorycrafting.

But more than all of that, I have been blessed – as many of us have since SWU’s release – with the opportunity to once again engage with my local community.

Thanks to Star Wars: Unlimited, my bro-host and I now have a band of friends that we can regularly get together with and jam games, bounce ideas off of, and test for tournaments.

Days and nights gaming on a store table have led to breaking bread at our home tables and traveling together to share in the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Is it cliche? Sure.

But is it also one of the fundamental boxes that any game worth its salt must check in order to be deemed successful? Absolutely.

I’m immensely glad to be a part of our own small Star Wars: Unlimited community, and to the game itself for bringing us together.

As you push away from the dinner table this holiday season and go back to agonizing over your “Final 60”, I urge you to remember one thing:

Star Wars: Unlimited is fun - or can be, if you let it - and you don’t have to be the Galactic Champion to have a blast playing SWU. 

This game has so many ways that players of all ages and backgrounds can find joy, and it’s that fact which makes me feel the most thankful.

Happy Thanks-gaming!

Kevin
Roll On Gaming
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