I know, I know! Star Wars: Unlimited? On a blog about Marvel Champions?! Well before you get your pitchforks out, I'll lead by saying I am still very much playing Champions and will be writing articles covering various aspects of it. However, I'm also going to be branching out to cover some Star Wars: Unlimited and other various board games my family and I are playing. So without further ado, here is my first Star Wars: Unlimited post.
SWU Content Creator Progression League
I have had the incredible fortune of being invited to play in a Star Wars: Unlimited Progression League run by NelsonAllOverCards! I am ecstatic to be joining the league, and I want to kick off this article by covering what a Progression League is and how I will be covering it.
Each set of Star Wars: Unlimited has two main products: a starter box and booster packs. The starter box comes with two ready-to-play decks, and each booster pack comes with 16 randomized cards (1 leader, 1 base/token, and 14 cards for deck-building). For the progression league, each player starts with a card pool consisting of the Shadows of the Galaxy starter box and 3 Shadows of the Galaxy booster packs. Using these cards, we each build a deck consisting of one leader, one base, and 50 cards. We are then paired up against another league member for a match. Each following round, we will add an additional 3 booster packs, giving us access to new cards and leaders! As the league goes on, we can change our deck either by upgrading it with new cards or switching leaders and builds altogether!
I plan to record the opening of my 3 packs each round and write a follow-up article going over my deck-building process and updates. Then I will have a quick blurb about my game each round, covering who I played, what they were playing, and where my deck or piloting has flown or faltered.
This is essentially an extended limited format, meaning that we don't have access to all the cards right from the get-go as you would in a normal constructed format. I hope these articles will give some insight into limited format deck-building, as well as help me dig into ways to improve my own game-play and deck-building. All in all, I am thrilled to be a part of this progression league, because I love engaging with Star Wars: Unlimited in limited formats like this.
Round 1 Deck Construction
You can find the video where I am opening my starter boxes and my first three packs here! Videos are definitely not the norm for me, so the quality is a bit abysmal. However, it’s a quick, easy, and verifiable way to show what cards I pulled each round. I have also included my card pool in spreadsheet format here, in case anyone wants to take a gander and see what kind of decks they might build. If you want to know more about specific cards, you can find them on the official database or on SWUDB, a fan run deck-building site and card database.
To kick things off, the starter decks are Cunning/Vigilance (The Mandalorian leader) and Command/Vigilance (Moff Gideon leader). This means that we’ll have a plethora of Vigilance cards, and a decent start on Command and Cunning. My first three packs added in very few Aggression cards and very few cards pushing me toward Heroism. Again, you can find the full list in this spreadsheet.
For deck-building in a limited format like this, I like to start by considering two main things: What leaders do I have, and what bombs did I pull? By "bombs," I essentially mean powerful cards that are worth building around. This doesn't necessarily translate to "which Rare or Legendary cards did I pull?" In fact, one of the great things about SWU is that the power curve is surprisingly shallow across rarities (as you'll see below). These two factors are going to have the largest impact on my deck-building. Here are the leaders I have access to during round 1:
The Mandalorian
We’re going to tackle the Heroism side first, because I pulled no additional Heroism leaders. This means Mando is my only choice on that side of the card pool. Chewbacca was the bomb I pulled for Heroism, which works well with the Cunning/Vigilance card pools that the starter deck provided. I also pulled the rare card Mystic Reflection, but with Grogu being the only Force unit in my pool, there isn’t a strong incentive to put it in the deck. On the Cunning side, I have both Fennec Shand and Enfys Nest (both uncommon cards) that add some solid back-end for a limited pool.
Since we have some decent late game, let's see if there is anything in the rest of the pool that incentivizes building this deck. Village Protectors pops out instantly as a strong sentinel unit. Snapshot Reflexes is an upgrade that both triggers Mando's ability, while not costing us action efficiency. We have around a dozen decent 2-cost units, meaning we have strong odds of getting a turn 1 play. We also see a decent space presence with about a dozen space units. All things said and done, there is a decent card pool use. Piecing things together, my Vigilance Mando deck would look like this:
My largest concerns with this deck are that I would be running a relatively low number of upgrades (six), meaning I'm triggering Mando's ability less. Razor's Crest helps that by pulling upgrades back to hand from the discard pile, but realistically I'm running this deck for access to Chewbacca and Village Protectors, both of which I would not use elsewhere. Potentially this is worth revising with more bounty cards to get further use from my leader ability.
Villainy Options
To look at the Villainy side, I have a lot more options. Doctor Aphra really doesn’t call to me in a limited format, so I am taking her out of consideration. I don't foresee me building with her, even as my card pool grows. Bossk is very appealing, since he deploys on 5 resources. However, he requires I use Aggression, and with a grand total of 7 Aggression cards there isn't much to work with. It does include Kylo's TIE Silencer (a Legendary card), but while the stats are nice for a space unit, I can get those same stats from the uncommon Mercenary Gunship I pulled. I have generally found the 4-resource cost to steal the ship tends to be more expensive than removing it any other way. At that point, it’s as good as Kylo’s TIE, but can be run in any aspect combination.
Hunting Nexu is also a strong card, but with so few Aggression units, it will likely not gain access to its raid ability. All in all, Aggression just didn’t have the cards to support a full deck, though Bossk may become very appealing as the card pool grows. This leaves me with either Gar Saxon or Moff Gideon.
Moff Gideon
Both Cunning and Vigilance offer some solid cards for Moff Gideon, but Vigilance offers more cards that work well with his leader ability. It also offers some better removal options with Fell the Dragon and Calculated Brutality. By way of bombs, there isn't much here beyond Gideon's Cruiser. That's perfectly fine, because Gideon's ability pushes us toward a swarm deck. Rather than put resources into a few high-value units, we'll spread resources out over many low-value units.
Taking a look at our low end, we have a lot of units that cost three or less. General Tagge jumps out, because we have around twenty trooper units in our card pool. Anything that buffs our cheap unit great, so alongside Tagge we have Outland TIE Vanguards that can help bump up the stats. We also have a number of ramp options to accelerate our resource accumulation. Superlaser Technician and Price on Your Head will both accelerate how quickly we can hit our late game, allowing us to drop Gideon's Cruiser or smuggle out a Pirate Tank. That is a little at odds with wanting to pump out units, because we will likely burn through our hand dropping small units. Usually we would look to stop resourcing cards in order to quickly drop more units. However, it also offers us some options on how we play depending on who we match up with. Putting it all together, it looks like this:
Gar Saxon
Gar Saxon requires we take Vigilance, which we don't mind since we have a strong pool of cards in Vigilance. Aggression is weak in our pool, as mentioned above, and we have nothing that pulls us toward mono-Vigilance. That leaves Command and Cunning for us to evaluate. Cunning offers most of the top end we saw with our Mando deck, but as a whole, I find myself pulled toward Command. This is going to offer a similar set of cards we looked at for Moff Gideon. Command offers flexible ways to get upgrades on units through Outland TIE Vanguard and General Tagge. The Rickety Quadjumper offers additional ways to get experience upgrades on units, but it is unreliable. It also doesn't have the stats to really help manage the space arena. For upgrades, Mandalorian Armor is great, especially for Gar Saxon. Resilient offers a bit of staying power. Legal Authority is soft removal, which can be incredibly strong in limited formats. Privateer Crew is interesting here, as the smuggle option makes it into a 6-cost unit with 6 power and 5 hp. The Client and Cargo Juggernaut come into play with an upgrade, giving them Saxon's bonus. As a whole there are a lot of options for taking advantage of Gar Saxon's leader ability, and it isn't locked to attacking other units. The deck would shake out to look like this:
Conclusion
All things said and done, I had to decide between these three decks. I think all will work well in the format, but in the end, I am going with the Gar Saxon Command deck. While he deploys a turn later than Gideon, I think the stat boost limitation from Gideon isn't as flexible as the boost from Saxon.
For round 1, I have been paired with Kennedyhawk from the MCM and SAGA podcasts. After my match is complete, I’ll post a short write-up detailing which deck I picked, how the match went, and what changes I would make moving forward. With the following round, I’ll have another video and write-up detailing the new cards I have access to and if those will push me to another leader/aspect combination.
I would love to hear what deck would you choose, and how might you build it differently.
Author's Note: If you have any comments or suggestions on this style of article, let me know! I'm trying to find a nice balance between needing to show every card discussed and not showing enough cards for readers who may not know them all. I would love feedback on this aspect of the write-up!
Comentários