No, Really, How Do You Play This Game?
I’ve broken down CCGs in general and formats, talked about Star Wars Unlimited card types and aspects, it feels like it’s finally time to explain what this game is. As a reminder, everything I’m presenting here is about the main one-vs-one format of Premier.
Two players each have their deck of 50 cards plus one leader and one base. Each player’s base and leader have given them access to play cards from up to two of the main four aspects, plus either Heroism or Villainy.
I’ve made a big deal about aspects and I should clarify something - you CAN play cards that have a different aspect or aspects from your base and or leader, but there’s a penalty. For every aspect on a card that is not shared by your leader or base, the cost is increased by 2.
For an example, let’s say you’re playing with the new Poe Dameron leader, who is Command (green) and Heroic. You know that the card “Overwhelming Barrage” is a powerful event that can clear multiple of your opponents leaders of the board. It’s a Command Villainy card and has a printed resource cost of 5. You can play it in your deck, but it would cost you 7 resources, because you don’t have Villainy among your deck’s aspects. So can you play cards “off aspect?” Yes. Should you? Probably not.
In a game of SWU, players sit across from each other with their bases between them and their leaders beneath their respective bases. To the left and right of the base are where units will be played with one “arena” for Ground Units and the other for Space. It doesn’t matter which is which, as long as players’ ground units are across from each other and space units are across from each other. Beneath those areas are where players will have their deck, their discard pile, and their resources. The image below shows the layout per an official playmat accessory, which is a good visual representation. This also seems like the ideal time to talk about resources.
Everybody’s Got a Price
If you’re familiar with Magic, you may have noticed that the card types I wrote about earlier didn’t have a Land analogue. Lands in Magic are cards that make up part of your deck and are used to generate the resources used to play other cards. SWU has no such cards. At the start of the game, each player draws 6 cards and decides if they want to to keep that hand or draw 6 new ones (don’t worry, I’ll probably do a whole article on just that decision). Once each player has their 6 starting cards, they have to choose 2 of them to put in play face down as resources. During the first turn, each player will have two resources to use to pay the costs of their cards. After each action phase (we’ll get to phases momentarily!) there’s a regroup phase, where spent resources are refreshed, players draw two more cards, and have the option to resource one more card from their hand.
Unlike Magic, this means players don’t have to worry about not drawing land cards and not having resources to play cards. Every turn, you have the option to give yourself one more resource. This also adds another decision point for players to consider. If I draw a very powerful, very expensive costing card on turn 2, do I hang on to it and resource something cheaper I could play earlier? Or do I resource it, use what I have in my hand, and how I draw another copy closer to when I’ll have more resources to play it? In a game of important decisions, what to resource and when - or if to resource something at all - is one more decision players are forced to make every turn.
Rounds and Phases
Now that all that set up is complete, players start the game with an action phase of a round. In the action phase, players take turns taking one game action each. Game actions are:
Exhausting resources to play a card
Attack with a unit
Use an action ability
Taking the initiative
Pass
Playing a card involves paying the cost of the card and then either putting the unit or upgrade in play, or doing what the event card says to do. Some cards may allow you to do multiple things: the card “Rebel Assault” is an Event that allows the player who plays it to attack with a unit with the “Rebel” trait and then attack with a second unit with the same trait. Units enter play “exhausted,” meaning they can’t attack until they’re readied as part of the round’s next phase or by another card’s ability.
When attacking, the attacking player declares that a unit is attacking either the opponent’s base or an opponent’s unit. If attacking another unit, the two units deal damage to each other and if either unit suffers more damage than their remaining health, that unit is defeated and sent to their owner’s discard pile. If attacking the base, the attacking unit deals damage equal to its power to the base.
Taking the initiative is an action that says “I’m done taking actions for this phase of this round and I’m going to go first next round.” Only one player can take the initiative each round; once it’s taken that player has the initiative for the next round and will go first. They also cannot take any more actions in this round. If a player wants to not take an action but reserve the right to take one later this round, they can Pass. If both players pass consecutively or one passes and the other takes the initiative, the round ends.
Regrouping
Once both players have taken their available actions, we enter the regroup phase. Here, both players draw 2 cards. Then they each decide if they want to resource one card from their hand; note that the card they resource doesn’t have to be one of the two just drawn, but any card in their hand after drawing 2 as part of this regroup phase. Finally, each player readies any exhausted resources or units so they can be used in the next action phase. We then go to the next round, and we have another action phase with the player with initiative taking the first action.
Winning!
And the game continues as such, with action phases followed by regroup phases until one player deals an amount of damage to their opponent’s base equal to or greater than the base’s health total. To refer back to Magic again, there is currently no alternative win condition to damaging your opponent’s base. In Magic, a player who cannot draw a card when required to loses the game; in SWU, a player who cannot draw a card when required to deals 3 damage to their own base. This hastens the end of the game but does not necessarily directly end it.
And that’s a game of Star Wars: Unlimited, explained in three blog posts and a few thousand more word than necessary. If you’re a visual learner, is direct you to the excellent “How It’s Played” series and their video from spring 2024 on SWU.
Over the past three posts I’ve made note of a number of “future topics.” I’ll be reviewing those to determine what’s next, but am leaning toward writing about my pre-release experiences during the weekend of March 7-9. Let me know if you have something you want me to explore in more detail!