Happy Friday! We’re back with our regularly scheduled Friday programming, with a look at a community member or content creator. This week we welcome our friend Thorrk, who seeks to set a word count world record in any conversation you find him! Keep reading to learn more about him and his YouTube channel!

Thorrk’s Hot Takes

Tell us about your yourself! What are your hobbies outside of card games?

To the surprise of absolutely no one, I play video games (mostly RPG and RTS), Wargames and Boardgames!

I am also a game designer. I actually recently signed my first contract with a publisher to publish my first game that should be coming on Kickstarter somewhere in 2025 if everything goes fine (you will hear about it when it happens). I have been designing games since the age of 11 so I am very excited to publish my first game.

What molded Thorrk into the Paragraph Professional?

I am a product of the 2000s where forums and long discussions were the norm. I like to elaborate on my thoughts and go deeper on a subject. Omg look I made a short answer!

What is your prior background/experience in the TCG world?

About 20 years on MTG (on and off) mostly Draft, Modern and Legacy. I was a competitive player and even helped some pros prepare for big tournaments. I hated grinding tournaments, didn’t have the money to keep up with the meta and also I hated the standard format, all these things are very much needed if you want to compete on the highest stage.

In my youth I was also a big fan of the Lord of the Rings TCG by Decipher (a great game). I played a lot of Duelyst, which is still imo the best digital card game I ever played. Legends of Runeterra because it was cheap and a decent amount of fun. I also played a lot of Legend of the Five Rings LCG the year it came out, where I got the most tournament success from.

I tried many other card games but those are the ones I played the most.

What was the main draw for you to Star Wars Unlimited as a game?

It regroups all my favorite card game mechanisms in one perfect package, it’s a skill testing game with a lot of deckbuilding depth so it’s perfect for me.

To hear more about my thoughts on the game you can check my review on BGG!

What’s one card design from another card game you have played that you would enjoy seeing in Star Wars Unlimited?

Great question!

I love the card Grandmaster Z’ir from Duelyst. Basically if your general dies, this unit becomes your general (general is the equivalent of your base in SWU).

This mechanism would work perfectly in SWU, where a unit becomes your base if your base is destroyed. Thematically, I could see this work with The Raddus ship from the Last Jedi or even the Death Star.

This card would be a great counter to “For a Cause I Believe in”(a card I particularly hate). On the villain side it would make Galactic Ambition a lot better.

What is one thing you hope to see from FFG attached to the Competitive structure (ie. prizing, formats, etc)?

I hope FFG considers making drafts an important part of the competitive landscape. 

It’s a fascinating way to play the game that really complements constructed play. You can be a poor deck builder and do well in constructed, Draft forces you to engage with the entire part of the game, no netdecking!

It would also be a smart business move from FFG, in the long run people tend to buy less cards and rely a lot more on singles, which provokes price increases. If we want people to open packs on a regular basis we need to make people draft, and this would give an extra incentive for people to do that.

I also encourage FFG to give real prize money for big tournaments which will go a long way in poaching Pros from other games, which would be a huge marketing move.

How much travel do you plan on doing for competitive play in Star Wars Unlimited?

Anywhere in Europe once a month maximum (probably less), maybe US if I qualify for a huge tournament ( hoping from some free tickets).

How did you get in to content creation for Star Wars Unlimited?

I started sharing my opinion spontaneously with my infamous “first impression” paragraph and I saw people were interested. I also realized that I had a lot of knowledge about the game before its release which I could make interesting content with. 

My friend Rossaldo gave me the idea to make my own youtube channel. Towernumber9 also inspired me, he showed me that you could do well on Youtube with a little effort as long as you know what you are talking about.

What do you envision your average viewer as? Competitive? Casual? Collector? Etc

I would say my average viewers are competitive players looking to get better at the game.

What is your goal for long-term content for Star Wars Unlimited? Mostly tier lists and deck techs? Anything else in the works?

I would like to do camera gameplay. But my dream is to cast live tournaments.

I always dreamed of doing Tournament commentary so I would love to do that on my channel. So far I was taking part in all tournaments that happened online, but now that tournaments are in real life there are tons of tournaments I won’t be able to attend and I would love to cast them if possible.

What is your favorite thing about making content for SWU so far?

I love sharing my thoughts and knowledge, and I believe having knowledge about something only has value if you are sharing it with others.

What are your goals in Star Wars Unlimited as a player & Content Creator?

I will try to compete but I have a full time job, a wife and I am planning to have a kid, so my time is limited so I will do what I can. If I realize I am out of the race to compete, I would like to cast live tournament.

For content creation, I will keep doing what I do and see how it goes.

In an ideal world, how often do you see yourself playing draft or sealed vs constructed games? What about Twin Suns?

Sealed only for Pre release. For Draft/Constructed I would like it to be 50/50 but I know it’s probably going to be 20/80. I don’t mind trying Twin Suns but personally if I am going for a casual multiplayer experience I would rather play Board Games.

What are you most excited about for SWU?

Watch or play tournaments, make new decks and see how the game involves with new content.

If there’s one thing you would say FFG has absolutely nailed regarding Star Wars Unlimited, what would you give them credit for?

As usual from FFG the game itself is great, but one thing they used to fail at and nailed this time was production and allocation, everybody managed to get products at MSRP to play the game. Yet the set doesn’t seem to have been overproduced.

This is an incredibly difficult thing to get right, such an amazing job from Asmodee on that front.

If there’s one thing you would say FFG has really missed the mark on regarding Star Wars Unlimited, what would you say it was?

For the art they decided to go for a “hate it or love it” approach, with wildly different style across the board and I think that was a mistake. Because of the lack of consistency (and sometimes lack of quality) the art is too divisive and as a result a significant amount of people won’t touch the game because of it and that’s a problem that could have been avoided, I hope the art improves over time in both quality and consistency.

I have heard the game art settles around set 3, but I don’t understand why you would not want to get the art settled on the most important set of the game.

What has been your favorite community experience in Star Wars Unlimited thus far?

I like the online community but the reason we play physical card games is for the real life interaction. So obviously the Pre release was my favorite experience. The second one in particular, it was smaller than the first, but meeting again the friends we made was really fun and we really had the feeling of building a community which was great. Shoutout to the Dublin community which has been awesome.

And a special guest question from your friend TD_Tatta, “What do you think the worst card in the game is, and why is it Traitorous?”

Traitorous is the worst card in the game until you realize you are supposed to play it on the opponent’s unit, it’s a tricky effect to figure out so I don’t blame Tatta for not spotting it ^^.

Any last thoughts you’d like to share?

Thanks for having me on your great website. I hope you guys become the ChannelFireball of Star Wars Unlimited!

If anybody out there is looking for English or French online casters for a tournament please reach out to me! I would love to help.

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Be sure to check out Torrk on YouTube! You can also regularly engage with him in the community discord, where you’ll often find him arguing with TD_Tatta and debating card previews during spoiler season with anyone willing to read his paragraphs!

That’s it for today. We hope you got a good introduction to our friend Thorrk!