We get it. Boxes of SWU are in short supply and many, many, many of you are staring at singles prices and hurtin’, mama.

While yesterday’s timely stream from friend of the show Jim Cartwright contained both good news and rough news (the Set 1 reprint exists, but is definitely a little farther out than most hoped), many of us have events coming up soon, and are staring down proven decklists that could cost us hundreds of dollars in singles.

So what to do? You could definitely throw together something less proven and roll with that. There’s a lot of virtue in bringing something off the wall to an event. Players have taken major tournaments with off-meta stuff quite frequently across card game history, and you could be the next. But on the other hand…the good stuff is good for a reason, and you might want to have them around, even if it’s just for testing.

Fortunately, this may not necessarily require settling fire to your wallet. SWU is a pretty balanced game, and while our suggested alternatives are absolutely not going to hold a candle to the full fat versions when push comes to shove, we’ve found that these decks are still recognizably themselves (kind of alarmingly so?) even without the crazy expensive pieces. The bottom line is that they can and do win without their chase cards. This bodes well for the future of the game, since more cards will mean more options to replace the pricy stuff, and it also means that you can potentially build workable versions of these heavy hitters right now.

Here’s how we’d suggest you go about it.

B O B A G R E E N

Here’s a sample budget list for Boba Green!

Darth Vader: Commanding The First Legion

• Price: $97.99
• Function: Provide immediate board impact through Ambush and leave a strong presence to push base damage.
• Suggestion: Syndicate Lackeys

Oh Vader. Why do you cost a billion dollars? Is it because you’re a really, really, really good card? Uh, yes, but hey! Syndicate Lackeys also ambushes for 5 and it’s even cheaper, giving us a nice secondary option to fully combo out for the Boba turn! 5 damage is 5 damage! I guess you can say they’re not Syndicate Slackeys, am I right?

…look, we’re doing our best here, okay?

Boba Fett: Disintegrator

• Price: $59
• Function: Control smaller enemy units, trade up into Leaders, maintain board presence
• Suggestion: 3x Shoot First + Gamorrean Guards

It’s going to be hard to find a replacement for the best 3 drop in SWU, especially when part of his appeal is raw stat advantage over his competition. But when you look at why he’s dominant in Boba Green, it’s because he’s ace at efficiently clearing out early game units. While nothing in the current pool beats him at that job, we can up our counts of Boba staple Shoot First for easier trades and throw in an underrated Sentinel that trades into multiple little guys. Gamorrean Guards can trade out with a Battlefield Marine or two and keep pushing, and it also makes for a nice Surprise Strike target to hit that super relevant 7 damage threshold.

S A B I N E G R E E N

Here’s a sample budget list for Sabine Green!

K-2S0: Cassian’s Counterpart

• Price: $13.99
• Function: Provide a solid body at the higher end of low curve aggro that punishes units that have already traded and pushes base damage.
• Suggestion: Wampa

Look buddy, I’m not exactly proud of telling you to sleeve up freaking Wampa, but a Rare card with a picture of a robot on it costs 14 freaking dollars and this is the best I got. They’re both 4 drop units with Overwhelm what do you want from me? Wampa even has an extra health. You enjoy that.

Perhaps the most depressing thing about this predicament we find ourselves in is that Wampa, bizarrely, is missing the Rebel trait. I heard from my cousin Jeff that Wampa actually passed up a lucrative promotion to stay in that neighborhood on Hoth and continue keeping an eye on the Rebel base. He’s as devoted to the cause as anybody.

Red Three: Unstoppable

• Price: $12.99
• Function: Press an advantage at a timely moment by providing a cost efficient stat boost to your entire board.
• Suggestion: General Dodonna: Massassi Group Commander

This one, thank goodness, is a little more palatable. While it’s tempting to slot another 3 drop spaceship here, like Star Wing Scout or Disabling Fang Fighter, the function of Red Three is less about having a body in space and more about forcing a response and boosting your board. General Donuts can definitely do that job in a pinch, while maintaining the Rebel trait that’s so critical to pushing damage in Sabine.

For A Cause I Believe In

• Price: $8.06
• Function: Convert resources into direct damage to close out games regardless of board state.
• Suggestion: Nothing.

This entire article is going to be viewed by some as hopelessly optimistic- these are some of the best cards in the entirety of SWU, and replacing them is a tall order. But this particular card is a step too far for even our purposes here- while none of our suggestions are as good as the original cards, in this instance, nothing else in the game even does what FACIBI does. It’s ability to provide reach and set up your hand to close the game are genuinely archetype-enabling, and if you want to play Red Hero Aggro competitively, three copies of it are not really negotiable. Buy them, love them, pray you draw them.

I D E N G R E E N

Here’s a sample budget list for Iden Green!

Darth Vader: Commanding The First Legion

• Price: $97.99, but it probably got higher while you were reading this.
• Function: Regain or establish control of ground lane through on-play impact and effective body.
• Suggestion: Count Dooku: Darth Tyranus

Vader is just as much of a workhorse in this deck as he is in Boba, but his replacement is easier to find. Dooku is right here in color at 7, and though most Iden decks are running him alongside Vader, it just takes a little tweak of the numbers for the rest of the deck and you’re able to get things functioning well. Vader rightly dominates the conversation around 7 cost Villains, but don’t let that fool you. Dooku is also an excellent card that does nearly everything this deck wants him to do.

Vigilance

• Price: $32.89
• Function: Heal the base and swing the board state against aggressive play.
• Suggestion: Cargo Juggernaut

Vigilance flew under the radar for a long time before our good friends at KTOD popularized its inclusion, aspect penalty at all, in Villain Control lists. It’s been a major development, but that aspect penalty gives it some competition it might not otherwise have. I really like Cargo Juggernaut, which also costs 6 in this deck, heals you for just a couple less than Vigilance, and gives you a nice fat shielded 4/6 for your trouble. This is also a really fun ECL target since it has ECL’s favorite keyword buddy, Shielded. Kill a Battlefield Marine and then pop a shield on afterwards? Yes please!

Avenger: Hunting Star Destroyer

• Price: $29.85
• Function: Close the game out with a big, hard to answer threat in the Space Lane that restricts the opponent’s options.
• Suggestion: Relentless: Konstantine’s Folly

No doubt, this is one of the saddest of our replacements. Relentless is not nearly as impactful on play as the mighty Avenger, and frankly it’s worth considering just shrugging it off and running fewer space units if you don’t have ’em. But at the end of the day, Iden is still pretty good at creating situations where an 8/8 Star Destroyer is just GG, so lo, here is your 8/8 Star Destroyer.

Lemons From Lemonade

It’s an exciting time to be a SWU player. Everyone is making do with what resources they’ve got available, and that means we all get opportunities to see innovation and ingenuity as we play and build. We hope this has helped you make some of those advances in your own decks, and think a little more broadly about how the pieces all fit together.

May the force be with you!