I spent my time in the military serving as a Logistics Officer. There was a lot of paperwork and personnel management, but the overriding concern of my organization was ultimately one thing: efficiency. How do we bring the most capability to the fight with the least effort? My CCG career started before the military and has extended well after it, but that period of my life left me with a profound appreciation for cost, both as a player and designer.

So, when Star Wars Unlimited spoilers began, my first questions were about the game’s cost structure. How much weight are the game’s designers putting on each play mechanic? Where did they go wrong applying those rules? The answers to those questions will allow us to identify cards that might be under or over-costed. Since we’ve seen the basic cards in the starters, we can start to decode the system the designers have built and re-engineer their costing table. I think the basic formula of the game goes like this:

1 resource = +2 stat points = 2 direct damage = drawing 1 card = 1 shield = 3 healing

Some of these relationships are very explicit – Repair, for example. Others we have to tease out.

For units, we can assume that a 1-cost, basic one will have three stats. Every additional 2 points of stats, we can expect cost to go up accordingly. This system lets us assess the weight of each ability added to a unit. Take Cell Block Guard. As a three-cost unit, he should have total stats of 7, but there’s only 6 printed- indicating that the designers view Sentinel as a powerful keyword worth sacrificing power he should have.

Events are less direct because they don’t have stats to tune, but we can still see these cost relationships in action. Asteroid Sanctuary has two effects: exhausting an enemy unit and giving a Shield token to a friendly unit that costs 3 or less. Since a shield should cost 1, and the card places a limit on that by only allowing low-cost units, we know the exhaust effect is priced at ~1.5 cost.

So, what spoiled cards might be breaking the rules by providing too much or too little value?

Yoda – Undercosted

A standard 2-cost unit should have 5 stats, so Yoda gets 1 stat point, and all his abilities for 1 cost. Healing for two each attack AND drawing a card, should he fail in the attempt, is really superior value. This expendable Muppet looks like a three-of for every Hero Blue deck.

Surprise Strike – Overcosted

Attacking with a unit is something you can do for free, so we can disregard that in our analysis. Permanently buffing a unit’s stats by 2 should only cost 1 – so why would a single turn +3 buff cost twice as much? There may be a use for this card, say with Overwhelm units, but even in that scenario, we’re below the 1-for-2 cost-to-damage ratio we want to meet or exceed.

R2D2 – Undercosted

This lucky droid has 2-cost unit stats AND a solid ability. In a game where each player only draws two cards a round, making those draws better is a significant advantage. Uniqueness is the only thing holding me back from putting three in every Hero deck I make.

Galactic Ambition – Overcosted

In this instance, “free” means “costs seven.” The best-case scenario for this card is you play a 9-cost Relentless with it. That’s not too bad- you get to skip up the value chain… but then you’d have to DEAL 9 DAMAGE to your base. That drawback, combined with the fact that you’re sacrificing card advantage by using two cards to play one, makes this a truly underwhelming prospect. I don’t know what the designers were so terrified of here.

Shoot First – Undercosted

I was a little guarded about this card in our last article, but don’t take that to mean there isn’t great value here. The ability to strike first is huge, allowing this card to easily deal 4+ direct damage, well above the 2 we would expect for its cost. The temporary +1 attack is just icing on the cake. This will certainly be a 3-of in all Yellow decks.

Open Fire – Overcosted

This one is pretty straightforward. You should be getting at least 6 damage for 3 cost. Shoot First is gonna do 4 damage reliably, at a fraction of the cost.

Boba Fett – Undercosted

Boba came out just as we were going to press, and I couldn’t miss adding him. Not only does he have stats better than a standard 3 cost unit- he does three damage each time he attacks an exhausted unit. When you compare him to Open Fire above, the gulf in value is obvious. Boba also has some solid synergy with Asteroid Sanctuary.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be keeping the cost structure in the front of my logistician brain as more cards are revealed and we creep closer to release.