Not all cards have homes. It’s a real tragedy.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a problem you can fix by volunteering at Habitat for Humanity or donating to your local homeless shelter. The problem can only be solved by the designers of SWU giving each its unique home. This article will look at cards in the current pool without a place of their own and what might give them one.

Let’s start by defining what we mean by “homeless.” Homeless cards are those in the current cardpool that don’t have a slot in a competitive deck. The goal here is not to rag on average or underwhelming cards, but instead to look at cards with unrealized potential and imagine them at their best.

1. Galactic Ambition

Galactic Ambition is the most obvious incomplete combo in the current card pool. On its face, it’s awful, so there must be something waiting in the wings to rescue it. What could that be? The first theory is that there exists an extremely high-cost, nigh-game-winning card. Something like a Death Star unit that costs 12+, has 20/20 stats and Sentinel. Another option is a card that makes GA’s self-dealt damage into a virtue. The card might say “damage you deal to your base is also dealt to your opponent’s.” That could make this card a powerful closer for aggro decks. The final way we might leverage GA’s effect is with off-color cards. While we would normally pay +2 (or even +4) for a color(s) we haven’t included in our deck, this card would let us bypass that. Imagine an extremely powerful Blue-Blue card exists, but it fits beautifully in a Green/Red deck. This might be the path to including that power card. The ceiling will be high when this card finally gets a roof!

2. Consular Security Force

I wrote an article about healing in SWU last week, and these helmets were in the back of my mind the whole time. They’re the most cost-efficient way to get lots of health onto the table. To boot, they’ve got decent power and the valuable Rebel trait allowing Dodonna to buff them. As it stands though, there’s no deck using them. Good news, I don’t think it’ll take much to make these guys effective: an upgrade that said “Health +1. Gains Sentinel.” That would instantly make these guys a sink for incoming damage that could stick around long enough to be healed by a Surgical Droid or Binds.

3. Grand Inquisitor

We addressed the Grand Inquisitor head-on in our Weekly Roundup on Monday. He just doesn’t have units to target that will produce significant benefit yet. As such, he makes the homeless list. I don’t expect him to stay there though! If we ever see some Raid units on the Villain side of the card pool, Grand Inquisitor’s value will start to shoot up with his newly adopted family!

4. Snowspeeder

Snowspeeder is a solid card. With its stats and the Ambush keyword, it’s perfectly on curve, and even has the Rebel trait. The reason Snowspeeder doesn’t see play is because its ability doesn’t trigger. Currently, there are only three vehicle ground units – this one, the AT-ST, and AT-AT. Given that level of scarcity, using the Snowspeeder will be tough. That’s before we consider that your opponent might have the initiative, allowing them to attack with their vehicle before you can use the speeder’s ability. One path to playability would be as a meta pick. Someday, there could be a meta-defining vehicle deck, and this card would hard-counter it. (This gets really juicy if FFG allows sideboards in tournament play.) But if we want our speeder to be more generally usable, there will have to be incentives to play ground vehicles- maybe that’s a cost reduction, maybe it’s a team-up effect where playing multiple vehicles generates a bonus, maybe it’s a vehicle-only upgrade. The potential is there for the Snowspeeder!

5. Admiral Ozzel

Poor Ozzel. If Vader isn’t choking him out, he’s on the streets. Ozzel is clearly a combo piece, but he doesn’t have a combo. So, what would it look like? First off, we can’t double-dip with the Ambush keyword to ready a unit twice. The timing doesn’t work with Ozzel the way ambush does with Fett’s Firespray. Second, the unit we ready with Ozzel needs to be more powerful than he is or exhausting him isn’t worth it. Finally, his ability is restricted to Imperial units. To recap, we need a high-cost, non-ambush, Imperial unit that’s worth setting up. The dream for Ozzel is a glass cannon- something with very high attack, but low health. Imagine a unit with 6 attack and 1 health- it would die immediately under normal circumstances, but with Ozzel’s help it could strike freely after your opponent claims initiative- a feat the real Ozzel never quite pulled off…

Thanks for reading! Do you agree these cards are homeless? Do you have other cards you can’t find a deck for? Let us know in the comments!