If you haven’t taken the deep dive into deckbuilding yet, it’s possible you’ve missed one of the most interesting gameplay decisions the FFG development team made for Star Wars Unlimited. You can include any card in your deck, regardless of its colors (aspects). How could this possibly be balanced you might ask? FFG added an “Aspect Penalty” of 2 resources for every aspect icon on the card you do not have on your leader or base.

Thematically it’s a bit weird. We can take a card like Kanan Jarrus and for the friendly cost of 8 resources, a Vader green (Command) deck can deploy him. In the Star Wars universe, everyone is a mercenary now! I, for one, look forward to Luke Skywalker calling for an orbital bombardment from a Star Destroyer via Overwhelming Barrage.

Is it playable?

At first glance, this seems like a pretty steep penalty taking a 1 cost unit like Death Star Stormtrooper to 3 cost (or potentially 5 cost if you have neither Red or Villain) and will likely be too steep for the majority of the cards in the game. Where it gets interesting is power cards like Overwhelming Barrage that capture the best effects each aspect has. Overwhelming Barrage is aggressively costed at 5, with its only stipulation/drawback being that it requires a powerful unit on the board. Paying 7 for it doesn’t sound terrible in a lot of situations.

That’s the scary part- in other games, you’ll have metas where “you just have to run Red,” because X Red card is game-breaking. In Star Wars Unlimited, everyone will have access to that card, so a deck that shouldn’t be able to run that card will be able to take advantage of its power. It creates the unpleasant possibility that a single power card might birth not just a Tier 1 deck- but swallow an entire meta.

Economy Shenanigans

The other piece to consider is we’re already seeing some Leaders and colors that can ramp resources quicker than a normal deck. With cards like DJ Deathstar, Resupply, and Command, Green decks can get a resource or two ahead of their opponents. Han Solo Leader also can cheese 1-2 resources on the Round he comes out, so an aggressively costed 5-cost card will have to take that into account from a design perspective. Will that negate the aspect tax allowing that deck to play any card it wants? Something to watch as the game launches…

What cards might be played Out-of-Aspect?

It’s safe to say that units will have the hardest time finding value out-of-aspect. Since units’ primary value is staying on the field with on-going effects, it will be hard to justify paying extra when they can be Waylayed, Vanquished, or otherwise removed.

What cards maximize the value then? The most likely option is a Control deck looking for extra board wipes/defeat unit cards. Any high value card that can stall your opponent out for the round, or swing the game in your direction will be a good candidate. Overwhelming Barrage is currently the best card in the game at that, so it is worth considering running at 7 resources. My teammate Tyler is currently jamming this into any Green or Villain deck he builds! Time will tell if that’s an effective strategy, but the huge payoff of OB warrants experimenting.

Another option is paying 4 for Entrenched. For those unaware, you can play your upgrades on your opponent’s units. While I don’t want to pay 4 to buff the stats of my own unit, there are times Entrenched is an absolute game winner because it shuts down an opponent’s big unit I just can’t handle. Tyler had a game on L8 Night Gaming’s stream a few weeks ago where his Home One was Entrenched and he just couldn’t find anything else, leading to him losing to mill! The versatility of Entrenched as a control card might just make an out-of-aspect play possible.

What do you think of the design around aspect Penalties? Do you like being able to include any card in your deck? Have you played any other cards out-of-aspect?