In the past on Fridays, we would scour the holonet and post a detailed list of all the Content put out for the game in the past week. Now we point you over to SWUHolocron who does a much better job than us keeping track of all this content posted daily! You can check this link for videos and this link for articles! They also have a comprehensive list of all Content Creators that have posted content for Star Wars Unlimited found here. There’s a ton of other great resources on their site that I encourage you to look around!

This Friday we take a look at one of the Content Creators that joined us last weekend at the #SWUCommunity event, TowerNumberNine!

TowerNumberNine

Tell us about your yourself! What are your hobbies? What do you enjoy outside of the TCG world

I’m Davis, I’ve been active in the tabletop gaming hobby for some time across various games. My main hobby is probably gaming, but outside that I enjoy reading, writing, and going for walks!

What is your background/experience in the TCG world?

I played Pokemon as a kid and Magic: the Gathering as a young adult, but started getting into card games “more seriously” with several of FFG’s LCG titles, including Android: Netrunner, Warhammer 40k: Conquest LCG, and the FFG version of Legend of the Five Rings, several of which I played very competitively. I was also involved in Flesh and Blood TCG during the virus crisis.

Fun fact: way back in 2014, I ended up facing off with now-SWU designer Jeremy Zwirn in the finals of the first Conquest Worlds! (He beat me.)

What is one specific archetype or playstyle that defines each of you in card games?

Personally, I enjoy a range of playstyles and often play whatever seems good (or just interesting!) to me. Right now my two favorite leaders in SWU would probably be Sabine and Iden — and their styles of play are very different from one another!

Tell us about how you got into Star Wars Unlimited. What drew you to Star Wars Unlimited as a game?

When I heard that Star Wars Unlimited was coming out, I was cautiously optimistic thanks to good experiences with FFG’s competitive LCGs in the past, but I didn’t pay super close attention. However, I started seeing more stuff related to it and got increasingly excited, and ultimately joined the community Discord and started engaging more with the game.

How do you see your prior card gaming experience translating to Star Wars Unlimited?

Star Wars Unlimited isn’t exactly like any game I’ve played before, but it shares some similarities in certain mechanics with past Fantasy Flight titles. For instance, several FFG games have had alternating actions in one form or another, which takes a bit of getting used to but is very cool once you pick up on it

I also think there are card game fundamentals — card advantage, basic principles of card evaluation, Limited strategy, assessing who’s the beatdown, etc. that hold true across many games.

What kind of content do you make for Star Wars Unlimited?

I make a range of videos and articles pertaining to Star Wars Unlimited. At first, I think I became known primarily through posting gameplay videos with commentary (either myself commenting on others’ gameplay as an observer or else commenting on my own gameplay), but I’ve branched out from that and done more combo explainers, metagame analysis, card reviews, preview reactions, etc. — some of which have done better than the gameplay footage I started with! Overall, my main focus is on competitive play, but I have a range of ways to look at that and am not afraid to go a little outside the box either!

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

It really depends! I think of myself as a fairly competitively-minded player but at the same time I’m not trying to make content that only appeals to high-level tournament competitors — quite frankly there aren’t likelpy enough of those (in almost any game!) for this to make much sense! Overall, I’d say I’m more focused on gameplay and less on collecting, but have content that might be helpful for players of various different levels and interests.

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

My favorite thing about making content for SWU so far is probably seeing the benefits of consistency in what I’ve been doing. I’ve made videos and articles for other games in the past, and was even part of a podcast in the 40k Conquest days — but this was often on something of an irregular schedule.

By contrast, when I was in Prague this last autumn I decided that I was going to start uploading new SWU videos ~daily, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at both how achievable this was and also how much easier it makes the process in at least some sense! It turns out that “yup, I’m going to upload a new video today, even if that means having to record new footage” is actually a lot easier to work with than “ugh, at some point I should really make a new video” without a concrete plan of action!

What do you hope for content to look like for you once the game releases?

Once the game releases, I hope to continue making a range of different types of video, including filming new gameplay videos in-person in local stores! I do hope that as things get more established, I’ll be able to dive a bit deeper into the “metagame” and potential competitive tactics, as that’s a side of the game I’m especially interested in covering!

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

My goal in Star Wars Unlimited is to be Galactic Champion and/or one of the most helpful content creators and commentators the game has going for it!

What is your process for building a brand new deck in Star Wars Unlimited?

When I build a new deck, I usually start with an idea — for instance, I recently thought “hmm, I wonder if it would be possible to make a deck that targets the opponent’s hand by using Hera Syndulla to play a bunch of discard cards effectively”. That idea often leads to a leader/base composition — in this case, Aggression Hera so as to play Force Throw, Force units to support Force Throw, K-2SO, and Spark of Rebellion all in the same build — and from there I fill in the rest of the cards!

Where do you land on purchasing product, singles to build the competitive decks or full playsets? Do you plan on hunting any of the special variant cards?

Personally, I ordered two booster boxes and a two-player starter for my local store and intend to fill out the rest of my collection with cards I might pick up from Limited play, as prizing for events, and/or through trading or buying/selling singles. When it comes to special variants, I tend to go for the cheapest possible option, but the Hyperspace cards look so good that I’ve thought at least a bit about going “all Hyperspace” (not foil, just regular Hyperspace) once I’m really locked in on a decklist…

Once the game releases, in an ideal world, how often do you see yourself playing draft or sealed vs constructed games?

I think a lot depends on the Organized Play structure there, what formats are being used at tournaments (both more broadly but also at my local stores), etc.

Personally, I like both draft and constructed play (Sealed is IMO a bit weaker of a format — good for prereleases, newcomers, and in the early days of a set, but not in my view as deep as draft or constructed), but I think Constructed might be more my focus insofar as OP stays with that for its events.

I do hope that in the future we see OP events that combine both Constructed and Draft play… FAB did that with some of its major events for the Swiss phase, and I think it’s a good way to test different skills!

What are you most excited about for SWU?

I’m excited to have a fun, cool new card game that presents mechanics which are simple to explain, but have lots of practical depth and lead to interesting decisions — and all this while allowing two out of threes with sideboarding in competitive play! Many of the games I’ve played have been best of one and I personally like SWU’s approach much more!

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

This would have been a much harder question to answer a week or so ago — luckily for me, FFG held the Community Celebration this past weekend and that event would have to be my favorite SWU community experience by a lot (at least thus far)! I was really impressed by what FFG put on there there and enjoyed meeting both FFG staff members and also other members of the SWU community.

Any last thoughts you’d like to share?

Thanks for interviewing me here! This might sound silly but I want to give a big shoutout to the Garbage Rollers’ own article “Dinner With Jim: Welcoming The New Guard At Fantasy Flight Games“, which discusses some of what happened at that same Community Celebration — I think it is probably one of the best articles we’ve seen thus far for the game and strikes me as in at least some respects legitimately journalistic — high praise for games coverage! If anyone reading this hasn’t read that yet, I strongly recommend giving it a look!

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Be sure to check out Davis on YouTube! He uploads daily gameplay videos, along with thoughtful discussions, and card reviews! He also live streams gameplay on his Twitch channel from time to time. He also occassionally does Star Wars Unlimited written content for The Fifth Trooper network! He also occassionally posts other content on his personal website, TowerNumberNine.com.

That’s it for today. We hope you got a good introduction to Davisand what you can look forward to seeing from him in the future!