Good morning SWUnies. In case you missed it, last week Fantasy Flight Games announced the 2024 Convention Exclusive product! This product includes 6 exclusive exclusive visual treatment cards that will not be able to obtained elsewhere. This pack includes 3 Set 1 cards, a Set 2 card, and 2 previously unrevealed Set 3 cards. Check them out below!

The announcement was fairly hyped in most SWU circles, but there was good discourse in several places that I think is important to highlight. Thus begins the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly around these cards.

The Good

• Sweet new promos. That’s it. Whether you’re a collector wanting new variants to chase, a player who likes to use the flashy cards they open, or someone who could care less about the promos and just sells/trades them to help fill out a collection, everybody has an opportunity to gain from this pack. We haven’t seen the cards in person, but the initial twitter reveal shows a video of the cards flipping and the foiling (?) effect within the black/white looks pretty sick.
• Buying this pack for $100 is actually cheaper than buying the base versions of these 6 cards We don’t have data to work with Maul and Asajj Ventress, but currently Darth Vader would cost us $58, Dooku $1.35, $1.00, and Kylo $19. That puts us right around $80 for 4 of the cards, with all likelihood that Maul and Asajj (at least one of which is surely Legendary) will push us past that $100 mark.
• These are not mechanically unique cards. FFG is purely selling alt art treatments here. If you’re just a player and not a collector, you can completely ignore this pack if you want at no cost. Early on when FFG was doing livestreams announcing and hyping up the game, Jim Cartwright made note that an OP prizes would always be purely cosmetic, and there was not a mechanical difference in the cards because they wanted to retain the accessibility to the game. That statement still stands true with these.
• Wild speculation, Perhaps this revenue for FFG might be used to fund cash events in the future? Since it’s not the primary Star Wars Unlimited product line, it makes sense that this revenue could potentially be used to fund other endeavors within the Star Wars Unlimited umbrella, such as marketing and Organized Play under that umbrella. Maybe a pipe dream?

The Bad

With only 5 event offerings, these will not be easily obtainable by all for $100. 4 of the events are in the USA (SDCC San Diego, Gencon Indy, PAX Unplugged Philly, and Pax West Seattle), with a final outlier in Germany (Essen Spiel). This means Australians and South Americans are mostly out of luck, and even people in the USA and Europe that weren’t planning on attending these events will likely be looking at steep travel costs. If you weren’t already planning on traveling to some of these events prior to the announcement, you probably won’t be able to.

$100 isn’t chump change. 6 cards for $100 is a steep proposition to some people in the playerbase. While these people probably aren’t the primary target of this product (it’s clearly aimed at collectors), it may be something they would have been interested in at a lower price. Considering you can get about 110 cards in a 2 player starter for $35 and 16 cards from a Booster pack for $5, so the asking price of $100 may seem excessive.

The Ugly

Even if you are able to attend one of the five conventions, you may be unable to get a pack for $100. We don’t have the details for all 5 cons yet, but so far we know SDCC (as announced on twitter) will be first come, first serve each day until supplies run out. We have also heard from Europe that Essen Spiel will likely be given out via a digital pre-sale with pickup at the con. Early rumors of Gencon have been that a digital lottery system will be used. Through each of these systems, depending on supply, there will likely be plenty of people that are not able to get the Convention pack. That just plain stinks.

These are going to sell for a much higher price on the secondary market. This is going to be a pro for some and a con for others, but it’s a reality we will likely have either way. With the exclusivity of the cards, the high demand and likely low supply, and high travel costs to attend these events, the reality is they will easily sell for $500+, and it’s a real possibility that they’ll break $1,000. They’re historic, exclusive, and they look fantastic.

Me?

I think they’re awesome! I like that FFG has been doing a good job of rewarding people engaging with them at events (previously through Event exclusive mats or cards). I was already planning on attending Gencon and will not be able to hit the other events, but being able to get 1 pack would be great with me. The cards are cool and I’m super eager to see them in person! The real temptation at the end of the day will be to whether I keep them or end up parting with them to make my trip to Gencon much cheaper! I may not be a collector, but once I get shiny things it is hard to part with them.

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That’s it for today! Are you excited for the convention exclusive cards? Do you plan on attending any of these conventions to grab them? Thanks for reading!