Morning friends! We get to have a more lighthearted cast this time around.

The last couple weeks have been some of the most jovial times we’ve seen for this playerbase, with hugely diverse decklists at Top 8s and tons of fun to be head building new toys in the wake of the Boba ban. It’s such a good time to love SWU.

Now that we’re invested in the game, we obviously want the gameplay and balance to hit certain marks, which is why the Boba ban was so meaningful to so many. But we can remember a time not very long ago when the biggest source of joy for most people looking into SWU or even doing early print and plays was just knowing that we were going to have a Star Wars card game again.

Love for this IP isn’t a requirement for loving SWU, but anecdotally, they sure do seem to go hand in hand. Today we’ll touch on some of the ways that SWU does (and doesn’t!) do right by Star Wars fans in how it expresses it’s theme.

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Jayson – Now that the stage is set, I think we should start by sharing a little about how we each came to love Star Wars. Justin, when did it all start for you?

Justin – The first memory that comes to mind is definitely that sweet VHS set of Episodes 4-6. Many a time was spent sitting in the recliner with an old phone that had giant buttons and pretending to fly the xwing down the trench in unison with the movie. Han Solo may have thought the shot was one in a million, but I’m pretty sure I hit it about a million times!

Tyler – That version of the VHS tape tells you how young Justin is.

Jayson – Watch your mouth, Tyler, I had the same ones!

Justin – Alright boomer, tell me about how you went to high school with Darth Vader

Tyler – Real men scoured the library for these in the dark ages:

My first experience with Star Wars was seeing half of ESB on TV and my dad crushingly putting me to bed before it was over. He thankfully recorded the rest and I proceeded to burn the living daylights out of that VHS for the next 5 years

Jim – I believe I have you all beat. When my Dad took me and my brother to see a movie catching some attention in the THEATRE back in 1977. I was sitting there watching a movie that kept me engaged like nothing before. And it didn’t hurt having the movie usher walking down the aisles in a full Darth Vader suit with glowing lightsaber.

Jayson – Wow Jim! You win 🤣

My parents werent really hip to any of this stuff at all. I was super alone on nerd-island for most of my childhood. But I’m very close to an aunt of mine, and when I was in 5th grade, she took me on a trip to California. The night before we left, I stayed at her place, and she got me two things from the Blockbuster- Spider-Man N64 and a VHS copy of New Hope. She actually picked the movie. Apparently she loved Star Wars and didn’t realize I hadn’t seen it before. Needless to say, Star Wars was all I thought about on the plane to California. And on that same trip, she got me this bad boy at a bookstore:

I lived with my head in this book for months. I knew everything about these characters before I even got a chance to watch the rest of the movies, and it blew my mind when I realized that there were books out there. I was reading about EU additions like Kyp Durron, Kyle Katarn, and Grand Admiral Thrawn right alongside the main movie staples.

It was my first real interaction with a deep fictional universe with lore and history.

Justin – Many a time I wandered into the book store and saw shelves on those tiny fat paperback star wars books. Was always a blast to pick one up and start reading a random story before putting it back on the shelf when it was time to go

Jayson – So yeah, like most of our readership, we have serious Star Wars credentials going way back. SWU’s ability to, for lack of a less platitudinal phrase, feel like Star Wars means a lot to us. Generally speaking, how do you guys think it does?

And I guess as a means to kind of focus that very broad question, this would probably also be a good time to talk about the lack of flavor text on the cards. That’s been a point of much discussion, and I’m curious how we’ve seen that decision impact the game’s ability to evoke it’s theme over the course of the first three sets.(edited)

Justin – Initially when they started showing off cards for the game, and there was a distinct lack of flavor text on the cards that I had grown acustomed to from previous star wars card games, I worried how much theme would actually drip through on the cards. Thankfully the designers quickly started to demonstrate the fun nods they could make through Titles and other attributes on the card. Red Three’s title “Unstoppable” always gives me a smile thinking about Biggs confidence heading into the Death star battle

Jayson – Biggs, as it turned out, was in fact moderately stoppable.

Jim – I wonder how much of no flavor text is a financial issue? Could it be another loop the company has to make to ensure accuracy, canon or simply card space? So maybe they just decide to knock that portion out of the card making process?

Justin – I think they just wanted more room on the card…looks at Gor

Tyler – Yeah, it’s gotta be a space and cleanliness thing. And from that standpoint I don’t mind!

Justin – I definitely thought it would bug me more early on, but with the fun little nods elsewhere on the cards it’s mostly been a feature of de-cluttering the card!

Jayson – That’s how I felt too. I love good clean designs and the simplicity of SWU’s templating appeals. That said, I also played a lot less Decipher SW than you guys. Where does SWU fit into the broader history of Star Wars card games when it comes to the flavor?

Justin – I can speak to all the former FFG games, which did have flavor text on most cards. Here’s a few examples from the LCG and Destiny:

Jim – The flavor text was where Decipher put their “traits” for cards.

Han was a Smuggler, gambler, etc.

Tyler – Thank god we’ve moved on from that

Jayson – Destiny is such an interesting case study here because at first brush it looks like it has some thematic advantages, such as Hero/Villain being locked and the flavor text. But SWU to me has felt more like the Star Wars I know. I actually think a lot of that is in how the game emulates the iconic climaxes at the end of each movie. The classic example is at the end of ROTJ- there’s a ground battle happening on Endor, the space battle happening between the Rebel and Imperial fleets around the second Death Star, and then Luke and Vader’s duel in front of the Emperor. SWU can mimic that conflict almost 1 for 1 with the ground lane, space lane, and Leaders.

Jim – For a card game, it does create a thematic feel to the game. (The best Star Wars thematic game by a mile and nothing comes close to it is Rebellion.)

Jayson – Star Wars Rebellion is so iconic.

Justin – Rebellion definitely represents the grand scale of Star was in a level most things can’t!

Jim – Back to SWU, I feel they have grasped the theme more this last set than any other. Jar Jar “feels” like Jar Jar. The Clone and Separatist mechanic of coordination and exploit are in line with their respective trait.

Jayson – I totally agree that Twilight has been a highlight in that regard. They nailed the token units and the central keywords. I loved the Rebel and Imperial cards but there was a lot of that pool that mirrored each other. Rebel Tribal and Imperial Tribal could look remarkably similar. I love that Republic decks and Separatist decks look virtually nothing alike. What characters across all the sets do you guys think have gotten the star treatment? Who could have been treated better?

Jim – The main guns, as far as units go, like Luke, Vader, Maul, and Han received good game texts and cost curve cards. Though Tyler might disagree to a certain extend, but the Rogue One movie characters mostly have not been effective as leaders (minus Krennic). And I wish Thrawn and Aphra could be more usable despite their abilities being thematic, they just don’t have enough support cards to make work.

Jayson – Aphra getting literally no theme support when she has a wide fanbase and iconic pieces to pair with, such as her droids and her ship, is very very high on my “miss” meter. Thrawn is thematic as it gets but he’s also supposed to be a threat, so it hurts immensely that he’s pretty much not viable competitively. The Chimaera sucking too is insult to injury.

Tyler – I think Set 3 has had some of the biggest hits and misses for leaders. Anakin for example is outstanding in theme and looks like he’s going to be very playable. Padme, on the other hand, seemed alright on theme but might be the worst leader in the game.

Jim – I like it that they give players “puzzles” to solve each set, like Thrawn and Aphra are in their sets, I think Padme is in her’s. I used her in a pre release event and went 3-0. If you are talking on the competitive only scene, she will probably not be there for some time, which is okay with so many other leaders out there.

Jayson – What else stands out to you beyond just Leaders? For me, I think one of my favorite thematic mini-sets in the game is Cassian Leader, K-2S0, Heroic Sacrifice, and For A Cause I Believe In. The integers all interacting with each other, the pairing of both specific moments in the movie with broader interpretations of the character’s attributes, it just sings. Little themes carried across multiple expressions of characters are where I think the subtlety of SWU’s theming shines brightest.

Jim – R2 being a voyeur is thematic. C-3PO with his probable odds ability is thematic. The Falcon (set 1) coming in ready and being the fastest ship in the galaxy is thematic.

Jayson – Oh my gosh, I never even thought about Threepio calculating odds until just now. Wow, chef’s kiss

Tyler – Jim mentioned Jar Jar but I feel like he’s worth shouting out again. HE’S AN AWFUL CARD. You’d never want to play him. He’s absolutely perfect.

Tyler – That said, I do want a Jar Jar leader that discounts the price of my Disaster events.

Justin – How do we think of the set design thus far? Set 1 was mostly themed around A New Hope and ESB era-wise, Set 2 then came in with a heavy bounty hunter theme across all eras, followed by Set 3 with another era play at the Clone Wars. Do you guys have a preference between the 2 ways they’ve themed sets thus far?

Tyler – I’m not sure I have a preference on the theme styles. My perceptions of them are so colored by the success of the mechanics in actual play.

Like I’m not sure I liked set 2, but I can’t tell if that was because the theme was not cohesive or just because Boba was ruining everyone’s day for a second meta.

Jayson – I actually echo that nearly completely. I do think that some of Set 2’s mini-themes, such as Bad Batch, really struggled to find a cohesive identity in the middle of a set that really did have a lot going on.

Justin – Do we think thats a flaw of the way they chose to theme the set, or they just weren’t successful in hitting the subthemes for Set 2?

Jayson – That may be a “time will tell” type of thing. Like, if you asked me right now, I’d obviously say that I think I prefer the era sets to the theme sets. But that’s an opinion that could evolve for a hundred reasons, and it’s not particularly hard for me to imagine a theme set that holds everything together better than Shadows did. We may even get a chance to see that up next with Jump To Lightspeed.

Jim – I think y’all said this, but there was a theme to Set 2, but the cardpool spent a lot of time making Set 1 leaders better when it could have been exploring the leaders from Shadows fell to the back end. Han Solo, Worth the Risk and Qi’ra made their mark, but not with a “theme” that went with the set.

Jayson – Right, I said in a previous article reviewing the themes of Set 2 that for better or worse players are going to tend to judge mechanics by the Leaders associated with them. Lando, Hondo, and Jabba all kind of being duds did hurt the set mechanics in a weird way. At least Bossk did okay.

Jim – Bossk did do well, I forgot him!

Tyler – I’m worried the token leaders are going to be the same way this set

Jayson – One major advantage there is that so far in Limited play Battle Droids and Clones have felt cohesive and strong, and the Set 3 Leaders are generally really solid in that environment too. Set 2 Limited decks more often than not were both mechanical and thematic mish-mashes

What parts of the IP are you guys itching to see make its way to a set? Any particular characters or stories you want most?

Jim – I really, really want 0-0-0 and BT-1 to have an impact on a Doctor Aphra build. I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

Tyler – I’m looking forward to a space-forward, vehicle-heavy theme we’re presumably getting in the next set. If I could trade a year of my life to get another 30 minutes of Battle of Endor footage, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Jim –

Justin – I think we all want to see Legends material hit the game, but it feels like it will be quite a while before we see that if ever. Of realistic options, I really look forward to seeing High republic material hit SWU! It has been a sweet new era, and has a lot of things that would fit well into the game in new mechanics.

Jayson – Speaking of unrealistic options, I’m going to lose my mind if we ever get KOTOR. Mission and Zaalbar in my Smuggle deck? PLEASEEEE. And as I’ve mentioned often, Qui-Gon Jinn is my all time favorite Star Wars character. I had a feeling he wouldn’t appear in Set 3, and I’m holding out hope he’s a bomb Legendary in Legends of the Force!

So I guess the million dollar question here is that, all things added up, does SWU engage us successfully as both card game players and as Star Wars fans?

Jim – I think so. And it can only get closer to the feel of SW, right?

Tyler – Yes!!

Justin – I’d agree that it really nails Star Wars, from bringing out your big powerful Darth Vader leader that can turn the tides of the battlefield, to a smuggled holdout blaster getting a quick attack in, there’s lots of great theme nods that really work!

Jayson – In general, I really like the ways they’ve handled this side of things. Actually, I was part of the crowd that had gotten really disillusioned with some of the Disney Star Wars stuff, and it’s really not hyperbolic say that SWU reminded me that I really do love this world and these characters. I can’t really pay it a higher compliment.

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Overall, FFG has really nailed the feel of Star Wars within SWU in our minds. How do you feel about the theme representation within the game?

Did you enjoy this? Any topics you’d like to see us discuss in the future?