One of the coolest things about TCGs, all the way back to Magic: The Gathering, is how different mechanics and themes get expressed through different colors, the factions that the game’s cardpool is divided into. Having some sort of similar system that pays homage to this is just such a good idea that it’s persisted across most card games that have ever been made, and SWU is no different.

And because these colors express themselves so differently, it’s natural to talk about which of them is strongest!

SWU is a pretty balanced game, which makes exercises like this challenging. Ranking colors is far more broad in scope than ranking Leaders or Legendaries, and these rankings could see movement even from weekend to weekend as tournament metas respond to each other. But generally speaking, there are quantifiable points of comparison to use to compare these colors, and so we’re availing ourselves of the opportunity.

Hot takes incoming- here’s the GarbageRoller’s power ranking of all 8 major color combinations in SWU.

8. Villain Red

Key Cards: Force Choke, Ruthless Raider, Count Dooku, Kylo’s TIE Silencer, Punishing One, Emperor Palpatine
Key Strengths: Strong Space Units, Flexible Removal Tools, High-Attack Units

Outside of Bossk, whose incredible ceiling with Bounty cards gives him access to some top lines that are truly amazing, this color has struggled mightily to be a consistent force in the meta. Jango Tarkintown has become an early boogeyman of the Set 3 meta, but that deck notably is grabbing just a few cards that really sing from Villain Red’s cardpool (namely Ruthless Raider) and riding that plus a strong Tarkintown synergy to success.

Long story short, when Villain Red has made the grade and featured in a meta deck, it’s never been because Villain Red was good enough, just that the synergies in the deck justified its use. As much as we love so many of these cards, it’s the clear choice to rest at the bottom of the pile.

7. Villain Blue

Key Cards: General Grievous, Power of the Dark Side, Snoke, Avenger, Inferno Four, The Client
Key Strengths: Best-In-Class Top End, Solid Stats, Solid Removal Tools

If you can survive long enough to play them, the top end of this cardpool is nuts, probably the best in the entire game. Name a gameplan and Villain Blue probably has a hard-counter to it somewhere in their late game bombs- Avengers eating Luke Skywalkers, Snokes countering swarms, Superlaser Blast resetting the board, these are tales as old as time. The question may become how many chances those cards get to shine- as the game skews faster and faster, the strengths of this suite might dilute. This color also will need to think through its approach into the field more carefully now that their natural prey Boba is out of the picture.

This is by no means to say that we’re predicting the downfall of Villain Blue or anything like that. The biggest gap on this last is actually between positions 8 and 7- this color and all the ones ranked above it are not all that dissimilar in their potential potencies. Villain Blue actually just got some amazing new pieces, such as Calculating Magnaguard and General Grievous unit. We’re very curious to see how control players approach the tournament field now that the landscape is so different. This color’s position on the list could for sure end up looking silly by the end of this PQ season.

6. Hero Yellow

Key Cards: R2-D2, Millennium Falcon, Spark of Rebellion, Han Solo, Plo Koon, Sabine, Clear The Field
Key Strengths: Excellent Ambush Units, Lots Of Tech Options, Great Tempo Tools

Catapulting up from the bottom of these rankings with its absolute treasure haul from Set 3, Hero Yellow is one of the most fun cardpools to explore right now. Old staples like Falcon, Spark, and Han Solo just weren’t quite strong enough in the past to consistently push Hero decks into yellow because once you got past those, it was real slim pickins.

That’s changed with Twilight of the Republic. Several of the best cards in the set were found right here in this color, and the challenge now has been finding which ways they all fit together. It also helps that a great all-purpose leader for these colors has finally arrived in the form of Quinlan Vos. This color has a lot of work to do at the deckbuilding level if it’s going to produce a genuine tournament monster, but now that deck seems possible…if not inevitable.

5. Hero Green

Key Cards: Battlefield Marine, U-Wing Reinforcements, Bright Hope, Home One, Sundari Peacekeeper
Key Strengths: Premium Units, Go-Wide Synergy, Lane Flexibility

Hero Green has been a staple thanks to it’s magnificent pairing with Sabine, but it’s also kind of everyone’s best friend on the hero side of the cardpool, offering some of the most consistent pieces for other shells to take advantage of. Everyone’s space lane becomes more reliable with Bright Hopes around. Everyone’s turn 1 options feel better with Battlefield Marines. Green Hero offers value and stability. It also has some of the best top-end stabilizers in the game, with U-Wing Reinforcements and Home One holding down late games all the way since Set 1.

Will those things keep it relevant forever? No. Green Hero has a somewhat troubling tendency to play a strong but fair game that could backfire in the long run as decks put together more and more potent Plan As. The colors below Hero Green are there because they’re less consistent forces in the meta than it is. The colors above Hero Green are there because they all have very real haymakers, the kinds of cards that Hero Green may not ever get. The bombs here are about protecting your floor, not raising your ceiling, and that may keep Hero Green out of the spotlight as the game evolves.

4. Villain Green

Key Cards: Overwhelming Barrage, Superlaser Technician, Darth Vader, Maul, Poggle The Lesser
Key Strengths: Ramping + Ramping Upside, Strong Closers, Reliable Staples

You might not know it based on the color’s reputation or continued presence in staple meta decks, but the Villain Green cardpool actually isn’t that deep. There’s a lot of clunkers in here, and so far that curious lack of depth has made deckbuilding here, especially in mono, occasionally pretty challenging.

But the thing is, the highlights of this color also functions as a shortlist of some of the best cards in the entire game. Overwhelming Barrage was the game’s first boogeyman, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s still just about the best removal card in the entire game and pushes some villain decks into green nearly by itself. Superlaser Technician, Darth Vader, come on- these guys are stars, and their power is well established. The heavy hitters here are strong enough to put Villain Green into the middle of the pack despite the color being a little skinny at the bottom end and genuinely having almost no good space units to speak of. This is a color that we expect to drop if it doesn’t get help, but for the timebeing, it’s a permanent fixture.

3. Hero Blue

Key Cards: Luke Skywalker, Village Protectors, Yoda, Kuiil, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Captain Typho, Jedi Lightsaber, Kanan Jarrus
Key Strengths: Tons Of Sustain, Top-Tier Trait Synergies, Best-In-Class Defensive Plays

This color has been kept in the spotlight by virtue of having the single best card in the game (in a vacuum) in Luke Skywalker. Luke is so good that a Blue Hero deck of some kind has been around from the beginning, it just has varied a bit in what it’s best pairing was and how it was performing into the field. But Luke isn’t the whole story here. Villain Green has a similarly heavy top end, but hiding behind Luke in this color is a suite of high-value staples that house some of the game’s most consistently underrated cards. This is why, unlike Villain Green, you actually do see mono Hero Blue make a splash every now and again. It has the support pieces to make it happen.

Cards like Village Protectors are a great example of why Hero Blue is such a strong color. Has it taken over the game? Not exactly. But midway through the first season of PQs, you started seeing Saboteur make its way into sideboard and then, eventually, mainboards. The issue was that certain shells had started bringing out the Village People, and they could often bring the ground lane to a hard stop. Hero Blue has several pieces like this- things like early lightsabers, Kanan, and yeah, Luke- that really need to be accounted for at the deckbuilding stage. A tournament field that doesn’t respect what Blue Hero can do usually loses to the day’s best Blue Hero deck, because it has such a great buffet of cards across the cost curve. We’ve seen that pattern time and time again, and thanks to the color getting some cool new pieces in Set 3, I don’t imagine that will change any time soon.

2. Villain Yellow

Key Cards: Bazine Natal, No Good To Me Dead, Lurking TIE Phantom, Triple Dark Raid, Boba Fett: Disintegrator, Cad Bane
Key Strengths: Best-In-Class Tempo Tools, Must-Answer Cards, Cohesive Gameplans

To this point, Villain Yellow has been the most viable mono-color deck in the game, and while some of that was buoyed by the Boba Fett monster, even in his absence this selection of cards is deep, strong, and fun.

Yellow Villain specializes in asking its opponents hard questions, over and over again, that they have to keep coming up with answers to if they want to win. Can you stop this Lurking TIE in the space lane before I race you dead? Can you recover from me sniping your Turn 1 play out of your hand with Bazine? Can you deal with me landing both Zuckuss and 4-LOM so that they’re both buffed? None of these things are likely to break the game by themselves, but it’s the relentless pace at which Yellow Villain can pose problems like these to its opponents that keeps it in the driver’s seat. Most Villain decks have to consider Yellow at some point in the building process, because the options are just so potent.

1. Hero Red

Key Cards: Wrecker, K2-S0, Poe Dameron, Cassian Andor, Red Three, For A Cause I Believe In, Green Squadron A-Wing
Key Strengths: Excellent Stats For Cost, Highly Impactful Plays + Combos, Generically Useful Effects

The hits just don’t stop coming for Hero Red, a color that is absolutely jam-packed with heavy hitters at all points of the cost curve. While Sabine is the most famous swimmer in this pool, the cards themselves are a lot less married to Sabine’s aggro plan than you might assume at first glance. Within this suite of tools is strong hand control, midrange workhorses, combo pieces, and even some solid control options if you squint. No color is better set up to flex into different archetypes as the game evolves than Hero Red.

Anakin Skywalker is a great window into the future of this color, providing obvious synergies with current staples while being a totally different kind of deck than Sabine. How his shells evolve will be a case study into the power of Hero Red, and we imagine through that endeavor the community will end up coming up with yet more proof that this color is in a class of it’s own.

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An Alternative Take

Some, but not all, of the factors that led to these rankings are meta-informed.

We’re comfortable with the assumptions we’ve made for the moment based on what we’re seeing and how this list was evaluated- basically, the cardpools sliced up as deckbuilding choices. There are some thoughts from the blurbs that may have resulted in a different list if the trends prove out:

1. Hero Yellow may be overrated if it can’t find reliable builds.

2. Hero Green, even at 5, may be overrated. It’s just too fair of a color and that hurts its prospects.

3. Villain Blue’s ability to successfully slow down the game, which is demonstrably getting faster, may not be crazily diminished. The game may not end up fast enough to invalidate the strengths of the color.

Accounting for those possibilities, if they shake out, an alternative list would be:

1. Hero Red
2. Villain Yellow
3. Hero Blue
4. Villain Blue
5. Villain Green
6. Hero Green
7. Hero Yellow
8. Villain Red

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What do you think about this list? Is your favorite color in an unjust position? Are we crazy about Hero Red? Let us know in the comments!

And as always, as you play and build- may the force be with you.