On March 8th, SWU will turn one year old! Over the course of the year, we’ve spent a tremendous amount of time and energy on SWU and it’s worth taking stock of how the year has gone. We’ve brought the Garbage Rollers crew here to share their memories of the year gone by.

Favorite SWU Memory:

Justin: Early February in Minnesota of 2024, FFG flew us out for an exclusive weekend of Star Wars Unlimited. Opening some of the first boosters of Star Wars Unlimited, drafting into late into the night, and hanging out with some of my favorite people in the community is pretty hard to top.

Tyler: For me this is obvious- winning a PQ! It was a long day, but the opponents were great (shoutout Adam!), the play was rich and rewarding, and John Leo from FFG and the Bucketheads crew showed us a great time after the event. Definitely the highlight of the year for me!

Jayson: I’ll cheat by piggy-backing off of Justin. That Community Celebration is one of the wildest things I’ve ever gotten to do. But I’ll one-up him- that was the weekend that I got to actually meet Justin and Tyler, and that cements it as the highlight of my first year of SWU, and probably forever. I also am still extraordinarily proud of the piece I wrote about Jim Cartwright from that weekend, which is probably still the highlight of my writing “career” so far.

Craziest In-Game Moment:

Justin: Round 6 of the GeekOut 1k in Burleson, TX back in May of last year. I’m playing against Jason from Outmaneuver and I’m forced to claim and draw an out to prevent him from winning first action next round. He asks if I drew the OB, I say “No, I drew the other out.” He spends a few seconds trying to figure out what I could be talking about before I play the 6 cost cunning (I’m on Boba Green). This taps 2/3 of his units and bounces the 3rd, leaving him with no counterplay as I swing for exact lethal with my remaining units.

Tyler: So, it’s the final swiss round of the Dallas PQ- I have 26 damage on my base, my opponent has 20 on his. I’ve got enough units out to swing for lethal, and my opponent has an SoR Millenium Falcon. He has initiative, and if he has a pump, I lose immediately. First action, he smuggles out Tech. The read is that he’s about to smuggle a pump and win the game… but I had a sneaking suspicion that this was a bluff to try and force the game into a next round. I called him and attacked with my Poe. He was bluffing! He shook my hand I was on to the top 8. It was an amazing moment with leveled thinking, and some crazy nerves.

Jayson: I went undefeated in a draft event at my local store a couple weeks after launch. At the time, I was pretty close with the other regulars there, and a newer fella had come in and was also undefeated going into the last round. He had been beyond unfriendly to his opponents, like super duper rude, and had everyone riled up and ready to see him lose. The entire store was gathered around me as the game closed.

We had both drafted Boba Green, but he had also pulled an ECL. It was a very tight game, and he had me with just a few life left on my base. My only out with the math as it stood was to play a long bluff across the whole the round. I ended up stalling long enough to get him to claim initiative on me with 3 resources for a Waylay left up, thinking he had the win in the bag. He claimed saying “no way you drafted it”, the same thing the whole store was thinking about his ECL. I’ll never forget the look on his face or the silent cheers from my friends when I played down that ready Firespray for exact lethal. He left the store without even staying to collect his winnings.

See? Just be nice. You never know when someone’s gonna out-Boba you at your own game.

Card of the Year:

Justin: So much of my Year 1 SWU was played on the Conversion Lab, I’d be hard pressed not to pick it. Whether it was Steadfast Batallions, Poe, Wrecker, or many more friends, this base was holding it down.

Tyler: For me it’s Force Throw. I played this card in most of my meta competitive decks this year. It’s the foundation of the Blue/Red/Hero archetype and so incredibly versatile that I couldn’t see playing those builds without it. Plus, it’s just a lot of fun to leverage Force users and chuck stuff!

Jayson: So many of these first cards were instant classics in the best possible way, but at the end of the day, for me it was always gonna come down to the hero who made me fall in love with the franchise. Opening my first one was such a full circle moment for my inner child, and I can’t count how many games he got me back into if I just held out hope for him to come and rescue the day. This is how you treat one of the franchise’s most iconic characters.

Lowest SWU Moment:

Justin: FFG missing the mark on prize cards. Competing in SWU has been a blast, but outside of a sweet mat at Gencon, there hasn’t been much to earn. Year 2 looks to do a better job of this, and I’m hopeful FFG is on the right track to fixing this.

Tyler: This will sound a bit silly, but the reveal of the Executor. The community and FFG had been building up this ship (which is one of my personal favorites) for weeks. When it finally dropped, I happened to be having a bad day and for it to be an unplayable brick was just the death knell for my mood.

Jayson: I think for me this was the overall OP stumbles- particularly the PQ rollout debacle and the judging mishap at the Vegas PQ. Signs of improvement are there, but I hope the movement on these issues is swift.

Favorite New Mechanic:

Justin: Piloting looks to be a blast, and I expect it to be pretty impactful in the constructed meta. That’s not something we can really say about the other new mechanics unfortunately.

Tyler: I’m a big fan of Token Units. The idea of generating masses of stuff that I didn’t have to draw is just super fun. They weren’t super playable in the Twilight meta, but with Thrawn and Vader coming in Jump to Lightspeed, I’ve got high hopes for masses of TIEs and Droids.

Jayson: I think Pilots look like stellar fun. Lane flexibility is one of my absolute favorite things to do in card games, so having an entire mechanic built around that is aimed square at my jaw. Plus, you know, SPACESHIP.

Favorite Community Interaction:

Justin:

Tyler: Props to both Justin’s wife Emily and YouTube user @42thursday42 for dunking on Justin for not reading the text of Clan Saxon Gauntlet and then arguing with me about it. The latter posting a video of a literal salt mine definitely made my day!

Jayson: Everything about “Hi, I’m Tyler from the Dallas Fort Worth Podcast!” (20:28) hits the mark for me. His nervous energy. The necessitation of corrective graphics because he misunderstood the prompt. His empty stare at the interviewer trying repeatedly to explain that he’s backwards while Tyler just continues to “Ah, geez!” over OB. It’s poetry, and they don’t write ’em like this anymore.

Hope for the Next Year:

Justin: That the Galactic Championship is the big community party we’re all hyping it up to be! This is the one and only year any and all can compete! If you aren’t coming… you should be! It’s going to be a party for all things SWU.

Tyler: My biggest hope is that our small group will be able to get together more. Travel has been hard to come by when we collectively have 6 children under the age of ten, but they should only get older!

Jayson: please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock also don’t make qui-gon suck please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock please let legends of the force rock

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Thanks for looking back with us! Here’s to another great year of SWU!