by BananaCrapshoot

Hello Troopers. As we are now only 2 short months away from playing SWU with actual cards. We at SAGA thought it was a good time to ramp up our New Player friendly content so I am kicking that off with a deckbuilding basics article. This is aimed at players newer to TCGs and newer to SWU. I will break down some basic concepts and strategies I have used so far in building decks in Star Wars Unlimited. At its core Star Wars Unlimited is a very unit combat focused game where you use your units to control the board and the player who does that better will normally end up winning the game.

There is a few ways to approach building your first deck. You can choose a leader you think is cool and build from there. You could pick your favorite characters and throw them all in a deck. Or You could pick an archtype (aggro, midrange, control, etc. ) and pick a leader and aspects that support that. I tend to pick a leader and then build around that leader’s ability to try and maximize it.

Then you need to think about what you are trying to accomplish with your deck and find cards that help you get to your win condition. Are you trying to aggro rush your opponent down as fast as possible? Are you trying to stave off your opponent in the early game to play big bomb units in the mid to late game? Are you trying to focus on board and unit control of your opponent wo win off one or two late game cards? These are things you have to know before moving on.

Next there are some recommendations I have on what to put into your deck – we will call this Banana’s rule of 12.

12 turn 1 plays

12 Space Units

12 non units

I’ll explain more here:

1. Ideally you should have 12 cards in your deck you can play on round 1. I’ve had as low as 9 and as high as 18 so it really depends but 12 is a great starting point.
2. I also recommend putting 12 space units into your deck. I have gone as low as 9 and as high as 15, so again it depends on what you are trying to accomplish with the deck but 12 is a good number to use as a baseline.
3. This is Banana’s Rule of 12 because again I recommend on having a baseline of 12 events in your deck. These can be combat tricks, control cards, unit removal, buffs, or other ways to push your win condition. Going much more than 12 really dilutes the units.
4. This is adjacent to the rule of 12’s because if we follow it we should have for total Ground units we should have around 24.
5. Fill the rest in with other units and upgrades to round out your deck.

These recommendations will fluctuate some so please don’t take these are hard fast rules but guidelines to help you get used to deckbuilding.

To help understand what I’m talking about I’m going to go to https://www.swudb.com and build a new deck from scratch. For a leader I’m going to pick Cassian because I think he is interesting and has a cool ability that I hope we can find payoff for. His front side lets us draw a card if we have dealt 3 damage to a base. Then he deploys on 6 resources and gains Saboteur and has the ability to draw a card after dealing damage to a base. He’s an aggression aspect but has a more midrange ability so we will have to find a pairing we like with him. My plan with Cassian is to build a deck that can survive early and use Heroic Sacrifice and Change of Heart plays to deal massive damage to my opponents base.

Next for our base I’m going with Administrators Tower. It gives us access to Cunning which has some events I think will work well with Cassian and also is a 30 HP base which gives us a little buffer vs aggro decks to get to our midgame.

Now once I pick my leader and base I normally go to the space units first and get 12 of them selected. I do this because I want good options to play in the Space arena in case my opponent leans heavily into space I’m not caught defenseless. I’m starting off right away with Green Squadron A-Wing since it is such an efficient 2 cost card in space being able to attack for 3 is very strong. Next I had Red Three since I’m heroic, having the Raid 1 buff to all my heroic cards is super nice. Next I’m adding the Millenium Falcon, for 3 cost it enters play ready. Now there is a tax you have to pay to keep it on the table but you can use this to semi heal it since when its bounced to hand all counters are removed, and it’s heroic so it gets Raid 1 from Red Three. Next I’m adding Wing Leader. Since I know I will be heavy on rebel trait units I feel confident knowing I can get the XP tokens on units without any problems.

Next I’m going to jump to the ground units, First card I’m adding is Ezra Bridger, I think he is super undervalued overall right now. He’s a 3/4 that gives you access to the top card of your deck which is super useful. Plus he’s a rebel so we have trait synergy. Next I’m adding K-2SO, he is one piece of my gameplan for this deck, Since he has that good when defeated ability and overwhelm he is a great heroic sacrifice target. Next I’m adding Zeb, his ability to go wide is pretty awesome and relevant against the aggro decks. Next I’m going with Sabine because I need to get to my 12 round 1 plays and she is a very solid 2 cost rebel unit. Next I’m adding Leia, she is flexible and can help if I need tempo and can also be a control card. Then for now I’m going to add the rebel pathfinder as my last round 1 play for now. Since it’s a cheap 2/3 with saboteur that is a rebel I’m fine with it.

Now I hit my 12 space units and my 12 round 1 plays as well as adding some cards like Zeb and K2SO I can use mid-late game to punish my opponent. Next I’m going to the events and am looking to add 12 there.

First event I’m adding is Heroic Sacrifice since that is half of my gameplan for winning with this deck, it lets me attack with a unit with +2 then defeats that unit after it deals combat damage. So with K2SO you can use heroic sacrifice to deal 6 damage with overwhelm then his when defeated deals 3 damage. It can be more if you have Red Three out giving K2SO raid 1 also. The next piece of the combo is Change of Heart, This allows me to take control of one of my opponents units for the phase. Change of Heart and then Heroic sacrifice on my opponents unit, allowing me to attack with it for +2 ATK power then it gets defeated so its a fun pump and dump combo. Next I’m adding asteroid sanctuary, its pretty good allowing me to exhaust a unit then give a shield to one of my units that costs 3 or less, which is all my space units and most of my ground units currently. Next I’m adding Open Fire to be my only real direct Removal. Now I’m gonna break my rule of 12 here and add Suprise Strike to this list, in any yellow deck surprise strike is just so good to pump for 3 atk power.

Now we are at 45 cards and I hit most of my guidelines so I’m going back to the ground arena to find some additional cards I can add to round off my curve. I’m going to add 2 copies of Han Solo to the deck, this gives me a late game strong unit to control the ground arena and the pseudo first strike is pretty baller here too. This last 3 spots I am really torn between fleet lieutenant and rogue operative. Fleet Lieutenant gives us an attack boost plus action compression, where the operative gives us saboteur and raid 2. Since we are not going full aggro but more of a combo midrange strategy I’m going to go the operative route.

Now we finish the deckbuild with 23 ground units, 12 space units. and 15 events. along with 12 first round targets. This is a good starting point for this deck. Now the next steps are to play some games and see if the deck is viable or fun or not and tweak one or two cards at a time from there. Then if it’s a deck I am really serious about I will start considering sideboarding options for the deck. Here’s the final decklist we just built:

Ideally with this deck we probably aim to control the board early and get some cheap damage in with an A wing or Sabine. Then we want to use change of heart and heroic sacrifice on that unit we stole, or with K2SO as a back up target along with Han to finish for us if we need him too.

Hopefully this article helps someone looking to start deckbuilding. We look forward to continuing our New Player focused content on the ramp up to release and as always, we will see you in the arenas!

As a bonus if you are looking for more new player focused content, our friends at the Garbage Rollers have put together their own great New Player Guides you should check out, you can find them at Garbage Rollers – Star Wars Unlimited