The Star Wars: Unlimited card Boba Fett (Collecting the Bounty) is now suspended from playing in the Prime Minister format. The announcement of the change was made by lead designer Danny Schaefer in a blog post Published Wednesday. He also called the map “a development error.” While Boba Fett won’t be completely banned, its usefulness will be limited starting November 8.
“If we knew then what we know now,” Schefer said, “we would never have let him down with that combination of skills, stats and deployment costs.”
According to Schaefer, the Boba Fett card in question – a leader card – was included in the decks of 55% of the winners of a recent competitive tournament. For a game with 54 different leader cards at the time of publication, that’s a significant design problem. Schaefer writes that the decision to suspend the card was not made lightly, but was preferred to alternative methods, including a complete ban or retirement, as is common among competitors. Flesh and blood.
“He is the biggest outlier at the power level and his power problems are exacerbated because he is a leader,” Schaefer wrote. And he’s right: every time players sit down at the table, they can choose their leaders, who start each game on the table. Leaders also set the tone for the rest of the card game
“Leaders have special weight in this game because they define archetypes, because you are guaranteed access to them in every game, and because a deck can only have one leader,” he writes. “Boba Fett’s combination of stats and abilities has proven to be too far ahead (making other mid-tier leaders…) unviable in the metagame. Regardless of what specific card choices in these decks shift from set to set, it would likely remain optimal to have the Boba Fett leader at the helm.”
Star Wars: Unlimited launched in March 2024 to near-universal critical acclaim. Reviewers, including here at Polygon, praised the developers at Fantasy Flight Games for the TCG’s fast and powerful gameplay. Bringing together a beloved IP with a new two-lane combat style, where ground and space forces are separated on separate sides of the battlefield, remains a winning combination.
Schaefer left the door open for Boba Fett (Collecting the Bounty) to return from suspension at a later date.
News of the suspension comes during a transition period for TCGs worldwide. Not only were more new, high-profile TCGs launched in 2023 and 2024 than in recent years, Magic: the meeting also makes big changes in how often it reinforces its own unique story with its biggest fans. The Magic The community has also recently been rocked by card bans, leading to threats of violence, including death threats against volunteers.
Polygon has reached out to Fantasy Flight for additional clarifications and will update this story accordingly.