My biggest problem with trading card games, a genre now in its fourth decade, is how difficult it is to get your hands on the damn cards. The challenge of searching random packages is obvious, but two other obstacles arise. On one end of the spectrum you have newer games like Disney Lorcana, where sometimes there are simply not enough cards produced to meet demand. On the other hand you have more established games like Magic: the meeting, where the very best cards in a set can only be found in large quantities on the secondary market. That’s why fairly average Commander decks can run you at least a few hundred dollars each.
So, what if you just… didn’t need that many cards to play?
The more I learn about the history of the TCG, the more I notice that design decisions – fundamental principles established at the start of a game – play as big a role in card availability later on as production bottlenecks or artificially created market pressure. Star Wars: Unlimited, which launches today into a resurgent TCG market, was designed with this in mind. By reducing the number of cards needed to build a competitive deck from 60 to 50, the game becomes more affordable to own initially. Additionally, the cards themselves form highly modular blocks that can be used to quickly build different decks of cards the rest of the cards in the game, so much fun to chase. So for me it’s the perfect mix: a game that respects my wallet by letting me play with fewer cards, and a game that respects my time by easily plugging those cards into different decks and playing them.
The secret of Unlimited‘s remarkably succinct launch set, titled Spark of rebellion, is something called an ‘aspect’. Here’s how it works: instead of different mana colors as in Magiccards inside Unlimited are assigned aspects: blue for vigilance, green for command, red for aggression, yellow for cunning, gold for heroism and purple for villainy. Most cards only have one aspect, and if you’re going through a box of boosters, these will be your largest decks of cards. Let’s give these cards the core of a certain aspect.
Outside the core there are also maps with multiple aspects. For example, the majority of Cunning cards have only one aspect. However, you also get a second and third deck of Cunning cards, each about half the size of the core deck. One will be Cunning And Heroism, while another will be cunning And Villainous. All three interact, so while you can only choose Heroism or Villainy as a secondary aspect when building a deck, you can still use the core of Cunning-only cards for both decks.
The game becomes even more modular with its combat approach. Units inside Unlimited fight on the ground or in space, and those two battle paths almost never cross. So to build a balanced deck you also need a good mix of ground and space forces for both types. Sprinkle in a few expensive items and you’re off to the races.
This is where Fantasy Flight Games’ design features really shine: to create a card game, you first need to select a leader and give him a base of operations. Together these two cards give your deck its personality. They also clearly show which aspect of color cards belong in that deck; your leader contributes two of these aspect colors, and their base contributes the third. Together, these three colors form the identity of your deck. Once you’ve selected a leader and a base, all you have to do is find the decks of cards in your collection that match those colors, connect the most powerful space and ground modules from those decks, and you’re ready to rock. . Honestly, once you get a booster box sorted, putting together a deck almost feels like Lego.
The emphasis on easy deck building extends to and is complemented by: Unlimited‘s iconic IP. For example, it could be that the unity card for Ezra Bridger comes from Star Wars: Rebels has both a yellow and a gold aspect icon, meaning he is both cunning and heroic and connected to the rebellion – which is all true. Bounty hunter Bossk, on the other hand, is yellow (Cunning) and purple (Villainy), which makes him Imperial thanks to that one time we saw him chasing after Han Solo on behalf of Darth Vader. Meanwhile, Jabba the Hutt’s Gamorrean Guards don’t take sides; they are just yellow (Cunning).
Unlimited also features a selection of cards that only include Heroism or Villainy aspects – things like TIE fighters and probe droids on the Imperial side, and X-wings and Rebel Pathfinders on the Rebel side. There even is another small deck of cards that have no aspect at all, and these are true multi-purpose filler cards that can find a home in literally any deck. By mixing and matching cards from all these different aspects, there is enough flexibility – even within a single booster box – to create synergies and strategies across multiple decks. Not satisfied with a terrace? Fine! These blocks can be easily pulled apart and then used to build other decks of cards.
It’s also worth repeating that Fantasy Flight has also usefully reduced the number and type of cards needed to build a deck. Instead of the 60 card standard common in games like Magic And Lorcana, Unlimited only requires 50 for a legal deck. Additionally, you can have a maximum of three (not the genre-standard maximum of four) of a given card in that deck. Both design features mean that you need fewer cards overall to build decks.
So with just one box of 24 booster packs, each containing 16 cards, I was able to quickly build three viable decks by sorting the cards and putting a few piles together – and I’m pretty sure there are a few more in there. I could build there too. Best of all, these packs were a lot of fun to crack open, as each pack contained both a leader and a base card on top. Every time I opened a package, there was literally a friendly face from the Star Wars canon waiting for me, ready to inspire more deckbuilding.
True to its name, but Unlimited also refuses to say no to players who don’t like these rules. Can you put cards in your deck that don’t match your leader’s aspect or their base? Certainly. You will only have to pay more resources for them if you bring them from your hand to the table. Can you replace that swamp-default leader and his boring little base, trading things like hit points and other useful features for wild, one-off abilities? Yes, that’s possible. In fact, those glass cannon style leaders and bases are rarer, so they’re harder to find in booster packs. Do you want to have more than 50 cards in your deck? That’s something you can do, says Fantasy Flight. But don’t say they didn’t warn you if the right ones don’t show up when you need them.
Star Wars: Unlimited is an extremely impressive game from a mechanical perspective, and that ignores the great original art that draws from the entire canon, including places like Rebels And Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I feel like it teaches me the skills I need to learn just by opening decks of cards and sorting them, which I’m not used to with other card games. In fact, Spark of rebellion feels both more engaging and alive than Disney Lorcana did at launch.
It also feels more complete.
Don’t take that as a setback Lorcana. Again, it comes down to the game design. Where Lorcana seems to be handing out new pieces of a much larger game with each new set of cards, this first dose Unlimited it feels like it’s already shown me most of the tricks it has up its sleeve. What I hope is that it is Lorcana becomes broader, its brother or sister Star Wars: Unlimited becomes more complex, as both are perfectly viable ways to build a long-term trading card game.
The first set for Star Wars: Unlimited, Spark of rebellion, is out now. The next one, titled Shadows of the Milky Way, is expected in July. Fantasy Flight says it has already completed the design of the next four sets after that – and plans for releases through 2027.
Star Wars: Unlimited was reviewed using pre-release retail products from Fantasy Flight Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.