(Never) Tell Me The Odds - Star Wars: Unlimited Regional Qualifier Europe Metagame Breakdown
Just recently we hosted the first-ever Star Wars: Unlimited Regional Qualifier and the largest Star Wars: Unlimited event to date. 860 players traveled from around the world to Lille, France, to battle for the championship title. It was an intense tournament spanning two days of gameplay. We had 9 rounds of Swiss on Day One and 4 rounds of Swiss on Day Two, with a cut to the top 8.
Alex Kivitz
Alex Kivitz
Jonas' Sabine Wren Deck and More
What’s very interesting about the winning deck is that while it does use Sabine Wren, it takes an alternative route by not utilising the Energy Conversion Lab base. This was a very unique take on this deck this weekend, being represented mainly by Jonas and his team. In this article, we’ll be going over not only Jonas’ deck, but also the top 8, analysing the metagame of Regional Qualifier Europe, and covering everything that you’ve missed at the largest Star Wars: Unlimited event to date.
Day 1 Deck Representation
We had a total of 860 players registered at the start of round 1. Along with an amazing overview, each and every decklist from Star Wars: Unlimited – Regional Qualifier Europe can be studied and analsed individually on Melee.gg. For the main overview, Star Wars Leaders and Bases were grouped together to provide a general breakdown of what the most played decks were.
The graphic below shows the largest deck representations, however, this impressively makes up only half of the entire field. The remaining 429 players are split across a vast array of leader and base combinations, each representing equal to or less than 1% of the field. In total, over 40 different Leaders were present.
Compared to the anticipated metagame breakdown we wrote prior to the Regional Qualifier, we’ve seen the likes of Quinlan Tarkintown and Sabine Energy Conversion Lab really sink their teeth into the competition. Cad Bane utilising Tarkintown was one of the most represented Villainy decks, replacing the recently suspended Jango Fett of the same aspect combination. What was surprising was how low Han Solo – Audacious Smuggler was represented, making up only 2% of the total field. We also had Qi’ra with the new Data Vault base from Jump to Lightspeed come out and perform. But just how well did all these Leaders do?
Fortunately enough for us, the folks over on SWU-Competitive Hub generated a full spreadsheet detailing each leader and base combination as well as their matchup percentages over the course of the entire tournament. The most popular decks at the tournament, Sabine Wren and Energy Conversion Lab (ECL), had positive matchups across most of the top-represented decks. We also see an absolutely abysmal Han Solo matchup with a 29.5% win rate across the whole event. Had there been more Han Solo decks present, this could have been a very different tournament.
One thing of note is that we only had two players on the Sabine-Data Vault combination, with both players performing quite well and Jonas even taking the deck and winning the entire event. We’ll be touching on this unique take on the deck later in the article when we go over the top 8 decklists and their gameplans.
Day 2 Conversions
Outside of some unique outliers, we had quite a consistent conversion of Leaders into day 2. Sure, the one person on Admiral Trench and Data Vault gave him a 100% conversion rate, but for the most part, the field percentage remained quite stable. Looking at the chart below, we have the most prominent day 1 Leaders listed alongside their respective meta shares in day 2. Regardless of what base was being run, we saw Sabine Wren start day 1 with a 16% representation. Going into Day Two she represented 26% of the field.
However, as we dive more into the heroes. Quinlan Voss and Qi’ra started the tournament at 10% and 7% respectively, and both made up 9% of the metashare of day 2. Some fan favourite decks like Admiral Piett and Darth Vader, unfortunately, wouldn’t see any conversions into day 2. And for all the decks that individually represented less than or around 1% of the field, when combined made up 24% of the metagame Day One and 18% Day Two. These were the one-off decks, mostly like Admiral Trench, Chancellor Palpatine, and Gar Saxon.
Around 12% of the Sabine Wren Leaders converted on day 2. Han Solo, Audacious Smuggler, saw an 11.9% conversion rate, and Qi’ra and Quinlan dropped a bit with 9% and 6.6% respectively. Anakin Skywalker converted quite well with 10.6%.
The Top 8
An absolutely massive congratulations to the top 8. These players battled through 13 rounds of Swiss over two days to make it here. This is no small achievement, showcasing how they truly are the best of the best in Star Wars: Unlimited.
A massive congratulations to Jonas Skjold Frederiksen, Alexandre Wilmet, Joshua Freeman-Birch, Adam Länsberg, Cyril Libbrecht, Erik Kaleta, Thomas Nonnez, and Arjan de Pooter (ordered left to right, back to front).
We saw a nicely diverse top 8 with 5 different Leaders. We had 3 Sabine Wrens, 2 Anakin Skywalkers, 1 Rey, 1 Quinlan Vos, and 1 Qi’ra. Each of these decks packed its own unique spice, and was built to beat the field in how they thought best. Let’s take this time to break down what made these decks so great and how their talented pilots brought them to the very top of the competition.
Jonas Skold Frederiksen Accumulating Data: Sabine Wren And Data Vault?
Let’s dive right into the star of the show, the dark horse of the event, the Sabine Wren running Data Vault. For the enfranchised players, they can understand how odd this is, purely for the fact that Energy Conversion Lab (ECL) offers such a power spike on the five and six resource turn due to the synergies with Wrecker and Poe Dameron. Data Vault also offers a little bit of inherent consistency into your deck, forcing you to go up to 60 cards minimum in your main deck. However, I was lucky enough to be able to speak to Jonas for a bit after his semi-finals game against Adam, and managed to get a little bit of insight into his team’s creation. What’s also great to note is that only two players brought Sabine-Data Vault to the event, and they both came from the same team.
Let’s start off with the obvious change, why the change to Data Vault. Back in Spark of Rebellion, some players debated whether or not the five health differences between ECL and a regular base mattered. Sure, you didn’t have access to the ambush on larger units to maintain tempo and clear large sentinel units, but the five health difference could afford you the time to close out a game against a more midrange deck. At the end of the day it was determined the 5 health simply wasn’t enough. However, since then the deck archetype has received a lot more tools, a lot more support, and honestly, the extra 8 health instead of 5 has come in clutch more than people would have expected.
Additionally, the introduction of Timely Intervention means that while Sabine loses the free Ambush from the base’s epic action, you have up to three Ambushes for 1 resource from hand or 2 from smuggling the card. With the extra health from Data Vault, this allows Sabine to play more into the midrange gameplan when needed.
We see some odd cards here and there throughout Jonas’ deck. The Frisk and Ketsu Onyo fill the slots of two cost 3/2 units. They add to the consistency of the deck and maintain the normal ratio of aggressive 2 cost units in a deck that forces you to dilute your card pool. But these additions are mostly redundancies to help offset Data Vault’s inherent lessening of consistency. Adelphi Patrol Wing, a bomb in limited gameplay, shines in this deck. Adelphi is a space unit with strong stats and offers a Fleet Lieutenant like effect when played while you hold the initiative. You’ll notice the same with cards like Raddus and Senatorial Corvette. These are high attack powerhouses that maintain the aggressive nature on the board, while utilising the extra 8 health Sabine players are not used to having to extend the game further into the midgame. All around a very unique take on the deck and one the field was not prepared for as we’ve seen with Jonas’ tournament record.
Jonas had a very impressive tournament record, going 11-1-1 in Swiss, losing only to a double yellow Han, a rough matchup for Sabine inherently due to Han’s ability to play ahead of curve and be the aggressor. We additionally saw what seems to be an intentional draw in the final round of Swiss against Joshua Freeman-Birch, guaranteeing both places in the top 8.The only other player running Sabine-Datavault, Steve Hembo Nielsen, also made day 2 on the deck, but had some rather unfortunate matchups that ended in him not making the top 8. Overall a very impressive run on the deck from these two teammates.
2nd Place: Thomas Nonnez
Coming in second place is Anakin Blue, however not utilising the Colossus base. While past events have shown that Colossus clearly works for Anakin, we can see the reasoning behind not wanting to go down in hand size at the start of the game. Going into this event, Quinlan Vos was expected to be one of the most represented decks. Quinlan being a deck very focused on draining cards from their opponents, starting down a card already puts a midrange/control focused deck like this at a disadvantage. In fact both Anakins that made day 2 played a standard Vigilance base.
Thomas’ deck had a few spicy inclusions such as Kuiil to keep a little bit healthier in the early game while also drawing additional cards. Outer Rim Outlaws also synergises very well with Anakin’s ability, allowing them to remove some pesky 5 health units and stay on board. All in all a strong deck that can suddenly burst down an opponent that has recklessly damaged your base but couldn’t close out the game.
3rd-4th: Adam Länsberg
Representing the only Quinlan Vos player in the top 8, Adam brought a very streamlined version of the Quinlan deck we covered last week in our metagame prediction. Very powerful units that control the board and provide card advantage, while simultaneously stripping resources and plays away from your opponent’s. Most, if not all, of the Quinlan decks that made day two included Grogu – Irresistible.
Grogu is a great unit when going against aggressive decks that force Quinlan to have the initiative. Being a 5 health force unit that can exhaust any enemy units keeps you healthy and turns on Force Throw much earlier. Having 5 health also means it survives a one damage ping plus Tarkintown’s effect.
3rd-4th: Erik Kaleta
Representing one of the two Sabine Wren’s with Energy Conversion Lab in the top 8, this was one of the most expected decks of the tournament. Meaning, the whole field was prepped to take this deck down as best it could, or at the very least, try to improve their matchup for it. It runs a fairly standard list of aggressive units with the reach of Poe Dameron and Wrecker as its high end.
All in all this is a tried and true deck that puts up results, and was piloted very well by Erik Kaleta.
5th-8th: Alexandre Willmet
Compared to Thomas’ deck, Alexandre seems to have gone a more control focused route for Anakin. Steela Gererra is in the deck’s mainboard to find more Tactic event cards, and the main deck runs much more Tactic cards like two copies of Rival’s Fall and Fell the Dragon. Opting to stabilize later in the game and drop on average larger units, Alexandre seems to rely more on Events removing opposing units than trading his own units.
5th-8th: Joshua Freeman-Birch
Even with Data Vault, Joshua is running a 62 card deck with Rey as the leader. Rey’s ability allows you to pay 1 resource and exhaust Rey to give an experience token to any unit with 2 or less power. Early on you can buff cards like R2-D2 – Ignoring Protocol, Clone Deserter or even Alliance Dispatcher. Giving you quite strong early game units to contend with the board and put on pressure. Dispatcher allows you to play things on curve with a bonus experience counter essentially, which can help trade up into many decks.
All around it looks to be a fairly standard mid-range deck that looks to extract value every step of the way and win games based on having better math and card efficiency than your opponent.
5th-8th: Cyril Libbrecht
Cyril Libbrecht also brought out a fairly standard Sabine ECL list. However there was quite the interesting substitution of General’s Blade over The Darksaber. Having General’s Blade lets you bring out a strong piece of equipment a turn earlier than normal, often making a large body that’s hard to remove, and is efficient in actions to really let you pile on the damage. Additionally, having General’s blade as a 3-cost can potentially allow you to stall deploying Sabine Wren by playing a 1 cost card, giving you that extra action on your 4 resource turn and forcing your opponent to interact sooner.
5th-8th: Arjan de Pooter
Rounding out our top 8 for Star Wars: Unlimited Regional Qualifier Europe is Arjan de Pooter on Qi’ra and Data Vault. We see the classic control shell of Command Vigilance Villany, looking to extend into the late game and overwhelm the opponent with massive units like Maul, Darth Vader, and Avenger. We see cards as single inclusions like Lom Pyke and Rival’s Fall. They help fight against decks that enjoy pinging damage and removing large Leaders respectively. Very strong into more mid-range focused decks, it spends the early game dropping sentinels and removing units, maybe playing Resupply or Super Laser Technician if it can get some room to breathe.
All in all, one of the premier control decks and the only Villainy deck to make it into the top 8 of this event.
(Not) A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy (Not) Far, Far Away…
We had an absolutely amazing time bringing you Star Wars: Unlimited Regional Qualifier Europe. We had such an amazing production team for the stream with some truly amazing casters. A huge shout out to Joe “Speci” Curley, Driss Gevaert, Ben Fitzpatrick, and Ross Gilbert for really bringing the energy and the stream to life. If you want to see what you missed or re-watch some epic games, you can find all of our streams here!
It was such an honour to be able to host the first ever Star Wars: Unlimited Regional Qualifier, and we hope you all enjoyed the event, either in person or at home, as much as we did. We can’t wait to see you all at the next event!
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