The Force Awakens - Legends of the Force: What is a Prerelease?
If you’re new to Star Wars: Unlimited, a prerelease event is the perfect way to jump into the game and experience the thrill of opening new cards before the official set launch. Star Wars: Unlimited is in the midst of launching its newest set, Legends of the Force, and local game stores across the galaxy are firing off their pre-release events. Here’s everything you need to know about attending your first Star Wars Unlimited prerelease.
Alex Kivitz
Mission Briefing - The Basics of Your First Prerelease
Let’s start off by breaking down what a Star Wars: Unlimited prerelease entails. Each prerelease kit contains 6 Legends of the Force booster packs, 1 deck-box, 1 sheet of damage counters, a how to play guide, and a promo version of the Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul leader cards. It is recommended to bring card sleeves to these events as well, but they’re not mandatory.
Once the event starts, players will open their prerelease kits and start building their own deck from the booster-packs opened. Each deck must contain exactly one leader and one base, and a minimum of 30 cards. Because this is a sealed deck event, you’re free to change your leader, base, and deck between rounds, and really experiment with what you play.
Now during a sealed event, you have access to any of the common bases. These are the single aspect bases that normally have 30 health and no ability. In this set, however, these common bases are going to be the 28 health bases that generate the Force; we will touch on this in a moment. Should you want to play with other more rare or unique bases, you will have to open them as part of your sealed pull. Similarly, you have access to all your leaders you opened as well as the promo leaders of Qui-Gon and Darth Maul.
The same deck-building restrictions apply in that all cards that do not match your aspect cost will cost 2 more resources to play per aspect you don’t have. And if you want a refresher on how this works, you can read the how to play guide here. But in general, you will have plenty of time to build your deck and everyone is more than happy to help if you have any questions.
Secrets of the Force - Hidden and The Force: New Mechanics
There are two main new mechanics in Legends of the Force, those being the keyword Hidden and the several abilities centered around the Force. Let’s start off with the simpler of the two: Hidden. Hidden is a new keyword added to the game that says:
“This unit can’t be attacked if it was played this phase”.
It’s a great keyword on tech units that you want to stick around longer, or on heavy hitters that you want to develop while your opponent already has readied units on their side of the field.
Moving on from that, what is The Force and how does it interact with Star Wars: Unlimited? Starting with the basics, The Force is essentially a token you will gain when “The Force is with you”. When the Force is with you, you create a Force token if you do not already have one. This is a binary state, you either have the Force or you don’t, and you cannot have multiple Force tokens at once. This Force token is then utilized on character abilities, leader abilities, or used as an additional cost to pay for cards.
Cards like Sorcerous Blast require you to spend the Force to utilize the card, else they do nothing. Or characters like Baylan Skoll have additional abilities that when played allow you to use the Force (spend your Force token) to use their when played abilities. Sometimes you don’t even need to use the Force. Plo Koon, for example, just requires you to have the Force token for his effect.
Because the Force is such a large part of the set, it makes sense that gaining the Force token wouldn’t be all too difficult. While the consistency between gaining the Force in limited will be lower than in constructed, you should have it online often enough to base your general gameplay around acquiring it every now and then. But how easy is it to have the Force be with you?
It turns out the main way to obtain the Force in this set is mildly pull dependent, but not immensely so. Players will be able to access common bases such as The Holy City. These bases are available in each aspect and are at the common rarity. Simply attacking with a Force unit will create the Force token if you do not have one already.
There are also rare bases in the set like Vergence Temple that have a lower health pool but have alternative ways of gaining the Force. These bases must be opened to utilise them. Lastly, we have certain cards like Drain Essence that when played can just give you the Force token as well.
For the most part, simply having a higher density of Force units in your deck will be enough to ensure you have access to the Force token throughout the game. Fortunately, Legends of the Force is filled with Force units, making it quite difficult to see a pool where you won’t be able to gain the Force at all. What this does mean, however, is that you may be pushed into certain leaders or decks based on what you open. This may push you to go more into leaders where you have easier access to Force units – though this won’t always be the case as other archetypes do exist as well.
Echoes of Power - Key Cards To Look Out For
When playing in a limited format, sometimes the best thing about a unit is just the raw stats that they have. The same is true for your leaders. When picking out what leader you want to play, you’ll need to weigh just how much of an advantage their ability gives you, how much they impact the game when they deploy, and how much synergy they have with your deck.
Some leaders like Avar Kriss have very powerful abilities on their leader side, but their late deployment time could result in you losing tempo to your opponent’s leader. Other leaders like Kylo Ren offer strong abilities, but their synergy requirements are too high to be consistent enough in a limited environment.
There are a few key leaders I would recommend picking solely because of their broad abilities that require low synergy, as well as their good stat lines that can swing tempo in your favor.
First up we have Obi-Wan Kenobi. He has the great ability of putting experience counters on your units for simply using the Force, allowing you to trade up with units and keep them on the field longer. Additionally, he deploys on 5 resources and has pretty good stats. Being able to give a unit an experience counter the turn he attacks while also getting your Force token back is also quite strong. All around just a good pick.
If you’re looking more towards the villainy side, Darth Maul is a safe consistent choice as you will always have him as one of your two promo leaders at any prerelease. He deploys a turn later than Obi-Wan, but he has some real hitting power. Additionally, his leader ability is really adept and pinging shields off of troublesome units or removing low health threats from the board.
Along those same lines, I feel Supreme Leader Snoke, Mother Talzin, and Third Sister all provide great utility effects while also being relevantly stated leaders. The dark side certainly is enticing in this limited set.
High Value Targets - Key Commons and Uncommons to Look For
Just as important as finding a good leader to play is making sure that they have a strong crew to back them up. While events and upgrades are good, you’ll often find the majority of your deck will be units. And while it may be exciting to look over the rare and legendary cards, in limited formats most of your power is going to come from the good commons and occasional uncommons you open. We’re really looking for units that have strong stats, don’t require hoops to jump through to be good, or other cards that generate great value. The player that wins is often the one who can get the most mileage out of each and every card.
While it’s not the flashiest card, Secretive Sage has everything you want in this limited format. It is a 2 cost 2/2 unit with the shielded keyword, and has the Force trait. This unit comes down on turn one, sticks around to attack, and generates you the Force token when it does so.
Knight of Ren is in the same category of power. While it does not have the Force unit type, it’s a 3 cost 4/4. This is a powerful early game beat-stick that will almost always trade into two of your opponent’s units.
Youngling Padawan again has the classic 2/3 stat line on a two cost unit, but also not only has the Force trait, but straight up gives you the Force token when you play it.
Just to list out some more commons I believe players should always keep an eye out for, I want to highlight Charging Phillak, Purge Trooper, Terentatek, and perhaps the most powerful of all, Talzin’s Assassin.
We also have to keep an eye out for some powerful uncommons, and in this set there are many. For the most part, these will be the “bombs” of your deck, and really push you in a direction of how to build your deck. Most uncommons will be directing you into an archetype and building around them can lead to some explosive turns.
Ki-Adi-Mundi immediately leaps to the front, as he refuels your hand and has decent stats on a Force unit. The ability to draw two cards turns him into almost a 3 for 1, giving you two extra cards and the potential for him to trade into an opponent’s unit. Mace Windu is a two for one in a different capacity, allowing you to use the Force when you play him to remove an enemy unit while simultaneously developing a body on board.
Kelleren Beq immediately jumps to the forefront as a largely stated unit that allows you to place a second unit on the field. His when played ability does not require you to use the Force, so when paired up with the Qui-Gon Jin leader, you are able to use him to attack into base or even another unit, and then get some extra mileage out of his ability again.
And just to cover a few more powerful uncommon cards across various aspects, we feel that Old Daka, Eighth Brother, Battle Fury, Baylan Skoll, and Depa Billaba are strong enough to push you into their respective directions.
May The Force Be With You
We are super excited to see how Legends of the Force will incorporate the Force into an already amazing card game, but we also can’t wait to see how it will impact the meta-game just a month before the Galactic Championship.
We are itching to get our hands on some prerelease kits and start playing with some of the most iconic characters from across the Star Wars universe. We hope that you all have an amazing prerelease weekend and look forward to seeing your best pulls. And of course, may the Force be with you.
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