SWU Tournament Report: San Francisco Planetary Qualifier (October 2024)

Hello and welcome back to The Fifth Trooper’s coverage of Star Wars Unlimited TCG! Today we have something a little different for you all — a tournament report discussing my “last hurrah” in the Shadows of the Galaxy meta, my experiences at the San Francisco Planetary Qualifier held in late October!

As I discussed in an earlier article, the Planetary Qualifier season that we’ve recently entered marked the beginning of official competitive play for Star Wars Unlimited TCG. While “Season 0” will continue until the first Galactic Championship in July of next year (for more information on that event see FFG’s announcement), the game’s different sets create an interesting internal division between events as they represent different metagames and groups of cards.

For the Shadows of the Galaxy meta, the big story was Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty dominating the game. Boba Fett decks were strong in all four aspects — red Boba played an aggro or tempo gameplan, green Boba had a classic midrange playstyle, yellow Boba was a tempo deck, and blue Boba was a control deck.

While that’s an impressively diverse performance from one leader, other leaders weren’t having as good a time — Boba’s dominance constrained options for other leaders quite a bit! Sabine Wren, Galvanized Revolutionary was still popular as a powerful aggro deck, and some players attempted to put together control decks that could potentially stop Boba — but whether it be thanks to difficulties winning matches post-sideboard, the threat of going to time, or unpleasant mill-based control mirrors, control didn’t end up able to keep Boba in check as it had in the past.

As a result, with the San Francisco Planetary Qualifier event being one of the last to be played in the “set two PQ season” — it originally was the last but an event in Florida ended up being postponed thanks to the hurricane situation — it looked like I was going to be playing into a Boba-heavy meta!

Picking My Deck for the San Francisco Planetary Qualifier

At first, I had been thinking that an updated version of my double red Sabine build from the Spark of Rebellion meta might be well-positioned — with cards like Aggression and Chaos of War available, I think double red Sabine is especially well-suited for combatting control decks. However, as mentioned earlier control didn’t end up having as much of a role in the environment as I anticipated, making this seem like a suboptimal choice.

Next, I myself had been working on a control deck (double blue Iden) that I thought might be well-positioned to play against Boba, Sabine, and even other control decks that were trying to do the same kind of shift to beat Boba — however, I couldn’t quite get that deck into a place where I really loved it, and I was concerned about potential issues with games going to time and/or the deck being more tiring to play across a long event. (Tournament fatigue can be a very real thing!)

However, I had observed quite a lot of games thanks to providing live commentary on several other Planetary Qualifier events this set, and as a result I thought I had isolated a weakness in several of the Boba Fett builds that people were playing — the most popular builds tended to be notably weaker in the space arena than they were in the ground arena. (If you’re interested in seeing the games I was involved in casting, you can check out many of those games over at the Maclunky Gaming channel on YouTube, with more still to be uploaded!)

As a result, I decided to go for an aggressive Sabine deck (something I was quite experienced at playing) — but instead of going with the double red Sabine that I had hoped to use against control, I opted for a Cunning Sabine composition instead. Cunning Sabine appealed to me because it can put up a much more threatening presence in the space arena via cards like Cartel Turncoat or the classic Millennium Falcon, Piece of Junk.

Additionally, I think that the exhaust options available in the Cunning aspect are especially relevant against Cunning (great counter to people using the +4 damage option) and Han Solo, Audacious Smuggler, who had also been doing fairly well in competitive play — having an exhaust can be a great answer to Han’s “5/6/7 combo” where he goes from 5 resources to 7 in one turn via using his leader-side ability to make a temporary resource, deploying, and then getting another temporary resource via his On Attack trigger, often then playing a powerful 7-cost card like U-Wing Reinforcement.

I also decided to omit The Darksaber — as powerful as this unique upgrade can be, at this time it seemed like many people were planning for it (and Boba Fett’s Armor) and packing upgrade removal — often in the main deck rather than the sideboard! (For more on sideboarding, see my recent article on the topic…) However, in a bit of psychological warfare I did bring a Darksaber playmat to the event, hoping that opponents would see it and get psyched out — or even improperly keep upgrade control in hand thinking the Darksaber was on its way!

Here’s the final composition that I ended up going with — you can check out this link to see the deck in SWUDB yourself! (Note that I haven’t updated this for Twilight of the Republic yet — but it might still be a good “starting point” for a Cunning Sabine composition in the modern meta!

Overall, I felt that this was a strong aggro deck that could threaten opponents both on the ground and in the space arena, had some nice reach options for winning even against stabilized opponents, and (perhaps more importantly) was a leader that I was very familiar with and a deck that I knew I would be able to play quickly in an event!

My San Francisco Planetary Qualifier Experience

I got things off to an inauspicious start by arriving to the venue late for the event — luckily, I had contacted a friend who was already there to confirm with the tournament organizers that I was registered! However, once I arrived I found that the event was already about to begin. A tournament organizer told me that I would be given a bye for the first round — at first, Melee showed me as having a loss there instead, but when I went and asked about it they were able to fix it such that I indeed had a bye!

I made sure to say that it would be legitimate for me to have a loss for the first round, since I’d arrived late — however, they said I’d have a bye and I was happy to take that!

Round One: Victory? (1-0 overall record)

For round two, I was paired against a double green Emperor Palpatine, Galactic Ruler deck. Palpatine is one of Sabine’s best matchups and these games went pretty in line with the way I like to run them — my aggression was too much for the Palpatine deck to handle and I was able to pick up a fairly fast 2-0 victory in this match. Ultimately, when your leader deploys on four resources and your opponent’s leader deploys on eight resources, you have a lot of time available!

(In game two of this match I was able to start things off by playing two copies of Cartel Turncoat on the first turn — not what the opponent probably wanted to see!)

Round Two: Victory vs. double green Palpatine! (2-0 match, 2-0 overall record)

Round three pitted me against another Sabine player who was running the more “standard” base for competitive Sabine builds — the infamous Energy Conversion Lab, one of the best cards in the game! However, I was able to handle this — I believe in one of the games in this match I was even able to land an extremely annoying Bamboozle to exhaust my opponent’s Sabine and bounce the Darksaber back to hand right after it was played! Both games ultimately went my way and I was able to pick up another match win.

Round Three: Victory vs. Sabine ECL! (2-0 match, 3-0 overall record)

For the fourth round, I was up against Bossk Blue, a deck that combines some control aspects with a large amount of healing and potential card draw. This is just the type of matchup that I felt prepared to counter with the double red Sabine build I had been working on earlier, but with cunning Sabine instead this proved to be more of a challenge. In particular, my opponent was able to heal quite a bit — in our first game, I believe I got the opponent to 20+ damage on base at least four or five times only for them to keep healing back out of it and ultimately defeat me.

In the second game I was feeling more confident, but The Client, Dictated by Discretion ended up being able to get a doubled heal with Bossk’s unit side, which was a crucial turning point for the opponent and put me in a bad spot. Ultimately I was not able to come back for the win — well done to my opponent!

Round Four: Defeat vs. Bossk Blue! (0-2 match, 3-1 overall record)

The fifth round had me paired against a double Cunning Han Solo, Audacious Smuggler deck. Double yellow Han can be very fast, and I wasn’t sure which of us would end up being able to take out the opponent first — however, I thought I perhaps had the advantage with my exhaust options, which can be very relevant against double yellow Han.

In the first game, we were in a very close race. I believe it came down to my opponent being barely off of lethal damage while I had it — however, my opponent had a copy of Ezra Bridger, Resourceful Troublemaker in play. Even though he didn’t have lethal, if he attacked with Ezra and hit a card that could give him lethal off of the top of his deck (and he had several potential outs!) he could then use that card to win the game. Luckily for me the topdeck missed and I was able to get the win!

Game two was also a race — this time, a critical moment was when my opponent went for a damage buff with Cunning and I was able to take out the buffed unit via a Fleet Lieutenant attack buff, preventing a big hit on my base. Once again, Sabine was able to pull out the win in a race against another fast deck!

Round Five: Victory vs. double yellow Han! (2-0 match, but…)

However, went I went to report my game I was told that my round one bye had been incorrect and I actually should have received a loss for that round! As a result, the tournament organizers had retroactively changed my round one win to a loss. In general, at this size of event you make the cut if you are undefeated or 6-1 after seven rounds of Swiss, and a small minority of those who went 5-2 make the cut on tiebreakers as well. This meant that with the first round changed, instead of being in a 4-1 position (two wins makes the cut for sure, one win is “on the bubble”) I was in a 3-2 position, needing two wins to even have a chance of making the cut!

This was an unpleasant surprise, since I went from feeling like I was in a fairly good spot to feeling quite precarious! In addition, the fact that it had happened mid-event was unfortunate since meant that the pairings had been improper for the first few rounds — I was being paired as if I had a win rather than a loss in round one. However, I do think their decision was overall quite valid and fair — it would be very strange (and bad for the odds of events starting on time) if you were able to reliably get a bye by arriving late to an event!

That meant that ultimately, the result of Round 5 was Victory but my overall record was now 3-2!

With the second loss now on my record for the event, the pressure was on for me to finish strong! For round six, I was paired up with another double Cunning deck — but this time instead of being a double yellow Han it was a double yellow Boba! Could I stand up to the “meta monster” of Boba Fett?

Well, to be honest the answer was that I could! These games went very well for me — I was able to attack significantly faster than my opponent, gain the advantage, and close things out fast. In one game my opponent managed to get Fett’s Firespray on the board but it was too little too late — I had gained too much of an advantage early on and even though he had good units, I was closing the game too fast.

Round Six: Victory vs. double yellow Boba! (2-0 match, 4-2 overall record)

My hopes of finishing 5-2 and perhaps making the cut all came down to round seven! This time I was paired against another Sabine ECL deck — and while my previous matches had all been 2-0 one way or another (first round bye/loss excluded), this one was going to change that!

In the first game, my opponent had a strong start with a Wing Leader buff on an early unit — one of the best ways that Sabine can start off a mirror! (While I can potentially counter with Bamboozle, I only have one copy in the maindeck and two in the sideboard — not a reliable answer in the first game!) After the initial clashes, we ended up in a scenario where it was looking like things were maybe starting to turn my way — but my opponent had yet to use Energy Conversion Lab, and had a strong play with a Fleet Lieutenant ambushing to kill one of my units while also using its On Attack ability to send an enemy unit into my base with a buff! With that, this one ended up being a loss…

In the second game, I was able to put heavy pressure on my opponent thanks to an early game Falcon, then managed to land the Bamboozle to exhaust Sabine and bounce a Darksaber — a huge swing, and even better because I discarded a yellow card from hand to play the Bamboozle for free, letting me spend more resources that turn and really gain the advantage.

It all came down to the third game of the match! Would I make the 5-2 (and potentially the cut), or fall just short at 4-3? This one was very, very close — as we approached the end of the game, my opponent had the stronger board but I was ahead on damage inflicted. As my opponent cleared the last units from my board, I ended up playing a Disabling Fang Fighter with no upgrades to remove just so that I would have a unit able to attack in the empty space arena — I had a Surprise Strike in hand and if I could land it with the Fang Fighter it would leave the opponent on only one HP, allowing me to use Sabine’s ping to close the game!

Going into the next turn, I had the initiative and was indeed able to land the Surprise Strike, leaving my opponent on only one HP. However, I had ten HP left and my opponent still had Poe on the board (plus some other units), which meant I was potentially in trouble — if my opponent had a Heroic Sacrifice he could use that and Poe’s ability to hit my base for ten total damage, winning the game! I believe a Rebel Assault would also have been able to do nine damage, not winning the game but meaning my Sabine ping would have led to a draw and forced us into game four!

Thankfully, my opponent didn’t have it — he was only able to do a “normal” Poe swing with on-attack trigger, hitting my base for eight — I then used Sabine’s ping to hit both bases, defeating my opponent and leaving my base at only one HP remaining! That’s about as close as it gets!

Round Seven: Victory vs. Sabine ECL! (2-1 match, 5-2 overall record!)

I had done it — the 5-2 record was mine, and with it a potential shot at the top cut! It would all come down to tiebreakers… and when they were revealed mine somehow ended up being very bad! I had thought being erroneously paired against winning players early might somehow give me an advantage, but I was actually among the worst of the 5-2s after the tiebreaker, “bubbling out” not just from top eight but even from top sixteen! (I’m still not entirely sure what happened there!)

However, it had been a fun and well-run event and I thought the deck served well — my Bossk Blue match was rough but I don’t feel that I lack tools against that deck overall and might have done better if I had played differently, perhaps prioritizing a kill on The Client earlier on.

Honestly, my main takeaway was that I should be careful to leave extra travel time for further events and make sure I get out the door quickly — having one of my two match losses be to showing up late was entirely avoidable and an error on my part for sure!

The Aftermath

Ultimately, the San Francisco Planetary Qualifier would be won by a Boba Fett deck, as many of these events were… so many, in fact, that Fantasy Flight Games decided to take action after this Planetary Qualifier season, suspending Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty from competitive play!

Time will tell whether Boba will make his return someday — but while I thought Boba was beatable for a good and prepared player, I think he was still clearly overperforming and this change will be a positive one for the game. As we head into an exciting new meta with Twilight of the Republic’s release, players will be free to test and deckbuild without Boba Fett looming over their new builds.

It’s an exciting time to be playing Star Wars Unlimited, with bigger events starting up, cool new sets, and lots of testing and exploration to do — stay tuned for more here at The Fifth Trooper!