Welcome back to The Fifth Trooper’s coverage of Star Wars Unlimited TCG! Today we’re going to take a look at the upcoming fourth set of the game, Jump to Lightspeed. This set has a lot to offer — cool new cards, new mechanics, a focus on the space arena, cards from a range of Star Wars eras, and more! With this set landing soon — prereleases start up this weekend — it’s an exciting time to be playing Star Wars Unlimited. Come see what the set has to offer!
(By the way, if you were a fan of Fantasy Flight’s old Star Wars: Destiny game, some of the new mechanics here might look very familiar to you…)
Focus on Space
The biggest thing that distinguishes Jump to Lightspeed from Star Wars Unlimited’s previous sets may be that this set is focused on the space arena. In most Star Wars Unlimited sets, a majority of units have been ground options, with some space units as well but as a “secondary” arena to the ground.
For example, in Spark of Rebellion we saw 128 cards that played to the ground arena, but 38 that played to space. Jump to Lightspeed changes that, with 90 space cards and 94 ground ones.
“But Tower”, you might say, “isn’t that still more units on the ground than in space?” Well, yes and no — many of the ground units in this set (including several leaders) make use of the new Piloting mechanic, which allows them to be played either as units or as an upgrade to a friendly Vehicle — and a large majority of the Vehicle units we have in this game thus far are space units!
So while the ground does still have a substantial share of this set’s units, many of them are designed to do double duty as upgrades to your space fleet. Let’s take a look at this new mechanic in more detail:
Jump to Lightspeed’s new Piloting Mechanic
First of the set’s new mechanics, we have Piloting. The Piloting mechanic allows a card to be played either as a unit or as an upgrade to a Vehicle unit that does not already have an upgrade, often with a different cost for each of those “modes”. For a basic example, check out this Independent Smuggler:
This smuggler can be played either as a 1/1 unit with Raid 1 or as an upgrade that gives a friendly vehicle +1/+1 and Raid 1. Not too complicated!
Next, let’s take a look at the new Han Solo, Has His Moments card:
This card has a more complicated Piloting ability, and one that synergizes with the Millennium Falcon in particular. It’s worth noting that abilities that name specific cards like this work based on title, not subtitle — so this Han has synergies not just with the new Millennium Falcon, Get Out and Push and its Piloting bonus, but also with older versions of the Falcon like the classic Millennium Falcon, Piece of Junk or the beefier Millennium Falcon, Lando’s Pride.
He also features two different costs — when played as a unit, this version of Han costs five resources, but when played as a pilot he only costs two! This can add some additional flexibility to a card, as the different modes of the card might work well at different times in a game. Generally speaking, Piloting cards are cheap when played as upgrades (I think the most expensive are only three cost), but have a fairly wide range of costs when played as units — all the way from one-costers like the Astromech Pilot to the six-cost Darth Vader, Scourge of Squadrons!
Piloting thus offers a lot of appealing flexibility for a deck, with cards that can either be played as ground units or as upgrades for your Vehicles — and while most Vehicle cards in the game thus far can be found in the space arena, there are some ground Vehicles to consider as well that can benefit from the new mechanic!
Further, this set offers several leader cards that have Piloting. While many (including me!) thought that the new set might have leaders that deployed to the space arena directly, we’ve instead seen leaders that can either deploy as ground units or as Pilot upgrades. This means that if you don’t have a Vehicle in play with space for a Pilot or you think your opponent might have upgrade removal waiting to deal with you, your leader can instead deploy onto the ground — on the other hand, many of these leaders have especially cool effects when used as Pilots!
For example, Boba Fett, Any Methods Necessary can be deployed either as a ground unit or via Piloting — but if you deploy him on the ground he has no text, while if you deploy him as a Pilot upgrade you get to deal a solid chunk of damage spread across the enemy board! This dynamic makes for interesting decisions about how to get the best use out of one’s leader — just like in the movies, sometimes the same characters can be a threat both at the controls of a ship or on the ground!
Jump to Lightspeed’s New Indirect Damage Mechanic
The second new mechanic in Jump to Lightspeed is indirect damage. This is a form of damage that the defending player gets to allocate among their base and units. For example, if you have a 2/2 unit in play and take three indirect damage, you could choose to take all three damage on the base, two damage on the base and one on the unit, or two damage on the unit and one on the base. Note that you can’t choose to deal all three damage to the unit in order to “waste” some of the damage — units can only be assigned as much damage as they have remaining HP.
Further, indirect damage cannot be prevented, meaning that it ignores some defensive effects (most notably Shield tokens). This means it can present an annoying conundrum for opponents, especially if they have few units on the board. On the other hand, opponents with a large board may find it easy to soak indirect damage.
The upside of indirect damage is that, since the opponent gets to decide where it goes, indirect damage cards have somewhat more damage than equivalents that do “standard damage”. For example, take a look at this Red Squadron Y-Wing:
Compared to the classic Green Squadron A-Wing, this Y-Wing does its extra damage indirectly rather than as part of its attack. However, in return that damage is higher — three indirect damage rather than Raid 2. Additionally, there are some other cards that synergize with indirect damage — for example, equipping that Y-Wing with a Targeting Computer allows you to control where the indirect damage goes, making it very powerful indeed!
Resistance and First Order Trait Synergies
We’ve already seen several cards from the “sequels era” in Star Wars Unlimited, some of which have been very competitive (Poe Dameron, Quick to Improvise). However, these have mostly been a few named characters, and while the Resistance and First Order traits have been present in the game, they haven’t had an effect until now.
Jump to Lightspeed is going to change that with the first Resistance and First Order trait synergy cards — with cards like General Hux, No Terms, No Surrender or BB-8, Happy Beeps, it should be possible to build around these new themes. That said, I wouldn’t expect these new traits to be as strong as the classic Rebel or Imperial synergy just yet — since we haven’t had any set actually focused on the “sequels era”, there are still going to be fewer Resistance and First Order cards available compared to what you might see from other traits.
That said, it’s interesting to consider whether these new synergies might have what it takes. Personally, I think the new Captain Phasma, Chrome Dome looks like a strong villain aggro option — but I think she may have to wait for some more releases before she has enough of a First Order cardpool to go with her ability!
New Products in Jump to Lightspeed
Another new feature that Jump to Lightspeed brings to the game of Star Wars Unlimited is the new “Carbonite Edition” booster packs. These collector-oriented boosters cost significantly more than a standard booster pack, but come with fancier aesthetic treatments compared to what you would find in a regular pack — more foils, Hyperspace cards, and even increased chances to pull a Showcase. Additionally, there will be exclusive “Prestige” treatment cards only available in these boosters.
However, it’s important to note that there will be no mechanically unique cards exclusive to the Carbonite boosters. This isn’t something you need to buy in order to have a chance to get the best cards — it’s a product for collectors who want fancier aesthetic treatments. I personally plan to focus on just standard versions of cards for cheaper deckbuilding — though I do think some of those Prestige cards look pretty great!
Additionally, Jump to Lightspeed marks the first set that will not have a two-player starter. While the three sets we saw in Star Wars Unlimited’s first year all had two-player starter sets with preconstructed decks designed to face off against one another, this new set will instead feature two “Spotlight Decks” sold as separate products. The leaders featured will be Boba Fett and Han Solo, and like the old two-player starters the Spotlight Decks will feature a few cards unique to those products. However, if you like one of those leaders and not the other you will not have to buy them both together, since they are available separately.
More Events Incoming
As always with a new set for Star Wars Unlimited, there are going to be a bunch of prerelease events offering people an early crack at playing with the new cards! These events will feature an opportunity to explore the set in Limited play and will begin this coming weekend — so if you’re interested in getting an early look at the set on the table, check out your local store and see whether they have any events upcoming!
For the more competitive-minded player, Jump to Lightspeed is also going to mark the first Star Wars Unlimited set that offers some of the bigger events that FFG is incorporating into their competitive circuit. The Sector and Regional Qualifiers are going to begin during this set, so players who are hungry for larger-scale competition might want to pick up their tickets! In addition, as we’ve seen with the last two sets there will be Planetary Qualifier events on a more local scale for players looking to earn that day one buy for the Galactic Championship!
These new events will likely also mark a new and intriguing competitive meta. With the Twilight of the Republic competitive meta having been fairly interesting and a lot of new cards poised to release and shake things up, I’m excited to see what the future of the game will hold in competitive play!
Conclusion
We’ve seen some of the cool things Jump to Lightspeed has to offer, from the new Piloting and indirect damage mechanics to new types of booster packs!
Now, all this discussion can only touch on some of the key points of what Jump to Lightspeed has to offer. There are lots of cool things about the set that I haven’t had time to go into detail on, including the first leader that can deploy multiple times in a game, a card that can be played at more than three copies (and rewards you for doing so), a unit that can be played either to the ground or the space arena, and more!
I for one am very excited about this set, both thematically (I read some of those old X-Wing novels when I was a kid and Wedge is one of my favorite characters) and in terms of what new strategies and mechanics it brings to the game! With Star Wars Unlimited looking to be going strong into its first set of Year Two, it’s a great time to be playing!
