The fans have demanded more quality written content for Star Wars: Unlimited and this is undeniably written content.
Hi, I’m Evan Paul aka “Doc Velo,” a writer and editor for this little website of ours. I usually write about Star Wars: Legion but sometimes I write about Star Wars shows and sometimes I write about Gremlins 2 and one time I tricked dozens (dozens!) of people into thinking I got an early copy of the Shatterpoint minis game last year when I was actually reviewing the now-decades old Mace Windu novel. Until now all our content for Star Wars: Unlimited has been by Tower Number Nine, who has insightful commentary and actual thoughts on deckbuilding and strategy. These are not things you will find from me, so if you came looking for that stuff and don’t want to read something distracting and unhelpful then let me direct you to his articles here or his YouTube channel.
Go ahead! Please do click!
…
Ok now that all of the squares have jumped ship we can talk about the task at hand…that being, what song will you play on your phone at the start of each match to the point where it’s annoying the absolute hell out of all your opponents. You’ve likely wondered, spending hours awake at night, how you could figure out your favorite leader’s theme song without an “official” resource on such a thing. Well I have good news for you: I have a degree from Oberlin College, which has one of the most well-ranked music conservatories in the country and has launched thousands of extremely talented musicians into the worlds over its nearly two centuries of existence. And while it’s true that I majored in Neuroscience, I did have a cousin who graduated from the Conservatory and I went to a lot of free concerts. Does this mean you should trust my opinion? Scroll down to find out, the answer may surprise you! (it won’t)
I’m going to pick a song for each leader in Spark of Rebellion. Just as when I did this for Legion the last few years, I’m favoring the deeper themes over literalism. After you finish reading, the ten or so of you who aren’t complaining to my boss about the quality of content may be looking for the theme songs for the new set. Well, since it JUST released, we don’t really know what those leaders are gonna feel like in the wild, so sadly I think we’ll have to just wait a bit…don’t worry though, if this gets above average hits for me (30 or above really, this is a blog in 2024 after all) then we should be in good shape for a sequel!
Sorry for the long preamble, let’s put the needle on the start of the record disk, or whatever it is you call that part where you put the needle. Remember, Oberlin.
Boba Fett (Collecting the Bounty): “Smooth” – Rob Thomas
I’m jealous of all you youngsters who either didn’t exist yet or who barely existed when this song released in 1999. The first time you listen to it, you’re probably just appreciating the skills of Santana and groovin’ along. But then, if you made the mistake of having the radio (Note to Gen Z, this is that button on your car you don’t use because Spotify actually does it way better) on like at all for the next…decade or so after this then you were doomed to hear the damn thing so many times that The Hague was drawing up papers to bring it to justice for its crimes. Unfortunately we didn’t even realize how good we had it because only a year later we were subjected to things that were truly awful and not merely “overplayed,” such as Lifehouse, Train, and my freshman year of high school.
Like Santana’s smooth riffs, there is of course nothing bad or unreliable about the bad guy Boba leader…quite the opposite really! They both specialize in making money and making a strong push that is really only beatable if you survive until it runs out of steam. Rob Thomas is sort of the “Energy Conversion Lab” in this equation, as time went on it became even clearer (if it wasn’t so already) that he only gave the appearance of necessity when truly this song would have been just as good and probably better if they spent enough time to find someone else.
Han Solo: “Hocus Pocus” – Focus
Full disclosure: this was suggested to me by somebody I was playing on Karabast and I wasn’t thinking ahead enough to grab their name. Well, feel free to leave a comment or hit me up on Discord and I’ll edit you in for credit. It was so perfect a choice that I literally got a little mad. It’s been a month or so though so I’m finally over it.
Anyway, playing Han feels like you’re jumping all over the place but somehow after discarding half your hand and spending twenty second interludes just kinda yodeling or making mouth noises you get left with something that just…plain…rocks. This song rules. Han decks rule. The scene in Baby Driver that uses this track RULES.
Hell yeah man…yodeling.
Iden Versio: “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” – Pink Floyd
This song and the Iden blue list are both possibly the ultimate examples of a “slow burn that earns its own pace.” In both cases it takes dedication and patience just to learn to enjoy them let alone create them.
This song doesn’t have lyrics until nearly nine minutes in, one could say that this represents the turn to deploy Iden which can basically happen whenever…there’s no rush after all because her base will hover around 10 health for a damn eternity while yours slowly burns and burns until you realize you’re out of cards. At 11 minutes the sax pops in which is the most colorful part of the song, analogous to the deck introducing the one unit that actually matters (Avenger), just to ensure you don’t get too bored while you’re getting milled.
Sabine Wren: All of Kendrick Lamar’s anti-Drake tracks
I’ll show you my real “old man energy” as someone who is 38 by saying that while it’s nice that one of the members of this feud is pretty talented, I miss the premier rap feud of my youth (Nas v Jay-Z) which struck the perfect balance of both artists being extremely talented…but also which DIDN’T lead to the deaths of anyone involved as far as we know. A true win-win!
If it weren’t for the obsession of today’s media with “takes” and promoting controversy I don’t think this feud would have made it much farther than Barack Obama saying Lamar would win a rap battle against Drake (which is obviously true…also, do Drake fans think that a former US president from the same town as Lamar’s parents would really pick a Canadian in a public interview?) but then J Cole had to go and try to nudge himself into places he truly did not belong and so began two additional years (so far) of this silliness.
When it comes to the actual content though…again, there really is not any actual contest. Before I get to the part where I actually hit the accelerator on this long, drifting motion toward the way I’m going to explain how all of this relates to Star Wars cards let me just merge into the other end of this “beef”
Leia: All of Drake’s anti-Kendrick Lamar tracks
I got into the game in late March which is around the time that all the dudes making YouTube videos with titles such as “LEIA RED IS INSANE” or “IS THIS DECK BROKEN?!” realized they had egg on their face when it became abundantly clear that Sabine was just light years better than Princess/Senator/General Organa/Skywalker/Solo/Skywalker, primarily because the former could be aggressive with a wide variety of cards and wasn’t completely dependent on maintaining tempo in order to execute any portion of the game plan. There are still Leia believers out there, though I hesitate to think how they’re feeling when Sabine got multiple huge cards in Set 2 while Leia got like…a couple, and they’re better in Sabine decks anyway.
Drake, who is also in need of tempo (shockingly no amount of collaboration with J. Cole has earned him any), relies on what connections he has with Hollywood and the industry at large to maintain relevance despite being outclassed by just about anyone who has tried. Time will tell if Leia can buck the odds and stick around, but given that her natural fan base is likely to just play “the other Rebel lady’s” deck anyway I’d say the chances are about as good as Drake ever recovering the reputation he had left before the above song was released.
Brief aside: Since this is pretty relevant I want to share the article that convinced me I wanted to write for a blog some day, this hilarious page from Shea Serrano at Grantland (RIP) about how to figure out if you’d win against a variety of rappers. His bit on Drake: “He might be the kid who cries when he fights, but that’s nature at work. It’s the same as a lion roaring. When Drake is roaring tears from his eyes, that’s when it’s time to back up.” Brilliance.
Darth Vader: “For Whom the Bell Tolls”
When I did the Legion versions of these lists I often found myself defaulting to metal for Empire lists and in this case I see no reason to change for this guy at least. Like a Vader deck this song is by no means boring for the first few turns but it does wait two minutes before injecting any lyrics. After that (aka, once Vader deploys) it’s just an efficient, chugging classic. Opponents of Vader decks often see the deploy-turn ahead of time and feel the need to consider what cards they’ll need to keep in their hands to actually deal with it from the very first resourcing decision in each match. One might say…they hear a bell tolling?
Bonus points for these lyrics:
Take a look to the sky just before you die
It's the last time you will
Blackened roar, massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Which will usually mean that one of these two is on the way:
Jyn Erso:
Luke Skywalker: “Every Breath You Take” – The Police
Luke has this feeling of safety, like…”ahhhh yes, I just laid down this Obi Wan unit then I deployed my leader, attacked, and gave my sentinel a shield for free…life is good!” Then he gets waylaid and the game is essentially over thanks to one card. Luke is really popular and certainly CAN do well in the right environment but I think the sense of security from handing out shields all the time is somewhat false sometimes.
“Every Breath You Take” was also very popular. Who knows how many people out there casually listened to the lyrics and thought it was about mutual romance instead of…you know, outright stalking. My wife and I did a mental exercise once where we tried to think of Police songs that weren’t about something dark either on or below the surface. At first I said “uhhh ‘Walking on the moon’ and “Walking in your footsteps?'” Then she explained to me that the latter is about how mankind is going to “walk in the footsteps” of dinosaurs…as in, straight to our own extinction. Then I realized that my mother played that song for me all the time when I was a kid because I was big on dinosaurs. So yeah thanks for planting visions of impending annihilation in my subconscious mind mom!
Cool that there is that one nice song though!
Grand Inquisitor: “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” – Smashing Pumpkins
I was way too close to picking “Venus in Furs” or “Closer” but…I just don’t like thinking about the Grand Inquisitor that way.
Director Krennic: “Last Night” – Morgan Wallen
Krennic confuses me, and I’m not like a L337 gamer boy in SWU so this may just be my own ignorance. But like…why Krennic? Pretty much every other bad guy blue deck seems more fun and interesting. He has an interesting passive that obviously has some grit synergy but isn’t it better to have a leader like GI, Vader, or Bossk who can be more proactive about that? His leader side is certainly nothing to write home about. The character himself works well in the context of the movie he’s in (and Mendelsohn is fantastic) but like…are people buying Krennic action figures?
Similarly, this somewhat-problematic up-jumped The Voice winner managed to get this song to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 which was the first for a male country star since the 80’s. Think about that! Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, the repugnant act known as Florida Georgia Line – none of these guys achieved that…but this dude? With the unfortunate beard and haircut? I looked up the lyrics…they aren’t exactly impressive, it so happens that the website I clicked on to look at them was Genious.com and I happened to catch this gem:
Whoah – now I get it!!!
Hera: “About a Girl” – Nirvana
I remember a chat with another dude in my freshman year of high school who was convinced that Bleach is a better album than Nevermind. I didn’t even know at the time that this would be my first exposure to a “hot take,” which would soon become an unfortunately dominant force in our culture…I’m just thankful that gaming culture has largely steered clear of such things!
I’ll be honest, I usually skip this song. It’s an interesting riff on an R.E.M. style song but it’s not what Cobain was really best at. I blame Chad Channing, their original drummer, even though I have no real basis for doing so. Was the addition of Dave Grohl before Nevermind truly what put the band over the top? Yes, I think it’s obvious that Nirvana would have faded into obscurity if they didn’t replace their drummer. Am I hot-taking good?
We don’t know what Spectre cards are going to be necessary to bring Hera decks out of obscurity, but I’m sure it’ll happen eventually. Until then, Hera players will be doing an impression of “that one dude from high school” every time they take the deck out of the box.
Emperor Palpatine: “Gimme the Loot” – Notorious B.I.G.
Don’t think too hard about this, “Gimme the Loot” is the best song about robbery of all time. “Ice Ice Baby” is a close second though.
Chewbacca: The Theme Song for TaleSpin
The background to why this show even exists is pretty funny, Disney basically gave some dudes near-complete creative freedom to come up with a cartoon, and in a panic move the best they could do was “uh…Baloo makes air postal deliveries in the late 1930’s.” I’m imagining the board room when it was originally pitched, and how many blank stares he must have earned…and yet they were still like “yeah, sure, whatever.” This is also notable for featuring characters who use actual guns sometimes, a departure from the usual GI Joe/X-Men style lasers etc. that pockmarked the parent-panic 90’s. So yeah, it was TailSpin and Batman that had the courage to expose kids to realistic-ish looking guns in cartoons. Heroes all!
It’s fun enough, attracts children to it, but at the same time doesn’t try all that hard to exceed expectations. But enough about Chewbacca decks heyoooooooooooooooooooo
Thrawn: “Mastermind” – Deltron 3030
There’s a small group of knowing fans who want to experience something that’s not mainstream, but pretty cool, kinda spacey, and a little dense. What they’re into won’t be a huge hit or anything but those who know, just know man. That’s Thrawn. and that’s both of the Deltron albums. And come on…this is the best song on either one and it’s called Mastermind? Sometimes it’s ok to be on the nose.
IG-88: “My Band” – D12
There’s a lot of dudes here but only one of ’em matters and he really doesn’t hang around very long.
The song by the way is a “parody” of the idea that D12 doesn’t matter when Eminem isn’t around but I feel like everyone else is like “oh…yikes…”
Chirrut Imwe: “When Doves Cry” – Prince
Prince wrote this song, played all the instruments, and then did all the mixing. He was the musical version of an invincible blind dude with 3 lightsabers and a profound sense of devotion who wouldn’t even die right away when you finally got him to zero. He’s gonna be even more of a monster when more cool attachments come out and-
Oh, nm.
Cassian: “Stay With Me” – Miki Matsubara
I’m not a card game expert or nothin’ but it seems like card draw becomes a better mechanic when there’s more cards out there to really help make sure your deck is so specialized that it’ll basically always help you and be worth the gold to use his ability. I’ve already heard rumblings of powerful Cassian decks with the release of Set 2 so I think Cassian has a lot of potential to improve over time.
The first song I thought of to exemplify that is this banger that first became popular worldwide (it had been a minor hit in Japan when it first aired) in 2020…even though it’s a Japanese disco song from 1979. Who knows how it happened exactly, but of course…a lot of people suddenly had a lot of time on their hands that year. Take a listen if you haven’t heard it, it’s a genuine banger, honestly one of the catchiest tunes I’ve ever heard. Fair warning though, if you’re having a bad day or a prone to get sad to bummer stories…do not look up what happened to the singer. I know you’re gonna do it now, but I did warn you.
Grand Moff Tarkin: “Spring” Vivaldi
I like Tarkin lists. He just isn’t quite there yet, which is simply really…we just need a more robust selection of Empire units, it’s gonna happen.
So why Spring? Part of the reason I think the “4 Seasons” works so well is…well, if you’ll allow me another hot take let me do a first for Star Wars gaming blogs and rank each of the seasons, from WORST to BEST:
- Spring
- Summer
- Autumn
- Freakin’ Winter, fam!
Notice that? Each one is better than the last. Spring is obviously pretty but it’s so fanciful and effete, it’s like herbal tea with a little too much sugar in it served besides crumpets and strawberries. YAWN. By the time you get to Winter though, it gets ill as hell. Now, I’m going to stop you in your tracks because I know what you’re thinking. “Oh he’s like, ranking the 4 Seasons, is he trying to make me think he’s cultured? Just lame bro.”
Nah, far from it. I had heard of the 4 Seasons when I was in high school, but you know what actually got me to listen? It was this rad mix of Winter I heard when I was playing Dance Dance Revolution, at home, alone. I may be lame, but I’ll be damned if you aren’t gonna realize it for the right reasons.
Thanks for reading my hot takes!
I hope you enjoyed my first Star Wars Unlimited article! If you want to tell me why I’m wrong feel free to do so in the comments or whatever socials you caught this on. Please? We need the traffic we get from controversy. THE TAKES MUST FLOW!!!
