There has been significant speculation across the Star Wars Unlimited player base related to the upcoming first rotation of premier legal sets, what it might do to the meta, what cards rotating out of Premier format would be missed the most, and whether or not any of those rotating cards should get printed again in upcoming sets.

We’re digging in to discuss and speculate what may be happening, plus discussing if it’ll be a good idea.

Rotation

The first two years of Star Wars Unlimited saw cards from Spark of Rebellion such as Resupply, Surprise Strike, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and other staples being used over and over in Premier format meta decks regardless of what new cards were printed.  

Most of the sets released after the first one seemed to add things iteratively and didn’t completely change the landscape.  Yes, full new deck types emerged such as Force based decks due to the mechanics added in Legends of the Force.  However, there hasn’t been much of a meta shakeup in a long time that was not associated with card suspensions.  

Rotation will finally force a shakeup, whether we like it or not.  We’ll be able to experience the game in a new way without the availability of those staple cards from early sets that have shaped deck archetypes since the initial release.

Attainability

The vast majority of cards are currently inexpensive on the secondary market.  One could even argue that all of them are not very costly compared to other games.  Spark of Rebellion Darth Vader is a $13 card with well over 100 listings on TCG Player.  

From an access standpoint, none of the cards that would be reprinted seem unattainable.  Even if the upcoming Eternal format, which allows cards from all the sets, gets used in high level competitive events, there does not seem like many cards’ costs on a secondary market, if any, would price out a new player from trying that format.  Unopened product still exists for the first three sets and often under MSRP.

Why Reprints?

Meta shakeup or attainability… either way, at this early stage in the life of a CCG, what benefits does it bring anyone to reprint cards that are still perfectly attainable and that we JUST lost from the Premier format?  The meta will be shaken up during rotation so any amount of reprints goes contrary to that.  Is a shake up of the meta shortly after a rotation shakeup a good idea if it’s done by reintroducing many of the cards that defined the early sets?

There is certainly precedence for this in other games.  Magic the Gathering has released multiple Masters sets.  Magic Masters 25, for example, consisted of iconic cards from across Magic’s history, many of which were not easily attained by newer players or had been out of print for a decade.  Yu-Gi-Oh has the Legendary Collection, again for the 25th anniversary.  Those are after 25 years worth of cards being printed and played.  With Star Wars Unlimited we are of course dealing with a much younger game.

We have seen examples, in the short history of SWU, of FFG trying to take the path that Magic the Gathering has taken with rotations, Collectors boosters and now potential reprints.  Should FFG have followed the path of Magic the Gathering or forged their own path? 

Maybe the reprints could be more interesting?  Perhaps including new art for previous cards could generate some excitement for them, for a time.  They could also include harder to find variants. For example, they could create Prestige variants for older cards, like Luke Skywalker.  We’ve seen the level of excitement Prestige cards generate though, so that may just be short lived. 

Vague FFG Comments

Multiple players have commented on conversations with FFG staff either casually or during designer duels as to hints being dropped that something might happen with reprinted cards.

Conversation tends to go like this…

Player: Those double aspect legendary cards from Spark of Rebellion that are named for their aspect; It would be a shame if those were no longer playable in Premier.
FFG Person: Yeah.  We should probably do something about that.

If anything was going to get reprinted, that series of four cards seems like they’d be right up there in the list of cards that help define each aspect’s flavor and play style.  Also seems a little odd that new artwork was approved and printed on prize wall cards for these and only used for a very short time.

A big question becomes when would FFG “do something about that”?

A Lawless Time

Any upcoming expansion set becomes an ideal opportunity to reprint something.  We’ve already seen it in extremely limited numbers as cards like ISB Agent and of course Imperial Probe Droid get slotted into additional sets to fill out the common card ranks with existing ones that already fit the flavor of a particular new set.

The preview article for A Lawless Time on the official Star Wars: Unlimited website says that there will be over 260 new cards.  The exact same phrasing was used in the Secrets of Power preview article.  “With over 260 new cards…”.  Legends of the Force was the same.  Jump to Lightspeed used similar language but the number 250, same with Twilight of the Republic and Shadows of the Galaxy.

It’s probably safe to say then that the number of cards from the 2024 sets that will be reprinted in A Lawless Time will not be significantly different from what we’ve seen in prior sets.  The reprints may only be specific minor cards that fit the theme and help round out the set.

Icons

One of the upcoming products that was announced at PAX Unplugged was an upcoming product called Icons.  

“A mini set that is a return to core game mechanics designed as an entry point for new players that focuses on some of the most iconic characters, ships, and locations within the Star Wars galaxy.”

Details were extremely vague, so a lot of this is speculation at this point, but they did infer that it would consist of some number of pre-existing cards that would be reprinted from earlier sets.  This could likely take the form of all of the cards we considered “staples” from the first 2 years of SWU.  This could be cards such as Resupply, Daring Raid and maybe even the dual aspects legendaries from Spark of Rebellion.

It’s also possible that Icons will just be another two player starting set similar to the Hoth box.  In fact the Hoth preview article states “This two-player introductory experience is the perfect entry point into the game.”  This is extremely similar to the language used to describe Icons given the “entry point for new players” part of the quote from PAX Unplugged.

Maybe it will be the older mechanics with new cards, as they say “…return to core game mechanics …” and don’t specify a return of older cards.  Players would probably appreciate that as one of the biggest complaints has been not reusing previous mechanics, such as Smuggle.

Wrap Up

A Lawless Time does not seem like the prime target to reprint significant numbers of 2024 cards.  Plus those cards will have just left Premier and the post-rotation format will need a chance to breathe and develop.

We also don’t know if bringing 2024 cards back into Premier format is the true intention of Icons.  Perhaps it will only be Eternal legal, which brings us back to the attainability argument from earlier.  There will, no doubt, be plenty of speculation about what Icons will bring to the game, until we get some solid information from FFG.  Our Porg Speculation Department is absolutely aflutter with guesses and cookies.

The safe bet is that at some point, likely in 2026, we will see some amount of cards reprinted as FFG does something about it.  Who knows, maybe those Spark of Rebellion double colored aspect legendaries will be the next convention exclusive.