Judge Apprentice - Lesson 4
Card Anatomy and Card Types
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Hello there and welcome back to the Judge Program for the Star Wars™: Unlimited - Apprentice Lesson Track.
As always, I’m your host Jonah, and today we’ll be talking about the little pieces of cardboard that make the game great. We’re talking about the cards, how they’re formatted, and what rules are inherent in the various types of cards.
Today we’re going to cover section game concepts: cards, card anatomy, and card types. Some of the questions we’ll be answering are basic - what is “exhausted and ready”? But others are a bit more in-depth. For example, do you know the difference between a leader unit being defeated and a regular unit? What about a normal upgrade compared to a token upgrade being defeated?
There are six card types, and a single card can have multiple types. They are Bases, Leaders, Units, Upgrades, Events and Tokens. Each of these card types has rules inherent in the type, which we’ll get to later. Resources are not a card type, but any card can become a resource if it is facedown in the Resource Zone.
Card Status
Cards can have a variety of statuses, such as ready, exhausted, face-up, and face-down. These are temporary qualities of the cards and generally have a physical indicator as well as some accompanying rules.A card is “ready” when it upright, and exhausted when turned ninety degrees. All non-leader units and resources enter play exhausted. Upgrades, even though they are in play, are neither exhausted nor readied.
Exhausted cards become ready during the Ready step of the regroup phase or when otherwise instructed to, like with Chewbacca.
Ready cards become exhausted through various means - generally, as part of an attack, when using an action ability with the exhaust symbol (↷) as a cost, or as part of the resolution of an ability. A card must be ready to attack or use an exhaust ability. Similarly, if a card is already exhausted, you can’t make an attack.
Cards that are ready can be chosen for an effect that instructs you to ready a unit, but the card won’t change orientation and it won’t be considered to have been readied for “if you do” effects. The same is true for exhausted cards.
Face-up and face-down are statuses that have the most impact on Leaders - they have two sides with card information on them and function differently depending on which side is face-up. The Leader side is visible while in the base zone, and the face down Leader Unit side is visible while it’s in an arena. Resources are also considered facedown, and none of their front-face attributes are considered (unless an ability explicitly says it is active while a resource). Captured cards are also face-down, and their attributes are also not considered.
Defeating Cards
As much as playing cards is a key part of the game, so is getting them out of play. Each type has it’s own rules about how they’re defeated, but there’s a lot of overlap and similar mechanics at play.This might sound silly, but only cards that are in play can be defeated. Cards in hand can’t be - if they’re placed into the discard pile, that’s discarding them, not defeating them, so it won’t trigger “when defeated” abilities.
Let’s get into the specifics of how each card type is defeated.
A base is defeated when the damage on it is equal to or greater than it’s hit points. When a base is defeated, it’s owner loses the game.
A unit is defeated when the damage on it is equal to or greater than it’s hit points or when an ability defeats it directly. Notably, if a unit’s hit points are reduced to zero or less and it has no damage on it, the unit will be defeated, as zero damage is equal to (or greater) than it’s hit points. When a leader unit is defeated, it leaves play and is placed face-up in the base zone, exhausted. When a non-leader unit is defeated, it is placed face up in it’s owner’s discard pile.
When a unit is defeated, it’s abilities are no longer considered active. If, for example, a General Dodonna is defeated, each Rebel unit controlled by that player immediately loses the +1/+1 bonus, which may cause other units to be defeated.
Delayed effects are independent of the unit that created them, and may still be active. If you attack with a Zorii Bliss, and she’s defeated, you’ll still have to discard a card at the start of the regroup phase.
Furthermore, a unit that is defeated loses all abilities and modifiers it was granted by effects. This means that if you control a Wedge Antilles and your Alliance X-Wing is defeated, while it is in the discard pile, it won’t have Ambush or the +1/+1 granted by his ability.
Upgrades are defeated when the unit they are attached to leaves play or when an ability defeats it directly. When an upgrade is defeated, it is placed face-up in its owner’s discard pile.
Resources are defeated when an ability defeats it directly. They are placed face-up in their owner’s discard pile. Because resources have no abilities, types, or aspects, they won’t trigger “when defeated” abilities, whether their own or on another card, unless those abilities are checked to see if a resource is defeated.
Tokens follow the same rules as their associated other card type, but are set aside, out of the game, instead of being put into discard piles.
Card Anatomy
Okay - let’s dive into the different elements of the card.Every card has at least a name, type, traits, and credit. The other elements that can appear on any card are subtitle, cost, aspects, and text box. Arena type and power only appear on units, hit points appear only on units and bases, and power and hit point modifiers only appear on upgrades. Card types have different layouts, as you can see pictured below.
All of these elements except the credit line are considered attributes of a card that have meaning in the rules and can be referred to either by the rules or other cards.
Name and Subtitle
For purposes of identification, each card’s name is considered to be the English name. Notably, names aren’t exclusive - even this early in the game, there are multiple versions of the likes of Boba Fett and the Millenium Falcon, as well as many other named characters. These cards are disambiguated from each other with their other attributes - Green Leader Boba and Yellow Leader Boba are understood to be different cards. Cards can also have a sub-title, in case there are two cards that have enough in common to make the distinction more difficult. Cards that have a star next to their name are unique - a player can’t have more than one copy of a unique card in play at a time - but that’s something we’ll get into a bit more in a later lesson. A card is considered to be a “copy” if all of the attributes are the same, including subtitles, so you can have a Chewbacca, Walking Carpet, Chewbacca, Loyal Companion, and Chewbacca, Pykesbane all in play at the same time.All cards have their name at the top, but upgrades also have their name at the bottom, so you can identify them even if the physical card is placed under the unit it is attached to.
Traits
Traits carry no rules baggage on their own. There isn’t anything about how Rebels function or Vehicles - they exist so that other cards can refer to the class as a whole. A card can have any number of traits.Aspects
There are six Aspects in Star Wars: Unlimited, each with a color associated with them. While the color carries no rules meaning players will frequently refer to aspects by color instead of the aspect name.The aspects and their colors are Vigilance - Blue, Command - Green, Cunning - Yellow, Aggression - Red, Heroism - White, and Villainy - Black.
Leaders and Bases, which have their aspects in the upper right and are selected during deck construction, provide their aspects to a deck. Other cards require you to have those aspects provided or else pay a penalty of two resources for each missing aspect. If you have Heroic, Command and Cunning, a card that has the Vigilance and Heroism aspects costs two additional resources because you are missing Vigilance, and a card that has double Command also costs two additional resources because you are missing the second Command. Finally, a Villainy and Vigilance card would cost four additional resources because you are missing both of those aspects.
Some cards have no aspects - these cards are considered Neutral.
Costs
The cost is located in the upper left of the card and indicates the number of resources required to play it, or, in the case of leaders, the number of resources you must control before you can deploy them with their epic action.Costs can be modified by abilities and/or the aspect penalty, which was previously mentioned. When playing a card, all modifiers must be accounted for.
To determine the final cost of a card, begin with the printed cost, then add any cost increases, and then any cost decreases. Costs can not be reduced below zero.
If a player is instructed to play a card “for free” it bypasses all cost increases and decreases, including the aspect penalty. Similarly, when an ability refers to a card’s cost, it looks at the card’s printed cost and also does not take into account increases or decreases.
That means, if you’re playing a Heroic/Command/Cunning deck and play U-Wing Reinforcement, you would be able to play Count Dooku, Darth Tyranus because his printed cost is seven. However, even if you had a cost reduction effect applying to it, you wouldn’t be able to play Reinforcement Walker, because its cost is still eight.
Types
Types, as discussed before have rules baggage associated with how and when you can play them, and what actions you can take with them, as well as how they leave play. All cards have a type, indicated in the upper left.Bases: Bases start the game in play in the base zone, and never leave it. They take damage when they’re attacked or dealt damage directly, and when a player’s base is defeated, its owner loses. Bases cannot be healed beyond their initial hitpoints (or HP) value.
Leaders: Leaders also start the game in play in the base zone on the leader side. Only the face-up side is considered to be active at any given time, and the abilities that the Leader side and the Leader-Unit side have may be different.
Leaders are deployed using their Epic Action - like other Epic Actions, these can only be used once per game. Like units, if a Leader’s HP is reduced to zero or is defeated directly, it is returned to the Base Zone, leader side face-up. Unlike units, Leaders enter play ready. Furthermore, if a leader leaves play or changes control for any reason, it’s defeated instead.
Units: Units are played from hand for their cost, and are placed into the appropriate arena - either ground or space, exhausted. They remain in play until they’re defeated, at which point they’re placed in their owner’s discard pile. While ready, they are able to attack enemy units and bases.
Upgrades: Upgrades are played from hand for their cost, and are attached to a unit. Some upgrades specify types or traits that the unit must have - these are only checked when the upgrade is played. For example, if you play Legal Authority on your Reinforcement Walker, and your opponent later plays Choose Sides on it, the Legal Authority remains attached.
Upgrades can be placed on friendly or enemy units, and there is no limit to the number of upgrades that can be on a single unit. The player who played the upgrade continues to control it, even if they don’t control the unit it is attached to.
All upgrades have a power and HP modifier (although some upgrades have modifier values of 0), which are added to the attached unit’s power and HP. These modifiers are cumulative.
Some upgrades give abilities to the attached unit, using the phrasing “attached unit gains...” These abilities are considered to be abilities of the unit they are attached to and can be interacted with directly. For example, if you played Vambrace Grappleshot on a Gideon Hask and your opponent played Force Lightning, Gideon would not have the on-attack ability from the Vambrace. The power and HP from the Vambrace would still apply.
Some upgrades have abilities that affect the attached unit but do not grant it that ability. For example, if your opponent played Entrench on your Gideon Hask, even if you played Force Lightning on Gideon, it still wouldn’t be able to attack bases, because Entrench isn’t granting an ability to the unit, instead it has an ability that applies to the unit.
Events: Events are played from the hand for their cost, are placed into their owner’s discard pile, and then their ability resolves. An event that affects cards in a player’s discard pile can affect itself.
You can play an event even if it’s resolution does nothing to alter the game state, because the card changing zones as part of its resolution does change the game state.
Tokens: Tokens always have a second type - and they follow the rules of the second type, with two exceptions. First, tokens are never played - they are simply put into play. Second, when they’re defeated or would leave play, they are set aside, out of the game.
Arena
Only Units have an Arena - they’re either Ground or Space. When the first unit of the game is played, its owner places it either to the right or left of their Base Zone, and that part of the in-play area becomes either the Ground Arena or Space Arena, depending on what unit was played. That side of the gameplay area will be that Arena for both players and the entirety of the game, even if there are no units in play. All ground units are played into the ground arena and all space units are played into the space arena.HP is how much damage can be placed on a unit before it is defeated. Its remaining HP is its total HP including modifiers minus damage marked on the unit. If a card is healed, it cannot be healed above its total modified HP. For example, if you have a Krayt Dragon with four damage marked on it, playing Redemption and removing all of the damage will only damage the Redemption for four. You can’t choose to remove non-existent damage.
Upgrades have Power and HP modifiers, located to the left and right of the card at the bottom, below the text box. To reiterate what we said when talking about the upgrade type, these modifiers are simply added to the printed power and HP of the unit they’re attached to, and are cumulative with other modifiers.
Textbox
Finally, we get to the most powerful and dynamic part of the card, the textbox. This has the abilities of the card, which we’ll explore in detail in a future lesson. This includes action, constant, event, keyword, and triggered abilities as well as other effects.Sometimes there will be italicized text in parentheses - this is called reminder text, and its purpose is a shorthand version of the rules to help you remember how the ability functions. As mentioned in our last lesson, reminder text is an exception to the golden rule that Cards override the rules. As mentioned previously, the reminder text on Sentinel is incomplete. If you’re unsure of how a mechanic works, rather than relying on the reminder text, verify your understanding with the comprehensive rules.