Level One - Lesson 12

Comprehensive Rules Section 9, 10, 11 & 12: Formats

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Hello there and welcome back to the Judge Program for Star Wars™: Unlimited - Level One certification track lessons.

As always, I’m your host Jonah, and today we’ll be taking the first step out of the Comprehensive Rules and starting to look just a bit at policy and logistics. We’re still in the Comprehensive Rules, but we’ll be going over sections nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, which cover formats, and different ways to play the game.

As I mentioned back in lesson one, “rules” covers the comprehensive rules, while policy is discussions about how players interact with the game and the rules - and that’s mostly covered in the tournament regulations and master event documents, but it’s touched upon lightly in these sections. Logistics is the operations of running an event, and particularly the rules for draft and sealed play dive into that a bit more.

Also, going back to lesson two, from the very first lines of the comprehensive rules, this document covers two-player formats, so some sequencing and rules may not fit perfectly for multi-player formats, but that’s what these sections are about.

Formats are defined by player count and deckbuilding method. Any constructed format is one where players build decks ahead of time from cards in their collection. Both Premier and Twin Suns are constructed formats. A limited format is one where players receive unopened packs and build their deck from a pool of cards derived from the opened product.

Two-Player Constructed Formats

Without further ado, let's dive into section nine: two-player constructed formats.

This really only covers premier, which is the format most players will be the most familiar with, so there shouldn’t be any surprises here.

Premier is a two-player constructed format. A premier deck must include

A premier deck cannot include more than three copies of any unit, event, or upgrade. Cards with the same name but different subtitles or other differences in attributes are not considered copies (as covered in 8.6).

Limited Formats

Okay - so section nine is relatively short, but that’s in part because the rules fundamentally focus on two-player constructed formats.

We’re going to take a look at limited formats next, which have a bit more complexity to them.

As mentioned in the overview, in a limited format, the players build their deck during the event, using cards they opened from a specific and limited amount of product. This allows players to play on a more even playing field - a player who has been playing since the game’s release has access to the same number and type of cards as a player who just started playing today. Deck strength isn’t correlated to how much a player is invested into the game, which can be encouraging for newer players.

It also focuses on the deckbuilding aspect of the game. While constructed formats can be more thoroughly analyzed, in limited formats, players have constrained choices, and it’s dependent more on the player’s ability to evaluate cards and synergies personally than what the broader community is able to determine.

With all that said, there are two sub-formats: Sealed and Draft. Both Sealed and Draft have the same deckbuilding rules. A limited deck must include:

A limited deck can have any number of copies of a given card, as long as they were all opened as part of the same card pool or drafted.

So what determines the card pool?

Well, in sealed, it’s relatively straightforward - a player opens six packs, and all the cards opened, including the six leaders are part of the player’s card pool for that event.

Draft is a little bit more complicated - each player receives three packs and opens all of them, being careful to keep the packs separated and to not look at any of the cards in the pack. Each pack will have a double-sided leader on one end of the pack, and a card with the SWU card back on the other end.

Still keeping the packs separately, each player will take the leaders from their three packs, and draft them as a pack, passing right. After each player has added three leaders to their draft pool in this way, players draft packs. The first and third pack are passed to the left, while the second is passed to the right.

To draft a pack, whether it’s a traditional pack or a set of leaders, a player looks at the cards, selects one, adds it to their draft pool, and passes the rest in the specified direction.

Throughout the process, except for the double-faced leader cards, all cards, whether they are in a pack that is being looked at, being passed, or part of a player’s draft pool should only be visible to one player at a time.

Every card in a pack should be drafted, except for the common bases and tokens, which are set aside.

Players may view the cards in their draft pool during the drafting process but must keep them separate from any other set of cards and must not show them to other players.

Once players have their decks freshly built, they play matches following normal tournament structure.

Playing With More Than Two Players

Star Wars: Unlimited is a game designed to be played with your friends, and sometimes you’ll want to play a multiplayer game. As we’ve discussed throughout these lessons, the rules are designed to cover one-vs-one play, and don’t necessarily encompass multiplayer. Section 11 has clarifications that touch on a few broad rules clarifications and modifications to allow for multiplayer games.

When setting up the game, the player with the initiative makes the first decision, as usual, and then subsequent decisions happen in clockwise order. This is also the sequence of play during the action phase. Also, rather than requiring two players to pass consecutively, all players must pass consecutively to move from the action phase into the regroup phase.

It also becomes difficult or impossible to line up each player’s ground arena with each other player’s ground arena, so each player has a portion of their play area dedicated to both the ground and space arena and units are still able to attack only other units in the same arena. A notable clarification is that Sentinel only affects attacks against that player, so if one player has a Sentinel unit and another player does not, you can still attack non-Sentinel units or the base of that player.

Once a player’s base has no remaining HP, that player is eliminated and cannot take actions. All cards they own are removed from play, and any cards they controlled, but owned by other players are placed into their owners’ discard piles. These cards are not defeated and will not trigger abilities. Any abilities controlled by that player that are waiting to resolve will not resolve. Any lasting effect or delayed effect created by that player earlier in the game will remain active, and the remaining players must resolve it as completely as possible. Sometimes it will ask that the eliminated player take action, which can not be done.

An eliminated player cannot be brought back into the game - their base cannot be healed and they cannot be affected by or involved in the resolution of any abilities. If the eliminated player controlled the initiative counter, it becomes available and can be claimed, even if it was claimed earlier in the round.

There are no rules that govern player communication outside those that apply for two-player formats. Players may discuss potential actions, open information, and hidden information that they had access to without limitations. However, any deals or agreements made between players are not binding.

Finally, an “opponent” is any one of the other players in the game, even if the players have an agreement. If an ability affects a single opponent, the player who played or controlled that effect chooses which opponent it affects.

Twin Suns (Multiplayer Format)

Twin Suns is a multiplayer format with a deckbuilding twist.

A Twin Suns deck cannot include more than one copy of any card, including leaders. Cards with the same name but different subtitles or other differences in attributes are not considered copies (as covered in 8.6). A player can control more than one copy of any given card through game effects, as long as their deck did not start the game with multiple copies.

The two leaders, as mentioned must share either the heroism or villainy aspect, but must not be copies of each other. All aspect icons from both leaders are provided to the deck. Finally, each leader is independent of the other - they can be exhausted, deployed, and defeated separately.

The only difference in setting up a game of Twin Suns compared to any other game is players are placing two leaders into the base zone instead of one, and the blast counter and plan counter are added to the pool, alongside the initiative counter.

The blast and plan counter can be taken as a player's action of “Claim a counter” for the turn. As with the initiative, only one player each round may claim a specific counter, and after claiming a counter, that player passes for the rest of the round. This means that a player cannot claim more than one counter in a round, but if they had the initiative from a previous round, they could still claim Blast or Plan.

Furthermore, players are not allowed to pass, unless they have taken a counter or if there are no counters left to take. They can only play a card, use an action ability, claim a counter, or attack with a unit.

When the Blast counter is claimed, that player deals one damage to each opponent’s base. When the Plan counter is claimed, that player draws one card, then places 1 card from their hand onto the bottom of their deck.

Any player who eliminates another player - generally by being the last player to damage the eliminated player’s base - heals 5 damage from their base. Once any player has been eliminated, the game ends after the end of the regroup phase for the round. This means that any lasting effects will expire and delayed effects will occur. After they have resolved, the player or players with the most remaining HP on their base win the game.

Okay! That’s the rules! We’ve covered nearly fifty pages of rules, and you now should have a broad and deep understanding of the key mechanics underpinning Star Wars: Unlimited. Of course, now that means it is time to jump into policy and logistics, with our next lesson exploring Tournament Regulations! As always, if you have any questions, comments, or insights, be sure to join the Judge Community Discord and make your voice heard. Until next time, good luck and have fun!

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