It’s hard to believe that Star Wars: Unlimited first hit the scene just two years ago, and since its debut, the game has continued to evolve and grow by leaps and bounds. From Spark of Rebellion to Ashes of the Empire and beyond, Star Wars: Unlimited has changed in many ways while still staying true to Fantasy Flight Games’ core vision, and that vision is embodied by the Star Wars: Unlimited Galactic Championship happening this weekend in Las Vegas. ComicBook had the chance to speak to Fantasy Flight Games Co-Head of Studio and VP of TCGs Jim Cartwright and Senior Design Lead of TCGs Danny Schaeferall all about the Galactic Championship and why it’s so important for the game, but we also talked about how the earliest decisions continue to pay off down the line, the health of the game, that ever-debated TCG bubble, and a tease of the upcoming 50th Anniversary celebration.
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Before we get to all that though, let’s discuss this weekend’s Galactic Championship, which is the second edition of the event after last year’s launch. This is the largest Star Wars: Unlimited event around, and it pays off a year’s worth of thrilling matches through Organized Play. Now the best players in the world will battle for the title of Galactic Champion, and the team took a few lessons from last year’s launch to make this year’s event even better.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the things that we took from that is, it was our first major event of that scale. We’ve obviously been involved in a lot of different events, like attaching ourselves to other conventions, experiences like that, but running an entire event from top to bottom, our first year at the Galactic Championship was amazing, but we were able to come back out of that and really learn from experience now what the fans were excited about,” Cartwright said. “Where they wanted to dial into. You know, how they’re engaging with the game, prize wall experience, side event experience. What the collect and connect spaces look like in addition to the compete, and really kind of dial that into what we saw really got most of the attention from last year’s event. So we’re excited to be able to kind of put forth our evolution of that as we look forward to this year.”
The Galactic Championship Is For All Star Wars: Unlimited Fans, Not Just Competitive Players
While the competition is incredibly important, and there will be one person leaving with the title of Galactic Champion, Fantasy Flight also wants this event to be a true celebration of the game and all who enjoy it. If you aren’t playing in the main tournament, there are still plenty of reasons to venture out to Vegas, and if the family is playing the game, this is the perfect event for that as well.
“Absolutely. That actually is kind of the entire ethos behind the Galactic Championship, is that it is not just about the tournament or the competition. It really is a celebration of the game for fans from all different directions, whether you are a casual player, whether you are a hyper competitor, whether you just want to hang out and meet other fans of the game, play casual formats like Twin Suns, collect cool Star Wars: Unlimited merchandise, check out prize wall collectibility things, engage with the newest stuff from Gamegenic, it’s got something for everyone,” Cartwright said.
“There is a Compete section of the show, and then there is also an entire section dedicated to Connect. When we say the phrase Connect, Collect, Compete, that is done so in the way that we kind of make from top to bottom the most important aspects of the game and the experiences around it,” Cartwright said. “And the Galactic Championship is no different, where we think that this is an opportunity for fans to connect not just with each other, but with the actual game itself.”
“You know, panels from people who work on the game from different areas, being able to meet some of your favorite artists in the artist alley. Being able to bring people who have never experienced Star Wars: Unlimited to the show and be able to learn it on site through learning in our beginner zone,” Cartwright said.
“We’ve got spaces for families to engage and just kind of be part of the show experience, where we can really show the game off to a wide range of audience ages that we built from the ground up this idea that we have a game that, at its surface, we think is a great entry point for TCGs. Just finding a way to engage those younger audiences to realize like, oh, hey, I can actually play this,” Cartwright said. “And to your point, we hear a lot about the family dynamic of parents and children going together to these events, and nothing makes us happier than when we hear that.”
“Then on the Collect side, we also dial into all of the kind of unique, exclusive content that you can only get by showing up at the Galactic Championship. Whether it’s prize wall cards, whether it’s some of the pin passport stuff that we’ve got going on. There’s just a lot of really cool ways to engage with the game and the IP in a way that I think makes it so much more than just a tournament,” Cartwright said.
How Star Wars: Unlimited Institutes Changes and Lessons Learned Along The Way
Like any Trading Card Game, Star Wars: Unlimited has grown and evolved in any number of ways since it first launched, and that goes far beyond the core gameplay experience of the game itself. Whether it’s product scarcity, fan feedback, or organized play, the game has continued to adapt and change based on those factors and more.
“I think The product availability side of things is something that, you know, we had a conversation back when the game launched and we talked about the scarcity versus getting it into players’ hands, and ultimately for us, a big part of what we wanted to do, again, fan-focused, is making sure that the people who want to play Star Wars: Unlimited have the ability to play Star Wars: Unlimited,” Cartwright said. “And we’ve started to dial in what that means, what that looks like.”
“One of the things that is sometimes lost in some of the conversations is we have the ability to affect something maybe 2 years out. Like this year, 2026, starting with A Lawless Time and continuing on into Ashes of the Empire, these pivots, these adjustments to the products in terms of what’s in the packs, in terms of how that experience feels to open those, to think about the power level of those, of those cards. All of that is a direct correlation to when the game launched and the changes and choices we made then,” Cartwright said.
“So that’s kind of the runway for timing of adjusting and changing and thinking about that, and so we take feedback. We want to hear how these things are being received by our players, by our fans. And we absolutely take that into account as we think about the future, about, you know, how it feels to open a pack, about how many packs are available, and that’s something that we take really seriously because we understand that, we can’t make a game just for making a game’s sake and certainly not just for ourselves. This has to be something that we grow together as a community,” Cartwright said.
“TCGs are inherently such a community-focused experience, and we recognize that we have to be willing to, you know, it’s a two-way conversation. I think we’ve heard tons of feedback from passionate fans, and we are doing everything we can to make adjustments as we go, and I think where the game is now is certainly, you know, grown. I think if you would’ve told me, either go back to 6 years ago when we started this conversation, or only 2 years and, you know, a couple of months to March of ’24, and there is no world in which we could have expected the level of success that we’ve had and the kind of overwhelming support from the community in terms of how well the game has been received. Now it’s about making sure that we dial in to make sure the future is continuing to be bright, and we are planning the future, let me tell you,” Cartwright said.
The Journey of Star Wars: Unlimited Started Well Before Spark of Rebellion
While Spark of Rebellion was the official launch of Star Wars: Unlimited, the development of the game started far earlier, and as Cartwright explains, those early decisions are in many ways still making huge impacts in the game’s success and growth, and the Galactic Championship and Organized Play as a whole are definitely included in that.
“I think the Galactic Championship is a great example of something where there was a moment of decision that needed to be made when we talked about the kind of experience we would want for our organized play. There were discussions in early days of like, well, we can kind of just keep it standard, what people expect, you know, tap into some kind of competitive tour. You end up following along that trajectory in a kind of expected way of growing challenges or sizes of events, and then you can culminate at some kind of major championship event that is exclusively and specifically about the competition,” Cartwright said. “And that would have changed the entire scope of the way we built organized play, the entire way we thought about organized play, and ultimately the way that we thought about the game as a whole.”
“I think you have to make decisions along the path that decide, is something in this product for more than just a competitive player? And if the answer to that is yes, you have to make different choices about everything. Pack composition, the power levels of various things, making sure that favorite characters are as part of the experience in a way that when it’s about competition, it’s really just about the balancing and dialing that in, which we also consider incredibly important,” Cartwright said.
“The Galactic Championship, making the choice early in R&D phase- we’re talking January of 2021, but then we’ve checked in on that every year as we’ve gone along, having to make the choice of like, no, this is a fan event. This is a celebration of the game. This is supposed to be something that, regardless of skill level, all the things we kind of already talked about a little bit, but like none of those things should prevent somebody from wanting to attend the Galactic Championship. Making that decision early changed the way that we have kind of produced content. I mean, making sure that we have different formats, right? Twin Suns being baked into the game, an important aspect that wouldn’t have probably been there if our entire focus was exclusively competition,” Cartwright said.
The Health of Star Wars: Unlimited, Dealing with Competition, and the TCG Bubble
While Star Wars: Unlimited is doing well, the competition has never been greater in the TCG space, and more competitors are entering the genre every year. It’s an incredibly hot market and a crowded one, but there are several elements and decisions that Cartwright feels set up Star Wars: Unlimited to remain healthy and succeed.
“I think one of the things to your kind of observation of, we made decisions that we knew weren’t going to pay off in a short-term way,” Cartwright said. “The choices of baking in draft and sealed from the beginning, baking in a casual format that we built from the ground up alongside the rest of the game. Thinking about rotation, Eternal Format, all of those things were from essentially day one.”
“Again, our R&D wrap-up of most of these concepts came in January of 2021 as we built what is the vision and pillars and foundations of the game. I think what that does is it sets us up for long-term success in a way that, these weren’t decisions made in a vacuum or in a moment of reaction,” Cartwright said. “The benefit of being able to think through these things, have such kind of a long runway to make sure that what we’re delivering is what we want it to be, has given us, I think, a lot of, uniquely our experience in a way that maybe we don’t see as much in some of the competition at this point. But you’re also right in defining being attached to Star Wars, partnering with Lucasfilm and Star Wars on this has been huge, and there’s no doubt that the reality of, as we start to ramp up what kind of experiences we’re seeing from them, that it means that it brings more vibrancy and capabilities for Star Wars: Unlimited’s potential exposure and growth.”
While the TCG space is incredibly diverse and full of big games, there are also constant conversations regarding when the “TCG Bubble” will burst, and depending on who you talk to, it will either happen this year, next week, or at this very second.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that we’re a little bit of Schrödinger’s TCG box of at any point you have to decide exactly where the state of it is, and everyone’s got a different hypothesis as to where it currently stands. But I think that honestly, the biggest takeaway, I was running a store back during the ’90s TCG boom, and one of the things that I think is so uniquely different in this era of TCGs is how much the space has just grown,” Cartwright said.
“I mean, honestly, I think sometimes TCGs are like their own industry, completely separate from the rest of tabletop gaming because it’s so large. There’s a lot of complexity to it, but honestly, I think that where we are is incredibly healthy because we’re seeing people who come from a variety of different backgrounds in gaming, backgrounds in TCGs, come to TCGs for reasons that aren’t just about the gameplay itself to start,” Cartwright said. “You know, IPs always drive a big factor of getting somebody at least tangentially aware of what kind of games exist, and I think there’s still room for that space to grow.”
“It’s a matter of how much can a game define what makes it unique, and that uniqueness can be defined from gameplay, can be defined from the IP that it’s set in, can be defined by the way you can engage with the product, whether that’s different formats or different kinds of organized play experiences, and I think that there’s been a lot of amazing creativity in the TCG space in the last couple of years, ” Cartwright said. “And I think it also shows that we saw almost collectively, and I remember when some of the other games were announced and I was like, oh yeah, they totally like started that probably around the same time we did, and we all kind of came to this conclusion of like, there’s a hunger for this kind of experience.”
“Again, it goes back to something I said earlier, which is TCGs are community building. They are places where fans come together for a variety of reasons. I think one of my favorite moments from the Galactic Championship last year was, there was a gentleman who came up to us after one of our panels and was talking about how they had recently been married, and he had a stepson, and they could not see eye to eye, and there were a lot of early struggles. But during this time, Star Wars: Unlimited came out, and it was something that, as both kind of Star Wars fans, came to like discover, and then started playing, and then started going to the local store scene, and it became not just a game to them; it was their bond. It allowed the family, like, he built a gaming space in the basement so that they could play together. They could have people over that were, you know, he was teaching kids at school how to play, and so then they came and played in the basement. That’s where the TCG space can grow to if the community and the relationships like that are fostered, and I think that a lot of companies, us included, are definitely approaching the game in that way,” Cartwright said.
Star Wars: Ashes of the Empire, Icons, and Beyond
The next set up to bat is Ashes of the Empire, which will bring in a host of new ways to approach the game but new abilities that will strengthen your favorite leaders and factions, including Grand Admiral Thrawn, Luke Skywalker, and Ahsoka Tano.
“Ashes of the Empire brings a major jolt of energy to the metagame, creating some brand-new archetypes while also packing powerful support for existing strategies. The first cards on top of everyone’s mind from the set are a trio of powerful late-game units that can help Villainous midrange or control decks slam the door shut: Chimaera, Pre Vizsla, and Ninth Sister. In conjunction with tools to slow early aggression like the Marrok and Imperial Armored Commando units, these cards form the basis of a potent new shell,” Schaefer said.
“In a very different vein, Ashes of the Empire also bolsters go-wide strategies that swarm with units thanks to the new Mandalorian tokens. Units like Protectorate Fighter, Koska Reeves, and Paz Vizsla can help you build up a resilient board state—and the Luke Skywalker unit offers a huge reward for doing so! The new Support keyword also opens up some exciting deck possibilities. The Mandalorian and Ahsoka Tano leaders are especially potent with Plot cards from Secrets of Power, creating potential for some incredibly explosive leader deploy turns,” Schaefer said.
“But what I really love about Ashes of the Empire are the new tools for existing leaders. The Grand Admiral Thrawn leader from Jump to Lightspeed, for instance, makes great use of the new Chimaera and Morgan Elsbeth units as well as the One Must Destroy to Create event,” Schaefer said. “The Admiral Ackbar unit is an incredibly flexible tool for pilot leaders like Luke Skywalker from Jump to Lightspeed. And several Legends of the Force leaders get a boost from some of the new Force units like Kelleran Beq and Elzar Mann. I can’t wait to see all the new brews players bring to the table in the coming months!”
With Ashes of the Empire now hitting the competitive scene, it will create conversations about which leaders are being used the most in tournaments and how the overall meta is shifting or not shifting enough. While there are challenges in maintaining something that evolves with each set, that change can sometimes be exactly what the game needs. At the moment, Star Wars: Unlimited seems to be in a great space, and that’s partly thanks to the recent rotation.
“We’ve been very happy with the variety of competitive leaders and decks recently. The release of A Lawless Time in March brought rotation to the Premier format for the first time and really breathed new life into the metagame. It’s been great to see leaders from past sets rising to prominence and supporting some very different archetypes. Leaders like Boba Fett and Darth Vader from Jump to Lightspeed attack aggressively in space, whereas the Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mother Talzin leaders from Legends of the Force build up powerful ground armies with Force units, and Secrets of Power’s Dedra Meero leader offers a unique control playstyle that forces the opponent into difficult decisions,” Schaefer said. “But what’s been most exciting for us has been seeing new decks emerge from A Lawless Time. In particular, the Lando Calrissian leader showed up midway through the competitive season and quickly took the format by storm, taking advantage of powerful new units like The Master Codebreaker and Liberty.
“I’ve always found the trickiest aspect of managing the metagame to be striking the proper balance of how much the competitive format shifts with each new set release. We don’t want a stagnant metagame—the worst thing for competitive play is to have a new set come out and not change the format at all. But we also don’t want to be pushing the power level so much that we completely invalidate existing strategies. Thankfully with our expanded Development team of incredibly strong TCG players, I think we’ll be doing better than ever at keeping the competitive metagame fresh and exciting going forward. I expect competitive players will find a lot to love in Ashes of the Empire and upcoming sets like Homeworlds and Icons 2027,” Schaefer said.
After Ashes of the Empire, it will be time for Icons, a set that feels like a perfect jumping-on point for either brand new players of the game or players who haven’t picked up the game in a while. The roster lives up to its name as well, but just because this is going to be an approachable set doesn’t mean it doesn’t pack some power for competitive play.
“I think that we’ve always tried to find a way to capture the attention of new players with some of the products, right? Last year we introduced Intro Battle: Hoth as kind of our definitive, hey, you’re completely new to TCGs, you have no idea how this whole TCG thing works, we’ve got a product for you to engage with,” Cartwright said. “Icons is kind of a slight evolution of that because what Icons represents is we are returning to, kind of the Spark of Rebellion complexity of the mechanics. They’re intended to be straightforward, very kind of easy to pick up, you know, the traditional simple to learn, difficult to master kind of experience, but also then baked into that is a real focus on the iconic characters from the Star Wars saga. The characters that people recognize, the characters that people identify with, the characters that, you know, they have a favorite that they want to like, they want it to be good, and they want to understand how it works, and it’s not overly complicated.”
“Icons is a return to that experience from that Spark of Rebellion timeframe, so it makes it easier for somebody newer to TCGs to understand that complexity, but at the same time, we wanted to make sure that it was not only through a new player lens that this kind of set comes to life. There are powerful effects in this set. It is intended to be something that any player, new or veteran, will find something for them, and it will certainly see competition. So it’s this moment in time to say, hey, you know, did you leave Star Wars: Unlimited? Come on back in. We’ve got some of the most iconic characters doing some really powerful stuff,” Cartwright said.
“Are you brand new to Star Wars: Unlimited and you just want to figure out how the basics kind of work with some of the characters that you maybe know and love? Also great for you. Or, hey, you’re a hyper-competitive player that really wants to focus on: is this going to change my deck? Is this gonna be something that I take to a planetary qualifier or a sector event or the Galactic Championship? And we built it also with that in mind. One of the things that Danny Schaefer did when he kind of pitched this was it’s new player friendly for sure, but it is also a product that anyone who loved Spark of Rebellion era Star Wars: Unlimited can return to and understand exactly what we mean when we say, let’s get a little bit back to basics so that everyone can come to the table and play,” Cartwright said.
As for what’s next, a major milestone for the Star Wars franchise is right around the corner, as it will be the 50th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope next year. To say that Star Wars: Unlimited is going all out for that major event is an understatement, and it’s something they’ve been planning pretty much since the game launched.
“The biggest thing, and we kind of already touched a little bit about it, is that we’ve been working on some of these things for a very long time, right? I mean, I literally talked to the team this morning and we are in the earliest stages of Set 16. So to give you like context, Ashes of the Empire is set 8, so you’ve only seen half of the content we are working on as a comparative. We are very much always working into the future, but I think the team would agree that there’s something special about being a part of this game line during what will be the 50th anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope, and a celebration of the saga all year round,” Cartwright said.
“We spent a lot of time and a lot of effort figuring out what it would mean to bring out sets and bring out experiences that really leaned into the idea of how can we, in our way, celebrate this huge moment for the Star Wars franchise, and I’m excited to let fans get a taste of that at the Galactic Championship when we unveil our kind of roadmap through to the next Galactic, but also kind of what speculation will happen about what that means for Star Wars: Unlimited, not just for the 50th, but for beyond.
“I can’t give you any very, very specific details, but what I can say is this is a moment, a milestone moment, as you say, that we have been looking forward to for a really long time because you start doing the backwards math. We started working on that set probably before, I think some of the earliest conversations about that were coming right as the game was launching. So we were riding the high of the launch. We were excited about finally getting the game into the hands of fans and players. We were just so excited about how well Star Wars: Unlimited was received, and then at the same time, we were focused on, all right, well, we have to absolutely nail what it means to land these products in the 50th anniversary year,” Cartwright said.
Star Wars: Ashes of the Empire is in stores now, and Icons releases in 2027. The Star Wars: Unlimited Galactic Championship begins on July 24th and runs through the 26th in Las Vegas.
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