The latest set in the Star Wars: Unlimited trading card game takes a focus on everyone’s favourite part of the galaxy far, far away — the Force and its users. And that includes both sides, dark and light, as well as everything in between.
There’s a great mix of classic characters and those from more niche and expanded stories. You have favourites like Rey, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker, plus there are characters like Kanan Jarrus from the animated world, the Third Sister from the Disney+ series, and even Avar Kriss from the New Republic books.
With the two Spotlight decks being released for this set being Qui-Gon Jinn and Darth Maul, it highlights the dark vs light at the centre of this new expansion. However, it’s with the new force leaders that this set introduces the new mechanic with ‘The Force’ token, which adds an interesting dynamic to the game, and looks for you to seek balance, in one form or another. Certain cards will enable you to create the Force token, and you can only have one. Then other cards, like the aforementioned Qui-Gon Jin and Darth Maul, have abilities that let you use the Force token; however, when you do, you lose your token card until you can get another card to return it to you. So choosing when it’s best to use it, and also being able to have card synergy to enable you to return the Force token to you constantly, is a big part of both Spotlight decks and the cards in this set in general.
@explosionnetworkUnboxing the Star Wars: Unlimited – Legends of the Force Qui-Gon Jin Spotlight deck. Provided for review Find it on explosionnetwork.com
In the Qui-Gon Jin Spotlight deck that was provided to me there’s the card ‘Youngling Padawan,’ that has “when played: the force is with you (create your Force token). Which pairs up very nicely with ‘Qui-Gon Junn’s Aethersprite which has “on atttack: the next time you a a “when played” ability this phase, you may use that ability again.” And although there’s pleny of cards in the deck that allow you to use your Force token to trigger certain effects, a card like ‘Jedi Sentinl,’ which features Ahsoka Tano, has “while the Force is with you, this unit gains Sentinel (enemy units in this arena must attack a Sentinel when they attack you).” This adds interesting decision-making in when to use the Force, if having the Jedi Sentinel out is currently distracting the enemy team from being able to attack your base.
The other new mechanic that was added in Legends of the Force is the keyword ‘Hidden,’ which hides some units as you play them, as the keyword reads “this unit can’t be attacked if it was played this phase.” Most of these units have abilities that you’ll want to keep them around for to attack with, or even abilities that trigger when they enter the game. You can still defeat these units with other abilities that would target them in some other way; however, they just can’t be attacked for one turn. It’s a small new keyword, I don’t see making a huge difference to the game, but it allows for some small and exciting moments when cards like the ‘Village Tender’ survive to attack with ‘Restore 1’ and heal your base.
My favourite characters and cards in this set are some of the weirder ones in the world of force users, Nightsisters from the animated series and games, Guardians of the Whills like Chirrut Imwe, the Father and the Daughter from the more mystical side of The Force, as well as the Purrgil whales of space. There’s even an inclusion of the Loth-Wolf, making sure the set feels like it’s including all types of Force users.
