At the launch of Star Wars Unlimited, I had already begun brainstorming the best way to build out a draftable cube experience, the curated collection of cards, using just the first set, Spark of Rebellion. Since that time, we have had five more sets released with another right on the horizon. In fact, with that next set release, the first three sets will leave Premiere play and usher in the Eternal era. With that in mind, I have finally, in earnest, compiled my first SWU Cube, complete with explanations behind my curation decisions.
If you happen to be reading this and don’t quite know what I’m going on about, this previous article is just what you need. In that article, I went over the mathematical aspects of cube building and how best to create that experience from Spark of Rebellion. Today, I’m sharing my process and current result of building a replayable, curated limited experience from Spark, Shadows of the Galaxy, and Twilight of the Republic. Besides using cards from just those three year one sets, I compiled my list with two other foci in mind: 1) have only one copy of each included card and 2) no Legendaries allowed.
You may have read that last sentence and scoffed in bewilderment at the “no Legendaries allowed” stipulation. One defining element of any cube is that it is particular to the tastes and desired experiences of the builder. That ensures that no two cube experiences are ever very much alike, allowing for different philosophies to shine through. For myself, I don’t own multiple copies of all the Legendaries in any of the sets. This means that if I do have a copy or two of a particular L-rarity card, they may be in a constructed deck, whether Premiere or Twin Suns. I also don’t love it when Legendaries wildly swing a match. This is all the more true in limited, where your deck building potential is at the mercy of the packs you’ve received.
Continuing with my own personal taste, I enjoy the game most when it falls within a certain threshold of power. On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being low, 3 being medium, and 5 being high, I think SWU is at its best between 2 (medium-low) and 4 (medium-high). Okay, you may be saying, the high is taken care of by not having L-rarities, but what about the low power? How are we shaving that off? I’m glad you asked!
As a curated experience, a cube does not adhere to the rarity seeding ratio of a standard draft booster pack. In a non-carbonite booster pack of Star Wars Unlimited, you will get about 66% commons, about 25% uncommons, and around 10% rares, with a 0.9% chance for a legendary (I did more exact math, but these guesses came out to about average, taking the variable rarity foils into consideration). When you shuffle up your cube and distribute them as 14-card packs to your players, you won’t be getting the same distribution of C’s, U’s, and R’s. You might wind up with just as many uncommons as commons, which pulls the power level further from the bottom and more towards the center. Having it be a singleton cube also helps with the high frequency of repeated commons amongst normal booster packs.
Citing my previous article, I targeted 336 cards as my goal for the cube, not including Leaders and Bases. That very specific number of 336 is three packs of 14 cards for each of eight players; again, 14 cards removes leaders and bases from the pack count. As I began tallying up a single copy of every non-Legendary, non-Leader, non-Base card, with no duplication of the same card across different sets, I found it quickly exceeded 336; 575, to be exact, and that’s with some cards removed due to associated cards not being included (more on that later). As of now, I need to decide if I want to have my cube exceed the original goal of 336 or to shave off some cards in order to meet that original threshold.
To avoid letting this article just drag on, I’ll check back in with more thoughts on how this build is going and what cuts or additions I’m making, including my thoughts on limiting the leaders and bases, as those can also include that heavy gameplay swing I mentioned earlier. I’ll figure out how to include my current list so it’s not just a gross block of text. In the meantime, as I’m taking you through this journey with me, I’ll be excited to hear your thoughts on my build as well as how you are building out yours!