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Designer Tidbits

From SWU Holocron

During the Star Wars: Unlimited Community Celebration event, I asked each of the Designers a couple of questions to get to know them, and thier views on parts of the game. Let's go!

Introduce yourself and give your title with FFG

Favorite Aspect

  • Jim - Absolutely Command. If you were watching the Twin Suns broadcast you'll see I went all in on Command with Tarkin and Palpatine.
  • Danny - The last time they asked this I said Cunning, but then I was building decks for today and build multiple decks that had no Cunning in them. Maybe Aggression, I like Hero Cunning, I like Villain Vigilance, but both sides of Aggression I like.
  • Jeremy - If I had to choose one, Cunning. I like them all for different reasons but I really do like Cunning for the tempo.
  • Tyler - Definitely Aggression, I built a bunch of decks leading up to today and I noticed incidentally that they were all Aggression decks in some capacity.
  • MJ - I really like Command. I like having a really rampy, explosive, get your good units out early or swarm. But my favorite is probably Aggression. Aggression was the most surprising color pie mechanically speaking when we were first going over the aspects for the things it could and couldn't do. Aggression more than any aspect provokes interesting conversation about writing a hypothetical card and showing someone, "Is this an aggression card?". That flexibility and growth as we release more cards is fun an exciting.
  • John - Gotta be Vigilance. I love answers in card games. Some people like to play threats and add stuff to the board. I love to subtract stuff from the board.
  • Aaron - Vigilance, as stated on stream. I love keeping your units alive as long as possible.
  • Joe - I think it varies set by set, because every pool does its own thing as the game's evolved. But out of the cards we are allowed to talk about (Spark of Rebellion) I think Cunning for sure.
  • Ryan - I really like playing Cunning, because I enjoy tempo plays, and Cunning has many tempo plays. I also like to build glass cannon kind of decks. Decks that want to do one thing and maximize a particular timing window. If my opponet can survive it, I'm probably gonna lose. But if I can pull it off it makes me feel really good. I like designing for Aggression though. It tend to be the most straight forward in what it wants. But one of the things that makes it a design challenge to come up with a card in Aggression that's interesting and nuanced. So I love exploring the design space and coming up with cool new Aggression designs.

First set you worked on

  • Jim - Right at the beginning.
  • Danny - I started before the sets existed. I started on the R&D of, this will eventually become Set 1, kind of. And I've been on every set since then.
  • Jeremy - Right at the beginning.
  • Tyler - Right at the beginning.
  • MJ - The new designers came in during Set 2 development. We all work on all the sets to some degree in addition to lead on some. My first lead was Set 4 that I worked on with Jeremy. I'm enjoying helping design in year two sets even though I'm not the lead. There's a lot of cool ideas that the other designers are exploring. They are cool ideas that can radically change how we think about a cards balance or play pattern.
  • John - Set 2.
  • Aaron - I started on 2, but I was around the office when Set 1 was happening. I was lead on 5 before the Padawans came, then handed off to Joe.
  • Joe - I started at the very end of Set 2. But I'm the lead on 5
  • Ryan - I didn't get to touch the first 2 sets at all. The third set finally has a couple of cards I got to be part of the discussion on. The first set I am co-piloting with Tyler is Set 6. You'll really start to see the sort of things that I like to put in the game in Set 6.

Favorite card of set 1

  • Jim - That's like trying to pick a favorite child. This is not going to fall under Command, but I often run with Command is Grand Admiral Thrawn. The reason Thrawn for me is one of my favorite cards is when I play Thrawn I have moment s that make it feel like Thrawn. there was the first time I got to play Thrawn out in the wild, there was a deck that I was playing and my opponent literally psyched themselves out. Because they were like, I could do this but Thrawn would do that, or I could do that and Thrawn could do this, the best thing I can do just now is claim. And there were 1s on top of both decks, so I could have done nothing, but Thrawn was in his head and it was amazing.
  • Danny - I have two gotos depending on my mood. It's probably just Millennium Falcon. It just does it all, it's good in aggro, it's good at stopping aggro. You can do neat tricks where you bounce things back to your hand.
  • Jeremy - I have a real personal favorite, I Am Your Father. People just love that card, so that feels so good. A lot of people play that card, and I've actually just seem people yell "Nooooooo", brings me a lot of joy to see that card.
  • Tyler - I think Takedown. It is a very simple, very exciting, very elegant card. and the theme of the card is a reference to a specific move you do in a video game (Battlefront 2), which is not usually a thing you get to put into a card game.
  • MJ - Force Throw. It's super cool,, hilariously thematic. I love cards that put pressure on another player to make a choice. It's fun to ask people questions, it's fun to prompt people.
  • John - Superlaser Blast. I got to reveal it to a guy in my sealed pod.
  • Aaron - I'm torn between either Han Solo Unit or Count Dooku Unit. They're both great, I come out, I take you out, and I'm a body that still lives here.
  • Joe - Cunning itself has been my goto, but after my sealed games today it might be Overwhelming Barrage. That card gets so much work done.
  • Ryan - If you ask me, I'll give you a different answer that if you ask someone about me. One of the jokes on the team is that my favorite card is Crafty Smuggler, because every time I build a deck it happens to work it's way in there. A 2/2 for 2 with shield on the ground is just a really good card. But if you're really pressing me I'd have to say that my favorite card is Pirated Starfighter. The ability to self bounce a card to hand, a card that says I can work with a lot of other cards, you come up with the most interesting synergy for me.

Favorite card you've designed (vague definitions are fine)

  • Jim - I was part of the system design. I designed the structure alongside Danny, but I didn't design any of the content. So when I left the team it was, here is the structure and I had designed some mock cards, but all that was reconsidered once we moved into content development. So I actually did not design any single card for this game.
  • Danny - It's hard to choose a favorite, there's so many I love. There's an Event in Set 2, a 1 Cost Cunning event that works really well with Greedo.
  • Jeremy - Same answer as before, I Am Your Father. Very well received, so it's an easy pick there and it's something I can talk about.
  • Tyler - That's impossible, there's so many cards that I love that I've designed. I don't think it would work to reference a card in a future set and I have favorites in every set. So we're going to say Grand Admiral Thrawn for Set 1, the Leader
  • MJ - Command Event in Set 4. It's a thing that is healthy and good for the game. From a meta standpoint and a versatility standpoint.
  • John - In Set 7. It's an Aggression Leader
  • Aaron - One of the Dual Aspected cards from Set 5.
  • Joe - A Rare Command Heroic Leader in set 5.
  • Ryan - There is a leader in Set 3 that was one of the first time when we were changing something during testing, there was a call put out asking who had an interesting idea on what this leader could be doing. I suggested one thing, we ended up trying it and it worked very well. It's also a Leader that is very much in my play pattern.

Favorite set

  • Jim - I'm going to make you all wait so long, Set 5. I am so excited for Set 5. There's some things in set 5 that I wish I could share with the world now, and I cannot even in the privacy of this room.
  • Danny - Set 1 is awesome, I love set 1. But, Set 3 is also a huge contender. There's some really cool stuff coming in set 3 that really expands what you can do with deck building.
  • Jeremy - Mine is set 4 for very similar reasons to Tyler.
  • Tyler - I'm very biased. Set 6 is my vision child. We'll see how it turns out, but it's the most personal to me set that we've made so far.
  • MJ - It's a hard question, but Set 1 is really good. I really like Set 5. There's some cool, ambitious, exciting ideas there and it's really fun to come in every week and playtest those cards.
  • John - Set 7 is a set where I'm a lead, so it's my baby. Right now we're playing a lot of Set 5 and I'm loving it.
  • Aaron - If I put 5 aside since it's not done yet, I'd have to say Set 4, it's really fun.
  • Joe - Set 5 because I've worked the most on it. If I'm putting my Biases aside I'd agree with Danny on Set 3. The theming is way up there for me, and it plays well as a contained unit.
  • Ryan - Some of the sets are still in flux, but in the first year Set 2 is my favorite. The hidden underground smuggly thing is something that I really enjoy thematically. Overall I'm biased to set 6.
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