Playing Twin Suns In Star Wars Unlimited
I’ve played a lot of Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) since the game first released in March of 2024, and I look forward to continuing to do so. I previously did an interview for the game for a preview of the Jump to Lightspeed set, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I recorded that interview at Pax Unplugged, where I also dominated my Twin Suns pod. And I’m hoping to do so once more this year.
Twin Suns In Star Wars Unlimited
The Twin Suns Format in Star Wars Unlimited. Custom image by author.
Twin Suns is one of the official formats that was announced at the beginning of the game’s lifecycle. For the first year, the format required players to bring decks consisting of two leaders and a singleton 60-card deck. It is most comparable to Magic The Gathering’s Commander format in that way, but the leaders are a bit more unique in that they have abilities that are always active, even when they are not yet deployed.
The format was then changed when Jump to Lightspeed was released, and players are now required to bring a deck with at least 80 cards. Everything else remains the same. It feels like a more casual format, one that allows you to enjoy a game with your friends. And Twin Suns has fixed some of the problems that players have had with Commander-like formats in the past.
For example, the game ends the round that one player’s base has been defeated, no matter how many other players remain in the game. The player with the most remaining health wins, meaning that ganging up on one player early results in a quick game over, and you have most likely hurt your own chances of winning. No one is forced to sit around and wait for the game to finish anymore.
The rules are also clear that you cannot pass unless you are the last player remaining each round (in a four-player game). This means each player must take an action. If they cannot, or if they choose not to, they must instead take one of the three tokens that are part of this format. If there are no tokens left, the final player passes without one. That means that games cannot stall, and the action always moves forward toward the end. In my experience, a full game of four players tends to last around 45 minutes, depending on how familiar each player is with their deck and with everyone else.
Why Twin Suns Is My Favorite Format
Custom image by author featuring Chancellor Palpatine and Captain Rex.
For me, the fun of playing a Star Wars-themed game is about the theming and the storytelling you can pull out of it. I’m a writer, so that’s perhaps not a surprise, but that can make the more competitive formats, like Premier, a little less fun. I don’t want a deck that’s hyper-optimized, I want an incredibly thematic deck. Being successful in Premier is much harder with that kind of deck, and over time, that can feel frustrating.
But I also don’t want to spend a fortune to get the cards necessary for many of the competitive Premier decks.
I love the fancy cards. Did I scream when I happened to pull a showcase? Absolutely. But I don’t buy them. I want to have a good time with my friends playing a very thematic game of Star Wars. That’s where Twin Suns shines the most, and you don’t need to build it around a single card like you would a Premier deck.
Twin Suns lets you take two leaders, say Anakin and Padme, and pair them together to create something really fun and thematic. They weren’t the strongest competitive leaders, but they were much better in Twin Suns. Similarly, while Boba dominated the Premier leagues for a long time and got himself banned, he’s not quite as dominant in Twin Suns. Good? Yes. But the chances of finding his armor or his ship among 80 other cards are a lot lower.
I find that the format evens a lot of the playing field, and some leaders shine a lot more. For instance, the Cunning Palpatine leader is fantastic in Twin Suns, allowing you to play politics in a maniacal fashion while parading as a hero in true Palpatine fashion. I paired him with Captain Rex to create a fairly devastating combo with lots of Clone tokens that could be easily defeated to trigger his ability to flip. He also comes with his own personal Blast Token ability that can keep the table even and has allowed me to force a tie multiple times.
Sometimes it’s not about how well the leaders go together but how well their abilities synergize. My newest combo has been Darth Revan and Gar Saxon, which has been a lot of fun and resulted in a General Grievous unit that was attacking for 8 points of damage on turn 3, and more on turn 4.
Sure, there’s still table politics. And sometimes it really does come down to one player’s decision. My last game resulted in a final turn where three players all had the same amount of damage on their bases, and the last player up had to make the final choice as to who would get to tie with them. It happens. But the games move fast enough that it doesn’t feel devastating.
When it comes down to it, however, it’s just a good time with Star Wars decks that you can theme whichever way you want. Have you played Twin Suns before? What do you think of it?
