Rival Nerderies 2 – “In a galaxy far, far away…”

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about rivaling nerderies in the form of LEGO. Back then, I had spent some of the always scarcely available funny-money on a big LEGO set – a great one at that. I have no regrets. I was close to also buying the giant Barad Dur set from last year, but I came to the conclusion that I don’t really like the look of it. It would love to build it, but I would not love to present it, like I have done with my Rivendell set…

So I have not bought any bigger LEGO sets since Rivendell back in the spring of 2023. Probably for the best, as building and maintaining a Vintage Cube is also quite a costly affair…

But in the last four or five months or so – basically since early summer – another rival hobby has entered my nerding sphere: Star Wars Unlimited (SWU). 

SWU is a card game not unlike Magic. It is a lot simpler, it is a known, closed universe and it is a very new game (currently, only five sets have been released, with another one coming in November).

And the best part: My nine-year old Star Wars-obsessed son is absolutely crazy about it. He has been collecting Pokemon since he was five, but playing Pokemon never really catched him – he enjoyed collecting specific types of cards, but he never built decks or got really interested in playing it. 

It is very different with SWU. More or less since day one, he has been designing and building decks with the cards we have now amassed. Yes, we. I have to admit that I may have spoiled him a little bit here. I try not to spoil my kids too much – i rarely buy them things, unless it is their birthday or at christmas – but it is very difficult not to support his newly acquired hobby. Not least, because I also really enjoy it.

Back to the drawing board – back to the kitchen table

It all started with me buying a set of starter decks for my kid. It was a birthday present from his great grandmother. A couple of months later, we went to a store that had a pile of spare commons and uncommons and we both built a deck. And then I spotted a great deal on a booster display. And then a couple of extra booster displays somehow found their way to our home during the summer holidays. Whatdoyouknow?

I have yet to buy specific singles from Cardmarket or the likes, and I really don’t want to. Even though the cards are filthyly cheap, compared to Magic the Gathering. Even some of the best cards of SWU are less than 1€.

But the minute I cave, and buy a pile of singles – rares and legendaries – I will remove some of the greatness of how things are right now. My kid and I are still building decks we enjoy with the cards we have (or what he is able to trade for at school, where SWU is quickly overtaking Pokemon in popularity). We still build Mandalorian decks or “Sentinel decks” or whatever floats our boat. We do not build fully powered, optimized tournament worthy decks. We basically only build themed decks. And I really have to put away my min-maxing boat-floating when doing this. When your collection consists almost entirely of cards opened in boosters and bought in common piles, you often only own one of each rare and legendary. 

And that is very kitchen table.

Learnings from another game

Aside from it being a great way to spend time with my son, and a safe way to keep him away from expensive girls and drugs (he will always be poor, due to buying cardboard, just like his father) as well as a strong incentive for him to read English and learn the language, I also might just learn something. Or at least I get to think about where the game differs from Magic, where there are similarities and where I can maybe get new perspectives on the game I have been playing for almost 30 years.

When we play and design decks or just talk about the game, I often mention card advantage as a great way to get ahead in games and win. It is so paramount in Magic, and yet such a difficult and elusive phenomenon, that it can be very difficult to grasp. I know I had problems with it back in the day, when I first learnt to play Magic.

So does my son. How do you ever choose to put a card that simply draws you two cards for three ressources into a deck, instead of just playing another cool 4/4 Jedi for five ressources? Great question. 

And funnily he does have some very valid points (which is another thing I guess he is then learning from the game: arguing based on arguments instead of just feelings). In SWU you cannot block units (creatures). They can attack your base (your life points directly), and you can basically do nothing to stop them. Except for playing units with sentinel (which must be attacked). Not being able to block nor use instants or fast effects (you can only take one action at a time, and not in response to anything your opponent does) makes SWU a whole other game than Magic. It basically means that you have to commit as much to the board as possible, as soon as possible. Card advantage is fine, but you really want it to be in a form that affects the board.

That may not sound too different from Magic. Especially not modern Magic. But it is somewhat different to what we were taught about Old School Magic. And it has made me think a lot about the way I view the game, and if one should reconsider some of the basic truths in our format. Of course the blue power cards will never go out of fashion, and your opponent can always just block your cheap creatures with his lands, but I think there is some merit to thinking more about other aspects of the game than card advantage. Or at least acknowledge that even though card advantage is King, there is possibly also a Queen or even a Sultan, Kaiser or Pharaoh out there worth exploring.

And that was it for now. That was how I managed to make even Rival Nerderies be about Magic. The one and true Nerdery for my part.

Take care out there!