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The Star Wars: Unlimited Two-Player Starters are highly recommended for new players looking to begin learning the game. They come with two full pre-made decks, letting you and a friend dive in with just one product.
The starters have everything you need to start playing, including a quickstart rulebook, two playmats with rules reminders, folded deckboxes, and damage counters. The full-size 50-card decks each have their corresponding leader and base as well.
As such, they’re perfect for testing whether you’d like the game. You can keep a starter as a fun, standalone two-person board game or use them as a starting point to build a more competitive deck and expand your SWU collection.
SWU releases a Starter with the release of every set, so there are only three to pick from so far. Below we go over what each of the three Star Wars: Unlimited Two-Player Starters offer and hopefully help you figure out which is the best to get depending on what you’re looking for.
Spotlight Decks
From Set 4: Jump to Lightspeed, Spotlight Decks replace these starters: They are still pre-built decks that contain a mixture of cards from multiple sets, with cards from the new set making up the majority of the deck. Each Spotlight Deck contains five Special-rarity cards that are unique to that product, one of which is the leader card.
Two Spotlight Decks will release with every set, which means there are ten Special-rarity cards in total, the exact same number as there were in previous sets' Two-Player Starters. We’ll update this post when new Spotlight Decks become available.
Spark of Rebellion Starter
It should be no surprise that the very first starter is the one most highly recommended for new players, especially those who are new to trading card games in general. The Spark of Rebellion Starter is the simplest to learn, focusing on helping beginners learn the core mechanics and rules of the game.
The keywords present in the cards in the SOR Starter are fewer and the easiest to understand, and they continue to appear in cards in later sets. Neither of its two pre-made decks rely on big synergies and card interactions either; rather, they allow players to discover the strengths of individual units and actions and use that to win games.
Star Wars fans should also naturally gravitate towards the most recognizable characters in the entire franchise, luke-skywalker-faithful-friend-sor-5 and darth-vader-dark-lord-of-the-sith-sor-10. It’s more fun to play with cards featuring beloved characters after all. Together their decks represent all of the game's aspects and showcase the themes and mechanics associated with each.
Finally, this pair of decks and exclusive starter leaders are more upgradeable in that replacing cards can result in a more competitive deck. Granted, neither Luke nor Darth Vader have been tournament favorites, but they’ve fared better than the leaders of the other starters.
Highlights:
- Easiest to understand and to start learning the game
- Has the most recognizable Star Wars characters
- Better leaders for upgrading and tweaking into competitive decks
Shadows of the Galaxy Starter
As the second set, Shadows of the Galaxy entices Star Wars fans who watch the new shows, featuring characters, locations, and story details from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Solo: A Star Wars Story among others.
The two leaders, the-mandalorian-sworn-to-the-creed-shd-18 and moff-gideon-formidable-commander-shd-7, are not as strong as the first pair. Even in the competitive scene, there are several leaders in their aspects that are simply preferred. Still, the decks feature more synergy between units and effects, and there are new card mechanics and keywords to learn, increasing complexity.
The Shadows of the Galaxy Starter is the best choice for those on a lower budget. It’s the most affordable one so far, a result of the publisher’s oversupply due to the initial rush of people cleaning out Spark of Rebellion Starters from shelves.
Highlights:
- Lowest priced starter - almost half the price of other starters
- Features characters from popular Star Wars TV series
- Adds strong, interesting mechanics such as Bounty and Smuggle
Twilight of the Republic Starter
Like the first two starters, the Twilight of the Republic Starter focuses on a particular era in the Star Wars timeline. This time, it’s the Clone Wars, with ahsoka-tano-snips-twi-11 and general-grievous-general-of-the-droid-armies-twi-15 being the leaders of the included premade decks.
Where this starter shines is its complexity and overall replayability. In addition to all the core mechanics and rules, it also features new card keywords and introduces token cards, too. This makes it a better choice if you’re after a standalone card game to keep on the shelf for casual play.
In terms of upgradeability, neither Ahsoka nor Grievous have seen much competitive play as there are better leaders that can employ strategies similar to what they do. Still, it won’t be difficult to replace some weaker cards to get decks that can do well in your local store’s game night.
Highlights:
- Best replayability due to diverse number of mechanics and keywords
- Features popular Clone Wars characters for fans
- Introduces token units that flavorfully represent armies
Which SWU Starter Should You Get?
As you can see, each Star Wars: Unlimited Two-Player Starter has its own draw. It might become an easy choice if there’s a certain saga you prefer, whether it’s the original trilogy, the Disney+ shows, or the Clone Wars.
Deciding based on simplicity/complexity is also easy. Spark of Rebellion has the simplest and most straightforward rules and cards, sliding up to the most recent Twilight of the Republic starter pair in the number of mechanics to learn.
No matter which one you pick, you’re taking the best step towards learning this exciting TCG! Hopefully you’ll have a great time in your initial foray into the Star Wars: Unlimited universe and come back for more.
