Welcome to the future of Star Wars Unlimited! We have more Officials in the form of Spy tokens, and we disclose information from our hand, but most importantly we have the Plot. There are several mechanics from Legends of the Force and the upcoming Secrets of Power appearing now and elevating the experience of the game in many ways. From the beginning of last spoiler season I was of the opinion the Force token should've been part of the game in its base form. It borrows concepts from other FFG Star Wars games that help make the game feel more ingrained in the Star Wars universe. While that mechanic helps blend flavor and lore into gameplay, I've come to the same conclusion about Plot for entirely different reasons.

Determining when to deploy your Leader for a strong pivot turn is one of the most crucial decision trees in higher tier play. Competitive games are often won or lost on maximizing that one turn swing. Good pilots know when to saunter off course of their plans to deploy or to answer an opponents deployment. One of the most common questions to answer before deploying is "How long can my Leader survive?" because if your opponent removes it immediately, you've wasted set up and potential. Thanks to the unique action economy in Star Wars Unlimited this can be a tricky question.

You might have a leader like Anakin Skywalker - What it Takes to Win that wants to hit for a significant amount of damage as many times as possible. Once you deploy Anakin and your opponent takes their action you have a choice ahead of you; do you attack immediately to try and squeeze something out of him? Do you play more cards in an attempt to protect him for the future? These are basic questions for the game that lead to infinite back-and-forth discussions where the answer can usually be reasoned out with the context of the current board state. In many cases deciding the answer to this question can be what decides the fate of the game.

Thankfully we now have the Plot to guide us! We've seen only 10 spoilers from Secrets of Power so far, but 3 of those cards each have the new Plot keyword. If you haven't checked them out yet I'll wait here until you've read them then come back. That's right, Plot is a new way to play cards from your resources. More importantly Plot allows you to play cards outside of the normal back-and-forth action of the game. You can play Plot cards from your resources when you deploy your Leader and before your opponent gets their first rebuttal when you Leader is on the table. This adds so many layers to the question above about when to optimally deploy your Leader.

Jar Jar Binks - Mesa Propose and Armor of Fortune are both cards to play off the Plot allowing you to buff up your recently deployed Leader and protect them from Takedown or other forms of removal you might see across the table. Thankfully neither of them are too expensive, meaning you can stack some bonuses as well.

This opens up the door for more thorough and detailed conversations about seeing a big pivotal turn. Instead, we now proposition whether there are opportunities to make big, pivotal actions instead of whole turns. How many Plot cards will we see allowing us to make big splashy actions with compounding ripple effects or protective status'. Setting up Plot cards to lead into your deployment helps you feel more secure and comfortable on when to make those decisions.

Now let me be clear. I don't know if any of these Plot cards will be efficient enough or interesting enough to see high level competitive play. Of the 3 spoiled ones, it seems like only Jar Jar might be a candidate given how expensive Cad Bane - Impressed Now? is. It also depends on Aspect combinations and whether there are Leaders that want big, pivotal deploy turns and appropriately priced protective or splashy cards that can be paired with them. But for casual play? Plot will be a mechanic that makes the game much more satisfying to play and reduces the stress and friction of the question at hand.

The kitchen table is always a good place for players to cut their teeth and learn the game. With Star Wars at the front of this game, there's a lot of players trying to collect or play casually - that's the nature of IP work. But with how different this game is to other CCGs it also lends itself to confusion and muddy teaches. Even when teaches go perfectly decisions like the one described here can create stress and friction or even lead to analysis paralysis. The Plot helps the game grow by reducing stress and saying "I can deploy my leader AND protect him" making the action economy surrounding your decision more pliable.

Kitchen table players sometimes pivot into competitive players, or at least weekly players at your LGS. But more players is always a good thing for a game, especially one with as many hiccups as we've seen in Unlimited. I intend to keep a keen eye on Plot cards this spoiler season. Whether they're good or not, I'm very excited to see the mechanic unfold.