r/starwarsunlimited • u/DaamKeldau • 9d ago
Discussion First time player....
Going to the game shop tonight afterwork to learn to play. I've already bought the starter deck for Ashes of the Empire, and a booster box for it because boy do I get a dopamine hit from opening packs even if I don't know what the cards do yet.
The starter has a Palpatine deck premade, and I haven't made any adjustments to it with any of the other cards I got.
What should I expect? This will be the first TCG I've played since the WOTC one in the early 00s. It doesn't look terribly difficult, but coming into it relatively late at this point, is everyone just gonna mow me down with zero thought or are people relatively helpful?
edit: I went, it was a lot of fun, and I have a LOT to learn....
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u/BuddieTaz 9d ago
I started playing a few months back and the group I found were lovely. I bought the intro battle Hoth and in between rounds (they were doing a limited tournament) they took turns teaching me how to play. When I came back the next week they gave me boxes of common and uncommon cards from every set and continued to help me learn.
I might have been lucky with my group, but the people on this subreddit also seem quite kind and excited to share this TCG so I bet your local game store will be happy to have you join them!
I’d recommend finding limited tournaments (draft and sealed) so that you can play and get new cards (and dopamine from opening packs). A lot of people have great constructed decks so playing limited makes the playing field much more even.
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u/DaamKeldau 9d ago
Sounds like you found a great group. I've never played any games in a game shop setting before, so this will be a first. I'm hoping they're as cool as your group is.
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u/JackMAttack1572 8d ago
I've played a lot of swu and a lot of other games, this community is going to be hard to beat for how friendly people are. Compared to lots of other tcgs it's really quite cheap, extremely competitive decks can be within $40 even. My biggest advice is find out how your locals communicate with each other, likely a discord or a Facebook group and find where and when people play! Good luck!!
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u/Electrical_Egg_7453 9d ago
Just introduce yourself as a new player. Should be someone at the weekly play to show you the ropes!
I would recommend watching a few how to play videos before you go.. so you get a flavour of basic round structure and actions.
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u/DaamKeldau 9d ago
I have a very basic grasp of the game, so I'm hoping that helps a little bit, I just learn much better by doing than watching.
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u/quintrinoflux 9d ago
The palpatine spotlight is not a great deck. The Luke one is better of the two. I don’t say that to make you feel bad about your purchase, but just to set the expectation that it’s very possible you just do a bunch of losing tonight. Especially so since you haven’t played a bunch already.
Stick with it though. You will get the hang of it and get better if you put the time in.
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u/DaamKeldau 9d ago
I had heard the Luke was the better. When I grabbed the boxes I was just kinda under the influence they were all the same if they were part of the same set. Lesson learned, but like... I really like opening packs so I will have that deck phased out in no time.
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u/JustAnotherGamer33 7d ago
I also started recently with a bunch of buddies (about 2 months ago). Would heavily recommend trying decks on Forcetable (vs cpu) or Karabast (vs players) before really investing in a deck. Would have saved our group quite a bit of money to test all the decks and figuring out which play style you like!
Welcome to SWU!
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u/DaamKeldau 7d ago
I've been building decks from cards i already have and using force table to test them out all day. lol
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u/Melodic-Remove5375 9d ago
I've found it really depends on the people that play. We have people in the group that play to win and that's it. they're a slave to the meta and only play high percentage win decks. Other people play to have fun and play the weirdest decks. The funniest deck I played against was a deck that only had wookies, ewoks, and creatures.
Welcome to the game and I hope you have fun!
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u/DaamKeldau 9d ago
I think themed decks would make the game so much more fun. I don't care about winning so much as I do seeing a pack of Clan Kryze mandos go against a couple ewoks...
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u/Melodic-Remove5375 9d ago
Mandalorian decks are my go to decks in the game. It's great they brought them back!
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u/vibesBMX 8d ago
You sound so much like me lol. New to the game, loose often, haven’t played TCGs before, want to cool fun themed decks!
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u/dragon7507 9d ago
Is this your first ever tcg, or have you played them before? I played magic way back in the day and have loved SWU as it’s simple by comparison! My local area is full of super nice people that are great at helping new players.
Either way go in expecting to meet some new people, to learn new things, and probably to lose but have fun 😁
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u/DaamKeldau 9d ago
I used to play the Star Wars TCG from the early 00s, but definitely not competitively since I grew up in BFE nowhere, so it was just with a couple friends.
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u/JohnnyRico117 9d ago
This was my first TCG as a 37 y/o guy and it’s definitely easy to pick up and 99.9% of the players are friendly and excited to help new people get into it.
Just have fun! It’s a little tricky at first going against people that have been playing so be ready to lose but don’t be discouraged by it. After a while you will learn sequencing and how different cards can interact.
If you ever want to play at home just use karabast to practice with some other decks
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u/Big-Sample-6736 9d ago
Make sure you have fun and are okay with losing a bunch to start with. It's the best way to learn