If you were planning to use Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty as your Leader card in any upcoming, organized play events for Star Wars Unlimited, it seems that Fantasy Flight is throwing a hydrospanner into the works. In a move that’s, so far, unprecedented in Star Wars Unlimited, the popular Leader has been suspended from play until further notice.
What does this mean for you and your decks? Well, put simply, you are no longer permitted to use Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty if you’re entering into any tournaments or even organized casual events, until further notice.
In a lengthy, detailed news post on Star Wars Unlimited’s official website, Lead Game Designer Danny Schaefer explains and justifies the reason for Boba Fett’s suspension, which comes into effect as of November 8th, 2024. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is also the release date for Star Wars Unlimited’s third set, Twilight of the Republic.
So, why exactly has Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty been suspended? Schaefer quite candidly, and admirably, admits that the card’s overwhelmingly strong power level, for its cost, was an error during development. Its abilities and deployment cost were created during the development of Star Wars Unlimited’s very first set, Spark of Rebellion; as one of the first wave of cards to be developed and produced, the general level of acceptability for a card’s power in relation to its cost hadn’t reached a consensus. Schaefer has also revealed that Boba Fett’s strength has seen it used in around 40% of Top 8 decks in Planetary Qualifier tournament rounds, and used as the Leader in more than 55% of winning decks, which is a pretty jaw-dropping statistic.
Its dominance, asserts Schaefer, is so high that the Star Wars Unlimited design team felt compelled to act, and, even though they believed that suitable counter cards that would adequately deal with Boba Fett could emerge from Twilight of the Republic, they also decided that it was best to remove Fett’s card from the meta entirely, so as to give players a chance with other Leaders, including the new ones.
When compiling our very own list of the best Leaders in Spark of Rebellion, Fett felt was the clear choice for the top spot. In fact, at a pre-release event for Spark of Rebellion, my final game was against a player who had lost every round up until that point; he made a single change to his deck, swapping his Leader out for Boba Fett, and won comfortably! So it’s a card that we’ve seen in action ourselves, and can’t say that we disagree with the difficult decision made by Fantasy Flight.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop you using Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty in casual games against your friends, as long as they don’t object, of course. As Darth Vader famously said to Fett himself in The Empire Strikes Back, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
Boba Fett, Collecting the Bounty, in its Showcase card form, is the most highly sought after, and therefore expensive, Star Wars Unlimited card to date. Check out our interview with Axel Hutt, the talented artist responsible for the gorgeous artwork on the Boba Fett Showcase card, as well as many other popular cards from Star Wars Unlimited.
