Fantasy Flight Games takes a closer look at Icons 2027, the first Icons set for the Star Wars: Unlimited trading card game, providing a a fantastic entry point for new players with a slightly smaller set focusing on fan-favorite characters and straightforward mechanics.
Icons 2027 makes it a fantastic entry point for new players—or a reentry point for returning players—especially since the cards in Icons are designed to be on par with those of a standard-sized set in terms of power. On that note, a Star Wars: Unlimited newcomer might be wondering where exactly they should start, since Icons has multiple products as part of its lineup. And for that, we turn to the Icons 2027 Edition Starter Box!
Serving as a fantastic first product for a budding Star Wars: Unlimited fan, the Icons Starter Box walks you through your first few matches, gradually introducing you to the game’s core concepts and mechanics over time. After playing through everything this box has to offer, you should have all that you need to dive further into this game of endless possibilities. Let’s take a look at what it has in store!
A Step-by-Step Learning Process
While we have released similar “prebuilt” products in the past for other sets—such as the Spotlight Decks and the Two-Player Starters that came before them—the Icons Starter Box differs from its counterparts in a number of ways. Unlike those previous products, the decks in this box start at only 30 cards instead of the full 50, and you will build them up as you go. This creates a more curated and focused experience that provides a great “learn by doing” opportunity, especially as new concepts are introduced after each game.
The goal of the box is to teach you and a friend all the fundamentals about Star Wars: Unlimited over the course of four games. For your first game, you’ll start with one of the aforementioned 30-card decks: either the Darth Vader(Icons 2027 Edition, 1) deck with a Vigilance base, or the Princess Leia (Icons 2027 Edition, 8) deck with a Cunning base. This first game is all about the basics, such as game setup, the different phases, what kind of actions you can perform, how initiative works, etc. To keep things as straightforward as possible, each player’s deck has only a single deckbuilding aspect in it (plus Heroism/Villainy), there are no upgrades present, and any unique units—such as R2-D2 (Icons 2027 Edition, 186), Grogu (Icons 2027 Edition, 154), Rune Haako (Icons 2027 Edition, 16), or Blizzard One (Icons 2027 Edition, 25)—only show up once each.
For your second game, that immediately changes. The Starter Box comes with three non-randomized “deckbuilding packs” for each deck, and you’re instructed to open one of them after each game to alter the contents of your deck. Between your first and second games, you open your leader’s first pack, in which you’ll replace their base with one of a different aspect: KCM Mining Facility (Icons 2027 Edition, 11) for Vader, and Echo Base (Icons 2027 Edition, 10) for Leia. The second game also introduces upgrades into each deck, such as Academy Training (Icons 2027 Edition, 93) for Leia’s deck and Resilient (Icons 2027 Edition, 52) for Vader’s. Finally, this pack also adds an additional copy of some unique units, which brings the uniqueness rule into play for the first time.
Game three introduces even more elements, starting with the classic Experience (Icons 2027 Edition, T01) and Shield (Icons 2027 Edition, T02) tokens. The deckbuilding pack associated with this game includes several cards that can grant one or the other, such as I’ve Got A Bad Feeling (Icons 2027 Edition, 166) for Leia’s deck and Consumed by the Dark Side (Icons 2027 Edition, 184) for Vader’s deck. Also included in this pack are cards that introduce trait synergy, such as Eighth Brother (Icons 2027 Edition, 99) readying an Imperial unit, and cards featuring Hyperspace treatment to spruce up your collection, such as a stunning full-art Han Solo (Icons 2027 Edition, 161).
Once you’ve gotten three games under your belt, the final deckbuilding pack gives you the opportunity to customize your deck to your liking, providing some solid picks from Icons as well as past sets to give your deck some unique flare. Leia’s deck can draw on classic characters like Jar Jar Binks (Icons 2027 Edition, 187) and Jyn Erso (A Lawless Time, 67), while Vader’s deck can call upon villains like IG-88 (A Lawless Time, 42) and Darth Sidious (Icons 2027 Edition, 26). You’re encouraged to mix and match cards from this last pack as you see fit, then take all the lessons you learned from the previous three games and try to claim victory one more time!
Once you complete these four games, you are rewarded with a pair of Icons 2027 Edition booster packs to further kickstart your collection. And with that, you’re officially a Star Wars: Unlimited player!
Looking for More?
We’ve covered a lot about the Icons 2027 Edition Starter Box today, and sometimes it’s easier to learn something by watching someone else do it. We have an official How to Play video featuring this box coming soon, and we will update this article with a link to that video once it’s ready. Stay tuned!
Icons will be available from November 20th –happy hunting!
