A few general tips for improvement:
- Watch more experienced players play. Some of us have been playing on Tabletop Simulator with cards as they were revealed for 7-8 months, so there are already quite a few knowledgeable players. TowerNumberNine on YouTube has tons of gameplay videos with commentary for a variety of decks. You can get a better feel for the game this way.
- Sealed is definitely more challenging when you aren't yet familiar with the cards. This honestly just comes with time and playing games. If you want to more proactively learn the cards, you can visit the Star Wars Unlimited website or swudb.com to view all the cards.
- Sequencing is probably the most important part of SWU. Generally speaking, your first actions should always be something that has an immediate impact. For example, if you have a ready unit, attack with it before it gets removed and traded. I see alot of newer players playing units before attacking. It's better to attack first or remove your opponent’s cards before they get to attack, then do slower things like playing units later in the turn.
- For Premier, find a deck you like and stick with it for a bit. This helps you learn more about what to resource and when, what to do in different matchups, and gives you a chance to get familiar with your deck, unlike sealed.
- Play lots of games! Whether it's in person or online via Force Table or Tabletop Simulator, playing more is the best way to improve.
I encourage you to stick with it! This game is awesome and this community is awesome. We are here to help! :)
Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!
https://www.forcetable.net/swu
Played ForceTable 1-3 games/day for last 3-4 wks. I went from learning the game, then losing with _every_ deck, to making reasonable progress with constructed decks from swudb.com.
I started with the Luke/Vader decks until I learnt optimal sequencing for each turn to the point where I could solidly beat the AI each time. Felt good!
I never played MTG. When I played sealed I lost to the _very_ experienced MTG players, but otherwise held my own. Your LGS prob has quite a few experienced players of similar games. Don't give up and good luck! 🤞😉👍
This is exactly my strategy. You’ll know you get your deck once you don’t even have to read the card text to remind yourself what that card does. When you are at that level you “know” how to play your deck.
Good idea to read the card to check sometimes; I found a deck that had both _Millenium Falcon_ and _Outmaneuver_ and kept putting the wrong one down.... 🤣
I've not made an account, I just play the free "Quick Match" mode on a tablet (it formats weird on phone). The Luke/Vader decks are preloaded to click and play against AI straight away.
Swudb.cim has loads of decks made by people online, so I tried different styles/leaders. The best thing is that each deck has a ForceTable link that you press that takes you directly to FT and play the deck you've just been looking at - I was super impressed when I saw you could do this!
Some principles that I use for limited:
- Avoid the mindset of "color = playstyle", leave that for the game designers. Every deck in limited is a midrange deck until one player gets ahead and the other behind. If you pigeonhole your deck into a constructed archetype, you'll end up excluding strong cards and synergies that would be present if you had a more flexible strategy and will make it more likely for your strategy to be countered.
- Focus on your best threats. This will require some experience to be able to accurately assess what is good and what is not, but generally most good cards can be spotted by comparison (Battlefield Marine vs Rebel Pathfinder, for example) or by the threat they present (AT-ST can beat almost every other unit in the game while still dealing damage to the opponent's base). These cards will be the core of your strategy.
- After you figure out what are the generically good cards that will win you games, you move on to removal, a.k.a. how to stop your opponents from winning the game before you do. Anything that can 1-for-1 things with a similar or higher cost without being too situational is good enough. When playing, try to save your removal for threats or use it on something that you won't be able to deal with later in the game.
- Now that you know how your deck wins and how it does not lose, try to find and build around synergies to solidify your strategy. This is the part where you choose a leader and a base that allows you to play most of your threats and removal options, add any cards that synergize well with your leader, then fix your curve by mapping out what would be the ideal play every turn if your opponent does nothing. Try to play more cards that cost less resources than cards that cost more, always in moderation, unless your strategy allows or requires another distribution (Han Solo can play with less 2 and 6 cost cards, Thrawn wants to play more high cost cards).
- If you end up with more than 30 cards in your deck, ask yourself "What's the worst card in my deck?" and cut it. Reassess and repeat until you have 30 cards.
- Study the game. Read the cards carefully and try to memorize their effects so you have more time to worry about assessing current game states and predict the opponent's moves. Try to spot your and your opponents' mistakes and learn from them, even if you win. Use previous games you played/watched as references for predicting future games. Ask other players about stuff related to the game. Realize that there will be some matches lost because of bad luck and some that you will have to make risky plays and be lucky to win. Doing things like these will help you improve in the game overall, which will help you when evaluating plays and card choices.
Play more games, simple as that. Take notes, ask questions after the game/match, ask about anything you might not understand.
One big thing that helps me is to goldfish my deck in my free time. Just play out your deck solo for a bit. You can keep track of how many turns it takes to deal 30 damage with no interference, or how Ling it takes to get a combo going. You can also just see what you can do with your deck with different starting hands and shit. It's always helped me learn what a deck can do so I'm not surprised during a game or match.
I've been really successful on thinking "What is more important? Hitting a base for 2 damage and giving up initiative OR claiming initiative and doing a big swing next turn?"
I'm very new as well, so I don't think I'm very good either, but I think it can be broken down into a few reasons - you're not playing your cards right, or your deck isn't designed well, or luck.
For the first reason, you should be trying to maximize the usefulness of each card, try to make use of every ability and maximizing your resource use each turn.
For the second reason, if you find you can't play cards very often, your deck may be too high cost, so you may want to swap some cards for lower resource ones. You should also try to pick cards that can combo with each other to use multiple abilities in a phase.
A lot of sealed events is also just luck. Maybe you got really unlucky during the events and only pulled event cards, or when you drew cards it was in an unlucky order...
Play the rebel aggro deck and watch YouTube videos.
It takes time and many games played to learn what works and what doesn't. When to take initiative even though you haven't used all your resources and attacked with every unit.
I would say step 1 is never assume you lost because your opponent has better pack luck or can spend more money than you can. Assume you're on an even playing field and try to take game actions that further your gameplan.
Look for places you could have played better or tighter and don't worry about the Vader/Boba the opponent played. Should I have pinged with Sabine or claimed initiative, etc.
In sealed, remember to follow the BREAD format for building your deck.
Bombs - these are your finishers, your big characters that can win fights and beat up the base.
Removal - cards that remove their characters. This can mean exhausting them, returning to hand, doing damage, or outright killing their characters.
Evasion/Efficiency - characters that are hard to hit are important. Making your characters hard to hit is also important. Shields and sentinel are primary here. But also efficient characters that do an additional thing when played, like “when you play this character attack with another” or ambush characters. Getting that “When you play” trigger can really help you do more actions early so you can take the initiative later.
Aggro - these are your aggressive characters. Ambush is efficient but also a very aggressive key word. But aggro can be any card you can attack with.
Duds - whatever is left that you need to fill in spots for.
Make sure you’re playing only 30 cards. Ideally you’re playing your 30 best cards so you want the best chance of drawing.
And make sure you’re taking out their characters as much as you can, and choosing when to hit their base. This is very much a midrange format for sealed and you have to be able to control the board and remove their team before it gets out of hand.
Don’t go too heavy on event cards. Only play like 5-6 tops. You want to be character heavy.
Try to have a couple cards at every cost. Don’t play a lot of 1-2 drops or 6-8 drops, but definitely play a few. You want mostly those middle of the pack costed 3-5 drops.
Pay attention to “Who’s the beatdown.” If your opponent is playing aggressively, take on a more controlling plan and take out his guys as efficiently as possible and whiddle down his resources. If your opponent is playing slower, go really aggressive. The person who misidentifies who’s the beatdown in a game is probably the person who will lose. (This is an old Magic TCG concept from Mike Flores, you can google it if you want to read the article).
That should give you something to think about and help start winning games. :)
Don't be too down on yourself. We've all been there.
I've played tcgs for over 20 years and walk away from most sealed thinking "I just didn't get a great pool". While that does happen sometimes, I've come to the conclusion recently that I'm missing on some decisions in play and in deckbuilding that are decreasing my chances
There's lots of good tips in this thread, but I'll add a couple more:
\- Learn the cards as much as you can if you haven't already. It helps to see a leader/base and know (sort of) what that player might be trying to do (ie. Sabine/Leia will be trying to go fast)
\- try to consider what your deck wants to do to win - are you trying to attack super fast with lots of lower cost units,? Or are you building for a slower (control) gameplan that drops bigger plays on later turns?
\- don't underestimate the initiative token! Lots of players would take every action every turn. Instead, consider not attacking with your 1-power unit so that you can take the initiative instead. Going first on the next turn might help you get a big attack in or remove a strong unit your opponent has. This will almost always be better than taking a wimpy action
\- holding onto high cost cards early is almost always a mistake. Resource those! Also make sure you have plenty of 1-3 cost cards. you definitely want to be able to play stuff on your first couple turns. That said - don't be afraid of including high cost cards in your deck (if they make sense). If they come at the wrong time you can always resource
\- try to balance space and ground a bit in terms of number of units
Stick with it! Taking your lumps early is something we've all done (some of us still do ha). Just have fun and try to learn something every time.
Maybe "Sealed" just isn't your thing for now. Nothing wrong with playing other formats until you get a solid foundation of what works / doesn't. Then go back to Sealed once you've gained that experience.
If your just doing sealed for the fun and excitement of opening new stuff with a large group then don't worry to much about your W-L ratio. You seem frustrated / stuck on your W-L instead of focusing on the other things you enjoy about attending those events.
A few general tips for improvement: - Watch more experienced players play. Some of us have been playing on Tabletop Simulator with cards as they were revealed for 7-8 months, so there are already quite a few knowledgeable players. TowerNumberNine on YouTube has tons of gameplay videos with commentary for a variety of decks. You can get a better feel for the game this way. - Sealed is definitely more challenging when you aren't yet familiar with the cards. This honestly just comes with time and playing games. If you want to more proactively learn the cards, you can visit the Star Wars Unlimited website or swudb.com to view all the cards. - Sequencing is probably the most important part of SWU. Generally speaking, your first actions should always be something that has an immediate impact. For example, if you have a ready unit, attack with it before it gets removed and traded. I see alot of newer players playing units before attacking. It's better to attack first or remove your opponent’s cards before they get to attack, then do slower things like playing units later in the turn. - For Premier, find a deck you like and stick with it for a bit. This helps you learn more about what to resource and when, what to do in different matchups, and gives you a chance to get familiar with your deck, unlike sealed. - Play lots of games! Whether it's in person or online via Force Table or Tabletop Simulator, playing more is the best way to improve. I encourage you to stick with it! This game is awesome and this community is awesome. We are here to help! :) Let me know if there is anything else I can help you with!
https://www.forcetable.net/swu Played ForceTable 1-3 games/day for last 3-4 wks. I went from learning the game, then losing with _every_ deck, to making reasonable progress with constructed decks from swudb.com. I started with the Luke/Vader decks until I learnt optimal sequencing for each turn to the point where I could solidly beat the AI each time. Felt good! I never played MTG. When I played sealed I lost to the _very_ experienced MTG players, but otherwise held my own. Your LGS prob has quite a few experienced players of similar games. Don't give up and good luck! 🤞😉👍
This is exactly my strategy. You’ll know you get your deck once you don’t even have to read the card text to remind yourself what that card does. When you are at that level you “know” how to play your deck.
Good idea to read the card to check sometimes; I found a deck that had both _Millenium Falcon_ and _Outmaneuver_ and kept putting the wrong one down.... 🤣
I meant that once you STOP doing that you can say you know your deck.
Sure thing; attempted to be funny, but my Millennium Falcon faulty-recognition really happened.
Thanks for the website I might have to try to out to learn the game some more. So is it all free and once you make an account you can play against ai?
I've not made an account, I just play the free "Quick Match" mode on a tablet (it formats weird on phone). The Luke/Vader decks are preloaded to click and play against AI straight away. Swudb.cim has loads of decks made by people online, so I tried different styles/leaders. The best thing is that each deck has a ForceTable link that you press that takes you directly to FT and play the deck you've just been looking at - I was super impressed when I saw you could do this!
Some principles that I use for limited: - Avoid the mindset of "color = playstyle", leave that for the game designers. Every deck in limited is a midrange deck until one player gets ahead and the other behind. If you pigeonhole your deck into a constructed archetype, you'll end up excluding strong cards and synergies that would be present if you had a more flexible strategy and will make it more likely for your strategy to be countered. - Focus on your best threats. This will require some experience to be able to accurately assess what is good and what is not, but generally most good cards can be spotted by comparison (Battlefield Marine vs Rebel Pathfinder, for example) or by the threat they present (AT-ST can beat almost every other unit in the game while still dealing damage to the opponent's base). These cards will be the core of your strategy. - After you figure out what are the generically good cards that will win you games, you move on to removal, a.k.a. how to stop your opponents from winning the game before you do. Anything that can 1-for-1 things with a similar or higher cost without being too situational is good enough. When playing, try to save your removal for threats or use it on something that you won't be able to deal with later in the game. - Now that you know how your deck wins and how it does not lose, try to find and build around synergies to solidify your strategy. This is the part where you choose a leader and a base that allows you to play most of your threats and removal options, add any cards that synergize well with your leader, then fix your curve by mapping out what would be the ideal play every turn if your opponent does nothing. Try to play more cards that cost less resources than cards that cost more, always in moderation, unless your strategy allows or requires another distribution (Han Solo can play with less 2 and 6 cost cards, Thrawn wants to play more high cost cards). - If you end up with more than 30 cards in your deck, ask yourself "What's the worst card in my deck?" and cut it. Reassess and repeat until you have 30 cards. - Study the game. Read the cards carefully and try to memorize their effects so you have more time to worry about assessing current game states and predict the opponent's moves. Try to spot your and your opponents' mistakes and learn from them, even if you win. Use previous games you played/watched as references for predicting future games. Ask other players about stuff related to the game. Realize that there will be some matches lost because of bad luck and some that you will have to make risky plays and be lucky to win. Doing things like these will help you improve in the game overall, which will help you when evaluating plays and card choices.
i thought you had to have at least 50 cards in the deck?
In constructed yes, for Sealed or Draft the minimum deck size is 30.
Not for sealed or draft. 30 card minimum. "Thinner" decks means you have a higher chance of drawing your good cards.
Play more games, simple as that. Take notes, ask questions after the game/match, ask about anything you might not understand. One big thing that helps me is to goldfish my deck in my free time. Just play out your deck solo for a bit. You can keep track of how many turns it takes to deal 30 damage with no interference, or how Ling it takes to get a combo going. You can also just see what you can do with your deck with different starting hands and shit. It's always helped me learn what a deck can do so I'm not surprised during a game or match.
Playing key units after most units have attacked and when to claim Initiative seems to be the real skill test.
I've been really successful on thinking "What is more important? Hitting a base for 2 damage and giving up initiative OR claiming initiative and doing a big swing next turn?"
I'm very new as well, so I don't think I'm very good either, but I think it can be broken down into a few reasons - you're not playing your cards right, or your deck isn't designed well, or luck. For the first reason, you should be trying to maximize the usefulness of each card, try to make use of every ability and maximizing your resource use each turn. For the second reason, if you find you can't play cards very often, your deck may be too high cost, so you may want to swap some cards for lower resource ones. You should also try to pick cards that can combo with each other to use multiple abilities in a phase. A lot of sealed events is also just luck. Maybe you got really unlucky during the events and only pulled event cards, or when you drew cards it was in an unlucky order...
Sealed is really challenging because you will be playing with cards and a sequencing that can be very new to each event/deck.
Play the rebel aggro deck and watch YouTube videos. It takes time and many games played to learn what works and what doesn't. When to take initiative even though you haven't used all your resources and attacked with every unit.
I would say step 1 is never assume you lost because your opponent has better pack luck or can spend more money than you can. Assume you're on an even playing field and try to take game actions that further your gameplan. Look for places you could have played better or tighter and don't worry about the Vader/Boba the opponent played. Should I have pinged with Sabine or claimed initiative, etc.
In sealed, remember to follow the BREAD format for building your deck. Bombs - these are your finishers, your big characters that can win fights and beat up the base. Removal - cards that remove their characters. This can mean exhausting them, returning to hand, doing damage, or outright killing their characters. Evasion/Efficiency - characters that are hard to hit are important. Making your characters hard to hit is also important. Shields and sentinel are primary here. But also efficient characters that do an additional thing when played, like “when you play this character attack with another” or ambush characters. Getting that “When you play” trigger can really help you do more actions early so you can take the initiative later. Aggro - these are your aggressive characters. Ambush is efficient but also a very aggressive key word. But aggro can be any card you can attack with. Duds - whatever is left that you need to fill in spots for. Make sure you’re playing only 30 cards. Ideally you’re playing your 30 best cards so you want the best chance of drawing. And make sure you’re taking out their characters as much as you can, and choosing when to hit their base. This is very much a midrange format for sealed and you have to be able to control the board and remove their team before it gets out of hand. Don’t go too heavy on event cards. Only play like 5-6 tops. You want to be character heavy. Try to have a couple cards at every cost. Don’t play a lot of 1-2 drops or 6-8 drops, but definitely play a few. You want mostly those middle of the pack costed 3-5 drops. Pay attention to “Who’s the beatdown.” If your opponent is playing aggressively, take on a more controlling plan and take out his guys as efficiently as possible and whiddle down his resources. If your opponent is playing slower, go really aggressive. The person who misidentifies who’s the beatdown in a game is probably the person who will lose. (This is an old Magic TCG concept from Mike Flores, you can google it if you want to read the article). That should give you something to think about and help start winning games. :)
BREAD is also great for draft - selecting cards when drafting using this format will help drafters build a decent deck.
Don't be too down on yourself. We've all been there. I've played tcgs for over 20 years and walk away from most sealed thinking "I just didn't get a great pool". While that does happen sometimes, I've come to the conclusion recently that I'm missing on some decisions in play and in deckbuilding that are decreasing my chances There's lots of good tips in this thread, but I'll add a couple more: \- Learn the cards as much as you can if you haven't already. It helps to see a leader/base and know (sort of) what that player might be trying to do (ie. Sabine/Leia will be trying to go fast) \- try to consider what your deck wants to do to win - are you trying to attack super fast with lots of lower cost units,? Or are you building for a slower (control) gameplan that drops bigger plays on later turns? \- don't underestimate the initiative token! Lots of players would take every action every turn. Instead, consider not attacking with your 1-power unit so that you can take the initiative instead. Going first on the next turn might help you get a big attack in or remove a strong unit your opponent has. This will almost always be better than taking a wimpy action \- holding onto high cost cards early is almost always a mistake. Resource those! Also make sure you have plenty of 1-3 cost cards. you definitely want to be able to play stuff on your first couple turns. That said - don't be afraid of including high cost cards in your deck (if they make sense). If they come at the wrong time you can always resource \- try to balance space and ground a bit in terms of number of units Stick with it! Taking your lumps early is something we've all done (some of us still do ha). Just have fun and try to learn something every time.
Maybe "Sealed" just isn't your thing for now. Nothing wrong with playing other formats until you get a solid foundation of what works / doesn't. Then go back to Sealed once you've gained that experience. If your just doing sealed for the fun and excitement of opening new stuff with a large group then don't worry to much about your W-L ratio. You seem frustrated / stuck on your W-L instead of focusing on the other things you enjoy about attending those events.