Star Wars: Unlimited Jump to Lightspeed! Interview

Jump To Lightspeed is the new spaceship-focused set coming to Fantasy Flight Game’s newest TCG, Star Wars Unlimited, and Screen Rant spoke with the team behind the game to learn all about it. Set 4 will release in March 2025, but spoilers have already started making appearances for the new set. It's looking to make a lot of waves in the current meta for the game, and players hoping to create epic space battles will have their time to shine.

The Spark of Rebellion set from Star Wars Unlimited was the first set, followed by Shadows of the Galaxy and Twilight of the Republic. Together they set the tone for Year 1 and laid a foundation for the new TCG. However, as the game is headed into Year 2 and Set 4, the Design Team is now focused on more experimental cards and what the game can be now the baseline is established.

Screen Rant interviewed MJ Cutts, Game Designer, from the Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) Star Wars Unlimited team - and one of the lead designers of Set 4 - to learn more about piloting upgrades, the new Spotlight decks, and the thought process behind the development.

Designing A Brand New Set

"It Was Kind Of Wild. It Was Very Exploratory."

New Asajj Ventress Leader Card in Star Wars Unlimited

Screen Rant: Tell us about the overarching story behind the set.

MJ Cutts: I joined on the set early, but still partway through development. It was a lot of me and Jeremy (Zwirn) figuring out our first set beyond the first year of foundation-building and exploring the core stuff. It was kind of wild, right? Because I was a new hire at the time, along with the other newer designers.
I was still figuring out the game, and we were put together to figure out what could a set be - beyond the most stable stuff we could think of - and so getting loose into the wild like that was very exploratory. It was a lot of just like throwing things at the wall. It was a lot of iteration. There are some very, very weird versions of piloting that thankfully do not exist!

Screen Rant: Oh man. Now I want to know!

MJ Cutts: Yeah, yeah. You'd merge the cards together like it was just one card. It would give it traits and stuff too. It was, it was cool, but it was also brain melting.

Screen Rant: That's fair. And this set is definitely completely different from the first three sets, at least from the very small bit of it I've seen.

MJ Cutts: Yeah, the most obvious thing is just way more space stuff and that affects Limited a lot, especially, but it - I suspect - will mix up Constructed as well. But, yeah, yeah, it's, I think, very different, has a very different feel. And we get to see a lot more new characters that people haven't gotten to see yet.

Screen Rant: So what was the primary reason behind making - especially the Leaders - a piloting upgrade. Han could flip into the Millennium Falcon, instead of having the piloting upgrade. So what were the primary reasons behind the direction you went?

MJ Cutts: This has like three: it has a good answer in each pillar. Thematically, we really like bringing piloting, because the division of still caring about the character inside the cockpit is very Star Wars. Not just forgetting that Luke is the one flying the X-Wing, right? And and having that split was important to us.
Mechanically, it was important for a couple reasons. For one, it's a lot more flexible. We like players to be able to do a variety of things in this game, and the ability to put Han driving a tank is is too funny to not be able to do. It also means no name changes, right? And so for cars that call out names, there's no disappointment of being like, "Oh, well, now I don't control x or y," you know? I don't control a Boba Fett or something.
And for production, we couldn't have done something like that unless we were really certain about it, because it would double the art budget for every leader, right? Because it's like, you did the art of the person and the ship. And so we're like, we could do this, but we do not want to do that lightly.

Changing The Narrative & Effects On The Meta

"One Of The Most Unique Limited Environments Of Any Set So Far."

Screen Rant: How do you think Limited events are going to go with this set? Do you think it'll be really different?

MJ Cutts: Yeah, very different. I think Set 4 is one of the most unique Limited environments of any of the sets we've completed thus far.
Having such heavy weight, not just on space, but also on the potential to stack upgrades and pilots on single ships leads to a pretty exciting and swinging Limited format. The opportunities to really invest in one unit, but then to counter play and just completely change the outcome of things with just a single card or two.
I was saying, I think, on a previous stream that baiting someone into expecting that very all-in-one basket approach, and then just putting a single normal unit on the ground can just suddenly melt the entire thing. It's, it's very exciting. And I think it leads to fast, weird games.

Screen Rant: There already are two kinds of big space decks floating around with Tarkin and Jango. Do you think there's going to be a lot more of that?

MJ Cutts: Oh yeah, definitely. Hero is going to have a lot of a lot of space representation as well. Cards that already interact with upgrades, like Gar - like a Gar Yellow, will very likely get good bumps from the set.

Screen Rant: I didn't even think about that. That's great.

MJ Cutts: Yeah. Mandalorian, the Starter. Mandalorian from Set 2, right? Suddenly, all of these abilities to put these very high-stated upgrades on your ships can also be a very good tempo deck, exhausting down your opponents units. There are a lot of very strong strategies and synergies. Everyone says that. So far, they're like, "Oh, I didn't think about that." I didn't either for a couple months. We were like, oh, no, we need to start testing this.

Screen Rant: That's really exciting. So for the resource costs, for the piloting upgrades. How do you decide what stats are going to be on the upgrade part of those cards? Are we going to make it powerful enough to make people want to play this as opposed to play it as a unit? Or is it based on how many resources the piloting ability costs?

MJ Cutts: Yeah, it's a little bit of both. Our general predisposition was that we want the pilot side to probably be the more preferable, right? If both halves are really strong, then it's just like, why play other cards? We had that problem for a while: some of our pilots used to be more pushed in terms of stats, and they didn't feel uniquely special to decks that bring a lot of spaceships. They're just everywhere. And making that still an interesting choice, was important.
A big part of Year 2 was figuring out a better, more concrete expectation of balance checks and vanilla tests for cards and their number of aspects and uniqueness and so looking at that - and looking at what our favorite upgrades from Year 1 were - were good reference points for the amount of stats those pilots were given.

Designing The New Spotlight Decks

"I Think That's Different From Any Other Leader We've Made."

Screen Rant: So beyond just having the piloting ability, how did you work to make this Han and Boba different from the other iterations of them in the previous three sets?

MJ Cutts: We said, I think, on our previous stream, that Jeremy and the other Senior Designers really knew from the outset that they wanted to do ‘odds matter’ like fun Han. I think that's just different from not just the other Han leaders we've made, but also really any other leader we've made.
And then in exploring the Boba Fett leader, we were looking at, you know, if Han is representing some parts of this set, what are other new mechanics that aren't being represented enough? And indirect damage is another new mechanic, and it seemed really exciting and particularly villainous for Boba to be able to keep making your opponent make, like, hard choices right? To pick who they want to save or where they want to put that damage.

Screen Rant: Is there anything you really want people to know about your decisions behind building the two Spotlight decks?

MJ Cutts: I think the most significant one is just that being Spotlight decks instead of Starters, there are a good deal more reprints from Year 1, and we really tried to make those reprints solid, strong parts that people would be excited to not just have that deck, but excited to bring over to their collection and other decks. And so we put a lot of thought into that as we were building things out.

Screen Rant: And you said on the stream that the Spotlight decks were going to be more powerful than the Starter decks. So how did you go about designing that aspect?

MJ Cutts: It was just a lot of testing. We wanted to test the decks both against each other, but also just against our other Starter Leaders. We have the gauntlet, which we try to make a variety of what we think are some of the most powerful decks in any given meta to run things against and see where they land on the hierarchy. So there is a lot of that.

Screen Rant: With the new decks that were put together, Han has the odd numbers in the Spotlight deck. Was there a specific reason for the odd numbers, as opposed to even numbers?

MJ Cutts: We had, I think Ryan (Serrano) and some of the other Designers [saying]: 'If it's never tell me the odds it should be evens.' Like, no, we can't make a card called like Never Tell Me The Odds, and then it not work with odds. It would have hurt people's brains. It would be too confusing. I like to think that it's - you're kind of occupying the C-3PO space, right? Han is your Leader. You are not Han. Han, the Leader is frustrated that you're making him play with these cards.

New Space Tokens, Mechanics & Designer Favorites

"A Nice Way To Avoid Players Fighting Too Much Over Getting The Starfighters They Need."

The X Wing and Tie Fighter Space Tokens in Star Wars Unlimited

Screen Rant: I was really excited to see the space tokens. It was kind of a funny, emotional journey for me on the stream, because you showed the tokens for Experience and Shield. And I was like aw, no space tokens!

MJ Cutts: We actually weren't gonna show the Experience and Shield [tokens]. We were getting ready for the stream. And someone's like, wait, do we have the Experience and Shields? People should know that those are there.
Space tokens were just a big want. They were also good for having fodder to put pilots on, right? To have a ground unit that can still make an X-Wing or something, is a nice way to not get players all fighting too much over just trying to get the starfighters they need to do their pilot strategy if they want it.

Screen Rant: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I know you also said you didn't put an Imperial trait, or a Rebel trait off the ships, and you said you would probably do it if you reprinted the tokens in the future?

MJ Cutts: It wouldn't be a reprint of the token if we were to reprint them, they would be the same. The thinking was, yeah, they couldn't be both Resistance and Rebel, because that would be weird and out of time, you know? And so that kind of split, and them just being called X-Wing and TIE Fighter just ended up being where we wanted to leave them clean.
If we ever returned to space tokens that were, like an X-Wing or something, I would push pretty hard for it to be called like Alliance X-Wing, right? Or Imperial Tie, so that those traits could be there, because those traits matter a lot to someone making a Tarkin deck. To be able to have that stuff, it's important that the cards work together like that.

Screen Rant: Yeah, I was wondering if that was one of the things where - if you did put Imperial or Rebel on them - does that make Leia and Tarkin way too overpowered to have all of those tokens?

MJ Cutts: I don't think so. Yeah, it's just like it was a production reality. I definitely had that in mind long before we were showing this off where, if we ever do this again, I really want to make sure that we can help the players who want that thematic stuff to really feel like those parts are helping them, working with them.

Screen Rant: What's your favorite deck to play in general right now that you can tell me about?

MJ Cutts: Oh, yeah, we live so far in the future that I have to think about it! I really like Gar Yellow. I like playing with any iteration of Anakin. Gar Yellow is fun just because a lot of people don't expect a blue-yellow villain deck to be able to go decently fast. They are not the colors people associate with that kind of strategy.
Anakin, I just love because I love Anakin. I am of the age I was trained to like Anakin, right? Anakin is really fun and exciting. To be able to have that big power number and to be the heel in a Twin Suns game. I like to lose dramatically. It's a good way to do that, which is very thematic.

Screen Rant: Is there anything else you want to tell players and fans about Set 4?

MJ Cutts: I like big spaceships. There are big spaceships. Might even have cards that care about big spaceships if you're lucky, if you're good for Christmas, you get a big spaceship! I've mentioned before that in my interview for this job, the one question I thought I answered terribly was when I accidentally went off talking about Armada for like, 10 minutes and forgot what we were talking about was, like, I lost it. My brother and I played a lot of Armada!

Star Wars Unlimited Set 4: Jump To Lightspeed will be released in March 2025.