The SWU Report

This week I’m joined by Sam Whitehead, fellow SWU-Tang Clan member, Golden Company veteran, and someone who spent years across the table from me in A Game of Thrones: The Card Game 2ED. Old school White Book listeners may also recognize his name from a few guest hosting stints on that show. It’s good to have him on. This episode we turn our attention to the upcoming Homeworlds set and specifically the new Fortification mechanic. We explain what it does what it does, what it might mean for the Premier format, and whether it’s the kind of thing that changes how you think about your base slot or just adds texture around the edges, and even if it’s playable at all. Plenty of speculation, some disagreement, and probably at least one tangent about AGOT. Fair warning. Links: The SWU Report: https://swu.report Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/swureport Discord: https://swu.report/discord Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabay https://pixabay.com/music/main-title-…

Will and Alex chat about where the current metagame stands with Cad Bane / Blue 30 everywhere — and the announcement that FFG will be doing an off-schedule meta check-in stream on Monday, August 24th, which is not the kind of thing you schedule when everything is fine. We speculate on where a potential Cad ban or suspension would take the meta and what else we’d potentially include to shake things up if we had the keys. We also talk about the new Bounty Rating metric on the SWU Report Meta Dashboard — where it came from (Vicious Syndicate), what it measures, and why Cad Bane’s presence in the data is actively compressing the visible spread between everyone else. Plus a rundown of the quality of life enhancements on the Dashboard lately. Finally, we acknowledge the impending end of the current judge program and ask what happens next? Links: APR Dashboard: https://swu.report/ash-meta/Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/swureportDiscord: https://swu.report/discord Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-path-of-the-force-inspired-by-star-wars-405335/

Will and Alex are back. We start with Alex's firsthand account of competing at the Galactic Championship -- solid record, just shy of Day 2 -- then pivot to Week 1 of the ASH PQ season, where Cad Bane apparently didn't get the memo that Galactics was supposed to be his peak. We also spend some time comparing the major community tracking tools -- SWU Competitive Hub, SWU Base, SWU Meta Stats, and our own APR Dashboard -- what each one is actually measuring, where they agree, where they diverge, and why you'll sometimes see different numbers reported across sources for the same event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ggg1zAmJM

Galactics is a week out, so Alex and I sat down for a numbers-heavy one. Five weeks of Karabast data, forty-three tracked decks, and a matchup matrix that thinks the format’s biggest deck might not even be the favorite to win the thing. Cad Bane’s got the play share and none of us are surprised by that. Whether he’s actually the best deck is a different question, and the numbers have some opinions. Links: Full spreadsheet and charts: [OneDrive folder link] The SWU Report: https://swu.report Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-path-of-the-force-inspired-by-star-wars-405335/

Prerelease weekend is here, and this week I’m walking through everything you need to know to crack six packs of Ashes of the Empire and build something that actually wins games. Or at least something that doesn’t embarrass you in front of the guy who’s already sleeving up. Faking it convincingly is half the battle, take it from me. This is a solo episode based on the full prerelease guide published this week at swu.report. We cover sealed fundamentals for anyone who’s new to the format, what makes ASH specifically different from prior sets — the tempo-focused design, Advantage tokens, Support, and the simplified base situation — aspect priorities for this particular card pool, what to do with your promo leaders Luke and Palpatine, and the thing I will apparently never stop saying: get your space units in order. Links: Full prerelease guide: https://swu.report/2026/07/06/all-things-ash-sealed-your-ashes-of-the-empire-prerelease-survival-guide/ Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/swureport Join the Discord: https://swu.report/discord Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-path-of-the-force-inspired-by-star-wars-405335/

Will and Alex are back to close out the Ashes of the Empire leader lineup. This week we work through the back half of the set from a Premier constructed lens: Bo-Katan Kryze, Cad Bane, Vane, Ezra Bridger, The Mandalorian, Emperor Palpatine, Shin Hati, Greef Karga, and Grogu. Two quick housekeeping notes this episode: the SWU Report has a Ko-fi page if you’d like to help support the site, and we just launched a Discord server for anyone who wants to talk shop, argue about ASH leaders, or just hang out with the community. Links: The SWU Report: https://swu.report Support us on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/swureport Join the Discord: https://swu.report/discord Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-path-of-the-force-inspired-by-star-wars-405335/

This week I’m joined by Alex Schmidt — PQ winner, COO at Stonemaier Games, and fellow card game obsessive — for our first conversation about the Ashes of the Empire leader lineup. Alex and I were introduced by a mutual friend who figured we’d have a lot to say to each other. Turns out that was correct. We work through the first nine ASH leaders from a Premier constructed perspective: The Armorer, Fennec Shand, Baylan Skoll, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Luke Skywalker, Sabine Wren, Grand Admiral Sloane, Moff Gideon, and Ahsoka Tano. First impressions, initial competitive ceiling reads, and the obligatory moment where we disagree about something and both feel pretty good about it. Part 2 coming soon. Links: The SWU Report: https://swu.report Stonemaier Games: https://stonemaiergames.com Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/main-title-the-path-of-the-force-inspired-by-star-wars-405335/

This time I’m walking through the full A Lawless Time competitive season using the APR methodology — and debuting the new APR Dashboard, live today at swu.report. We cover the Big Three, the overperformers the weekly articles kept flagging, the Data Vault ceiling problem, and the Prague Regional Championship, where the three most-played archetypes in the room combined for exactly zero top 8 appearances. I was wrong about Prague. The data wasn’t. Those aren’t always the same thing. Links: APR Dashboard: https://swu.report/meta-apr-overview/ Final LAW season article: https://swu.report/2026/06/03/the-law-meta-one-last-look/ Prague recap: https://swu.report/2026/05/26/grading-the-prague-test/ “We’re Talking About It Wrong” (APR methodology): https://swu.report/2025/08/06/were-talking-about-it-wrong-championship-level-metrics-from-vegas/ Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabay

Welcome to the first episode of the SWU Report podcast. This week I’m introducing myself properly — twenty-plus years of competitive card gaming, from A Game of Thrones CCG to co-founding The White Book podcast, to helping keep the AGOT community alive after FFG walked away, to getting dragged back into content creation after the Star Wars Unlimited Galactic Championship in Las Vegas last year. Fantasy Flight Games once called me a “Championship Level Player” on their official website. It’s funnier in context, I promise. Links: The SWU Report: https://swu.report Intro article: https://swu.report/2025/07/30/welcome-to-the-swu-report/ AGOT.Cards: https://agot.cards Music: “The Path of the Force — Inspired by Star Wars” by Luis Humanoide via Pixabay

https://swu.report/2026/06/04/the-swu-report-podcast-teaser/