Star Wars: Unlimited Cards to Grab Before Ashes of the Empire Lands
*Star Wars: Unlimited Twin Suns (TS26) TCG Deck Details and Checklist
Ashes of the Empire, the eighth set for Star Wars: Unlimited, hits shelves Friday, July 17, dropping us into the wreckage left behind after the Battle of Endor.
It brings over 260 new cards, a new Support keyword, Advantage tokens standing in for Experience tokens, and Mandalorian tokens that arrive already Shielded.
That’s the new stuff. Here’s the part worth your money.
Fantasy Flight already told us which old cards this set was built to make better. Back in May, designer Tyler Parrott laid it out plainly.
While developing Ashes, the team kept several of last year’s leaders in mind. The changes? More When Defeated abilities for Grand Admiral Thrawn, more Force cards for Rey, and more ways to trigger Padmé Amidala.
Two things to know before you spend. All three of those leaders carry the A rotation symbol, which means they exit Premier in March 2027.
And we have run this play before, ahead of Legends of the Force, Fantasy Flight said older tools would start performing better than ever.
They were right. Force Throw got so good it was suspended from Premier that September. A card that spikes on a new set can also get legislated out of the format.
With all that in mind, let’s take a look at four cards you need to buy before the new expansion hits shelves.
Four Competitive Star Wars: Unlimited Cards Ready to Rise
Grand Admiral Thrawn, …How Unfortunate #002/262 – Jump to Lightspeed, Common
Thrawn’s whole deal is repetition. His leader side lets you exhaust him to use a When Defeated ability a second time, and once he deploys, he does it again once per round without exhaust.
Ashes is stuffing the format with fresh When Defeated bodies to feed him, which is the single most direct piece of support in Parrott’s note.
The base leader is a Common. It sells for about nine cents. The Showcase version of that same card has been trading around $160.
If you want exposure to Thrawn getting better, the playable copy costs less than a stick of gum, and the collector copy is where the actual money sits.
*Buy Grand Admiral Thrawn cards on TCGPlayer or eBay
The Legacy Run, Doomed Debris #213/264 – Legends of the Force, Legendary
The Legacy Run is a five-cost Cunning space unit that reads “When Defeated: Deal 6 damage divided as you choose among enemy units,” which was already being called the best When Defeated ability in the game when it landed last summer.
Put it in front of Thrawn and that becomes 12 damage spread wherever you want it.
It’s been sitting near $10 with recent sales, which is remarkable for a Legendary that’s about to have its best archetype handed a pile of new tools.
This is the one on the list where the play pattern and the price are furthest apart. Watch it through the weekend.
*Buy The Legacy Run cards on TCGPlayer or eBay
Rey, Nobody #012/264 – Legends of the Force, Rare
Rey lets you exhaust to deal 1 damage to a unit if you played a non-unit Force card this phase. Not a Force unit, a Force event or upgrade.
That’s a narrower trigger than most people remember, and it’s exactly the kind of card that sits dormant until the card pool catches up with it.
Ashes is the set that catches it up. She’s a seven cost 6/8 on the unit side who can dump and redraw two cards on deploy, and her base printing runs about 12 cents. The Showcase has been closer to $42.
*Buy Rey, Nobody cards on TCGPlayer or eBay
Padmé Amidala, What Do You Have to Hide? #1036 – Secrets of Power, Special
Reveal or discard cards from your hand and Padmé exhausts to ping a unit for 1 but deploy her and that cap disappears entirely.
On her unit side there’s no limit to how often it fires in a phase. Ashes promising more ways to trigger her is a bigger deal than it sounds, because her ceiling has always been set by how many enablers existed rather than by the leader herself.
She has already proven she isn’t just a Spotlight Deck curiosity, putting up a ninth-place finish in a 101 player field on the strength of that engine.
Her standard printing comes out of the Spotlight Deck rather than boosters, so her supply behaves differently from the rest of this list.
Check the Showcase and Hyperspace prints separately before you commit.
*Buy Padmé Amidala cards on TCGPlayer or eBay
Continued TCG Reading:
- Five Pokémon Pitch Black Chase Cards to Watch Before the July 17 Release
- The Five Best Venusaur Cards in Pokémon TCG
- Beckett TCG Hot/Cold List for the Week of July 14, 2026
Protect Your Collection With:
- Penny Sleeves — Amazon | Target | eBay | Fanatics
- Top Loaders — Amazon | Target | eBay | Fanatics
- Binders — Amazon | Target | eBay
