Hey there, fellow card slingers! I’m Will Lentz, though most of you probably know me better by my username “Kennon” from my decades lurking around the Fantasy Flight Games community. After over twenty years of competitive card gaming (and let’s be honest, probably way too many hours arguing about the meta on one site/forum/Discord or another) I’m excited to kick the dust off the tires and start something new with the SWU Report.
For anyone new, lets give a quick recap of those twenty years. My claim to fame (if you can call it that) started back in 2002 when I first picked up A Game of Thrones CCG. Yeah, that’s right, I picked it up just after high school and not long after the very first set released. I’ve been playing AGOT through both the CCG days and both editions of the LCG and watched that incredible game evolve and our community grow from a scrappy bunch of Westeros obsessives into one of the most dedicated competitive communities in tabletop gaming.
Back in 2010, I teamed up with Greg Atkinson and Brett Zeiler to launch “2 Champs and a Chump” – and guess which one I was? Greg and Brett were AGOT World Champions (Greg won Joust twice, and Brett pulled off the legendary feat of winning both Melee and Joust championships), while I was just the guy who really, really loved talking about the game. For anyone wondering, “Joust” is the 1v1 head to head format, while “Melee” is the multiplayer format. And no, I wasn’t the one that came up with the podcast name.
But podcasting was not the only content I created for the game. I spent over a decade writing strategy content across pretty much every major AGOT platform. My “All Things Shagga” series on CardgameDB ran for over 50 articles during 1E with bi-weekly deep dives into experimental deck building and those wonderfully janky combos that probably shouldn’t work but sometimes do. I was even honored to serve as “Hand of the King” in CardgameDB’s Small Council initiative, helping elevate the site’s content during those crucial years.
In fact, those years led to the creation of an article series called “Crafting the Theory” which I coauthored in a rotating fashion with some other AGOT luminaries, which lead to the creation of one of my favorite pieces of writing, a deep dive into the effects of one specific card (Valar Morghulis) on the game design and balance of AGOT. Take a look here if you’re curious. It’s still up!
When second edition launched, I launched a community site called AGOT.Cards which still serves as a community resource today. There I wrote “Qyburn’s Laboratory” which kept that same experimental spirit alive with monthly articles exploring build-around cards and unusual interactions.
Fantasy Flight Games even gave me several opportunities to write official content for them, contributing strategy articles like my “Choose Your Title” series about melee player archetypes and pieces on everything from aggressive Greyjoy strategies to Martell’s counterintuitive challenge mechanics. Having FFG recognize my work enough to feature it on their official site was honestly one of the highlights of my AGOT career. There’s also some product inserts such as the Lions of the Rock deluxe box which bore my pen and decklists.
But back to the podcast. We ran that it for years, although it eventually become “The White Book” when 2E of the game launched. We weathered the changes of many years and costs and finally ended an over 500 episode run with my final co-hosts Aaron Glazer and Roy Rogers. So many episodes of pure AGOT obsession – tournament coverage, meta breakdowns, and way too many tangents about our latest janky deck builds. (Also, make sure you check out what Aaron and Roy are up to these days on the Marvel Snap podcast, Snap Judgements. Now that one is a podcast that I did name.)
Those years of podcasting and writing taught me that the real magic of card games isn’t just in the mechanics or the competition – it’s in the community we build around them.
I’ve dabbled in pretty much every FFG LCG that’s hit the shelves (you’ll see me in the playtesting credits in one product or another for all of them), but AGOT always felt like home. There’s something about the political intrigue, the multiple win conditions, and the social dynamics that just clicks with how my brain works. I’m a Lannister player at heart and, let’s be real, I’ve always been a bit of a Shagga player in joust and a Queen of Thorns in melee.
Now, about whatever competitive credentials I have. I made the final table at the 2009 A Game of Thrones World Championship Melee, which remains one of my proudest gaming moments. In fact, I then crafted the deck that Brett took on to win the Melee Championship the next year. I’ve been fortunate enough to win both joust and melee Regional championships over the years, and at one point held the record for most consecutive World Championship top cut appearances of any player at six straight years. (At least, I think it was six. My memory of that part is a bit fuzzy, and records are not as accessible as they are now.) I never quite managed to claim that elusive World Champion title, but it did lead to me earning a nickname that the community has never let me live down when FFG introduced me in an article as a “Championship Level Player.”
So after all that, why are we here now? FFG has retired AGOT among all the other competitive LCGs. To be honest, I thought I was done with that phase of life and with chasing Fantasy Flight Games products. But some of those old AGOT friends and contacts swore that this new Star Wars game was really something. They practically begged me to sit down and learn the game. I did, grudgingly. And damned if I didn’t have to admit that it was a very good game.
After decades in Westeros, I’ve found myself drawn into a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Unlimited has captured something I haven’t felt since those early AGOT days – that perfect blend of accessible mechanics and deep strategic possibilities. The game feels familiar enough to jump into, but different enough to make me think in completely new ways.
Over the years, that local AGOT playgroup that produced two World Champions grew and morphed into a network of friends all across the Midwest US and by the time official AGOT production ended, we had become a team called The Golden Company. Those are the same folks that got me to try the game, and now they’ve formed a SWU team as well – The SWU-Tang Clan (Yeah, the pun was ripe for the taking). You might have seen some of our jerseys around at the Galactic Championship this past weekend.
And speaking of the Galactic Championship in Vegas, boy was that an experience! I’ll have a full writeup coming later this week or early next week, but suffice it to say that it has gotten my creative juices flowing again and directed toward making gaming content! (Massive props to TowerNumberNine, who I spent nearly two hours chatting with as we stood in the prize wall line Sunday who also helped spark that drive.) Now, I can’t quite say I’m feeling up to the content churn of a dedicated Youtube channel or even the demands of a weekly audio podcast, but articles…. I can do articles.
So what is the SWU Report?
Think of it as everything I learned from over a decade of AGOT content creation – both from podcasting and from writing strategy articles across CardgameDB, the official Fantasy Flight Games website, and AGOT.cards – but focused on helping our growing SWU community. We’re talking tournament coverage, meta analysis, deck building theory, and all those little strategic insights that can make the difference between “almost winning” and actually taking down that Regional tournament. Plus, let’s be honest – there will probably be way too many tangents about why certain cards are secretly amazing or completely overrated.
My approach has always been about exploring possibilities rather than just following the established meta. Whether it was my “All Things Shagga” philosophy of experimental deck building or diving deep into melee player archetypes for FFG’s official site, I’ve always believed that the most interesting discoveries come from asking “what if?” instead of just “what wins?” That same curiosity and willingness to explore unconventional strategies is exactly what I want to bring to Star Wars Unlimited.
This community is just getting started, and that’s what has me so excited. We’re at that perfect moment where the game is deep enough to reward serious study, but young enough that there’s still so much to discover. Every tournament teaches us something new, every set release shifts the landscape, and every new player brings fresh perspectives that make all of us better.
I’ve spent over two decades in competitive card gaming, and I can tell you that the games that last – the ones that build lasting communities – are the ones where the players genuinely care about helping each other improve. That’s what made the AGOT community so special, and it’s exactly what I’m seeing happen with Star Wars Unlimited.
Whether you’re a longtime FFG veteran making the jump to SWU, a Star Wars fan discovering competitive card gaming for the first time, or somewhere in between, my goal with the SWU Report is simple: help our community grow stronger, smarter, and more connected. We’re going to dive deep into strategy, celebrate great plays, learn from our mistakes, and probably argue about the meta way more than is healthy for any of us.
Welcome to the SWU Report. Let’s see what this galaxy has to teach us.
May the Force be with you (and may your draws be better than mine),
Will “Kennon” Lentz
