Eternal Format Update: April 2026

April 15, 2026 | Written by Aaron Miles

Hello Star Wars™: Unlimited players!

Now that A Lawless Time has released, and consequently our first rotation, it's time to talk about our Eternal format and our suspension process for it.

The word “suspend” was intentionally chosen over words like “ban” or “forbid” to imply a temporary nature to a card's revoked legality. Unfortunately, in the game's second year, we were unable to take advantage of this, and everything that was suspended in Premier remained suspended until its eventual rotation. In Eternal we want to really lean into the idea of cards being suspended instead of banned, and as such Eternal suspensions will come with a time limit. The first time a card is suspended in the Eternal format, it will become unsuspended with the release of the second set after its suspension. This means that anything suspended today (or at any point during the A Lawless Time season) will automatically become unsuspended with the release of Homeworlds this October.

There are a few goals we hope to accomplish with this philosophy. First, we want to give less refined strategies a bit more breathing room for exploration. With Eternal being in its infancy, our most dominant decks are updated versions of decks that existed in the Premier format. While we're optimistic that unexplored strategies will pop up as new cards intermingle with old ones, we need a higher density of new cards for that dream to be fully realized. When power outliers are removed from the metagame for a few sets, the hope is that this will be adequate time for new strategies to be discovered, refined, and optimized to a point where they are ready to welcome back a new wave of unsuspended cards.

Second, we want to assure players that their favorite strategies will eventually be playable again. We want to acknowledge that nothing was unsuspended in the first two years of Premier, and it's entirely possible we could have brought some cards back and they would have been fine. In Eternal, we're looking to force the issue. There's still layers to this we need to flesh out internally: when we suspend a card for a second time, how long will it go away for? Neither us here at FFG nor you, the player, want a revolving door where the same cards are suspended again every time they're unsuspended. We're still discussing exactly how we want to handle this; maybe the second time you're suspended for three sets, and then four sets, and so on and so forth. Maybe the second time a card is suspended for two sets again, and the third time it's suspended indefinitely like it is in Premier. We're still kicking around a few ideas, and we will let you know where we land as soon as we can!

With the housekeeping out of the way, it's time to announce the first cards suspended in the Star Wars: Unlimited Eternal format: effective April 24th 2026, War Juggernaut (Jump to Lightspeed, 170) and IG-2000 (Jump to Lightspeed, 140) are suspended in Eternal.

It wasn't much of a surprise when Jango Fett (Twilight of the Republic, 16) broke out as the top leader of the Eternal format. The combo of War Juggernaut and Triple Dark Raid (Shadows of the Galaxy, 194) initially lead to both Jango Fett and Triple Dark Raid being suspended in the Premier format, so in Eternal we wanted to take a different approach this time around. Instead of suspending Jango Fett straight away, we wanted to see how the deck would adapt if we took away some of its tools instead. War Juggernaut and IG-2000 are the cards allowing Jango to exhaust most (if not all) of the enemy's units on Jango's deploy turn, and are mostly exclusive to the Jango deck (apologies to all the Cad Bane (Shadows of the Galaxy, 14) fans). While the Devastator (Jump to Lightspeed, 143) can still exhaust multiple units with a deployed Jango, it's not playable on 5 resources with either Triple Dark Raid or Sneak Attack (Spark of Rebellion, 219). Our hope is that by reducing the explosiveness of Jango's deploy turn, other decks will be on a more even playing field. We're excited to see how the Eternal format plays out with these changes, and how things will look when War Juggernaut and IG-2000 return later this year.

For some additional context on why we're coming after Jango and no one else, I'd like to break down some numbers for you. We've had nine Eternal Planetary Qualifiers play out all over the world over the last few weeks, and in that time, Jango Fett has soared to the top of the meta in every regard. He sits at just under a 25% play rate with a staggering 37% conversion rate to top cut. In other words, roughly one in every four players is bringing Jango Fett, and a little over one in every three of those players are making the Top 8. On top of this, Jango has won five of those nine PQs. For comparison, our second most popular leader, Gar Saxon (Shadows of the Galaxy, 1), is at just under a 14% play rate and a 22% conversion rate. Beyond that, other leaders fall well below a 10% play rate. While we're mainly taking aim at Jango Fett, we believe the numbers on Gar Saxon will come down with it, as the deck mostly looks to have such a strong meta position because of the presence of Jango Fett.

It feels prudent to remind everyone that War Juggernaut and IG-2000 will be legal in the Eternal format again with the release of our Homeworlds set later this year. Should Jango Fett return at that time to his current level of dominance, we're prepared to step in with a heavier hand. But until then, thank you all for your engagement with our Eternal format! Thank you to all who have played in those Planetary Qualifiers, and good luck to those still waiting for an Eternal event in your area!

Thanks for reading!