Star Wars: Unlimited Aspects (Colors), Explained

The short answer

Every card belongs to zero or more aspects, shown as colored icons beside its cost. Your leader and base show aspect icons too, and those are the aspects your deck provides. A card whose icons are all covered plays at its printed cost. For each icon that isn't covered, the card costs 2 more resources. That is the aspect penalty, and it is the only thing aspects restrict: you can put any card in any deck.

This page follows the publisher's Comprehensive Rules version 9.0, dated October 9, 2026. The card counts below come from the TurnZero HQ catalog of the six Premier-legal sets as of October 2026: Jump to Lightspeed, Legends of the Force, Secrets of Power, A Lawless Time, Ashes of the Empire and Homeworlds.

The six aspects

Four aspects describe a style of play, and two describe which side of the war a card is on.

Each aspect has roughly the same number of cards: between 333 and 368 non-leader, non-base cards per aspect across the six Premier sets. A card with no aspect icons is neutral. There are 44 neutral cards in those sets, and they fit in any deck without a penalty.

Perimeter AT-RT

Jump To Lightspeed #068

Vigilance

Beach Patrol AT-ACT

A Lawless Time #162

Command

Haxion Aggressor

A Lawless Time #190

Aggression

Champion's KT9 Podracer

A Lawless Time #232

Cunning

Zealous Soldier

Ashes of the Empire #251

Heroism

Sandtrooper Cavalry

Legends of the Force #232

Villainy

Where your aspects come from

Your leader and base are the only cards that provide aspects. Their icons sit on the right side of the card, and every icon counts once.

Bases never provide Heroism or Villainy, so your side comes from your leader. A standard deck therefore covers three aspects at printed cost: the two on its leader and the one on its base. If the base repeats one of the leader's aspects, the deck covers only two, but it gets two icons of that aspect, which matters for cards that print the same icon twice.

Luke Skywalker, I Can Save Him

Ashes of the Empire #005

Leader: Vigilance and Heroism

Kryze Castle, Kalevala

Ashes of the Empire #022

Base: Command

The aspect penalty

When you play a card, compare its aspect icons with the icons your leader and base provide. Each icon on the card that they don't provide adds 2 resources to its cost. Take the Luke Skywalker leader above (Vigilance, Heroism) with Kryze Castle (Command). That deck provides one Vigilance, one Heroism and one Command icon:

Three details trip up new players:

Mace Windu, Austere Centrist

Homeworlds #128

Two Command icons

IG-88, Programmed to Kill

A Lawless Time #042

Three aspect icons

Cartel Heavy Fighter

A Lawless Time #259

Neutral: no icons

The penalty makes off-aspect cards a real choice rather than a ban. Paying 2 more for one card you need, such as a removal event your aspects lack, can be worth it. Paying 4 more for a card with two uncovered icons rarely is. A Lawless Time also printed common bases whose Epic Action plays a card while ignoring one of its Vigilance, Command, Aggression or Cunning penalties, once per game.

TurnZero HQ's deck builder shows each off-aspect card's real cost in your deck, such as "Costs 8 here (+2 off-aspect)", so you can see the penalty while you build.

What each aspect does

Aspects are not strict rules about what a card can do; any aspect can have a card that does almost anything. But the keywords and effects cluster, and the counts below (from the six Premier sets) show where. A card with two aspects counts for both.

Vigilance (blue)

Vigilance protects your base and removes threats. It has the most Sentinel cards (49 of 106), the most Shielded cards (25 of 43), the most Restore cards (36 of 68) and the most Grit cards (24 of 40). About 17% of Vigilance cards heal, more than any other aspect, and 14% defeat something outright. A Vigilance deck tends to win slowly, by surviving until its bigger cards take over.

Command (green)

Command fields the largest army. It has the most units of the four style aspects (266), the most Overwhelm cards (33 of 67) and the most cards that hand out Experience tokens. It also has the most cards that refer to resources, from putting extra cards into your resources to units that grow stronger the more resources you control.

Aggression (red)

Aggression deals damage. About 36% of Aggression cards deal damage directly, more than twice the share of any other aspect. It has the most Raid (30) and Saboteur (21) cards, and its units have the highest power for their cost. An Aggression deck usually wants to end the game before the opponent's bigger cards matter.

Cunning (yellow)

Cunning wins on timing. It has the most Ambush (35) and Hidden (27) cards and the most events (77 of its 345 cards). It leads in exhausting enemy units, returning units to their owner's hand and discard effects. Cunning cards often trade a card for tempo: a round your opponent loses rather than a unit they lose.

Heroism and Villainy

Heroism and Villainy mark the side a card is on more than a play style. Heroism holds the Rebels, Jedi and Republic; Villainy holds the Empire, the Sith, the Separatists and much of the Underworld. Because your leader provides one of them, they shape your deck through the leader you choose. Many cards check for your side's traits (Rebel, Imperial, Jedi, Separatist), so a Heroism or Villainy deck often builds around those traits.

Choosing your aspects

Start from the leader, since the leader sets two of your three aspects and gives your deck its main ability. Then pick a base whose aspect covers the cards you most want to play. A base that adds a third aspect widens your card pool; a base that doubles one of your leader's aspects lets you play double-icon cards at printed cost.

For a first deck, a two-player starter deck is the simplest start, because its leader, base and cards already match. Once you build your own, keep most of your cards inside your three aspects and treat off-aspect cards as a small, deliberate exception. Which pairing is strongest changes with each set and each Premier rotation, so it's worth checking what players are building before an event.

The deck building guide covers the rest of the Premier rules, and the card reading guide shows where the aspect icons sit on each card type.

Frequently Asked Questions