Exploring the Design of the 'Most Wanted' Sabacc Deck

Bounty Hunter Cards in The Mandalorian & Grogu, Aftermath and their Real World Counterparts

The new Mandalorian & Grogu film recently brought a piece of lore out of the Aftermath novels into the filmic canon: a deck of Sabacc cards showing the faces of the New Republic's 'Most Wanted'.

Photo: Sgt. Karen Sampson

When the concept first appeared in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, the Most Wanted Decks were printed on Pazaak cards rather than Sabacc cards. They were based on a historical detail from our own world: during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a deck of 55 playing cards (52 standard cards plus 2 jokers) was issued by the US Defense Intelligence Agency to help coalition troops quickly identify key members of Saddam Hussein's government and Ba'ath Party.

Wendig adapted this idea to the post-Imperial world of Star Wars, where Pazaak cards were used to promote the hunting and capture of Imperial targets by Republic agents and bounty hunters. In that deck, the highest value target was Grand Moff Valco Pandion.

I had a crack at designs for the Pazaak 'Most Wanted' deck before they appeared as part of the Mandalorian promo. This kind of deck concept is challenging to adapt, because placing a face on every card calls for a lot of character art and photos - here, I used a few cast photos of First Order characters, though the deck was issued for ex-Imperials in the books:

Mock-Ups of Designs for New Republic 'Wanted' Pazaak Cards

Creating the character likenesses needed for a full Pazaak or Sabacc deck means either a lot work for an artist, or gathering photos of cosplayers with permission to recreate their likeness. I imagine it might become a popular project for Star Wars costuming groups in the future!

THE MOST WANTED DECK IN THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU

In the film itself, we are only afforded brief glimpses of the 'Wanted' Sabacc cards. The face of Djin Darin's main quarry, Commander Jotun Coyn, is obscured on the card face because he is unknown to the Republic until his identity is discovered.

Commander Ward gives Mando the 'Ace of Staves' in a scene released before the premier of The Mandalorian & Grogu (2026)

When this single card appeared in trailers, the image quality wasn't as good as the screen captures here. It looked like the cards had a dark green hue to them. I did a quick study of what the rest of the cards might possibly look like:

Early exploration of the Bounty Hunter cards using character icons from the Womprat Font by Louie Mantia.

However, behind-the-scenes photos reveal that more cards were created to fill out the Wanted deck. These photos reveal a design scheme based on a Spike-style Sabacc deck. The cards are darker than I first thought - black with embossed details.

The card from the trailer turns out to be a Face card design, and the appearance of a dark-green colour scheme a colour perception trick. There is a standard lay-out for the 1-6 value cards with vertical stripes or bars, and the 'Most Wanted' portraits appear in hues of blue or orange.

Behind the Scenes shots from Star Wars Explained.

Written below each of the faces in Aurebesh is 'ISB-' followed by a tech number, suggesting that the focus of the lower-value cards are primarily former Imperial Security officers.

Behind the Scenes shots from Star Wars Explained.

The terminology applied to the Sabacc deck is somewhat confusing! Commander Ward refers to the film's initial antagonist Jotun Coyne as 'Our Ace of Staves' when she shows Djin his card.

The identification of the deck's most important target as the Ace of Staves is no accident: it's a direct reference to the 2003 Iraqi Most Wanted deck, in which Saddam Hussein was The Ace of Spades.

The only problem?

Well, the Ace of Staves is a card that appears in a Classic 76-card Sabacc Deck, but doesn't actually exist in a Corellian Spike Deck, which the full prop deck is clearly fashioned after.

The Classic Deck card 'Ace of Staves'

There is no Stave suit in a standard Corellian Spike deck, or any Ace cards - at least not as the deck has been carved up so far. In fact, Staves is also the name used in place of Suits in the canon rules, to refer to all of the suits, and also appears in the hand hierarchy with this meaning: in the hand known as 'Straight Staves', i.e., a Straight within any Suit.

Not only that, but 'Our Ace of Staves' goes by the name of Commander Coyne... and The Commander of Coins is also a card from the Classic deck!

The Commander of Coins

When we first saw the name Coin in trailer subtitles—and yes, it was spelled 'Coin' in the phrase 'Coin's Stormtroopers'—it seemed highly probable that this Commander Coin was a target whose face appeared on the card of the same name. The fact that the target is actually called the Ace of Staves, and that Commander Coin is not a code name at all, but actually his real one... is such a big coincidence, it's difficult to believe this isn't the ghost of an older, abandoned idea from an earlier draft of the script!

So, it seems like the lore details of the 'Most Wanted' deck might have got a bit jumbled in the writer's room at some point. It isn't impossible to make the lore fit. It's possible that this Corellian Spike deck might have included a Suit of Staves, though it would be confusing in light of the double meaning of Staves in the lore of Corellian Spike. It could also be that The Ace is another name for the 10-value card, which the rules for Coruscant Shift previously named 'The Mandalorian'. It's a big universe, with as much room for changes and variations as you see in our own world.

'WANTED' CARDS FOR THE HOLOCARD CANTINA!

Contracts and quests are coming soon to the Holocard Cantina playing experience, and as soon as we saw the 'Wanted' cards, we thought they would make a cool addition to this mechanic. Working with the look of the Most Wanted cards, I created a version for the app to use in a new Player v Player mode that issues a Bounty Card promising XP and credit bonuses for defeating a named opponent at the Sabacc table.

Contract Card designs for the Holocard Cantina: Sabacc Game App

The card uses the Bounty Hunter Guild logo used in the Galaxy Edge parks, and will display the handle of the matched player or 'target' for this Contract quest type!

ADAPTING THE 'MOST WANTED' DECK FOR A CLASSIC FORCE ARCANA DECK

Even though I liked the close-up design details of this deck, a full 'Wanted' deck isn't something I wanted to tackle for Multiversal Exports right now. Instead, I decided to use them as the basis of a simple design for a Force Arcana-style deck for the Holocards app.

This kind of deck, split into 'Light Side' and 'Dark Side' suits or Arcana in the Legends-era novel The Courtship of Princess Leia, was used to play a special Force Sabacc variant.

You can see how I adapted the Corellian Spike design into a full 76-style deck: showing how you might more plausibly get an 'Ace of Staves' in there! The coloured bars in the header and footer are divided into 5 rather than six segments. Instead of mirroring the indicators, the header and the footer fill up in the 1-10 card sequence.

The Legate, Commander, Mistress, Master and Ace take the face card design and use a sequence of symbols based on the Mortis cycle to make cards of The Son, The Daughter, The Mother, The Father, and Balance/Fates (based on the 'Advantage' dice icon from Edge of the Empire).

I hope you've enjoyed our exploration of the Most Wanted deck, and are looking forward to seeing these designs in the Holocard Cantina: Sabacc Gaming App!