Welcome to Morning Musings, where I drink some coffee and ramble on! As the mind wanders on some random Star Wars Unlimited thoughts, we’ll find out if I’m living in fantasy land or crazy land with these ideas…

In today’s article, I revisit my five hot takes for the Set 1 meta from back in January.

The 30 vs 25hp base debate will not be “solved”

It’s no secret you will find this topic debated almost daily on Discord. People for the most part seem to have a firm stance on 25 hp bases being the only play, or being next to unplayable! I foresee mixed results throughout the Set 1 meta that will leave both sides continuing the debate as both continue to win! The truth is likely that there is a time and place for both, depending on what sort of deck you build and what the meta looks like.

I for one look forward to Jayson having to eat yet another hat when 30 hp bases are not unplayable! Though we are still waiting on him to eat the first one…

Well we never got to witness Jayson eat his hat (though he owes us 2 now..), but I feel like this was truly the case. While most green decks did land on ECL, there were still a few Vader and Han decks that even ran the 30 health green base. Of the most popular meta decks most of the decks on the left half of this image ran 25 hp bases whereas to the right landed on the 30 hp bases. Overall it was a pretty even split, but one could maybe argue Control typically ran 30, aggro typically ran 25.. but even that wasn’t always true!

1/1

Force will not be the strongest trait in set 1

It’s no secret the designers have told us many times that they see the Force trait as the strongest trait in the game. While I see lots of advantages to the trait already, I think the Rebel trait will outshine it in the limited card pool of set 1.

Between General Dodonna, Fleet Lieutenant, Wing Leader, Mon Mothma, Medal Ceremony, and Leia Organa (leader), you have a very synergistic aggro package, that also curves out excellently in midrange decks. These cards get played in basically every Hero deck that can run them without aspect penalty, and they just feel more consistent than the Force cards we currently have to work with.

Rebel did end up being the most built around trait, with most aggro decks being hyperfocused on the synergy there. Force was certainly strong, but outside of Chirrut, Luke, and the occassional Vader Green deck, it wasn’t super prevalent at the top tables of tournaments. I’m interested to see how trait synergies continue to build out going forward, with Set boasting a whole lot of Mandalorian, Underworld, and Bounty Hunter cards.

2/2

Grand Inquisitor will win a Store Showdown

Many players were baffled at Grand Inquisitor deploying at 6 resources upon his initial reveal. Tyler quickly explained that he had been 5 resource deploy in testing but got pushed due to the synergy with ramping in Command (Green), which did nothing to help people’s concerns.

Thankfully over the last few months, we have seen a lot of pieces to help him become competitive. My initial assumption was he would always end up being a combo-build looking to pop off for one big round with resets to win the game, but he actually has options to work with outside of that. A Vigilance (Blue) build offers a lot of control/removal options to take control of the board, while a Cunning (Yellow) build allows him to play the tempo game.

While I’m not saying he’ll be a de facto tier 1 deck, I think someone will have the desire to prove his worth and win a 20 person store showdown. For that, we salute you!

Thanks to CodyKressmann on discord for tracking this, but the results are in and GI did in fact win some store showdowns! While GI turned out better in the end than we mostly expected during preview season, he still was far from a meta powerhouse. Early set 2 reveals have made him look very interesting, so we’ll see if that changes!

3/3

No cards will warrant Bans/Balance changes in Set 1

When Overwhelming Barrage was first revealed 5 months ago, for weeks players called for it to be errata’d, restricted, or outright banned before the game launched! While most have cooled on those takes, it is still seen by many as an overpowered tool that nobody else has access to in dealing damage to multiple units with one card.

That leads me to the second card I think may raise concerns by many, the tempo name-sake Cunning. While Danny assured us mill was not something they planned on pushing to the high-competitive level, the next closest thing to a Negative Play Experience in SWU would be a deranged tempo deck. Cunning does just that with 4 options to stall your opponent into the ground and close out a game. It still blows my mind that you can exhaust 2 units in one action, potentially setting up one of your units to swing for +4. While this isn’t directly removing anything from the board on your opponent’s side, if it wins you the game you don’t need to!

While both these cards are uniquely powerful, I don’t expect them to be too much of a problem in this set. Barrage has seen its power diminished as the rest of the card pool got better and I expect the same to ring true for Cunning.

I think I get to take the dub on this one, though it is a bit more complicated than meets the eye. With no competitive tiered events in Set 1, I’m sure FFG was reluctant to move on anything unless they absolutely had to shutdown 1 deck or broken combo winning every single tournament. We did end up with a surprisingly large meta in the end, as the above images reference with many decks winning events!

With the surge of Boba Yellow following Mike Gemme’s win in CT, I feel like I was also dead on about Cunning. The surprise contendor in this category would likely be Vigilance though, with many a complaint for players everywhere after it suddenly started appearing in any blue deck even at 6 cost! There’s likely still an argument for Fett’s Firespray as well (as Thorrk argued early on in a tournament report) which only gets more scary with cards like A New Adventure and Triple Dark Raid.

4/4

Aggro won’t be the King

If you’ve been paying attention to Content Creators, it feels like anyone and everyone has been making “Leia is insane,” “Can it beat Sabine,” or “Aggro is insane” claims in their content. While Sabine Yellow and Leia Red both pack a hefty punch of aggro damage, with a touch of burn, and extra reach, they are not the boogeyman they may appear to be. They do a good job of putting decks on a timer when left unchecked, but players have already learned to sequence different, build their decks differently, and develop counters to stop their frenzy. While these may be some of the more popular decks early on due to being more straightforward and easier to play, they’re far from oppressive.

While aggro was hot early on, it did end up fading as more midrange and Control decks tuned to face it. Aggro is still definitely a big part of the meta (and likely will be in set 2 with new faces like Kylo), but it was nowhere near the unbeatable powerhouse people were worried it would be the couple of months heading into release.

5/5!

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With a few dozen cards left to spoil, I need to get rolling on some hot takes for Set 2! Can we get even spicier this time?

What did you think about these predictions? What are your hot takes?