Happy Monday! Time to go through the cards spoiled in the prior week and share our first impressions. It was definitely a big week!

To kick it off, FFG announced the Worldwide official release date of March 8th, 2024! They posted this teaser video on the first day of Essen Spiel

FFG revealed the first card on Twitter and Instagram.

Justin – Basically everyone chimed in on this being the worst card in the set, with many even calling it unplayable in limited. While I don’t disagree much, I do think this card will see play in limited. In draft, I could see taking one of them among my last few cards for some extra quasi-removal. The only constructed use we have so far would be to drop this before a larger Overwhelming Barrage, but it doesn’t seem worth bogging down your deck for.

Tyler – There are games where the extra +2 defense would be worthwhile, but this is not one of them. For instance, in Legends of Runeterra, a temporary +2 stats buff refills a character’s health, acting like a stealth healing effect. Since damage in SWU persists after the buff is gone, there’s less utility here. We also need to consider the value of a card draw. Even if we eventually consider this a situationally useful buff, would you really want to draw this over any other card? There will need to be serious incentives to play cards with the Tactic trait before this card sees constructed play.

IGN had this card in the image gallery on their Release date announcement article, but it was pulled a couple hours later.

Justin – I had been saying how much I would love to see some Villain Raid units to enable Grand Inquisitor’s ability, and then FFG goes and spoils it on another leader. IG will definitely see play in aggro world, but it does feel bad knowing an ill-timed deploy can see him instantly defeated by Open Fire, Force Choke, or Takedown.

Tyler – Yeah, it feels a little mean to give the ability that Grand Inquisitor wanted to another leader, meaning the two can never be played together. But IG fits the aggro niche well, and his leader side is not to be scoffed at, as it essentially does 1 damage to an opponent’s base every turn. His low leader health raises his skill cap. Typically, aggro decks are low skill cap, with a formulaic script of attack-attack-attack. But if winning requires perfectly timing his leader deployment, maybe more skillful players will gravitate to him. I’m not sold that IG is the best aggro leader yet, but his future is bright.

IGN had this card in the image gallery on their Release date announcement article, but it was pulled a couple hours later.

Justin – Lots of cool implications here! It’s easy to instantly write off Han in the current pool of cards given his leader ability costs a card every round and Yellow Hero has no draw outside of Ezra Bridger and our droid buddies, but you can already do some wild things with him! You have the option of opening the game with a 3-cost unit (like Ezra above) who can also net you the card back. Another fairy land combo play is Resupply on Round 2, Han’s Leader ability Round 3 into Deploying Han and attacking with him to get a 7th resource to drop other Han or Mace Windu (Round 4 if you were playing Red with no resupply access). A leader a round early coming down with a 7-cost unit is pretty killer. We gotta think Han will only get better the bigger the card pool.

Tyler – I’m very excited about Han’s deckbuilding potential. I don’t think he’s going to get used every round- maybe once or twice a game. Essentially any key card you could want to play a turn earlier, you can pitch a card to do it. Resupply round 1! Both droids out Round 1! And his leader flip enabling a two-resource reach is serious money. I’m salivating at the Round 4 Home Ones already (just gotta play a Resupply). Speaking of Home One, Han’s ability shunts the defeated resources to the discard pile, so any card like Home One that brings a card back from the discard pile can benefit from Han flushing extra units away.

This was briefly flashed in the YouTube Release date announcement (but we had previously seen a blurrier version on a GameGenic ad).

Justin – Lightsabers and upgrades in general have proven pretty strong thus far, and this one is no different. 3 for +3/+3 is already good curve, add in the ability and we’re quite happy with the card. The obvious spot is to counter Luke Skywalker if his shield meta ever becomes too popular, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t be slotting this in any Villain force leader deck as is.

Tyler – I’ve table-topped a couple times with this already and the stats boost sings, especially on Vader. The damage a unit that big can do is often game winning. I’ve slotted this into my Vader/Green deck and my 10 damage Overwhelming Barrages are ready to go! Also interested to try this in Red/Blue where I can combine with Entrenched to get a really massive unit.

IGN revealed this card in their Release date announcement article

Justin – As our friends over at Unplayable would say, that’s how you design my boy Mace Win-dawgy-dawg! Boy is he beefy! You love to see this as a mid-game swing card that can drop in with ambush, finish off a weaker unit, and then ready to swing for 5 at base next action. Mace continues the trend of Legendaries being highly impactful cards.

Tyler – The only thing really constraining a unit with repeatable attacks is healing capacity. With a couple of Surgical Droids out, or another future form of healing, Mace could become a full ground-wipe. If you’re low-key obsessed with healing effects like I am, check out my article on the topic. Besides the potential for healing, he’s just a powerful unit in his own right. My only concern is that at 7 cost, he’s beyond the threshold aggro decks want to resource to. Maybe someday he has a good home in a mid-range Hero Red.

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That’s it for last week’s spoilers! What cards are you most excited about? Are there any specific archetypes you’ve been enjoying in the cards revealed?