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

Wargamer posted the first 2 cards in this article.

Justin – The obvious first note is how insane this card is in Han. In general, I think the Falcon will be worthy of its legendary status and be an auto-include in most yellow decks. People like to focus on playing it early and having to pay resources every round to keep it out, but the biggest value will be for the late game push of 3 extra damage that likely won’t be interactable if you sequence correctly. Fantastic card, started the week of reveals off strong!

Tyler – Just to clarify the rules interaction with Han, if you use his ability to add a resource to your pool, you can use it to pay the Falcon’s upkeep cost before you discard the resource at the start of the round- so the Falcon can essentially be free. The other spicy interaction with this is Home One. Not only can Han help you reach that 8-resource threshold faster, but Home One itself can pull a Falcon which immediately readies and can attack. Clearly a high skill-cap, players’ card.

Justin – Obvious synergy with the Falcon, but currently it hasn’t made the cut in my Han deck yet. I’ve been testing it out in some cheaper aggro decks and enjoying it overall. 1 for +1/+1 and a Boba leader effect on a stick has been nice. I don’t think you can run this card with less than 12 space units without getting in some yucky draw situations. Overall, a good card I expect to see in quite a few decks.

Tyler – The real limitation of a card like this is draw. You want to be able to put the extra resource to good use- can’t do that without having extra cards in hand. One other possibility is pairing with a resource-intensive leader like Luke or Tarkin, but both those decks are pretty tight on space already. My sense is this card will always be the 51st and get cut from competitive constructed decks.

FFG then uploaded this card on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook as the first card from the monthly poll for aggression.

Justin – I’ve been saying all along that the Red 25 HP base would be the weakest of the bunch, as splashing red has the highest chance of being an aggro deck which does not care about the 5 HP loss as much. Overall, a good effect to be able to threaten throughout the game, but the stipulations of damaged and non-leader may end up preventing it from being run much. Jury’s still out on this one!

Tyler – Agree with Justin on all counts. Think that the non-leader caveat hurts the most. It’s the most likely unit to stick around on your opponent’s board while carrying damage- if you can’t use this to clear it, then why sacrifice the health? My first impulse was to put this in all my Red aggro decks, but I’m already walking that back in some cases. The designers did a good job of making these rare bases a thoughtful decision and not just an auto-include.

The next 4 cards were shown during the Aggression aspect stream last Wednesday.

Justin – Our first non-yellow Saboteur! 2 great effects on this card with a 3/4 body? This will probably slot into basically all hero red decks in the first set meta. I definitely expect to see a hero red burn deck if we see more of these deal damage to base abilities on cards in set 1.

Tyler – This unit hits all the notes- solid stats, ability and even the useful Rebel keyword. What excites me the most, however, is the potential mono-deck synergy. While Hero Red doesn’t have the cardpool yet, if we get there, this card could do serious work damaging the opponent’s base.

Justin – Important to note that in this game, Shields and Experience tokens are also Upgrades which means this card has a lot more play than you would expect at first read. This card will be especially helpful in aggro decks that might normally have trouble dealing with some of Luke’s shield shenanigan’s. Another fun play is if your opponent Entrenches one of your big units, you can play the Fang to discard it and start hitting base again. I think this card will generally be a meta call, but the shield and experience hits definitely improve the odds of it being very playable in set 1.

Tyler – The ability to hit shields and upgrades brings the unit up to the curve where it might otherwise have been boom or bust. With that ability, it’s on curve with potential for more. My only hangup is that it doesn’t have the Imperial or Rebel keywords. Expect to see this in a lot of decks’ utility card spots.

Justin – Shoutout Chillwind Yeti, it’s also nice to see a 2 armed Wampa! I think this will generally be a draft card, but there might be some combo play with the Overwhelm ability that land it a home in constructed. Currently there’s not a whole lot of good 4 cost units revealed. If that continues to be the case with full set reveal, he could see more play than I expect.

Tyler – Big fan of Overwhelmed units with Entrenched on them. That combo is just too much fun! Given that ground units are often pushed above curve, though, Wampa does look a little pale in comparison. By the time we get the full card pool, I expect to only reach for on-curve ground units if I specifically need their trait, keyword or aspect hooks.

Justin – Behold the Hyperspace version in all its beautiful glory! This card definitely nails the Aggression aspect, though I did not expect to see card draw primarily found in Aggression. I really like this card, though I still don’t expect to see enough reasons to run mono decks in the first set meta. Give it a set or 2 and this card will really start to shine.

Tyler – Did Justin instantly send me a draft playmat featuring this image? Probably 🙂 I’ve been pretty vocal about my mono-deck excitement and this would certainly be a solid tool for a mono Red deck. I’m estimating the threshold for viability around three dedicated mono-cards. Right now, Red has this and maybe a second if you count Fighters for Freedom, so we’re not there yet.

Justin – A card I expect to see a lot of draft play, but not much constructed play. If it had the Imperial tag, it would be much more interesting. Without it, it fits right into the mold of single aspect cards that just aren’t as good as double aspect cards. I would have like to see the Sentinel ability trigger on 5 resources, or give it another power/health.

Tyler – Like I said earlier about the Wampa, on-curve ground units are going to get pushed out of competition as the pool expands. Our first impulse was to put him into Tarkin mono-Green, but he didn’t make it on account of the aforementioned lack of the Imperial keyword. There’s hope he finds a spot in a Hero mono-Green deck, but TBD on that.

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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?