As I mentioned in yesterday’s spoiler recap, I really don’t like big units that don’t provide immediate impact when played. With exhaust unit effects fairly common already (Asteroid Sanctuary, Leia Organa, Fett’s Firespray) playing something big, like our two walker friends pictured below, is quite risky. Since you get nothing the round they are played, if your opponent can exhaust them the next round, there is a decent chance the game ends before your big card does anything!

There are ways around this, of course, with a card like Admiral Piett, or running Energy Conversion Lab as your base, but I don’t think we can rely on hitting a 3-of card combo in our 50-card deck, or on a base that only triggers once. This leaves us in a bad place if all our big units are counting on that combo.

Let’s look at Relentless as another example. We get a strong ongoing ability, but no swing in board state when it’s played. At 9 resources, unless we got some mega ramp going this game, we’re even more at risk of not getting to use our big unit.

So, what are we looking for in a big unit? At a bare minimum we need one of the following, but realistically we want to see at least 2.

• Ambush
• Strong “When Played” ability
• Strong ongoing ability that impacts the board

The recently spoiled Bossk, Mace Windu, and Han Solo all fit the mold with Ambush and Strong ongoing abilities. With Bossk, we get to deal 2 damage to a unit every time we play an event, with Mace we get to keep attacking assuming we can defeat a unit, and with Han we theoretically can keep defeating units without taking damage. All very strong for taking control of the board and swinging momentum to your side.

The final cards we’ll look at are Home One and Count Dooku. Home One hits the other side of the spectrum having a strong “When Played” ability instead of Ambush to combo with its ongoing ability, while Dooku just has 2 strong “when played” abilities. The difficult part of Home One is the requirement you have a decent 3 cost or less Heroic unit already in your discard pile. But if you do, cards like Leia Organa, Admiral Ackbar, and C-3P0 all have strong abilities.

With just under half the card pool spoiled, I’m sure we’ll continue to see many more units with 5+ cost. I hope we continue to see more that satisfy at least 2 of my key criteria. That will keep deckbuilding interesting by providing several good choices as opposed to locking in the obvious ones.

How do you evaluate the expensive cards? What are you hoping to see in the big bomb units yet to be revealed?