Happy Monday! It was quite the week of reveals, so let’s jump into going through the cards spoiled in the prior week and share our first impressions!

FFG posted the first spoiler on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram to start the Cunning Month poll.

Justin – I think this base solidifies that there will almost never be a time in constructed play you want to run a 30 hp base. Jedha might actually have the biggest ceiling of them all! Valueland play would be saving you 4 damage on an Overwhelming Barrage, 4 damage to your base or a unit depending on what that unit would have hit, and 4 damage 1-2 more times based on what you have available to freely trade into that unit. That’s a biiiiiiiiiiig swing! Jedha players will definitely want to make sure they take the initiative in Round 3 against Villain Green players to have this play available.

Tyler – Jayson has converted me to his philosophy regarding 25-hp bases. If you don’t have control of the board, you’re going to lose no matter how many HP you have. Therefore, anything that can help you control the board in the short term is essential. Keep in mind Jedha specifies “non-leader”, so this base doesn’t shut down leader Han like I initially thought it did.

Jayson – One of my favorite things about Jedha City is how pretty much nobody predicted a debuff as the effect for the Cunning base. It’s a really sensible part of the color pie for yellow. Rocking both a high floor and a high ceiling, I like this pretty much as much as I like Energy Conversion Lab. Careful timing of this action is going to win a lot of games, and failure to master it will lose some, too.

The next 5 cards were reaveled on FFG’s Cunning Aspect stream!

Justin – In case you don’t understand the semantics of the round flow yet, this card is exhausting a unit for this round and it won’t ready for the next round of play. The more exhaust cards that get printed, the more I never want to run Darth Vader or any other leaders we get that come out late in the game and I need to start getting big swings to stabalize. We were already happy to pay 2 for an exhaust and a shield, I don’t see why we won’t be happy to pay 2 to exhaust a unit for 2 rounds.

Tyler – I thought the designers had costed exhaust effects at 1.5 resources, but apparently, it’s only 1(?!), which effects the overall math of the game significantly. This card is absolutely devastating for big, late-game units. You just took 3 rounds to ramp into a Devastator? Congrats, now it’s useless for the remainder of the game. This would have easily been a top draft pick in our recent SWU Fantasy Draft. Maybe the prevalence of exhaust effects is going to lead to a comeback for Admiral Motti?

Jayson – I’m not even really sure how to reconcile big units and big leaders, all of which I was already pretty hesitant about, with the existence of this incredibly strong card. The minute you play something big in SWU, you are asking for a blowout. I’m really curious what’s remaining in the second half of the set to change the prospects for ramp decks and high cost plays, because by printing a card like NGTMD, you’ve basically said that anything that costs over about 4 or 5 resources needs to get its value immediately or risk catastrophic math. Insanity.

Justin – FFG continues its long lasting tradition of including a card in each set named after the set. Important to note that this card has the Spectre trait, so Hera Syndulla will be able to play this card happily out of aspect. I still think she will end up being a nice deck Set 1 once we see all the Spectre cards available making her a unique take on the mono-double aspect build. Back to Spark of Rebellion though… Hand knowledge in itself is always a nice tool, but being able to pick and delete an option out of their hand can be game-changing. I’ll happily be running 3 of these in all my hero yellow decks most likely.

Tyler – Can I get this effect at cost 0? (JK!) I’m excited to try the Hera deck, since double-aspect decks just get me going. Maybe we’ll discover that this effect isn’t worth the two cost, but my intuition says this will be a staple of all Hero/Yellow decks for the foreseeable future.

Jayson – I adore this card on a thematic level and I really appreciated the little story we got on stream about how it came to be. Is it good? Uh…I don’t know. It’s a very potent effect, but I’m just not positive that a wide variety of decks will be able to get away with spending 2 on it. It’s also kind of awkward in multiples. That said, I can’t help but doubt my instinct in this particular instance. Cards in this game are precious, and this could easily take away the only on-curve play that an opponent had available to them if you have initiative. Jury is out, but I think odds are better than not that this is a solid card.

Justin – Villain aggro continues to get some spicy 1 drops. At 3/1, you’re already beyond happy to be running Greedo (Death Star Stormtrooper has made that clear), so his ability is just icing on the cake. It will really shine in a deck like Boba/Red that is already running a high number of events and can get more consistent value out of his ability. It’s pretty amazing that all this is included on a single aspect card, which will happily put him in many aggro hero decks as well!

Tyler – It’s weird to me that Greedo is a neutral card, but I guess I need to get used to it since we’re going to have neutral Stormtroopers too. As Justin said, his stats are already pushed so the ability is just gravy. I don’t see why he wouldn’t be a three-of in every Yellow deck.

Jayson – The comparison with Death Star Stormtrooper isn’t as cut and dried as everyone thinks it is- you can’t have multiple Greedo out, a major appeal of DST. But the ability makes up for it. Greedo’s a pretty great 1 drop, as you can’t just let him sit there and hit base or trade up on you. Making my opponent do something for just 1 resource is my idea of a good time.

Justin – Probably the weakest card of the stream reveals, but it still has its place. A 5/4 ambush unit gives it a little more reach for instantly removing threats off the board, but the 4 health means you’re generally not going to be getting multiple uses out of this card. That’s the ultimate drawback that will prevent it from seeing much play, especially when Villain yellow already has a much better unit in Bossk at this cost.

Tyler – Yeah, Bossk is the kind of Boss you don’t want to have to compete with. As a designer tho, I love when cards with minimal text can find a place in the cardpool. Look forward to seeing this guy in draft!

Jayson – They’re gonna release ~750 cards every year that SWU exists. They can’t all be exciting. File this with Consortium Star Viper under “Cards That Whelm”.

Justin – Well that is sure spicy. The 2nd line especially will give you extra reach to close out games. While all 4 options in a vacuum are fairly good, I suspect most of the time this card is played, the middle 2 options will be selected. Exhausting 1 unit was already a very strong effect, disabling 2 units for the round is amazing!

Tyler – So many great lines of play here. You could use option 1 to clear a troublesome Sentinel out of the way before smacking base with option 2. You could seriously stall the game by using options 3 and 4 together. As always with double aspect cards, however, the question is not whether they’re good- it’s whether there will be enough of them in the cardpool to make a mono-color deck viable against other pairings.

Jayson – Yeah, predictably people are wigging out about this card and saying it’s worth it out-of-aspect for 6. Meanwhile, I’m just over here happy that I’ve finally seen an aspect legendary that I think is reasonably worth 4.

Look, I know I’m a scrooge about these, but there’s no doubt in my mind that mono decks will have a tough time for a few sets. That said, like most of the community I agree that Cunning is the closest thing to a compelling reason to run mono that we have seen so far. Each of these effects is pretty solid, and it offers more compelling combinations of them than the other aspect legendaries did. Doing two of these in a single action should routinely be capable of asking your opponent a question or two that they don’t have good answers to. That’s good. The card is good. That doesn’t mean it’ll be enough. Time will tell.

The next 2 cards were revealed by our friends over at Artificery!

Justin – If a meta exists where we see enough 3/1 and 2/1 aggressive units, ISB Agent will be seeing a lot of play to help level the board. Outside of that, I don’t think he will find a deck slot often, especially in a deck like Boba Red that would want to run him, but already is running better units. Generally, the deck archetypes that want to run 1-drops are aggro decks, but the ISB Agent doesn’t fit that mold.

Tyler – Yeah, the stats and ability are solid- and he has synergy with Veers- but we run up against the “value of a draw” issue. Unlike Greedo, if your opponent does nothing on the ground, ISB agent can’t just efficiently smack base. That makes his high health potentially wasted. For now, there just aren’t many Villian 1-2 drops in Yellow/Blue, so that deck will keep running him, but I wonder how long that will stay the case.

Jayson – I was actually really excited about ISB the minute I saw him, because free damage is free damage. My first game against a human with him, he came into play and pinged off a TIE, and then at the top of the next round swung and traded with their Greedo. If that kind of germanic efficiency doesn’t rustle your jimmies, you may have signed up for the wrong game. Love the synergy with Tarkintown, love his cute lil’ mustache, great card.

Justin – Well, Bright Hope just lost value after initially shutting down the villain space pool with its weirdly statted 2/6 body. The Defender can effectively trade up into it over the course of 2 rounds, especially if it’s dropped Round 2 before the opponent’s Bright Hope in Round 3. Shielded is one of my favorite keywords, and I’m interested to see how many units have it. Currently there are no space Saboteur units, but you can add Infiltrator’s Skill to make one.

Tyler – I played the X-Wing/TIE Fighter PC games back in the day, so TIE Defenders have always had a place in my heart. This one is no exception! With the Shielded keyword, the Defender can trade well into almost anything, and will certainly be key to shutting down the swarm of A-Wings headed our way.

Jayson – This card is bonkers good. Very aggressively costed, a couple of these can make the space lane darn near impossible to find a good solution for. Likely a staple in these colors for a long time.

And finally the last card below was revealed by FFG on social media to cap off an epic week of Cunning reveals!

Justin – They definitely nailed the theme on our favorite Blue man. Thrawn is always three steps ahead, and that includes knowing 1/2 of your card draws every round- icing on the cake, he can then use your own card against you to exhaust your unit! A 3/9 body at 6 will also cause some weird trade decisions, so overall we’re pretty happy to run Thrawn as a control and late game archetype. I expect to see Thrawn run with Blue or Green for that reason.

Tyler – They stats are good, the keywords are good, the ability is good. He’s going to be played a lot. Boba is still the stronger leader with Red and Green in my opinion, so I’m really excited to see what cards come into Villian Blue for him to leverage. A 3/9 leader might be what I need to finally make a healing-focused deck a reality!

Jayson – A total home run take on a character that has to be intimidating for a designer to tackle. I do think he’s gonna be a tough deck to pilot, and I also think that’s exactly what he should be. Thrawn asks you to anticipate, and I think he’s gonna reward players who know their matchups intimately, just like his Destiny iterations did. His exhaust will routinely be a good value resource sink, and his Leader side is darn near unremovable by conventional means. You’ll just have to exhaust him endlessly if you want to avoid him, because nobody is out here trying to pour 9 damage on this dude the hard way. Time will tell if he ends up being a force in the meta, but I’ll tell you this right now- when the early tournaments hit, this is the guy I’m gonna be dreading seeing across from me the most. Whoever takes this guy to his maximum potential is going to be a force to be reckoned with.

~~~~~

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?