As the Garbage Rollers’ semi-official COO of Hot Takes, I was informed that my too-early tier list must achieve a certain level of spice or potentially be denied publication. So I did what any self-respecting fella in my position would do- I rolled up my sleeves, cut up some peppers, and mixed y’all up a hot one.

These obviously don’t have a great chance of panning out exactly, with so much of the set left to spoil. But for the moment, I think it’s interesting to justify why certain folks ended up where they did, and to sort of define the scale I’m grading on.

To me, a good Leader has the following traits:

• They’re consistent.
• They enable unique archetypes.
• They offer good value.

These are the general things I’m looking for, and I tend to evaluate them holistically, instead of thinking of the Leader side and the unit side as two separate halves. This is the lens through which I settled on my guess at a tier list. Let’s take it one letter at a time!

S-Tier: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Boba Fett

All leaders have vulnerabilities. Any of them, given unfortunate enough boardstates, can be Surprise Strike‘d off the board as soon as they deploy. They all hate NGTMD, though some do hate it more than others. And all good cards occasionally have bad days.

Luke, Vader, and Boba aren’t here because they’re strictly superior or because they don’t have counters. They’re here because to me they match up best to the traits I value- each of these Leaders has solid math, unique use cases, and decently high floors when things go badly.

Luke and Vader, the starter Leaders, have excellent Leader Unit sides. That much is pretty well-documented. The reason I rank them so highly is that their abilities offer really solid utility and can shift the game in your favor even in games where the opponent can hard-counter the Leader Unit. In particular, Luke’s shields can frequently add up and lead to smothering boardstates. Vader’s ping is not quite as strong, but it’s still game-warping, making otherwise excellent cards like Greedo and DST much dicier plays. The ability to impact the board all game long for fair costs while forcing opponents to respect the inevitable deploy is a big deal.

Boba is different, with his strength more firmly lodged on his Leader Unit side. He is more prone to having games where his ability isn’t super impactful. But his Leader Unit, with its powerful economy ability and super pushed 5/4/7 stats, makes his flexibility and potency pretty hard to deny.

These Leaders don’t need a lot of specific card support to keep their impact. Plenty already exists. My guess is that their fate in the meta now lies with their color combos. In terms of what’s actually on their cards, they’re each doing more than enough to achieve greatness.

A-Tier: Sabine Wren, Jyn Erso

Jyn Erso is currently the more controversial of these two to be ranked highly. More on her in a moment. To start, let’s talk Aggro in SWU, and let’s talk Sabine.

Anything that wants to trade with units in SWU probably can’t really be called Aggro. These definitions are always nebulous from card game to card game, but in a game as focused on unit combat as SWU, it’s not enough to say that like, a high-attack unit is Aggro. Take Boba Fett, Disintegrator for example- with his big stats and direct damage on-attack, it’s tempting to think that he’s Aggro. But that ability is completely orchestrated around eliminating enemy units. Against the base, Boba is just a plain old 3 attack dude. This focus on slowing the opponent down means he’s firmly a control card.

At the other end of this scale lies Sabine.

Sabine is pure Aggro, deploying early and packing direct damage to the base. Great Sabine decks will likely be things of great purity, built to race and avoiding unit combat where possible. Sabine doesn’t often answer threats- instead, she makes you answer her. This kind of strategy is highly sensitive to support from the cardpool, but luckily we’ve already seen Sabine get some great tools, including Fighters For Freedom, A-Wing, and Red Three. My guess is that her strong alignment with a defined gameplan will benefit her and give her a unique niche.

My guess on Jyn is a lot more theoretical. On paper, I really think she offers strong opportunities for value. Her Leader Side has one of the most powerful aura effects in the game, ensuring that a wide board gets favorable trades and more activations than otherwise necessary. When Jyn’s ability keeps a unit alive, especially early, it can snowball into a decisive board advantage. To maximize that gameplan, she needs tight decklists that focus on units that are already above-curve. We’ll see if she’s able to make those happen with a full set, as it feels like almost every Hero color is missing a couple of staples.

Jyn is the placement on this list I’m least sure about- she could easily slip down as far as C. But for the moment, I’m pretty high on what she brings to the table and my early testing with her.

B-Tier: Chewbacca, Leia Organa, Grand Moff Tarkin, Han Solo, Director Krennic

Looking back at my list of what I like to see in a Leader, the residents of B-tier each display an area of concern.

For Leia and Tarkin, that area is value. These are Leaders with really solid toolkits, but they won’t necessarily be able to use them every game in a resource-positive way. Leia’s ability sometimes just isn’t super relevant or doesn’t actually gain you the win or the initiative. Tarkin sometimes is forced to play on curve, and on top of that, 1 resource can occasionally feel kind of expensive for an EXP token. These Leaders have solid fundamentals, but may not always be directly contributing to their deck’s success.

For Han and Krennic, I have concerns about their consistency. In some sense, these Leaders both play with fire. Krennic’s need to have damage on his own units to get value means that occasionally the trades just don’t work out and he spends the entire game down on board, which is decidedly not where he wants to be. But even with that weakness, he’s often more consistent than Han. Han, for all the incredible things he can do, is one of the most easily disrupted Leaders in SWU. He is incredibly dependent on capitalizing on the tempo gains he makes, because he’s always sacrificing the long game to do so. Cards are a tough resource to give up. Since there are just so many cards in SWU that can cheaply disrupt tempo, it can be tough for Han against the field, since tempo is his entire thing. He has a super high ceiling, and is unreal at his top end. The problem is that his floor is very real and very low.

I’m sure I’ll be laughed at for having Chewbacca at the top of this tier. I have been saying for a while that i think the community isn’t right to be down on him. Today’s stream had FFG’s Tyler saying the card is underrated. I think Sentinel is a very good ability and I think Chewie being able to throw it onto almost anything he wants is very, very disruptive to a lot of decks, especially faster ones.

Lots of decks decide that they’ll do some base hits because good trades aren’t available, making the opponent instead work to slow them down. Chewie throws a sizable wrench in that plan, forcing his opponent to trade with his Sentinels if they want to get through to the base. This lets him quite regularly keep the board even while building up the curve. His deck has improved dramatically since the reveal of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, which is finally a worthy bomb for Chewie to build up to. The one-two punch of Luke and Chewie hitting the board on Turn 6 is a lot for the opponent to overcome.

My concern for him is whether he’ll have an archetype, as it’s pretty easy to imagine a world where a given Chewie deck is just better out of Luke. I think Chewie can avoid that fate, but the jury is out. In the meantime, he’s a lot of fun, surprisingly potent, and I think more people should give him a chance.

C Tier: Grand Admiral Thrawn, Grand Inquisitor

I think both of these Leaders have potential to improve.

Grand Inquisitor has an archetype, but it’s probably going to take a while. He’s waiting on more cards that directly synergize with him like Fifth Brother, since he’s firmly a combo deck. His value, however, ought to be sky high once he’s got enough support pieces. Readying is a really powerful effect, especially with upgrades to double dip on.

Thrawn doesn’t need more direct synergies- he’s not actually trying to be a hand-knowledge deck or an exhaust deck or anything like that. I think what he really needs to excel is a very deep Villainy/Cunning cardpool that let’s him build a deck of nothing but bangers, and then a pilot with really solid knowledge of what decks they’ll be up against. Thrawn is going to reward meta familiarity and tight sequencing, and those things come with time.

Am I optimistic that Thrawn will meaningfully climb tiers as more cards come out and the meta settles? I’m not sure, actually. I think GI may actually have more of a future. Thrawn is hard for me to get a bead on in terms of whether his tools will actually be able to translate to wins.

D Tier: IG-88, Hera Syndulla

We finally arrive at the point where I don’t have a lot of optimism for the prospects of the Leaders in question.

IG-88 is easy to kill. This is known, has been talked to death. So is Sabine, right? Sure, but the problem is that Sabine getting hit with a Force Choke or a Takedown is likely just a bump in the road. She’s just going to keep hitting you and keep getting value out of her ability, because a free functional 3/5 is just another iron in the fire for Sabine burn. IG-88, though, doesn’t have a strong Plan A to fall back on. Sure, he gives you value for keeping a huge board, but unlike someone like Jyn, he brings no actual way to ensure that happens. I think the best idea I’ve heard is to try to treat him like a 5 damage-to-base event on turns where you force your opponent to expend their means of one-shotting him. This does not seem like a very high ceiling to me.

I’m quite down on Hera. I could change my mind, but my current guess is that the Spectre cards will not have enough internal synergy to justify Hera. Hera’s actual card is like empirically bad. Her only ability is in deckbuilding, and her on-attack EXP token is comically limited. So since that card is so poor compared to other Leaders, her only real philosophy for use is in a deck (likely mono-Command) where the Spectres are better together, and because they are together, than the other options in the slot.

…I simply can’t imagine this becoming true. It would likely require the Spectres to be wildly better than every other card in their color, and so far, this is not the case. I love the Rebels show as much as the next guy and would love to be wrong, but I just doubt sincerely that Hera decks will be better than the alternative shells for those cards. “Hera cards” will likely just be better in other decks, and that’s a really tough fate for such a cool character.

Why Did We Do This Again?

Uh, I don’t know actually? I blame Justin.

It’s too early. The meta is a long way from being solved, and SWU strikes me as the kind of game that will keep surprising us long after folks say the decks are “solved”. It should be fun so see how close we were able to get at this point in the preview cycle.

Check out Justin’s and Tyler’s “way-too-early-tier-list” articles, and let me know in the comments how insane you think I am. You’re probably right 😉

May the force be with you!