Happy Monday and HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s been a while with the holidays, so we’ve got plenty of cards to tackle.

We had the pleasure of spoiling the first 2 cards, and you can see our first thoughts and impressions in our article along with an interview with Lead Designer Danny Schaefer!

The next card was spoiled by the Board Game Theory podcast where they also interviewed Senior Designer Tyler Parrott!

Justin – This card is a coaster for Set 1. There’s no New Republic synergy in Set 1 (unless there’s a large clump waiting for us in the last ~65 cards or so) and it’s going to be a hard to find an opportune time where you’d want to dump your hand essentially to enable this as a 4/4 or 5/5 with no immediate impact to the board. I do like that cards like this exist though, and hope 3 sets down the road we can revisit this with excitement!

Tyler – Maybe there’s a card out there that plays 2+ other cards from the discard pile or top of deck? If we got that, this card could see some use. Until then… yeah.

Jayson – This card could have been a 2/2 base and I still would have been kind of skeptical. Sequencing in a round is already fragile enough without having to worry about playing this guy out last. It’s interesting to note that our other New Republic card so far (Black One) also has to deal with emptying the hand. This might be a cool subtheme. Just, you know, not now. And if they’re gonna print more cards like this one, probably not ever.

The next card was spoiled by FFG on social media!

Justin – In game theory world, Cassian is just weird to me. 4/6 leader at 6, with a draw ability on both sides leads me to want to play him as a midrange deck, but his ability relies on dealing damage to the base every round which definitely lends to aggro. If we get enough 0-2 cost units to spam the board and use his ability to get more cards, swarm may be a real possibility, but at the end of the day are you gaining enough off the card draws to not just play Sabine Wren for that? Jury’s still out!

Tyler – Yeah, there’s a natural tension in his ability, which will make finding his niche difficult. His stats also worry me. He has basically the same abilities and templating as Luke…so why does he get one less stat point? 6 health coming out at 6 resources makes him very open to counters. In a lot of the test games I’ve played with him, he deploys and immediately dies. I’m holding out hope the swarm idea will be viable.

Jayson – I was initially pretty high on Cassian, and I still think he might have a place. I think he’s very cool. But after some testing and experimenting, I really do feel the tension my buddies above are alluding to. He’s probably not just able to run a good stuff value deck. He wants to play pretty cheap and aggressive, and I think we have better shells for that. He could work out, but for the moment, I’m not sure what kind of deck this is asking us to field.

The next 2 cards were spoiled by Jedi News!

Justin – Zeb is a clunker that I really want to get games in with first before making a big decision. Obviously, he might be one of the most exciting Energy Conversion Lab targets in the game, but can he hang outside of that? Wedge Antilles already has trouble seeing play as a 5/5 for 5 body, so I’m not sure Zeb will play out any better.

Tyler – I love the ability, and his combo with ECL is powerful. We have to remember how many hoops you have to jump through to get to that payoff, though. 1) Your opponent has to have two alive ground units. 2) One of those ground units needs to be insta-killable. 3) You have to have not used ECL already. 4) You have to have Zeb in hand. In my experience, those stars align less than you’d think. The promise here is in his Spectre keyword. If Ghost or some other theoretical Spectre card can copy this ability, we’re in for a treat.

Jayson – Being basically forced to hold ECL until turn 4 doesn’t thrill me, and outside of that base I really don’t know how to feel about ol’ Zeb. 5resources is right about the point on the curve where I get real sad if I play something and it doesn’t impact the battlefield immediately. It’s such a high ceiling ability though, and I hope he sees more play than I anticipate right now.

Justin – More ground vehicles! Yet another ambush snowspeeder, I think this one might be a little better than its 5-cost counterpart thanks to being able to grab a 2 drop to help fill out curve or give you a card to resource next round. At effectively the same stats and thanks to ambush, this plays a lot like 6 cost leader units (Cassian, Hera, Han Solo) but without a cool ability and the flexibility to attack base…and of course we actually pay for this unit. I’m not super high on it, but I think it will see constructed play in the set 1 meta.

Tyler – I’m a fan of this one over the vanilla version. 4 power gives us a lot more targets than 3. Getting a unit back from hand is also helpful. I kinda wish they had printed it without Ambush because it’s a non-bo with Wedge, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying to pair the two.

Jayson – A lot of Ambush units are weirdly squishy and don’t have other enter play synergy. For those reasons, I think this guy is pretty darn slick. Maybe my bias is showing, but I’m just so engaged by everything we’ve seen out of Hero Command so far, and this is no exception.

The next card was a Christmas present from FFG! They spoiled Darth Vader on social media Christmas day.

Justin – HE is here. He checks the boxes for what I’m looking for in a big ‘ole unit with Ambush and a solid When Played ability. I think he’s slightly less good than his son Luke Skywalker, but I’m more than excited to jam Vader in my Villain Green decks. I hope all our iconic star wars characters get awesome unit versions in rotation at all times!

Tyler – This card is bonkers. Follow my math: Ambush costs one; 3-cost worth of units costs, well… three; so, if you were to ignore those abilities and subtract them from his topline cost, it’s like we’re getting a 5/7 unit for 3. This guy could cost 9 and still be on curve. He doesn’t even say “Imperial” in his ability; so, he can slot into already powerful decks like Boba/Green. Vader is an auto-include in every villain green deck for the foreseeable future.

Jayson – Unreal. Probably kicks out Mr. Disintegrator as the chase card from Spark of Rebellion. Just completely sick. Wanna know how to get me to play Villain? Make the math ridiculous. I love him.

The next three cards were spoiled by Nerdly!

Justin – While I’ve seen several call this card an auto-include for blue, I’m not that high on it. I think it’s a good card, and will see a lot of play. I see it as a sideboard card at best for Luke Skywalker though, who will likely be the most played Blue leader. The best part about this card though is the fact that you can put a shield on a Leader! This card will definitely present some interesting shennigans for Krennic decks to play around with.

Tyler – The best-case scenario for MoP is to drop it on a powerful sentinel unit to preserve their precious health. Obi-Wan and Childsen will like this. Since they’re the primary beneficiaries, mono-blue decks seem like the most likely decks to include MoP. Solid, staple card.

Jayson – I think this is a super good card. As usual, the people saying it’s crap and the people saying it’s S-tier are probably both wrong, but in general, I do think people are slightly underrating it. Shields are frequently huge, huge deals in SWU and this is such a breezy way to tap into that.

Justin – I instantly slotted this guy into my Luke and Leia decks. I would have loved to see him as a 3/4, but the 4 power will also present some interesting situations, especially when you combine him with Energy Conversion Lab to set-up a good double trade. 

Tyler – Another staple card! Hero green has now gotten two cards (Battlefield Marine being the other) with an extra point of stats. Being able to play cards consistently over the curve will help tremendously in a faction that wants to keep bodies on the table and make good trades. Rebel and Trooper are useful traits to boot! Maybe his sentinel will bring General Dodonna back.

Jayson – hnnnnnnggggggggggg I’m not sure what exactly it says about me that this and Battlefield Marine are like my favorite dudes in the whole set but hear me out- I was one of the guys who messed around with 3x Rebel Commando in Destiny. I just love the deck fantasy of a bunch of scrappy Rebel troopers and so far it seems like that deck might be genuinely great in SWU. I’m so happy.

Justin – Seventh Sister is pretty sweet, and obviously brings the Grand Inquisitor one step closer to being a force to be reckoned with! Some may still have PTSD from her destiny days of OTK-status rolling in 15 ID Seeker droids, so I’m pretty excited they made the Unlimited version of her interesting without being as potentially suffocating!

Tyler – Her combo with the Grand Inquisitor is serious value; her synergy with Aggression might even make mono-red villain a thing! But I doubt she’ll be played outside of GI decks. She needs to strike multiple times to achieve above-curve value, and likely won’t do that if she can’t ready the turn she deploys.

Jayson – Villain is gonna want more density on Force units sooner rather than later (I can see a certain reason why poking out below…) so I think she’ll see considerable play. You just can’t let her go on living, and unlike Zeb, her trigger doesn’t require her to put herself in danger. She’s gonna be there dodging your Sentinels, hitting you for 3, and wrecking havoc on your board until you do something about her. Card games are all about questions and answers, and this asks your opponent a pretty tough question. I like her.

The next 2 cards were spoiled by our friends at TCGCast (formerly known as Lorcana Cast). Check out their first SWU podcast episode along with the reveals here!

Justin – No Special chaining this go-around, this is a pretty exciting card! Important to note whoever you target (your or your opponent) chooses which card they discard. The implication is you’re likely getting the most value out of this when targetting yourself to get the exact damage number you want. There will definitely be opportunities in the early/mid-game if you have a force unit out where taking an opponent’s card from hand and dealing 2+ damage isn’t terrible either though. This easily slots into Luke Red, whereas Grand Inquisitor and Darth Vader on the villain side may need to see if they can reliably play this given the low number of force units currently available on the villain side.

Tyler – The value here is obvious, especially if you’ve got high cost cards in hand. What I’m on the lookout for is a corpus of cards that discard cards from an opponent’s hand. Right now, those cards aren’t dense enough in any one deck, but if we get there, hand control could become a thing.

Jayson – The flexibility here is pretty insane. I think this is already plenty good, and as the Force trait trivializes with more density in future sets, this seems like it has everything needed to be a staple for a long, long time. S-tier, with a lot of legs. Maybe even the best single-aspect card in the game?

Justin – Important to note, if you played this Round 1, you would be bouncing this card back to hand. When Played abilities resolve in this game after the card is played. With that out of the way, the best effects currently to combo with the bounce would be ISB Agent or Leia Organa, but realistically you probably want to see more 1 cost options before you could consider running this. Since it can’t be played Round 1, it’s somewhat limited in scope as well. 

Tyler – I’m liking this card in Han/Green where this card can bounce Leia or Ackbar or it can ambush in with Wedge and bounce itself after getting a kill. Definitely niche, but fun and good!

Jayson – Combo pieces usually have to be really above curve on their stats to not just be pure fluff, and this guy checks that box. The deck this is going to work with is theoretically something with lots of solid, flexible enter play abilities for cheap. We’re not there yet, and it may be a while, and it may not work out anyway. Let’s revisit this fella in a year. Or, more likely, forget it exists.

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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?