For me, there’s no more potent fantasy in any Star Wars game I play than a band of scrappy Rebel Alliance soldiers. Age of Rebellion was my favorite of the RPG source books. I do a little cheer in Battlefront every time I don’t roll Empire in a math. And in Destiny, Hero Red was always high on my list of things I was trying to make work.

So imagine my delight when I realized at a certain point that, at least as far as I could tell from my own years of playing card games and the spoiled cards, I thought there was a good chance that the Rebel deck was going to be pretty darn strong. And reveal after reveal, that analysis has held up. Some version of this will almost certainly be the deck I main at launch- it is strong, flexible, and above all, an absolute blast to play.

Welcome to the Rebel Alliance, y’all. Guerilla Radio- turn that s*** up.

We’ll try and keep this deck updated as it evolves on our SWUDB account.

This Leia deck can race with the best of them, but I’m calling it “Midrange” instead of “Aggro” because I feel that term, for now, best conveys the flexibility on tap. You can go fast, but it’s not always correct. The true win condition here is just that all of your units are incredibly efficient, have relevant traits, and mesh together well towards a single aim- winning the battlefield at all costs.

Let’s talk about how to make that happen.

Playstyle

An army of pigs try to silence my style
Off ’em all out the box, it’s my radio dial!

In terms of cost to stats, this combination of colors brings a lot to the table, and leveraging those stats to remain in control of the board is Plan A. Your early game units are just so strong against the rest of the field that you can, with proper sequencing and resourcing decisions, force your opponent to play catch up with you.

There’s definitely a natural end point to this dominance. Leia hits the board at 5 resources, and her 6 HP will be dealt with before too long. After that, the decision of when to go up to 6 resources, and then maybe 7, and once in a very blue moon 8, will be entirely contextual, and your turns will consist of playing cheaper units and your events, which are here to close.

This is not a tremendously compelling late game compared to some other decks in the field, and it’s therefore important not to forego too many opportunities along the way to do damage to the enemy base. Unlike a lot of true Aggro decks, you can survive later games, but the chances of that get a lot slimmer the farther away your target is.

The early and mid games are strengths for you, and it’s mostly because your cast of characters do nearly everything you’re asking them to do:

• Sabine is one of the best cards here, efficiently countering opposing Greedos, Death Star Stormtroopers, and shields, and when in hand should usually be your Round 1 play.
• Mon Mothma is the kind of card Leia has dreamt about since the beginning, putting a body on the field while keeping Leia’s hand full of Rebels. You’ll learn what’s most relevant for her to grab in a given matchup with time, but you usually want to use her to structure your next turn.
• Admiral Ackbar is a star, and sequencing him well (including prioritizing cheaper bodies when you know he’ll hit the board) is key to success.
• Red Three is best played when you have a couple units already around to cash in on, preferably in both lanes so that pressure is on.
• Bright Hope is one of the most efficient units in the game. It has weaknesses- namely A-Wing and Imperial Interceptor– but can really throw a wrench in the space lane if not respected.
• K-2S0 is your reach and closer, almost always worth playing quickly and even worth keeping multiple of in hand in the right situations, since really you want him to trigger Overwhelm off a trade and die. Don’t forget that absent a Sentinel, Heroic Sacrifice will send K2 at the opposing base for a staggering nine damage. If you’ve got that and For A Cause in hand, make sure you’re not forgetting to do math.

And those are just your uniques! Your staple Rebel forces, the Battlefield Marines, Echo Base Defenders, and A-Wings of the world, are here to swarm the battlefield in style, trading up into huge swathes of the field and racing the base as well as anybody if left to their own devices. Soldiers are the heart and soul of any fighting force, and that rings more truly here than in almost any other Set 1 deck. Take care of your units, and they’ll take care of you.

Solid fundamentals and smart sequencing are really the biggest portion of your strategy, as opposed to aiming for specific combos of cards on the field at once. Every card in this deck has the potential to be a key player in combination with almost any other card, and you’ll catch the ways they play off each other as you play games with the deck. The overall shape of the game, however, is pretty consistent, taking one of three general paths:

• Your solid math wins you the battlefield very handily. You get your win via controlling one or both lanes.
• Your units get repeatedly traded up against- hard to do, but possible with enough battlefield tricks or perfect draws. Having lost the trenches and without a ton of other tricks, you stall out and lose.
• You keep a solid battlefield in the early and midgame, but eventually the opponent turns a corner. In this case, if you did enough damage early, you very often still get your win via Heroic Sacrifice or For A Cause.

Keeping those general game shapes in mind, and knowing how to recognize when you’re in which situation and how you got there, will increase your familiarity with the deck quickly. This is definitely a deck that rewards knowing it inside and out.

Things We Want

Whether we get them in the first set or beyond, here’s our wishlist for this gameplan…

• Actual Removal – By far our biggest hole, we haven’t seen any Hero/Command events spoiled yet and their potency will likely decide the fate of this deck in the Set 1 meta. We can outrace Aggro, and we can put on too much pressure for Control, but we’re going to lose to other flexible decks with strong arithmetic, like Boba Green, if we don’t have something like Overwhelming Barrage to help us catch up. Whatever is out there is not going to be exactly like that card, of course, but suffice to say we’re watching for unspoiled events with bated breath.
• Replacements For The Heroism Cards – Just by nature of how the colors are balanced, our weak links here share the virtue of being single aspect Heroism cards, namely General Dodonna, Wing Leader, and Fleet Lieutenant, in descending order of how bad I’d like to replace them. It’s pretty likely some combination of those cards are removed wholesale once we see the above mentioned events for Hero/Command or any other accessible way to get damage out of hand.
• A Different Leader? – This is really a Leia Organa deck only by default. A brief tour of our options quickly reveals why…
  
  – Sabine has a very defined gameplan that, uh, isn’t this.
  – Hera is completely zooted elsewhere doing her own (terrible) thing.
  – This shell was tested extensively with Cassian + Energy Conversion Lab to, shall we say, whelming results.
  
  And so, we arrive at Leia, who really does work great- she is super strong on both her Leader and Unit sides, and perhaps most importantly offers a compelling way to finish the game out that works perfectly with this game plan. That double attack closer would be sorely missed in her absence. But that said… it’s really not that hard to fathom someone hopping into her spot and pushing this shell a little further away from Aggro, which at least on paper is a sensible direction.

Chopping Block

We’re pretty happy with everything here, but given that changes will inevitably come, it’s prudent to note some cards that aren’t secure in their slots.

• General Dodonna – This is actually the first build where I’ve really felt the difference between Donuts and General Veers, the theoretically better Imperial tribal support. Here, that theoretical difference becomes very real- I feel like I’d play the mess out of Dodonna as a 3/3/3, where I could combo him with a 2 drop on the Leia deploy turn and get him out early to force an opposing response. As it stands? When he doesn’t end up resourced, he almost always gets passed over for K2 or a pair of 2 drops.
• Wing Leader– It still feels good to play Wing Leader, especially if your target is Sabine or Leia herself. But I’m anticipating it being cut for the inevitable green Y-Wing, or whatever hot new space unit comes along that has Bright Hope or Red Three style flash.
• SpecForce Soldier – As a cheap Rebel, we’re playing him for sure, and that anti-Sentinel tech could have some real legs in the long run. But we’re kidding ourselves if we act like we’re thrilled about him. He’s just solid.
• Fighters For Freedom – This card can do a lot of work, since we still have plenty of good Aggression cards (including all of our events for the moment) and Saboteur is handy. But are we really built to maximize Fighters? We’re not, and it’ll probably get swapped at some point in Set 2.

Additional Flavor Options

This list, of course, is not the only possible way to express this theme and gameplan. Here’s a few directions you might go despite my hesitancies…

Home One– Some of you will cut some cards, windmill slam Home One into this list as a late game bomb immediately, and think I’m plumb crazy for omitting it to begin with. I respect that opinion, but just personally have too many questions about expensive cards to trust even what appears to be a relatively good one. By the time Home One would be played, I’m just far more interested in taking my two cards per turn and keeping the heat on. If that’s not going to do it at that point in the game, I’ve probably already lost in the kind of way Home One wouldn’t have helped.

Mace Windu – I’m pretty torn about leaving him benched, as I think he’s outstanding and a genuine comeback piece for this kind of deck, but the lack of Rebel keeps him on the fence for now.

Wedge Antilles – You could 100% throw in some Fang Fighters and Star Wing Scouts and pivot this right over to being a killer Wedge deck, but that’s not really the game we’re playing, and I’m not sure a killer Wedge deck actually has legs right now. Heroic Sacrifice and Star Wing Scout would be an incredible thing to test out in a deck like that, though.

Bulls On Parade

That’s all for today! What do you think of Leia? Are you ready to gather ’round the family with a pocketful of shells? Are you going to do what they tell you? Keep an eye on our YouTube in the coming weeks for game footage with this underrated Set 1 dynamo!