A bit of a lighter week after last week’s motherload of drops, but still some hott cards!

These first two cards were spoiled by FFG on social media!

Justin – Jabba is so interesting in a vacuum. With 10 stats (2/8), he’s above curve at 4 and even has an ability to boot. His stats are heavily skewed in the directly of health, which will give him some great staying power, but is his ability strong enough that it matters? Currently the 4 Tricks revealed thus far are Shoot First, Asteroid Sanctuary, Bamboozle, and Waylay. While I’m happy to pay 1 less for all of those, outside of a Boba cunning deck, you are never running more than 6 copies total most likely. Time will tell on how good Jabba is, but he’s safely in the good card category. This is a card I hope to revisit every set and see how the power level increases as we get more Tricks.

Tyler – I’m a big fan. Above curve stats, goes and gets me a card, and makes it cheaper. Everything Justin said is true. I don’t know that it’s enough incentive to play the underpowered Bounty Hunter Crew, but it’s close. The only real constraint on his meta presence will be how many cards a deck has to dedicate to Tricks to make him effective (probably 8+).

Jayson – A really cool body that (probably) draws you a card, gives a permanent effect, and is darn near impossible to remove efficiently. Even if all Jabba does is trade with a bunch of little dudes a turn at a time, he’s mathematically very worth your money. It certainly does not hurt that virtually all of the tricks are really good cards. I’m pretty high on Jabba.

Justin – Sentinel on a stick is a fairly strong effect (glances at Jabba above), so I’m happy its somewhat restricted in the double Vigilance aspect pool. With +1/+1, this is definitely going to find some amazing spots to be dropped and punish an opponent’s sequencing. The only question is will the 3rd Double Vigilance card or last Vigilance leader bring Double Vigilance into the Competitive Meta?

Tyler – I’ve long dreamed of a card like this to pair up with Consular Security Force. It wouldn’t be bad with a Yoda or Kanan either. This will someday be the foundation of a fortress deck that uses powerful sentinels and healing to guard its base tightly. Is the current mono-blue cardpool there yet? Probably not.

Jayson – b o n k, you know? This is a little underwhelming at first glance since mono-blue isn’t gonna get there for a while competitively. But kudos to the design team- moving any of the balancing levers on this card an inch any direction could have easily resulted in either a coaster or a card so strong it warped the game. Unlike some of the other cards in the set that theoretically have future potential but more likely will just be forgotten, I do think this is one we’ll be coming back to later.

The next 2 cards were spoiled by the Nerd Shelves!

Justin – We first caught a glimpse of this card last week in John Leo’s hand during the FFG draft stream. Now that we can see the whole package, it’s a highly interesting card. There’s a lot of potential to drop this at the end of a round after an opponent takes the iniative and punish them. There’s also obvious combo synergies using this with Overwhelm units as well. The On Attack effects of leaders may be the best use of it though! While Motti allows you to hit bases, the easier setup of the Imperial Shuttle makes it much more playable in my opinion, and I expect to see it find its way into some decks in the Competitive Meta.

Tyler – There’s interesting combo potential with Grand Inquisitor here who could quickly run away with a game if he had this and another unit out. But my favorite potential combo is with Han leader. The dream is playing Resupply early and then using the shuttle to trigger Han’s acceleration three times into a Round 3 Home One. Is that likely? Probably not. But every time a card like Mon Mothma is made, its chances increase just a little bit…

Jayson – The fellas have given just a taste above of how many intriguing lines this cards presents us. At the end of the day, this is the first uncapped refresh style effect in the game and it’s attached to a cheap body. Given that, even if wrapping your head around the practical stuff will take time, inevitably somebody is gonna find this card’s ceiling, and it ought to be a doozie. I’m definitely looking at it in Luke Green and will be watching its future with great interest.

Justin – A quick glance at Wolffe leaves you thinking he’ll be an absolute Hero aggro staple! Then you look closer and realize he has no hero aspect and he’s not a Rebel or Trooper. These synergies are pretty crucial in the hero aggro Set 1 deckbuild, so it is likely that Wolffe will end up in the sideboard at best. His ability though does likely warrant a lot of sideboard action! I’m also interested in trying him in a Luke Aggression deck, though you will have to be careful to sequence well so that you do not end up screwing yourself out of restore with his ability!

Tyler – “Can’t” effects just aren’t my favorite. The Jonny in me wants to shoot for the moon, not get brought down by some Spike (specifically, Justin) playing this dude out of his sideboard. He’s a solid aggro card, but I kinda wish he didn’t exist.

Jayson –I echo Tyler- for several reasons, I’d rather this card have not existed. It’ll be interesting to see whether this makes it out of sideboards or into decks at all. He has a lot of upside on paper, but there’s a lot of good cards and it takes a lot to make a list. Like Justin, I think the lack of trait support will hold him down for a while yet.

The next 2 spoilers come from Wampa Radio!

Justin – Situationally, this is a very powerful card! If you manage to keep your opponent’s board in check, and they get to the point of the game where they deploy their leader with nothing else, or drop a big unit, you cackle as you drop this card. Whether you can find those type of situations often enough will determine whether this fits main decks.

Tyler – The situation Justin described would indeed be a powerful play to make. However, I’m skeptical about the cost-benefit ratio and whether this is a win-more card. Let’s look at three potential board states where you could play this:

1. Opponent has a single unit out. Kill it or don’t, I’m probably winning and don’t need this.
2. Opponent has a mix of low/high-cost units. I don’t want to play because it’s just gonna trade down into a chump.
3. My opponent has 2+ high-cost units. I’d like to play, but I’m probably already going to lose.

Maybe there will be more clean board states than I think, but my suspicion is the community will sour on this one over time.

Jayson – Gotta disagree with Tyler on this one. Proper sequencing with attacks and support from cards like Takedown and Force Choke will enable this one to do work- after all, the cheap stuff is the easiest to get off the board to begin with. This seems like windmill slam 3x for Villain Blue, and in fact, the kind of card that should be built around to some degree. To my eye this is one of the strongest things that color combo is bringing to the table and I think maximizing it ought to be plenty compelling.

Justin – The “On Attack” could potentially cripple opponents, but most decks top out around 12 events, giving Chopper a sub 25% chance to hit. The highest-of-high Boba decks, running close to 20 events, still aren’t even a coin flip to hit. Given that you also need a Spectre unit in play, Chopper won’t always be a value machine. You’re happy to slot him in any Hera deck, but beyond that I’m not sure where he fits. Hero Yellow doesn’t see much play outside of Sabine aggro decks, but this isn’t the type of card you’re slotting in there. Chopper could gain more traction in a set or two!

Tyler – With his reliance on having a Spectre out to reach above-curve value, I suspect Hera decks will be the only place Chopper is run. Yellow/Red Hero aggro is already stuffed with great cards so a moderately good card like Chopper just won’t find a spot. As we’ve been saying for a while, the total value of Spectre cards will rest on how well an anticipated Ghost card brings them together.

Jayson – It’s just too many moving parts and an utterly marginal body. A pass for me, and probably the nail in the coffin for our girl Hera. She badly needed this card to be good. Hell, Hero/Cunning badly needed this card to be good. As the door begins to close on this aspect combo, it looks to me to be one of the least compelling slices of our color pie. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

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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?