In case you missed it, we attended the Star Wars Unlimited Community Celebration event this past weekend, where the remaining missing cards were revealed as we opened packs! There will be plenty of coverage from the event on our YouTube, and you can also re-watch the official FFG livestream from Saturday here.

Justin – The final Spectre card is here! The Ghost fills out the thematic top curve of the Spectres coming in as the 6 cost unit. With the Shielded keyword and a strong When Played/On Attack ability, it will definitely see play in the synergistic Spectres decks. Outside of that though, I’m not sure you can justify running this if you only have 1 or 2 Spectres in your deck. It could be a fun attempt in limited though!

Tyler – The Ghost is over curve (particularly in space) but that’s only true as long you’re playing it in a dedicated Spectre deck. The community was hoping for a card that would really tie that deck together and we sort of got it here. The Ghost and Hera seem playable now- but won’t be Tier 1.

Jayson – 6/5/5 Shielded is a pretty solid place to start for a space unit, but it’s definitely hurt by that second ability being limited to Spectres. An essential card for Hera, who can really go off with this. The Spectre deck, if nothing else, ought to be a blast.

Justin – Bail is in a similar awkward spot to the Alliance Dispatcher of being hard to keep on the board long enough to take advantage of. While they’re only 1-cost units, you’re still boarding a card that is easily taken care of, so it’s hard to justify running this outside of a deck like Luke Skywalker that can shield him to almost guarantee use before being knocked off the table.

Tyler – There’s a tension here between Bail needing to stay on the table multiple rounds to get value and his brittle, fragile body. While Luke can mitigate that somewhat, I doubt a shield is enough of a reason to switch away from what could otherwise be a lucrative round 1 end with a Battlefield Marine on the table.

Jayson – Another card was revealed as part of this final wave that has made me pretty sad about ol’ Bail- I’d have loved this guy to cost 2 and be Shielded, like Bib. Hero/Green’s cool engine pieces are a little bit too vulnerable for me to feel truly excited about them. Still, Bail’s ceiling is super high, and getting him off the board does force your opponent to do something. Those things matter.

Justin – I had the pleasure of drafting Gideon in one of my pods last weekend, and while I didn’t get the opportunity to see how potent he could be, he still felt like great value. Blue Villain also has decent access to Sentinel units, which could provide some staying power for a decently strong ability. Happy to see the full Inferno Squad in Set 1!

Tyler – One of my deepest hopes for this game is that Blue/Villain will eventually have a viable “fortress” deck where powerful units with ongoing effects like Hask and Veers can sit behind a wall of sentinels. While I’m not sure that deck is viable yet, Gideon will be a great addition for the future.

Jayson – Gideon is pretty amazing, especially since he can buff himself to keep the train going longer. This is one of the more potent aura effects. Villain/Blue was the big winner from the day, in my opinion…check out what lurks below…

Justin – Well there’s the board wipe! Happy to see we can count on Jayson being required to play IG-88 in his first store showdown after losing a bet about this card being a single or double aspect card. At 8 cost, it’s not as amazing as you’d like for a board wipe, but it should still suit Villain control decks most likely. Important to note if you have Iden out and play this card, Iden would still trigger a heal for each enemy unit defeated by this card.

Tyler – We’ve been waiting for this key control piece, but 8 was a higher cost threshold than I had hoped for. At 8, this won’t be any help against aggro, so we’re looking for a niche of Villian Control decks that need a way to overcome midrange players. The most likely landing spot seems like Palpatine who could wipe the board and then steal a unit on the other side of the blast.

Jayson – …Well, s***.

Justin – A 2 resource 2/2 upgrade isn’t much to write home about (Academy Training exists after all), but the ability triggering each time this unit defends is quite an interesting space. Since it’s only -1 Power, it likely won’t always find value, but it could require your opponent use a bigger unit to clear the unit this is attached to and find you some extra value. Like most upgrades, I expect to play them a lot more in the Limited format.

Tyler – I like the thought of putting this on a Sentinel and then making your opponent chew through their health at a slower rate. Maybe a high health character like Chewbacca could make good use of it?

Jayson – Oh cool, it’s baby Jedi Lightsaber! This is running into the same issue as lots of Blue upgrades- there’s just too darn many of them and you can’t usually run a bunch.

Justin – Well there’s a proper high end card for Hero/Green aggro. While I’m not sure Hero aggro is really wanting to go to 7 resources, if it does, this will most likely get you 2-4 units on the board and help you close out a game your opponent might have believed they had just stabalized. Definitely love this card in the limited format as well, but I won’t be surprised to see it find its way in many Hero/Green constructed decks.

Tyler – Where this card appeals to me the most is in Han/Green. Seven cost cards are uniquely valuable there because of Han’s ability to start at 5, ramp to 6, deploy and then ramp to 7. It’s plausible a Han deck could play Resupply round 3, and then ramp all the way to this card in round 4. That seems like a blowout scenario that I’ll be happy to build for!

Jayson – In Tyler and I’s sealed game at celebration, this bad boy served nicely as a closer. There was just no coming back from it. I think it’s gonna be a staple, at least in sideboards.

Justin – Our last legendary of Set 1, Force Lightning doesn’t disappoint! The first sentance can do some real fun things, like negating a Superlaser Tech’s ability or removing Sentinel for the round from a unit. The rest of the card essentially gives you extra copies of Vanquish that can be a few resources cheaper on a smaller unit. This will likely be a staple for Palpatine Red decks, Grand Inquisitor decks, and Vader decks, but I’m not sure there’s enough Force units in the Villain card pool to work with if we can’t count on our leader here.

Tyler – Removing abilities for 1 can be situationally useful in and of itself, so everything else on this card is sheer value. Want to one-shot your opponent’s leader? All you gotta do is have out a Fifth Brother or Seventh Sister in play. This seems like a 3x in Villain red decks for the foreseeable future.

Jayson – This was the first Legendary I ever pulled! It’ll always have a soft spot for me because of that. Villain definitely wants more and better Force units, but the ceiling and flexibility here is worth taking a flyer on no matter what. Scalable damage is real good, blanking abilities is real good.

Justin – Sabine got her Firespray! This is the top end card that likely catapults Sabine Green as the definitive Sabine color. The most exciting play with this card, will be running it out to Ambush with Energy Conversion Lab, running over a 3-5 health unit, and then readying it to swing into the opponent’s base for 7-9 damage thanks to Grit! What a fun combo! Having 15 damage on base will have you very worried about this card.

Tyler – Wow. Sabine did not need a crazy, top-end closer, but she got one anyway! The combo Justin outlined above with ECL could very well be meta-defining for this set. I can’t believe this card is a common.

Jayson – Absolutely nutty, and a card that Hero aggro decks badly wanted to see to help their Boba matchup. Superb addition to the cardpool.

Justin – Not the Y-wing some people were yearning for in set 1, but this is a fun card! While 3 to each unit (including yours if you have any in that arena) isn’t exactly a board wipe, situationally it could be pretty big. Where this card fits in constructed has me scratching my head, but I suspect some weird one-lane deck will likely be happy to run it with other cards like Outmaneuver.

Tyler – The guy who will build that one-lane deck? Probably me. The other combo I’ll be looking at is Palpatine. A mini-board wipe might be what Palp/Red needs to make it to that lucrative 8-resource turn.

Jayson – This is gonna be played for sure, but timing it well and maximizing its impact will test player’s skill. Having easy access to something resembling Overwhelming Barrage for other colors was an important balancing element for the set. And, oh yeah, great art.

Justin – I wasn’t too excited about this card until I played a Sealed game against Peter from TCGPlayer and he dropped this on me Round 6 after I had skipped a few rounds and had a 6 card hand at this point. I was still able to keep my bombs in hand and bring back the game, but it was quite the exciting play! With mill not being a competitive archetype in Set 1, I’m not sure this will really see play in Constructed, but it will have to be something you watch out for in Limited play!

Tyler – I definitely feel like we’re on the verge of a hand-control deck that can effectively deny an opponent options. However, since this card impacts both players evenly, I don’t know this is the key card. I just don’t see a moment where I’ll want to pay 5 to discard 3-4 cards from my opponent’s hand.

Jayson – This doesn’t look crazy strong to me, but I can imagine this being pretty tilting if you’re not expecting it in Limited play. Just too expensive right now, and with very little for it to cue off of.

Justin – A fun thematic card, there are few situations I’m going to be excited to have this card in my hand. Maybe it can find more of those spots in Limited, but I’m not looking to draft this before the end of packs.

Tyler – Against aggro, high-cost hand control is pretty useless. However, in matches against midrange and control decks, discarding their options and expanding yours could very well tip the game. I’m excited to try this in conjunction with Force Throw and K2SO which also remove my opponent’s cards.

Jayson – Gotta say, I didn’t have a whole bunch of hand control on my bingo card for the last few red events of the set. I like this a lot better than the above spoiled Smoke and Cinders, and it only costs one more resource. This looks like a problem for future me.

Justin – Hero gets Bail and Alliance Dispatcher, while Villain says “Yeah, we like to keep our stuff on the board. Here’s a shield!” If Yellow was more of a Control color, you’d likely be worried about seeing this guy dropping Superlaser Blast for 7, but outside of a wild stalling Thrawn blue deck, I don’t expect that to be a thing in Set 1.

Tyler – Bib + Boba + Jabba = Free Waylays. A deck that can run free or near-free removal events has to be worth trying, right??

Jayson – Bib makes some of the cheaper Hero engine pieces look kind of sad to me- his ceiling is probably lower than, like, Bail, but he makes up for it by being, tremendously annoying to remove. Don’t leave your Saboteurs at home kids.

Justin – I ended up picking and playing this guy a few times in draft over the weekend was quite happy with him. 4/3 for 3 is decent stats in Constructed, but likely won’t find a home unless Sabine Yellow rebounds higher up the meta. I suspect many people will be happy to play this card in limited formats though!

Tyler – Solid draft card. Love a good card with no text. Maybe in the next set the Fringe trait will give this guy some constructed synergy.

Jayson – You paid a whole extra resource for only one more attack than handsome squid stalwart Battlefield Marine? Be my guest. You can do a lot worse in draft though! I know we say that all the time, but it’s not true of every card, so it’s worth noting.

Justin – A nice fill card in Limited, I’m interested to see if there’s a deck happy to run this in Contructed and get some favorable trades. Jedha City on a stick for 1 resource and a card seems very reasonable, so there’s a chance it finds play!

Tyler – Solid value. My only question for constructed is if you can justify running this over Shoot First, because there’s probably not room for both.

Jayson – Continuing the trend of putting a base on a stick is Disarm, a perfectly fine card that really makes opposing Sentinels sad. Good stuff.

Justin – There’s a few interesting spots to use this as a closer for extra reach, but Sabine Yellow already had plenty of that. It is a Trick event, so maybe Jabba the Hutt can find some interesting shennigans cheating out a card 2 rounds early, but Villain Yellow already closes pretty well with Firespray.

Tyler – Two use cases I see here: first is with Ruthless Raider. Play it- get 4 damage. Attack with it- get 4 damage. Defeat it- get 4 damage. That’s 12 damage for 5 cost in one turn. Second option is for high-end units like Devastator. Ramp to 9 resources, kill your opponent’s best unit, and then smack base for 10 damage- hopefully ending the game. Whatever its playability turns out to be, I pulled a gorgeous Hyperfoil version of this in my first few packs, so it will always be close to my heart!

Jayson – Ah, an old FFG staple for an early card title has returned! Love to see this tradition survive. Cheating units is historically very strong. I think this is a pretty dope sideboard option against decks you think won’t see it coming and where you have a blowout unit matchup.

Justin – Was happy to pick this guy up several times in Draft this week for extra Round 1 plays, but this will never be a card you want in Constructed. Depending on your colors, you should have several other 2/3 units that also come with an ability.

Tyler – Maybe in the next set we’ll get Underworld tribals? For now, pick it in draft if you need to.

Jayson – Underworld Thug is a lot like being in a bar at 2 a.m.- normally you wouldn’t be fraternizing with someone like this, but they sure did start to look appealing after 7 or 8 rounds of draft.

Justin – If you end up with several vehicles in limited, this can play alright, but 3 power generally isn’t ambushing much off the table.

Tyler – This is one of the more playable true neutral cards. If you have the other vehicle in play, you’re actually getting over-curve value. Poor Wedge, tho! He definitely wins the award for most nonbos in the set.

Jayson – This big ol’ butt sure did annoy me a couple times in draft! There’s also plenty of vehicles around, so the kicker may not be all that difficult even in limited play. Not a high round pick, but solid.

Justin – While this guy is clearly 1 resource more than I want to pay for this type of unit, I noticed a lot of these played over the weekend in both Sealed and Draft. There can be a very limited supply of space units at times in Limited, so I definitely suspect you will be happy to run this more often than not in limited.

Tyler – It’s a big body in space, which counts more than on the ground. Draft it if you need a closer. I want to see the hyperspace version of this!

Jayson – The space art in Unlimited continues to just be stellar- these guys really get Star Wars spaceships. Not a lot to add here- I also played it in draft and was pretty darn happy. The design team stays winning on cards like this that make draft so enjoyable.

Justin – Here’s the true candidate for Coaster Card of Set 1. While people love to hate on Galactic Ambition, this card pays 1 to do nothing except prevent yourself from being decked out. The only time that may ever come into play in Set 1 is if you’re DHaus from Unplayable playing against Jeremy Zwirn in a draft pod (RIP Vigilance got our boy)!

Tyler – No idea what you’d use this for in any format. Maybe sleeving up proxies?

Jayson – This doesn’t do nothing– since you can use it on your opponent, it’s technically insurance against discard recursion effects like Home One and Bounty Hunter Crew. If you desperately need tech against the kicker effects on those cards, uh, accept no substitutes?

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That’s it for last week’s spoilers! We made it! That’s everything for Set 1 – Spark of Rebellion spoiled. What a journey it has been! This brings us to an end of our weekly Spoiler recap, though we expect it to start up again come May or so when Set 2 begins spoiler season!

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