Twilight of the Republic spoiler season is upon us! The Garbage Rollers team is excited to review new cards again. Today, we’re tackling 10 that piqued our interest and giving a rundown of their possibilities and potential viability.

1. Obi-Wan Kenobi

Justin – The obvious knee-jerk reaction is “Yet another Boba Fett unit stats on a more expensive leader,” but I think what we have here is fairly interesting. Like Chewbacca, we get a free Sentinel unit to deploy, with this one being more potent out the gate. The unit side may end up being a little awkward if you want to heal one of your units and the opponent has none, but overall it seems like an interesting package for Hero Control. If Hero can get some more cards similar to the villain counterparts on the top end, Obi could be pretty powerful.

Tyler – My fetish for unit healing is well established, so an entire Leader dedicated to it is my dream. Stats are on-curve for a 6-resource leader, but the addition of the Sentinel keyword is a big boost. A leader with that keyword presents a roadblock your opponent MUST deal with to win. We know from set 1 that putting Electrostaffs on Chewie was borderline game-breaking, so I’m hyped to do it one turn earlier here. Obi’s stockiness, keyword and useful traits have me thinking he’ll be a meta staple.

Jayson – Obi-Wan is one of my favorite characters in the whole IP, and I have a lot of company there. At first glance, I think he’s been done justice. I’m a little less high on him than Tyler, but the idea of a more accessible and more immediately dangerous Sentinel leader (compared to Chewie) has me pretty excited to play around with him. 6/4/7 Sentinel for free is just dang cool, and probably juicy enough even if the healing and damage stuff doesn’t pan out every game. I do think he’s going to be incredibly fun in draft, as well, a format where Sentinel is more impactful, more damage usually sticks around on units, and Leaders are even harder to deal with.

2. Maul

Justin – If Tyler didn’t bring up Boba last card, he definitely will here. Maul is INSANE! Overwhelm is potentially the strongest keyword in the game, and we can give it to all of our units! Solid stats on top of that leave me (and most everyone else I assume) already trying to throw together cool Maul decks on SWUDB!

Tyler – Finally, FINALLY, a 6-resource leader with better stats than Boba. That alone is enough to be excited about. Beyond that, you could put Entrenched on him or another unit to kill units AND smack base. Same is true for the under-used Frontline Shuttle. Combine with useful Force and Underworld traits, and this is a leader to get excited about.

Jayson – Hard not to get excited, especially on behalf of Villain Red, a combo which has not really had a generically good leader up to this point. The other options all have hangups- Vader doesn’t come out until 7, Grand Inquisitor is a combo dude, IG-88 sucks, Bossk is inexorably tied to the Bounty keyword, and Kylo clearly wants a super specific aggressive/discard build. Come on dude, this is Villain Aggression. What if I just want a cool, easy to grok guy I can throw a bunch of good cards into and go to town? Well here he is, and he’s awesome. Call me Paul Blart ‘cuz I’m about to cop this Maul.

3. Hello There

Justin – While this potentially plays as a hero version of Power of the Dark side with more focus and less potency, the restriction on the front end of requiring the unit to enter play in the current round leaves me wondering just how useful this card will be. If we get enough other removal cards to work around this on the Hero side, then you can probably play around that limitation and this card will be a homerun in the early/mid-game (especially since it works on leaders thanks to a recent rules change)!

Tyler – One of the most frustrating parts of the meta over sets 1 and 2 has been the lack of a viable Hero control deck. A big part of the disparity between hero and villain on that front was Power of the Dark Side, which gave villain powerful removal at 3 cost. Now hero gets to play too! Play a unit with 4 or less health? Goodbye. Bear in mind that leaders enter play now since the set 2 rules change, so Iden leader stocks drop a bit.

Jayson – In general, I do like using removal on ready units, but the utility this has against Iden and Qi’ra is too cool for me not to be excited. I don’t wanna get too hyped, but at first glance I’m really pretty into this. And Power of the Dark Side is about to get massively ghost-nerfed because of how many cheap/token units are coming, so the fact that Hero is getting a 3 cost removal that’s kinda stonks is a big shift. Love to see it.

4. Consolidation of Power

Justin – This card just screams setting up a combo to me, and I’m not sure we’ll see that combo in this set. Fortunately we still have over 200 cards left to reveal and see! Jury’s very much still out on whether or not this Rare will be binder-fodder for the immediate future.

Tyler – With the existing cardpool, this doesn’t add up. Best I can do is combining three 1-cost Stormtroopers into one 9-cost big unit, but that just breaks even on cost. So… this will sink or swim on the power of Droid Tokens, specifically, how easy it is to buff them. If I can get out three droids for 1/2 of a cost point each, and then buff them to 3-power easily, then we’re in business. However, since it looks like the designers are costing Battle Droid tokens somewhere between .75 and 1, don’t think it’ll happen.

Jayson – Yeah, for the moment I don’t get it. It’s insurance against things like Bombing Run, but I’m not sure how often that play pattern (like, of building up a big board and then converting it into a safer big unit) will make sense. We certainly haven’t seen anything like that to this point. It gets the wheels turning, but there’s so many new toys I’m more excited to play with than this.

5. Gor

Justin – 4 keywords is a lot of fun here, but is this the combination of keywords you want? Sentinel and Ambush don’t really work together the way you’d want them to most of the time, so is sac’ing 3 units for a 6 cost 7/7 Ambush Overwhelm going to do what we want? If Battle Droids abound, I like the idea of it, but I also wonder if we’ll see better ways to make use of our little neighborhood of Rogers.

Tyler – I LOVE keyword salad design. It’s so fun. But will this guy be competitive? Doubtful. He’s only a feasible play with three Battle Droids out for the Exploit, and even then, clocks in as slightly overcosted.

Jayson – I don’t know if I agree that a 7/7 Sentinel/Ambush/Overwhelm for 6 is slightly overcosted, but I also try to evaluate cards based on both their floors and their ceilings. My issue with Gor is that at 12 he’s garbage, at 10 I don’t like him at all, and at 8 I think he’s just okay. So you’re really relying on hitting that Exploit 3 for this guy to be worth a slot, and there’s just a lot of things your opponent will likely be able to do to disrupt that plan. If Exploit becomes a viable archetype, this guy should be right there with it, but what we’ve seen so far almost requires your opponent to not interact with you at all. Jury is out for sure.

6. Savage Opress

Justin – A 7/7 that comes in ready is pretty sweet, and generally going to be enough health that you can safetly play him without worry. Villain Red is full of closers, and its nice to see a new one fitting in the cost curve at 7.

Tyler – First off, the “Night” trait is a new one and I’m excited to see it on the MVPs of the Star Wars Extended Universe, Nightsisters. As for gameplay, this guy is pretty straightforwardly amazing and the only thing likely to hold him back is the abundance of baller units villain has at 7-cost.

Jayson – Actually, Tyler, the MVP of the Star Wars Extended Universe is Babu Frik, who now that I think of it is suspiciously absent from this set’s previews despite clearly being a key factor in the Clone Wars era. Babu Frik, you see, is omniscient, all-powerful, and entirely divorced from the mortal limitations of linear time, meaning that during the Clone Wars he was as he always has been- above and beside all things, ensuring that droids on all sides of the conflict were ready, and making sure that his cute little goggles were properly affixed so that he may gaze upon the galaxy in all his wisdom and tell it “hey hey!”. Now, none of this was shown on screen during the films or the Clone Wars series for real-world political reasons, as we all know, but his influence on the Republic’s downfall is far greater than that of the Nightsisters or Nightbrothers within the established lore, and we’re ready to place him in the S-tier despite having not seen his card yet.

On a somewhat adjacent note, Savage Opress’s card seems pretty good.

7. Low Altitude Gunship

Justin – If Clone Trooper generation ends up being a strong synergy, then we obviously love the Gunship. Even without, a 6/5 Overwhelm that pings a minimum 1 on play doesn’t seem so bad! Heck, Sabine might add this to her collection of closers with ECL.

Tyler – Admiral Ackbar is one of faves from set 1 so happy to see the same go-wide mechanic on other cards. While the stats are below-rate for a 6-cost unit, you only need to do 2 damage with the ability to make up for the difference. Remember that the unit counts itself!

Jayson – I also love Admiral Ackbar, and I love LAATs, and I love Hero Red, annnnnd I love this art, and I love YOU, dear reader, for playing and supporting SWU so that my inner child can play card games with Hero Red LAAT Ackbar.

8. Aurra Sing

Justin – A 7/6 quasi-sentinel with Overwhelm is interesting, but the 7 cost likely plays her a little too late to be too successful. Aurra really needs the game to slow down to be successful, and I’m not sure Set 3 is poised to do that yet.

Tyler – Oh man, this would be AMAZING anti-aggro tech if it didn’t come out 2 turns too late to swing the game against Sabine. While not quite as bad as Kragan Gor, I have a feeling Aurra reads as better than she actually will be in practice. Like Savage above her, she also suffers from “Too Many Good 7s” disease.

Jayson – Pass. As Tyler pointed out, 7 is already a really loaded cost point in pretty much every color combo. I wanna play Luke, I wanna play Vader, I wanna play Han, I wanna play Maul, Dooku, Savage, Mace, soooo many cards before I’d ever reach for this one. I think she likely doesn’t make the cut.

9. R2-D2

Justin – Clearly the best card we’ve seen thus far, R2-D2 is super value as a 2 cost unit, doing Inferno Four things… but better! The only thing really holding our little buddy back is how poor Hero Cunning has been as a card pool thus far. Is this the set that finally corrects the path?

Tyler – Over-curve stats and the ability to rifle through your deck for a needed card? Yes, please. Oh, and I can combine him with Set 1 Artoo to make a draw-efficiency machine. Don’t see how this isn’t a meta staple.

Jayson – Pure stonks, pay zero attention to anyone who downplays this, the real R2. Like most players, I love it when iconic characters get the star treatment. Windmill slam three copies of this dude into every Yellow Hero deck for the foreseeable future.

10. Plo Koon

Justin – I’m definitely a fan of ambushing for 6 power at 5 resources, as it takes care of most things not named Boba Fett. He’ll just require building around turning on the Coordinate keyword. Plo is not going to be a card we splash in every Hero Yellow deck, but I’m excited about the spots where he will fit!

Tyler – Some of the early playtest in our group suggests that turning on Coordinate isn’t going to be that hard. In Plo’s case, you’d just need to have a unit out, flip your leader, and then play Plo. If you do, he’s immediately above curve value, ambushing at 6 power. Plays like that are going to make 6-health leaders a really tough sell (looking at you Han1).

Jayson – Something about this isn’t working for me, which is weird, because I do think Coordinate will end up viable and this is potentially a 5/6/6 Ambush, which is nuts. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m hesitant. One thing I do really like, however, is that even accounting for the potential issues Plo and R2 are both instantly better than literally every Yellow Hero card from Set 2. Seriously- go look at that pile of disappointment and tell me I’m wrong. This is really a very neglected color combo and I’m glad it’s getting some stuff that looks promising.

BONUS 11th CARD: Unnatural Life

Justin – This seems like a solid card, that will likely push control to give more consideration to Cunning as an aspect. I don’t know about you, but an Avenger taking out 3 of my units in one round is just flat out mean.

Tyler – The immediate comparison point for me is Sneak Attack. While that card requires you to have the card in hand but costs 1 less, this card lets you pull from the discard but costs 1 more. My gut tells me that not needing that second combo piece in hand will make this more reliable than Sneak. The only real issue for a good, general-use, villain/yellow card is where do you put it? Boba decks are pretty maxed out already.

Jayson – This is pretty clutch as insurance for a top-end card like Maul in case the opponent claims and removes it at the top of the next round. It also lets you keep tempo after trading into a Sentinel or something. It really does strike me as being pretty versatile and pretty fairly costed- the hoop isn’t that hard to jump through and you get a ready unit for, essentially, 1 buck at the cost of it not sticking. Seems pretty good, and the lack of trait or aspect requirements means it can potentially end up anywhere it needs to in Yellow Villain.

EVEN MORE BONUS 12th CARD: Batch Bros.

Justin – Editorial oversight has really nosedived around here. Who added this one? Are those supposed to be hockey sticks on the left of the card art?

Tyler – So, we get two small units instead of an on-rate one…nice? Why did you ask us to include this one to talk about, Jayson?

Jayson – Because you guys are my bros, and I’ll always give you a boost when I can 🥹 Coincidentally, you’re also both slightly awkward to use and potentially not viable in constructed.