And, yes, two of them are Boba…

Sabine/Green is one of the most powerful decks in the game- and has been since before SWU’s release 7 months ago. It’s the foundational pillar of the Aggressive archetype and shows no signs of slowing down as we approach set 3. It’s won multiple Planetary Qualifiers.

Now, I have the fortune/misfortune to have the same hometown as one of the world’s best Sabine players, our own @Inception, who went undefeated in the swiss of our local PQ and was only thwarted in the Top 4 by a closely fought mirror match. Going up against a Sabine player of that caliber week after week has convinced me that the powerful tools afforded to Sabine fundamentally warp the SWU meta.

“But I have no problem with the Sabine matchup!” I hear you say. Yeah, maybe so… But if you’re not playing against an opponent with a computer-like brain who can map their way to 30 damage with precision from round 1, the game isn’t the same. Sabine has the best round 1 play (Battlefield Marine) into the strongest round 2 combo (Wing Leader) into the best round 3 leader/upgrade combo (Sabine/Darksaber) only to be followed by Poe and Wrecker enabled by ECL. This progression in the hands of a top-tier player is extremely hard to stop.

In a healthy card game, Aggressive decks, Midrange decks and Control decks all operate in a virtuous rock-paper-scissors that ensures each of those three archetypes has a bad matchup. However, that’s not what’s happening in SWU right now. While the community is caught up on Boba’s obviously pushed stats and supporting cards, it’s actually Sabine that’s distorting the meta. Because Sabine is soooo powerful, and there are only three ways to beat it (more on that in a moment), Control decks can’t take their proper place in the meta. You know how many Palpatine decks have made top 8 at PQs so far? Zero. In that kind of an environment, is it any wonder that Boba is flourishing? Sure, Boba is over curve, but it’s actually Sabine keeping down control that gives him a 40% share of the meta.

So why are there only three ways to beat Sabine? Because the progression outlined above requires an answer that can simultaneously control what the Sabine player is doing and advance its own gamestate. Furthermore, this play has to happen by resource 5 at the latest, because by 6 resources, the game is usually decided. Leaders that deploy at 6 resources or more can’t really factor. Neither can late-game bombs. Or much of anything else…

Vigilance at 4: The Way of Healing

The first way to beat Sabine lies in double blue- specifically playing Vigilance at 4-cost. It allows you to simultaneously heal five damage from base and kill a unit with 3 or less health. That one-two punch can give a deck with large quantities of slow-moving healing time to get its engine (think The Client) going and stabilize. There’s also lots of quality sentinels in double blue, so jamming up lanes is a more achievable goal here than it is in really any other deck.

Cunning at 4: The Way of Tempo

The second way to beat Sabine lies in double yellow – specifically playing Cunning at 4-cost. That card lets you tap out two threatening units while giving your unit +4 attack. Cunning puts Sabine in the awkward position of playing the control with a deck designed to be all-out aggro, and delivers a bad matchup. Without Cunning at 4, tempo-based decks don’t have the gas to get ahead on damage in the matchup.

Overwhelming Barrage: The Way of Damage

The third way to beat Sabine is to get a powerful two-for-one out of Overwhelming Barrage. That card can clear the Sabine player’s board in round 3 or 4, allowing Boba to take total control of the game with his powerful finishers. The ability to do this is why Boba/Green is such a key player in the meta today.

So what else…?

There’s a fourth way to beat Sabine that I want to take a moment to discount: being faster. There’s a certain subset of hyper-aggro decks (Kylo, Lando) that can outrace Sabine by forgoing any attempt at maintaining boardstate. And while this is theoretically a path, using this method means sacrificing any play into midrange decks. A glass cannon that fragile just isn’t going to make it to the top tables of a PQ to give Sabine real trouble.

You might have noticed that none of the successful counters to Sabine that I detailed above are from Set 2. I think this explains a lot of the meta stagnation (and my own personal frustration) with that set. The meta simply didn’t change. There were precisely ZERO new paths around Sabine added to the game and, as a result, Boba stayed firmly planted atop the meta.

Is there hope for change?

Maybe. There’re a few encouraging counter cards out of set 3- B1 Security Team, General Grevious, Anakin Skywalker – but nothing with the powerful two-punch effect we need to forge a new way around Sabine/Green. Hopefully the final weeks of reveals will gift us a new path, but until then, it’s Sabine’s world and we’re all just living in it.

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Do you feel the crushing pressure of Sabine too? We’d love to hear from you in the comments! Or you can reach out to the author, @DJStormtrooper, on Discord. Thanks for reading!