Maybe?

Back in January, my colleague Jayson wrote an excellent article about leader design in SWU. If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to do so! To recap, he outlined some common traits that good leaders usually have (solid stats, useful leader sides, resource cheating) and ones that not so good leaders often have (bad stats, slow and conditional leader sides, trait dependency). Looking at the current crop of leaders on our Meta Snapshot, it’s hard to disagree with his analysis. The decks that rise to the top are consistently ones that meet his criteria. So how are the Legends of the Force leaders stacking up?

Two notes before we start: First, this is only looking at premiere format playability. Some of the leaders below might end up being great in draft/sealed, but that’s not our focus today. Second, this calculus may change after the release of set 7 and SWU’s first rotation. So, if you’re from The Future, take this all with a grain of salt.

Mother Talzin

Mother T has some good things going for her! Her stats are as good as it gets for a 5-drop leader, and she has a useful On Attack ability which can help her make effective trades in the mid-game. She also has the Force trait which comes in handy for enabling a host of villain Force cards that haven’t really been playable until now (think Force Lightning.) Her leader side isn’t as strong. It costs using your Force token, which the designers have costed around 1 resource. Would you pay 1 resource to give a unit -1/-1? Probably not. It sounds like Talzin’s playability is going to come down to her support cards and how efficiently her deck can generate Force tokens.

Overall Outlook: Cautiously Optimistic

Kanan Jarrus

Kanan has both encouraging and discouraging precedents. Flipping at 6, his printed stats are meh, but he does have over-curve potential to get +2/+2 with another Creature or Spectre out. Likewise, his leader side can give the same unit a shield over and over, which is a powerful tool unavailable to other shield leaders like Luke. However, it’s all trait restricted. It’s unlikely that FFG prints enough powerful units with the Creature/Spectre traits to justify Kanan’s restrictions, but we can’t rule it out…

Overall Outlook: Conditionally Gloomy

Obi Wan Kenobi

Obi Wan is not measuring up on multiple dimensions. One, his leader ability costs the Force and is weirdly conditional. It’s easy to see situations where you either can’t get the Force or don’t have an eligible unit in play. His unit side has the same conditionality issues (he can’t give himself a token) AND his stats are bad. For a 5-drop leader we’re looking for 10 stats. Unless getting a Force token turns out to be markedly cheaper than the 1 resource equivalent the designers are planning around, Obi’s not going to see competitive play.

Overall Outlook: Generically Bad

Darth Maul

Looking at Obi Wan and Darth Maul, it seems like the designers are making an intentional effort to lower the power level of 5-cost leaders and prepare us for a post-rotation world where 11-stat 6-drop leaders are good. Do we live in that world? Definitely not yet. We’re still contending with leaders like Quinlan and Han that have 10 stats for 5 cost. So… basically ditto everything said about Obi Wan here. Bad stats, conditional and expensive ability- plus a late deploy…

Overall Outlook: Generically Bad

Third Sister

Third Sister is the most interesting of the new leaders in that she’s built around an untested mechanic: the Hidden keyword. Preventing your units from being attacked the turn they come into play is particularly useful for an aggro deck. Hidden can let your units more quickly threaten “check” scenarios where your opponent must claim or immediately lose. Her ability is also free, high tempo, and not trait limited. Supporting this aggro game plan is her leader side that, while it has low overall stats, features a best-in-class 5 power, which can be very useful for a mid-game Overwhelming Barrage. Combine this all with useful traits like Force and Imperial and there might be a viable aggro deck with Third Sister.

Overall Outlook: Cautiously Optimistic

Kit Fisto

The two damage ability on Kit Fisto’s leader side might convince some players he’s worth exploring, but make no mistake: Kit is reallllly bad. His leader side costs, is slow, and is conditional on attacking with a particular type of unit. Theoretically, those conditions could be overcome by a strong unit side, but that’s not what we have here. Instead, Kit comes in at a catastrophically low stat floor. You’d need to have three other Jedi in play just to bring him up to curve. Since that’s never going to happen in games that aren’t already blowout wins, you can count Kit out of the Set 5 competitive meta.

Overall Outlook: Worst-Leader-In-Game Contender

Qui-Gon Jinn

Qui-Gon Jinn is the hardest leader from LotF to gauge in a vacuum because his ability has such unpredictable potential. Solely looking at the way his card is structured- with an expensive, conditional ability and underwhelming stats- you might think he’s going to be bad. However, much like Thrawn before him, he’s tapping into an entire ability type that’s bound to get more powerful as the cardpool expands. His capability to leverage the powerful tools of double yellow decks also expands his possibilities. This guy will either be a powerhouse or unplayable.

Overall Outlook: Combo-Dependent

Darth Revan

Darth Revan has a good ability on his leader side, comes with an on-curve mix of stats and keywords on his unit side, and deploys on 5. Good leader, right? RIGHT?

… He only has one aspect. Do you want to play a mono-color deck without any of the upside of double-aspect cards? If you do, you’ve got some self-love issues you need to work through. It’s OK to play another leader and be happy. Really.

Overall Outlook: Hobbled Out the Gate

Grand Inquisitor

The 1st iteration of GI was notoriously nerfed late in the Spark of Rebellion testing process. The designers pushed him to a 6 resource deploy because they were afraid he’d be too good with Superlaser Tech. Will this version of GI fair any better? Not likely. While the 5 deploy is nice, and the shield helps to mitigate what would otherwise be deplorable stats, the ability just isn’t going to cut it. We saw similar text on the Jyn Erso leader from Set 1. That leader is generally agreed to be one of the worst leaders in the game, so it’s hard to see how GI tops that with a version that is more expensive.

Overall Outlook: Generically Bad

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wish I could give this crop of leaders a more optimistic outlook. It seems like the designers are intentionally bringing the power level of leaders down to establish a new curve for leader power post-rotation. Can you blame them after the Fett family wrecked the meta twice? Unfortunately, that leaves us with some dicey prospects in the short term. Here’s hoping the 2nd half of Legends of the Force leader reveals pack more competitive punch.

Thanks for reading!