Probably!

If you missed Part 1, check it out!

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.

Part 1 revision: Obi-Wan Kenobi

In part 1 of this series, I was down on Obi-Wan’s meta chances. His stats are low and his ability seemed too conditional. However, after some plays, Obi has seriously revised my priors. Combined with the blue rare Force base in particular, it’s very easy for him to get the Force early in the game and start buffing units. Given the pool of high health units now available to Hero Command (think Gungi) this makes for some powerfully sticky early game plays. Don’t sleep on him like I did!

Revised Outlook: Possibly Meta

Now for the remaining nine leaders…

Kylo Ren

Kylo brings us unique synergies that we haven’t had in the game before. Kylo has the ability to throw whatever he wants in the discard pile. That opens up interesting combos with A Fine Addition, Palpatine’s Return, and Anakin. His mode of flipturn is also different than previous leaders allowing combos with any upgrade that has a “When Deployed” ability. While his stats do seem low for a 7 deploy leader, he can essentially “draw” upgrades from the discard pile and use their abilities, providing a form of card advantage. There are some interesting builds floating around (notably a control-first, unit-sparse yellow Voltron version) but where Kylo ends up in the meta remains to be seen.

Overall Outlook: Interesting at minimum

Ahsoka Tano

Ahsoka doesn’t give us the same deckbuilding opportunities as Kylo. While there are some units that benefit from being attacked and could provide Ahsoka with some synergy, her overall power level is pretty low. Using the Force to give a unit sentinel for a single turn is probably not a profitable trade, and Ahsoka herself has poor stats for a 6-deploy leader. It’s a shame such a fan-favorite character (with great art!) is such a snooze.

Overall Outlook: Generically Bad

Morgan Elsbeth

Cost reduction has traditionally been one of the signposts of a strong leader in SWU, while conditionally has not. Morgan brings us both and begs the question: “Can we mitigate the conditionality enough to unlock her cost savings?” Looking at the available crop of cards, probably not. Since Morgan is Green, we’re likely locked into the keywords widely available in that color- namely Ambush and Overwhelm. A Green/Yellow deck focused on Ambush is probably the best possibility, but… I’m just not buying that it will come together in a stronger mix than existing decks.

Overall Outlook: Too Conditional

Supreme Leader Snoke

We already have several leaders with similar abilities to Snoke – namely Tarkin. While Snoke is slightly less conditional than Tarkin, he’s also less flexible. Therefore, it’s hard to say that Snoke is a better leader. Since Tarkin only sees play at the fringes of the meta, we can logically assume that that’s Snoke’s ceiling.

Overall Outlook: Tier-2ish Average

Rey

Rey’s leader side has potential- there’s enough Force events to trigger her ping. Force Throws that do an extra damage are good! But Rey’s unit side is a huge liability. For a leader that deploys on seven, we need either a powerful, board-stabilizing ability (think Yoda) or massive stats (think Avar.) Rey has neither. It’s hard to see how even if she drew two cards with no cost of discarding your hand, she’d be playable. Poor Rey.

Overall Outlook: Hunter-level Brick

Barriss Offee

The designers have explicitly valued a Force token at one resource throughout Legends. Barriss allows us to convert that currency into cheaper events. The question is: Will we be able to generate Force tokens reliably and cheaply enough to make that trade worth it? There are enough Force units in Villain Blue/Yellow to make the common Force base an effective mode of token generation. There are also powerful combo events like Sneak Attack and Shien Flurry that Barriss can allow one turn earlier. Her unit side doesn’t have much upside with the same ability and meh stats for a 6-drop, but maybe the package works?

Overall Outlook: Combo-Dependent

Cal has two red flags. One, giving your opponent choices is always bad. Exhausting your opponent’s worst unit just isn’t good. Second, leaders with four health struggle in this game. When any stiff breeze knocks you off the board, where’s the upside? It’s hard to see Cal finding a meta niche with such glaring vulnerabilities- and he certainly isn’t going to replace Sabine as the premiere 4-drop leader.

Overall Outlook: Generically Bad

Anakin has things going for him – an interesting ability, 5-deploy, good stats. I mean, you get to play Overwhelming Barrage in Hero. How could this not be a good leader??

Well, like Darth Revan before him, Anakin only brings one aspect to the table. You know what’s better than playing a one-aspect Hero deck with OB splashed in? Playing a two-aspect Villain deck that doesn’t have to jump through hoops to drop OB.

Overall Outlook: Hobbled Out the Gate

Avar Kriss

Avar is the leader in the set most explicitly tied to the Force mechanic. The good news is that her color, Hero Command, got the best crop of Force cards in Legends. Yoda, Eeth Koth, and Jedi Consular are all power cards that can leverage her ability. Initial plays seem to indicate that her late deploy isn’t the huge liability it is for some other leaders as she’s often coming down as an 8/10 Overwhelm at 7 resources. It’s hard to see her not getting heavy play in the early meta.

Overall Outlook: Solidly Playable

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The second half of leader reveals in Legends (and playing Obi) has given me more hope that we’ll see some at the top tables come the Galactic Championship. Previous sets have averaged around three meta-playable leaders. If I had to pick those three out of the Legends class, it’d be Avar, Obi and Talzin, while I’m holding space for Kylo and Barriss. Time to go test!

Thanks for reading!