Prerelease event of new expansion set Spirit of Rebellion took place at the begining of April and that also means, that we already know all the new cards for some time. As the time passes, it seems like a good opportunity to make a brief summary of first view on the new set. There is 160 new cards and while I am not able to go through all of them, I will try to mention briefly all the rares and legendaries and the most interesting cards of the rest. I am going to divide the whole article into three parts. So lets begin with the part 1.
I am going to have a look on new characters today. There is a parallel article with poll, it will be interesting to find out public opinion on the most powerful of the new characters, so please vote if you are also interested: link to poll.
New characters are distributed in the same layout as in Awakenings. We have 24 new team members, split in each category by 4. Some of them are really well known in Star Wars Trivia and a few are connected to new movie Rogue One (and every fan should be happy about this, as the movie is good in my opinion).
VILLAIN RED (COMMAND)
The best of new red villain characters is most probably FN-2199, who denies reactions from opponent thanks to his ability similarly as Jango does. Despite the fact, that his ability does not have to look dangerously at the first sight as you can resolve only one die, you can overwrite several weapons during one turn and make a significant pressure on your opponent. Weapons can also be played back from discard pile through several ways, one of them is IG-88 and second Spaceship Graveyard battlefield. The question is, how large will be the pool of available weapons with sufficient unmodified sides. The last but not least advantage of FN-2199 is his point value, for 10/13 points you will get a character with 11 hit points, which is extremely effective and his die is similar to the Kylo’s one.
Second interesting and powerful character is Director Krennic. He is first of the real control oriented characters in red villain ranks and despite his high point value of 15/19 Krennic offers up to 3 character dice and high amount of hit points. We can most probably expect pairings with blue or yellow to further improve his control abilities. It will be definitely interesting to see his evolution as he is one of the most flexible characters so far (which is unusual in SoR as most of the cards are oriented in one or two strategies and dice sides). His disrupt side is also highly relevant, as it synergise well with one of the new supports – Imperial Inspection and it is so game changing, that the deck can be built around disrupt strategy.
Remaining Deathtrooper and TIE Pilot are well point-valued and both offers good support for range decks, but we can not expect, that they would become a centerpiece of any deck. Discussed variant of 3x Deathtrooper deck will not be viable in my opinion because they lack resource sides (however red colour could work around this).
VILLAIN BLUE (FORCE)
Blue villains offer the Emperor himself now! Sheev Palpatine is unique in its design, as he is the first elite version character playable only as solo with point values 21/28. Of course his die and ability correspond to his cost. However I really like concept and theme, I am not really convinced that he will be tournament Tier 1 capable. 2 dice are really easy for control and starting pool of 15 health is dangerous. There is also quite a lot of punishing cards like On the Hunt, Force Throw, Immobilize, Force Choke etc. Guardian ability is also very strong against him. He also unfortunately (or fortunately) does not profite too much from new Force Speed and he can not obtain Fast Hands in his elite version. On the other hand, some of the new cards are made directly for him (Rise Again, Force Push) and we can expect him quite often on the tournaments, as he will definitely be popular and most probably he will create a new meta entry test for competitive decks.
Those who does not have Awakenings legendary Darth Vader can improve their collection with his new version, this time in a form of Anakin Skywalker as a rare card. He is similarly as Palpatine very fragile and destructive but again he has a lot of downsides – his die does not have resources and his special is double-edged. Therefor I do not think he will be played too much on tournaments, but again, I can be totally wrong on this. The fact is, that together with Kylo or FN-2199 this is most damage oriented starting team you can build. On their 4 dice is in total 16 melee damage and 10 of the other type (ranged/special), which is even more than Vader/Raider or Palpatine himself. They also excel in maximal damage per turn – 10, but in this case, you have to pay with resources or hit points.
I find Royal Guard strange because of his prohibitive ability (however he can still obtain blue abilities through Holocron). This will most probably put him aside from full blue decks where he limits flexibility and he also does not fit well into multi-colour decks as his melee sides are not used much in other colours. His Guardian abiity is however great and he is also well balanced point-wise.
On the end, we have Asaj Ventress with powerful ability and value 12/15, so we can expect strong blue pairing with Count Dooku (who has very similar die) or some other characters. Interesting pairing could be with Krennic together with mentioned disrupt strategy (as blue has a lot of disrupts). 9 hit points is not too many and I am not so sure, that her defensive ability will compensate for this. And I am really disappointed by the card art, which is taken over from Clone Wars and Asaj looks too computer like to my taste.
VILLAIN YELLOW (ROGUE)
Only three villain characters remain. I do not like legendary IG-88 too much and eventhough I really like this bounty hunter as a character, his card looks weird. His damage is on par with Vader/Luke, however his dice does not have resource side (so no Bait and Switch :( ) and his ablity is currently not so strong as there is low amount of yellow equipment and weapons. Together, he is not so good value for 15/20 points. Also his only reasonable team-mate is FN-2199, who can at least discard the equipment effectively.
Aurra Sing is a card of similar power calibre. Her die is strong and her ability is good even if loss of 1 card from hand is significant in this game. The possibility to improve any side (so not only damage) can be really valuable. Point value of 14/18 is not bad and you can play a 4 dice combo with Bala-Tik or 3 dice combo with Jango. Again its a pity that her art is terrible and she looks like male. Aurra is one of the most aggressive cards in game and full yellow decks with her can be bursty and deadly and I personally put a lot of hopes in her.
Guavian Enforcer is apparently an option for some of the cheap character slots. His die is solid and point value in comparison to hit points even better. But that is basically all about this character. You can also pair duo of Enforcers with elite Bala-Tik and build the Guavian Gang and even though it is more a thematic deck than competitive one, it is still a Fight Dirty full yellow deck with total hit points of 26, so you can not underestimate them.
The last one is the best – Unkar Plutt. I can not even say, how much I am interested in this guy. He is cheap – 10/13 , he offers really enjoyful access to resources and his die actually synergise well with new supports, bravo!. You should be better prepared on this guy, as he has in my opinion very powerful potential and can bring a new wave of villain control decks. He can be played either with Jabba in full control deck or with Jango in semi aggressive semi disrupt deck with a lot of game options, flexibility and easier access to cards like Slave I or Crime Lord.
Although I was excited from a villain characters, but I can not say the same about heroes. Not that I would not like their cards, but their point values are not well paired with anything.
HERO RED (COMMAND)
Lets begin again with red. I do not like Baze at all, he does not bring anything really new (he is just an alternative to Poe), maybe we can see him in some new complex deck, but I am not able to find out his use so far, maybe with Rebel Commando / Temmin? In the same way, Mon Mothma is new Ackbar, but Ackbar has actually better ability and his non-elite version costs exactly 10, which is handy for eJyn or eLuke pairing. Again, it is most probably just worse version of card we already have.
Rebel Commando could be interesting, I can imagine him in deck because of his high hit points and he is most probably the best option for heroes in most of the decks where you do not know what to do with 10 points. And unlike with Deathtrooper, I can imagine a deck with trio of these.
Finally we recieved Temmin. He is awesome and offers a way how to play slow deck i.e. vehicles, where you have 10 actions per turn, but your opponent is not able to claim anyway making his Fast Hands and Force Speed mediocre. Also together with Fast Hands, Temmin can immediately roll and resolve his 2 disrupt shutting down your play. His only issue is 8 hit points, which is incredibly low and therefor we can expect him dying first and early. If any deck manage to use him and protect him, than I believe we will see something really interesting. Finally I am also pleased with the fact, that they released a major character of Aftermath book trilogy (eventhough the picture is from Force Awakens) and there are more references to this trilogy in form of cards Aftermath and Life Debt.
HERO BLUE (FORCE)
Also blue characters look at least strange. Legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi is most probably a character everyone wanted to see and was disappointed about once he was released. His focus sides are solid but his melee sides really miss those 2 melee instead of 1 and resource and blank are standard. He also has Guardian. From this you can get a feeling, that more than a centerpiece of a deck, he should be some support character. But this is highly negated by his point value of 16/20. You can not build too many decks with him which means that only reasonable option is mill deck with Padme and Patience. I am not so sure about this however, maybe you want someone else with Padme. Second option is Rey, but she is much better with Luke. Obi Wan’s ability is crazy good, logical target is Noble Sacrifice or One With the Force (I appreciate that both of these have him on the art).
Luminara Unduli is a mentor for non-unique characters. Her ability works and brings flexibility (you just have to forget about idea, that you should improve only damage dice; to receive +3 to resource or focus is crazy). However her point value does not bring you an option to play her in elite version together with two non-unique characters, which is a missed shot :(. Despite this, I think she is valid competition to Qui Gon (and of course the deck tactic will be totally different). Her potential can be hidden in multi-colour decks though.
Jedi Accolyte has perfect artwork and according to my opinion he is truly strong, but fragile. There is a lot of synergy in full blue deck so you can resolve his die with +1 pretty often.
I left Chirrut as last one. I am totally not interested in him. He will form a half of your team point wise. His mixed ranged and melee damage is slow (that could be ok), but also the presence of modified values makes him unreliable. Melee is basically only in blue, but for ranged you usually need other colour. There is also his ability to make it even worse. He can not use blue abilities and he balances this by at least good amount of hit points and his second ability. However I am not sure where to play him and as I said, I am not interested in his design, so I have nt thought about him too much yet.
HERO YELLOW (ROGUE)
Yellow is definitely the best colour of hero characters in Spirit of Rebellion. As a proof, have a look on the most conceptual character of this set – Jyn Erso. For the beginning, it is good that Jyn is only rare and not legendary. Her point value of 15/20 is suggesting that her die will be good, and it actually is. She has two unpaid ranged sides (each with 2), she has 11 hit points and her other two sides are discards with value of 1 and 2. Together she is on par with Luke and she can work as a connecting piece of mill and damage deck. She can help with killing of 1 of the opponent’s characters on the beginning and later she can continue with mill. Even in situation when your opponent plays all of his cards you can still use her dice to deal damage. She pairs well with Ackbar and Padmé (in both cases you want elite Jyn), and also a lot of new cards supports her. Her ability, to decrease cost by 1 of first yellow event each turn, is solid, but you will find out, that there is actually not so many events in yellow with cost higher than 0. Still she can reduce price for Electroshocks or other things. She is absolutely good character you will meet on tournaments and first information I have regarding her are in the way, that mill deck with her really works. And of course her art is terrible, at least we have a promo version from SW Celebrations.
We also get Chewbacca as a legendary yellow character. He has mixed three damage sides, one of it is paid, a resource and very good special. He offers you an opportunity to change opponents die to damage and deal that damage to target character. Double edged special has however few impacts on the game. First he allows you to turn the dice to modified or paid sides when your opponent is not able to resolve them. Second you can use Force Throw to chain the specials and remove the turned die for another damage. Third, you can do this after your opponent claims, so he can never be sure, what can happen with his innocent blank dice. For 12/16 points he should probably find some good pairing and immediately you can see a pairing with Rey for the Force Throw. I believe though, that there will be even better pairing than Chewbacca/Rey.
Another great yellow character is Maz Kanata. Her advantage lies in extremely low point value of 8/11, which offers you cheap access to yellow cards with an elite version of character and also 8 hit points for 8 points is solid offer for a regular version. For this amount of points you can not expect too much on her die, but at least she has consistent focus which you can use with her really awesome ability to resolve two of your dice after her activation. She is not brutal character who would change state of the game like Jango was, but her flexibility is threatening and if the opponent leaves Maz in game for some time to get the focus equipment on her like Comlink or her Goggles, than you can expect rough ride in pairing with strong characters like Luke. Together with Maz you also get an access to Fast Hands, another speed-up card further exploiting this roll and resolve strategy.
Last of the new characters is Outer Rim Smuggler. He offers solid options for 8 points and until the errata he was one of mine favourite new non-unique characters. 7 hit points is low, but his die is solid with all sides unpaid, resource, two ranged sides and discard and disrupt – all of it handy. His ability is also good, receiving one resource once you play your last card from hand was efficient and with some cards allowing you o draw would be nice, however, it does not work this way anymore, as you can use his ability only once per turn now. Therefor any exploitation of his ability is gone now and in the result, Smuggler is somehow in deep average and you most probably leave it at home, especially when compared to Hired Gun or Maz.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Yes I am happy, that new set was released further expanding the card combinations and options how to play the game. On the other side, you can already feel how hard is to understand all the synergies in the game and thinking about deck building goes to totally different level.
You can also pretty safely say, that most of the new characters somehow concentrate the tactic on reliable rolls of some sort of sides. Gameplay with such characters will be from this reason more reliable and less luck based (i.e. why to have disrupt on Vader as you really only need damage). But I am also not the advocate of characters like Deathtrooper, as they totally miss the flexibility. First you pretty clearly see the opponents tactics and what is his intent. Second, if from any reason you are not able to win by the way the deck is built around, you just lose without any other option how to proceed. Therefor it is much more interesting to play with variant decks with more options what to do, higher flexibility of gameplay and more options how to use your dice you have on table. As I mentioned Vader, it is better to find a way how to use that disrupt effectively than lose it altogether.
Same like in Awakenings, I have a feeling that villain characters are definitely better balanced and there are much better pairing options. I am not able to say what is the reason behind, because it is maybe not caused by the new cards at all. The 7 point option of Stormtrooper really means a lot in team building options. And we still wait for hour 7 point hero unfortunately, so maybe everything gets better when we receive our hero Stormtrooper.
I also think, that the best boosted faction in hero characters is yellow, mainly because of useful expensive character and solid cheap ones. Anyway even yellow villains are nice but Jango already dominates there, therefor most probably players of red villains will be most happy from new set when looking on characters. All of them are definitely good.
And what are your feelings from new set? Should you have any interesting ideas for team building not mentioned here, do not hesitate to comment and share your opinion. In next part I would like to have a look on other cards with die – Upgrades and Supports. Last part will be dedicated to Common and Uncommon cards.
The Guild 