Shootout : X-Wing vs Y-Wing

Battle of the turn one heroic space units. Ready? Fight!

The tale of the tape show tremendous similarities between these two units. Same cost, same aspect, same traits, same rarity. The differences are subtle but worth digging into to help determine which of these spacecrafts should earn the slot in your Star Wars Unlimited deck.

The Alliance X-Wing is simple. Two cost, 2/3 space unit, no text. Deploy it during round one and if left uncontested, it’s rolling in for two damage on your opponent’s base in round two. When only the first set, Spark of the Rebellion, was available the X-Wing saw a ton of play in heroic leader decks as both a solid space unit and an early game play being at the low end of the cost curve.

When Shadows of the Galaxy released, the Grey Squadron Y-Wing made the choice a bit more difficult. Still deploying in the first round but then having a lower power made it seem worse, but is it really?

If you have the initiative going into the first round, the Y-Wing is statistically better assuming your opponent does something other than just claiming initiative. This works out by playing the Y-Wing, your opponent doing basically anything other than defeating the Y-Wing, and then in round two attacking with it right away. The Y-Wing is then doing one point based on its power and another two points from its On Attack ability. This can result in three total damage to your opponent’s base or a point to their base along with two points to some unit potentially defeating their round one play.

However, the Y-Wing’s advantage is also its downside. Not having the initiative for the first round can be problematic. If your opponent plays a Kylo’s TIE Silencer first the Y-Wing will be a sitting duck. Playing the Y-Wing out will result in your opponent claiming initiative and then taking your ship out with the first action of the next round with their unit sticking around. Instead if your play is the X-Wing, your opponent would need to sacrifice their own unit in order to defeat yours as the TIE Silencer would take two points of damage during its attack.

Overall the X-Wing still seems to see more play in Premier events. This is likely due to being a more stable, known quantity, whereas the Y-Wing has a lower floor even though it has a higher upside.

Other miscellaneous things…

• Twin Suns, you probably play one of each if you are on the heroic side of things.
• Both artists have the same initials.
• The background on the Y-Wing could be a little more towards the black end of the color spectrum since it’s in space. Nice touch though with the other tiny Y-wings in the background.
• “Fighter” doesn’t mean anything yet. While they both have it could we see something in Jump to Lightspeed that could leverage that?

So which one are you putting in your deck?