Will the Aggro Queen Continue Her Reign?
A good aggro leader has some specific qualities that make them more easily fit that role in the meta than others. They need to deploy as early as possible. Their leader ability should impact the game state right away. They should be able to deal damage directly to your opponents base as easily as possible. Plus the action economy the leader provides can also be very important such that it allows for claiming the initiative.
Sabine as a leader fills this role quite well. She is good on her own without other cards or requirements. Her front side ability does not require resources to activate and directly damages your opponent’s base (yours as well, but that’s generally fine). While it does not provide action economy, it’s not something you need to rely on using every turn. Use it when you can, maybe providing an extra 3-4 damage per game. Her unit side continues with her aggressive theme. Deploying on four resources with stats at two power and five hit points plus doing that extra point of damage to your opponent’s base on attack make her just a solid unit.
The cards we use to support our leaders can be just as important as the leaders themselves. Sabine has great synergy with Rebels and Mandalorians due to her traits. Rebels have arguably the best buff cards in Wing Leader, Fleet Lieutenant and Rebel Assault. There are also 87 units with the Rebel trait, allowing her to have all the support she needs to make use of those cards. For comparison, there are only 20 cards with Coordinate, spread across all aspects, and only 16 First Order cards that could be played with Kylo. This offers Sabine incredible consistency to use those buff cards.
Previous attempts to dethrone her have all been met with failure, on the grand scale. In Spark of Rebellion there was some debate about Leia vs Sabine. However, Leia quickly took a backseat to Sabine. Leia deployed on five resources, which seems too slow for aggro, and her ability, while providing great action economy, required you to have multiple Rebel units on the board. When you are playing aggro, you want to smash, not jump through hoops.
In came Shadows of the Galaxy, and with it our new aggro savior, Kylo Ren. He deployed on four resources. Excellent. His leader ability, while allowing you to directly damage the opponents base for +2 damage, was very slow and resource negative in that you had to discard your aggressive cards in order to boost damage, and hope they didn’t defeat your unit before you could attack. There also just weren’t enough payoffs for using his ability. Migs and Kylo’s TIE were it. Kylo had some success here and there, but not the consistent success of Sabine.
Set 3, Twilight of the Republic, brought us…..Ahsoka I guess? Coordinate turned out to be too inconsistent and easy to play around.
Which brings us to Jump to Lightspeed.
Poe, Wedge, and Kazuda all have hurdles they need to cross in order to dethrone the Queen and take their place as the new aggro King. Let’s look at them each individually and see where they may succeed or fail.
Poe Dameron
At first glance, the new Poe leader looks like it would fall squarely into the aggro running. In practice, there are a few problems holding him back. His ability has a cost of one resource in addition to the action required to execute the ability. The bonus he grants as a pilot is also completely nullified by not having a vehicle available for him to attach to which makes him a bit combo-ish.
He is a lot like Kylo in the sense that his ability adds +2 power to a unit, but Poe is restricted to Vehicles. Instead of costing a card from hand, he costs one resource. That can be seen as better or worse. They are both slow in that your opponent gets an action before you can apply that extra damage. Poe could attach to a unit for one resource and stay there all game, however while it’s a definite plus for him it’s also fairly unlikely to happen.
Factoring into an example game, during round one you play a 2-cost space unit. That unit needs to survive through the first round and into the second for Poe to attach to it. If that unit does not make it long enough for Poe to jump aboard, you are spending more resources to get a second vehicle in play before considering getting Poe out. With either case, because Poe is taking up a resource your round two play is off curve by one (i.e. you are not playing a three cost unit).
When we compare the restrictions and time requirement to utilize Poe, we can clearly see where he could fall short of Sabine.
Wedge Antilles
Wedge does not suffer from the resource cost like Poe does. In fact it’s the opposite in that Wedge’s ability makes something cheaper by saving a resource. However, the downside here is not just getting a vehicle on the board but rather getting that vehicle in play and also having a pilot unit available all while giving your opponent the ability to react at each step. Almost everything you play tees up a 2 for 1 for your opponent. There are some very good pilots you can play, like Chewie and Han, to help your vehicles survive and gain action economy, but everything you do has a requirement. Wedge may be able to fly circles around the Empire, but he’s not good at jumping through hoops.
Game scenario wise, round one you are playing a two cost vehicle and then using Wedge to play a unit that takes one to put in play as a pilot upgrade. An alternative is having that same two cost vehicle during round one and then playing a 2/3/4 cost pilot in round two. Yet another scenario is a one cost vehicle and a two cost pilot in round one. With any of these options you are required to have a vehicle and a pilot unit that match up nicely in order to make Wedge work out for you. This can be potentially tricky when you are resourcing two of the first six cards since it takes 50% of the remaining four cards to have something workable.
Kazuda Xiono
Kaz potentially has the best chance of taking up the reins from Sabine. His ability doesn’t require an action. Well technically it does, but then you get another one immediately afterwards without your opponent getting to act which makes it effectively free. However, again, this ability does nothing on its own. The requirement here is having a unit with some downside “ability” already or an event that would grant some bonus to the unit while itself having a negative impact to the unit.
Kaz does have some things going for him. There are some events that synergize incredibly well with him, like Trench Run and Heroic Sacrifice. Very good units exist that can take advantage of his ability which are still plenty good without him, like Fireball and SOR Falcon. He also deploys on four resources, which we know is good. Deploying as a +3/+3 pilot is very good and the backup option of a 2/5 on the ground is technically the same stats as Sabine, albeit without the Rebel tag and the extra ping to the base on attack.
Kaz can be very fast and has some high damage potential, however, he has a lot of requirements that Sabine does not have. He requires either units that have a disadvantageous ability or an event that would give them one. There are more of both things available now in Jump to Lightspeed which can of course be included in a deck. Will this high damage potential allow him to dethrone Sabine? We’ll have to see what spicy decks people can brew up, but it feels like it’ll be hard to beat the consistency of Sabine.
Conclusion
Sabine is the obvious baseline and the incumbent for aggressive leaders to build around.
Kylo Ren could not topple her. Ahsoka never seemed to get much meta traction. Poe and Wedge don’t seem to be quite there and one could make an argument for them really being combo leaders in a sense. Kazuda may have the most aggro potential of the new Jump to Lightspeed leaders, however he may have some consistency issues.
What do you think? Will any of the new leaders take Sabine’s spot at the top or will Sabine dominate the aggro decks until the end of time?