Looking good from what we’ve seen so far. A lot of excitement was generated from the FFG presser at PAX Unplugged over the weekend when we were given our first look at A Lawless Time.  

We got to see:

• Some interesting cards that are very unique from anything we’ve seen before.
• An interesting new ramp mechanic.
• Good looking art.

FFG did a great job of generating some excitement and our porgs are chirping with glee at what could be in the rest of the set.  Zero complaints so far as we’re very much looking forward to seeing more of the set.

Multi-Colored Cards

Porg Depot made at least the correct call on this one as there are finally cards that crossed the colored aspect barriers.  Granted we’ve been predicting that for a few sets so it’s nice to see that finally come to fruition.  We’ve seen a couple of them and they look very solid so far.

Bases

This common base is quite interesting from the draft and sealed perspective.  Currently due to aspect penalties it is extremely inefficient to splash an out of aspect card.  Having a bomb card from a color that is not well supported in a card pool now becomes feasible to just toss into a limited format deck.

We still have a lot of questions though.  Will these be the only common bases in the set?  Is this effect worth 3 health in Premier format?  There is no doubt, playing a card off aspect with no penalty can be powerful.  What about all the ones you draw after you play the first one though?  We’ll see, but it certainly adds an interesting element to deck building.

Credits

At this point, we are losing our standard ways to ramp with Resupply and SLT being rotated out, so having a new way to ramp is interesting.  It remains to be seen if there are enough ways to generate credits.  If there are, then credits could be very fun and potentially powerful.  If not, then credits could just be a new exploit where the mechanic is cool but not supported enough to get serious competitive play.

We are absolutely hoping for the former and that credits end up being a good mechanic for the game.  Plus, a new token means Porg Depot will be making new spoof tokens, so we love this by default.

Jabba

Generally, resource cheating is a good thing as it allows you to ramp into larger, more powerful things before your opponent.  We’ve spent a decent amount of time trying to math this one out.

The main requirement is that the unit being played needs to have some decent come into play effect that immediately impacts the board game state in some manner.  Salacious Crumb being mentioned in the first look article on the official site is where we started.  Round 1, play Crumb for 1, attack for 2 and then bounce him for 1 to create a credit.  Round 2 you could then play a 4 cost unit instead of 3 because of the credit, or just save the credit for later on.  What doesn’t seem to work very well would be playing Salacious Crumb every round as he just becomes a “free” 2 points every time at the cost of an extra action every round and stunting the round one by leaving nothing on the board.

A unit like Garindan may work out a bit better.  Play him in round 1, potentially make your opponent discard a card.  Then in round two, bounce him and play him again this time knowing some potential cards that would have been in their hand during the first look.

The best use of Jabba’s ability may be during the flip turn.  Attack with a unit, use Jabba to return that unit to your hand, flip Jabba, replay that same unit (or another one) this time with Ambush due to the credit use.

Leia

Given that a unit would now potentially have three different aspects, Leia’s ability coupled with the correct unit, would basically be paying 2 for a +3/+3 for the phase.  At present, this doesn’t seem fast enough even if it is cost effective.  It would have been awesome to also get to attack with the unit getting the buff.

R2-D2

Any set with a fan favorite astromech droid is going to be a fun set.  We’re really liking this one as a round one play to help dig for another unit for a future round.  He could help a ton with consistency.

Gamegenic also showed off some deck boxes, binders, and sleeves which also had some R2 artwork.  We’re hoping this means that the R2 leader is finally coming.  It seems reasonable since C-3PO has a Command unit and a Cunning leader in Secrets of Power.  We’re keeping our eyes open just waiting for that Cunning R2 leader to drop.

Side note is that the Jabba art here is very similar to the Jabba leader and could easily be the showcase artwork.  It’s a safe assumption to think that the Vader and R2 are showcase art pieces as well.

Fan Favorites

There are other favorite characters returning as well.  The Boba Fett unit that could be played for 5 or 6 resources has very nice flexibility.  Doctor Aphra may also finally have a playable card.

Random Question…

What’s the deal with the three letter set abbreviations?  

Spark of Rebellion was three words and the abbreviation was SOR.  Makes sense.
Jump to Lightspeed got JTL.  Again makes sense.

Now we’ve got two in a row that are a little wonky.
Secrets of Power could have been SOP, but instead we got SEC.  
A Lawless Time instead of ALT we are getting LAW.

However, if this ends up being the biggest criticism of the set we’re going to be a pretty happy player community.

The four word sets are also all over the place, but we’ll address that down the road.

Final Thoughts

While A Lawless Time is still months away it is already shaping up to be quite an interesting set.  There are already cards revealed that could have a dramatic impact on Premier format and the multi aspect cards will absolutely shake things up for draft and sealed deck formats.