LAW Preview Reviews 1/14

Yesterday, for day two of the preview season for A Lawless Time, FFG brought us an interesting duo of duos.

Chirrut and Baze

Chirrut lands as the biggest available Saboteur by power yet made in Star Wars Unlimited. Sticking in the same aspects the easiest comparison could be Kit Fisto – The Smiling Jedi from Twilight of the Republic who is the same cost for one less power and the same hit points. Plus of course that Kit Fisto card is rotating out of Premier anyway.

Chirrut’s on attack ability of course combos well with the new Baze card. With one more cost and the stats reversed, Baze pairs well with his buddy as he can soak up the damage and then get healed back up by the blind man’s attack.

Flavor wise these two cards obviously were designed to work well together, which makes sense. Their subtitles of “Good luck” and “I don’t need luck” reinforce that. The Vigilance Aggression aspect combination also suits them well as both have a defensive piece and an offensive piece. It all works as a pair of cards.

While an 8 power Saboteur is certainly big, none of the 7 power Saboteurs ever saw any play. Will 1 extra power and the ability to heal units push Chirrut into the realm of good cards? While we don’t know what the meta will look like, going by history, it certainly does not seem like this is the type of 6 cost unit that has exceled. You would much prefer your 6 cost and higher units to have an immediate effect on the board, and Chirrut does not do that. Maybe things change with rotation though.

In the same vein as Chirrut a 7 cost Sentinel has generally not been good enough and Baze is likely to keep that streak alive. Spark of Rebellion Devastator obviously saw play, but not so much because of the Sentinel. Tantive 4 & Raddus made the cut a couple of times, but not consistently. Odds are against Baze being good enough.

Rey and Ben

The Force dyad sure are some big cards stat wise coming in at 8 cost for a 9/9 and 9 cost for an 8/8.

Rey has some pretty interesting game text. Can’t take control of her and can’t defeat her with abilities. Guess that leaves getting enough damage on her to take her out or somehow capturing her.

Kylo could be a game winner just with his When Played ability. Figuring that these two cards were also designed together would mean playing Rey on resource 8, then on resource 9 attacking with Rey, playing Kylo, and ultimately attacking with Rey a second time. Potentially 18 damage coming in right to a base at that point. Granted this doesn’t happen until pretty far into the game unless there are some crazy new ramp cards coming. Kylo could be good just on his own with enough credits bringing him out a few turns early though his boost getting a unit to attack again is lessened just because the existing in play unit is likely smaller at that point.

The ceiling is high on this combo, but are they any good? If the game becomes incredibly grindy with a lot of control decks, Rey has a chance to make an impact late game. 8 and 9 cost units need to be game warping bombs. We’re seeing that now with Bo-Katan from Secrets of Power. She has a huge and immediate effect on the board. Krayt Dragon is a threatening unit that punishes your opponent for dealing with it. Neither Rey or Ben do that. Rey does nothing until a turn later, and even then she’s just a pile of stats, and Ben Solo can have a big effect, but he’s slow and requires you to have another threatening unit out.

Lessons of the Past

FFG has created duos of cards in the past…

Going all the way to Spark of Rebellion we got an R2-D2 and C-3PO combo. While they can combine to great effect, both of those cards have had their times where they’ve shown up in meta competitive decks on their own.

We’ve also seen 4-LOM and Zuckuss from Shadows of the Galaxy. These two made a splash for a bit of time when the meta very heavily favored Cunning Villain decks. Ambush added to the 4/4 stats made 4-LOM a pretty solid card on his own, and then Zuckuss potentially landing the following round as a 7/7 with Ambush made for a crazy one two punch. Granted the Boba leader didn’t hurt and following that card getting suspended the Zuckuss and 4-LOM tandem petered out a bit.

Of course there were some less successful examples such as the former take on Rey and Ben, well Kylo in this case at least by name on the card. Really neither of these cards ever made a splash in Premier play. Again clearly designed to work together the parts were never very good and the sum of the parts also didn’t do a ton.

These pairings from the past tell us a few things. For starters, FFG designers absolutely like to lean into the flavor of in galaxy character duos and on the flavor side the team pretty consistently nails it. We’ve seen examples of these designs both working well when paired and when the cards are played individually, but we’ve seen examples of both of those scenarios falling flat too.

Will They Work?

Will these new tandems be playable in a post-rotation Premier format? Hopefully. Fingers crossed. They are all expensive and don’t do much other than bring a lot of stats.

I know what you are all saying. “BUT CREDITS!!!!” Credits are most likely not going to be flowing as freely as people think. Maybe certain decks can ramp out 1 large unit faster, but credits won’t be the answer to everything. The game is not likely to turn into a bomb-fest, and that probably wouldn’t be as fun as it sounds.

…At least we can basically be assured that pretty much any of the four would be a pretty good top end in limited formats at least.