Preview cards courtesy of FFG, Swoop Racers and Darth Players.

The Mandalorian – Let’s See the Puck

Any card that has a When Played effect of drawing a card to replace itself in hand is going to have a decent floor already for how good it is without even seeing the rest of the card.  The When Played ability also triggers his second ability of whenever you draw 1+ cards in your action phase, give Mando a shield.  For 6 resources you get a 6/5 shielded unit that draws you a card.  You would typically like to have your 6-cost unit affect the board in some way, which Mando does not do.  He is putting a threatening unit on the board while replacing himself in your hand.  His shield ability isn’t limited to once per turn either.  Any instance of drawing will add a shield. 

This is probably the best version of the Mandalorian we’ve seen so far and a pretty solid card all around.   

Beilert Valance

This is a pretty good combo with the new Mando unit.  Playing this on the 5 resource round and following up with Mando is going to mean Mando is going to have at least 2 shields.  He’s a little understated for a 5-cost unit, where you would prefer 11 total stats.  You are paying 1 extra resource for the possibility of drawing 1+ cards and dealing a little damage.  The damage will often be limited to the 1 card he drew, so that isn’t something that is going to have a big impact.  

Beilert is most likely a little too expensive and slow for what he does.  It’s a cool card though and has potential with the right synergy.  Maybe with the new Vader leader, to replace the cards you had to discard?  

Attack From All Sides

Can’t decide if this is a better Open Fire or a worse one.  If a deck can easily get those 4 aspects 50% of the time it’ll average the same damage that Open Fire did.  Most of the time it will probably be a worse Open Fire, but 3 resources for 5 damage is a good payoff for decks that can easily play the 4th aspect.

Scavenging Sandcrawler

The thematic flavor of this card is perfect and maybe the best flavor on a card we’ve ever seen.  You can picture the Jawas digging through the garbage, finding something useful to refurbish slightly before selling to turn a profit.  That is exactly what this card does.  

Cunning may not have needed more credit generation given the other cards that we’ve seen so far, but sure, why not?  It’s a fun card that some decks could play on round 2.  It’s probably not the best thing to do with 4 resources on round 2, but it’s probably not the worst either.  

Conveyex Security Captain

The card itself is fine.  The cost of 3 is a little high for the 2/4 stats.  The ability though is the selling point. The floor for the card is as a sideboard staple should any credit based decks become good.

However, that seems just weird.  Why would you take a cool mechanic from a new set and immediately make a silver bullet to defeat that mechanic.  FFG didn’t make a card in Legends of the Force that made the Force just simply not work.  They didn’t make a card in Secrets of Power that made spy tokens just cease to be able to attack or do anything useful.  There wasn’t a card in Jump to Lightspeed that said defeat all pilots and piloting no longer functions.  

Why then would FFG make a card like this?  It  just seems like a “Hey let’s make something fun” and then immediately make another thing that says “Negate fun”.

It’s not uncommon for FFG to create some way of interacting with new mechanics.  Scanning Office was able to look for Smuggle cards.  Elia Kane could remove a card with Smuggle or Plot.  Those, however, one time use cards.  You have to play them strategically and your opponents have to play around them, if they think you boarded them in.  Conveyex Security Captain just blanks the entire mechanic on round 2 until he is removed.  4 health isn’t a huge obstacle to deal with, but it’s something you HAVE to deal with if you are playing a deck based on the new shiny mechanic.  And that may not be easy if your entire strategy revolves around credits.

A card like this could have been “When Played: for the remainder of this phase…” to be more in line with past silver bullet type cards.  

It’s not likely to be a huge problem, but in our porgpinion it’s just not a great design.