LAW: Preview Reviews 2/5
Preview cards from yesterday were courtesy of FFG and Outmaneuver.
Saw Gerrera
Heroic Sacrifice has been one of the top aggro cards since the very beginning of Star Wars Unlimited. Makes sense then with the card rotating out of Premier format for the designers to make that same ability baked into a leader. They even kicked it up a notch by adding Overwhelm and having it cost only an action and no resource.
The unit side adds another level entirely with the action cheat capability. Imagine a flip turn where Saw gets deployed, Cinta Kaz is played as a plot to allow Saw to attack immediately, then Saw’s ability triggers to immediately attack with another unit with the +2/+0. Sure Saw’s attack power is not massive at only 4, however this would still result in 6 damage plus the power of the second attacking unit.
Having both Aggression and Command is an interesting first. Hard to know at this point what the optimal base combo will be. Could get a third colored aspect into the mix would be interesting, but so would doubling up on either of the first two to unlock some double Aggression cards for example. The one downside for this new leader could be the lack of the heroism aspect and it will be fascinating to start cooking with a limited number of non-hero, non-villain units.
Vel Sartha
Let’s get real for a second. What is the point of this leader? She’s probably not good in Premier, she’s likely not good in Limited and she’s not even thematic.
Giving an experience token as an action with no resource requirement is certainly good, but at the cost of giving your opponent a credit sounds horrible. If you can manage to save her action until your opponent claims initiative and then do something to negate that credit, maybe you can get something going. That will almost never happen though.
You can fill your deck with cards like Conveyex Security Captain, Galen Erso, Tamaryn Barcona and Defiant Scrappers, but that sounds like a lot of effort and deck space for some experience tokens.
The best line for her is Conveyex Security Captain on turn 2, give him an experience token to make it 3/5. If you can get some sentinels in front of him and continue to buff your units with Vel, keeping the Captain alive as long as possible, you can try and create an early large board, so when they are finally able to deal with the Captain it’s taken so many resources that the extra credits aren’t enough to recover. That’s hard to build a deck around though, and can be easily disrupted with one piece of spot removal.
On top of that Vel has the stats of doom, coming in as a 4/7 for 6 resources. It’s going to be up to Matty to show us how it’s done. Let’s bring it home Matty!
Lieutenant Gorn
The new meta will likely be very dependent on 2 cost 2/4 units and 3 cost 4/4 units to counter them. Just looking at stats and traits, it is likely Lt. Gorn would see some play, as a 3 cost 4/4 Rebel. Against some decks he will put your opponent in very awkward positions by threatening to steal their credits. He’s just a solid card and a nice rare that everyone will likely need a playset of at some point.
The Imperial trait has a nice flavor as well, but as a Hero card it will likely never be relevant.
Obi-Wan
Having 7 units on the board at one time, especially in a hero deck, is a pretty rare feat. One which means you are probably winning that game anyway. Obi-Wan can come in and protect the other 6 units as a 7/7 Sentinel, so then you can win the game even more.
He’s sure to be a fun Twin Suns card, and a 7/7 Sentinel for 7 will be good in limited. For the aspect requirement of Vigilance Command and Hero, and a Legendary to boot, you’d sure like to see an iconic character like this pushed a little more to be playable somewhere in Premier. Unfortunately, Obi-Wan likely won’t make it into the list of quality legendaries in LAW.
Also, what’s he swinging? Some funky Jedi croquet mallet? The art is cool and it’s fun to see Obi in his Clone Wars armor. However, shouldn’t he have a lightsaber?