I think Jabba should be higher, top of "Solid" tier or even "Meta staple" tier: he has stable source of giving bounties from his ability, so he is great for Bounty hunter cards which are powerful (Jango Fett, Krrsantan) and even have a 3/4 opening for 2 with Reputable Hunter. He even doesn't have to run bounty cards in his deck thanks to his ability. Furthermore, on his flip turn he can play something for a combined -3 cost, so for example Devastator at 7 resources. Add his Rancor to the mix and he is super powerful and versatile.
I know all that and built a deck around it, but there is several problems with that: Using Jabba ability to work with bounty hunters is time consuming and will make you lose initiative and the pay off is not that amazing. Secondly it restrict your deckbuilding option a lot for a payoff that is not that powerful.
Qi'ra will be a meta staple. Going forward and with this set, I predict we will see more leaders you don't want to flip as early as possible. A lot of set 1's golden rules were partly defined by the small card pool. Qi'ra's flip turn, I have found in testing, works best as a leader counter-card and/or board wipe - when needed. I often don't mind after her flip turn for her to be sacrificed/die shortly after, since you switch back to the shield ability for your big hitters that follow. Her ability is good for early grit units and then later more for the shields on bigger units and turning grit on if you want with the ship. Again, in some situations you might never flip - for instance, grit units with shields don't want her to flip. She is a leader that rewards creative deck building and less linear play. It is typically why you see content creators that tend to be more experimental/creative / like her and those that prefer more linear and tried-tested playstyles - be more cautious.
Agreed. I think the best use of her flip is leader trading because she either trades with every leader (other than Palpatine & Chewbacca) in the game or she kills then and survives becoming a high priority 6/2 or 7/1 monster of a unit. Even though she requires a different play style, I think it’s worth it
Hey dude love your content. 2 requests for the future. Please use the normal looking leaders for future video. Most players will never see or play against a showcase leader (at least in person) so it’s much easier to read and recognize the standard looking leaders. (I my self tie up all the meaning of cards based on how they look) 2. Even though the ability is shown on screen I think it’s worth reading / explaining the ability of a card each time you talk about it. Not everyone has read them, or more importantly understand how to use them. Especially when making content BEFORE new sets are physically out for official release. (Means that most players have never seen the cards in person yet) You’re my favorite SWU creator so wanted to share! Keep up the great work.
Thanks man, appreciate the feedback 1. Good point that is easy to fix. 2. The reason why I put the leader's ability on screen is so people can stop the video and read the ability at any time. If I had to read the leader's ability everytime, it would make the video even longer and it would be quite boring for the majority of my audience who already know what the leader does and are just here to hear my analysis on it.
I think people are too focused on Bossk being a bounty centric deck, I believe that is his weakest form and a trap. I know you played Vader a lot in set 1, build a Vader deck, then swap the leader for Bossk. Ive been having a great time testing with that. The only bounty I have is the ramp bounty (and if you can get that off with Bossk out it is insane but not necessary) The problem with Vader Ramp is how slow Vader comes out, Bossk comes out on 5 (And if you ramp once, comes out same turn as Sabine) and has an extremely solid statline of 4/6 so he is a very solid OB target. I've had games where I ramp to 9 resources on the 4 resource turn, it is actually kind of nuts how quick he can get to the late game. And my deck is extremely greedy (it's paid off for me in the 5k and other tournaments) with basically the entire green/red end game unit pool. (3x Krayt/Devastator/Walkers/Palp/Vaders)
Interesting take I think if your plan is really to play Bossk almost exclusively for his early game body then I think I would rather play Gideon, he has -1 attack, but his ability is very strong in early game and having access to Gideon's light cruiser is a nice bonus. But anyway I think the big strengths of Vador as a deck is the fact that your ramp effectively does double duty by unlocking stronger units AND getting one of the most powerful leader in the game faster. By playing a cheaper leader you are missing out on that aspect, not only that you are also missing out on vader's ping which is also a big deal.
Great video and list. Would be cool to see a combined view with spark of rebellion at some point when more testing has been done. Do you think there are any spark of rebellion leaders that are going to be jumping up to “meta staple” (or top of “solid”) with the increased card pool?
With R2D2 and Rey you keep saying he can be a 3-7 but it’s 3-6 right? Like starts as a 1-4 goes to 2-5 then 3-6. You said it in your Rey deck video too I’m just making sure I’m not adding it wrong
I think Moff Gideon is going to be better than people think. Triple Dark Raid is really good into his Cruiser or a Reinforcement Walker. He can keep board pressure insanely well and wins you favorable trades between ground units.
Bonjour Thorrk, Si je peux m'autoriser deux suggestions : - une tier-list mise à jour des Leaders du set 1 ? - et je trouverais également enrichissante une vidéo où tu exposerais l'affinité la plus efficiente à jouer avec chaque Leader.
Question I know finn isn't good but could he have a strong game against all thoes bounty decks? That play cards that give bounties could he defeat them as they are on his units? And give his units a shield?
Here's my 2 cents and very small take about Finn. Blue/Hero may be weird too make and find something unique about each of them. Will see how this evolves in the future of course but for now it seemed tricky to make.
I think the leaders are somewhat emblematic of how I feel towards the second set in general, I'm not very happy with it to be honest. Set one was such an amazing meta, so many good stuff. If you look at the rares, there's like...30 or something rares that are playable, legendaries, about 12 out of 16 playable ones, maybe more. This set? I feel like 10 good rares is a stretch, and maybe like 6 legendaries give or take? It just feels so underwhelming overall, and everything that it brings, looks like it's going to just make existing good decks even better, instead of really turning the meta on its head. I mean, did red heroism really need the additions of Poe and Wrecker? When aggro is already as good as it is? Did yellow villain really need 4-LOM and Zuckuss? Did green villain really need Maul? I don't know, I'm not feeling it. In set one, you had a very good spread of decks, and in smaller events, it was not rare to see a more unconventional build or leader make the cut, etc. Now that everything that was already good is gonna be absolutely turbocharged to the max, I think you can forget that happening, it's cutthroat decks or bust. Have you bothered with this topic, Thorrk?
ok so couple of things: - First of all it is normal that has we get more sets a lower % of the cards in the set will be competitvely viable and it's only gonna get worse as more sets are release, the only way to avoid that is to power creep the hell out of every set which is not what we want. That's why we have rotation btw. - Set 1 is meant to be a fondational set where there are a lot of cards and leaders that are generaly useful as they set the standard for the what the aspect are meant to do moving forward. On the other hand expansion set are meant to bring more targeted and specialized archetype. This means set 1 are always more generaly powerful, as the cards they countain are usually more generaly useful. - I agree that the Leaders and the Legendaries are clearly weaker than in set 1 on average. For legendaries I think it's kind of a good news as it will make the set cheaper to collect. However Common, uncommon are cleary on par with what we have in set 1 and I would even argue that rares are stronger in set 2 on average. - Yes some already powerful decks are clearly getting stronger, but this doesn't necessarly mean that the meta will be worst off. New powerful archetype will appear, there are more opportunities to counter the popular deck. It's extremely difficult to predict how things will shape up. I feel like you are "getting hurt before getting hit", for now the meta is not established yet and there is plenty of powerful decks to try out as I shown on my channel, enjoy it while it last and we will see how it goes.
I too think rey is stronger than i gave her credit for at 1st glance but i still think shes going to struggle vs decks that play for mid or late game. Having 6 hp on flip feels super vulnerable. Luke will probably be a bit better against those decks compared to rey since he gets rebel synergy himself andnis a bit better at locking a game up. (Also lukes lightsaber is a pretty cracked out card only he gets to use)
If you are playing Rey right shes almost always actually a 3/7. But I slotted her instead of Chirrut and a couple other minor changes (Wrecker, Daring Raid, and Razor Crest in, Obi to SB and cut a copy of a couple other cards) and so far it just feels great all the time
Aphra evaluations again suffer from the notion that it is all about bringing the leader out as soon as possible...Now of course, too late to impact the game is bad (so early as possible has been a good metric so far), but we will have to see how this holds and how it impacts abilities. So using your example, I can see a world where for instance you want to bring her out when you can play 7-8 resource cards (say turn 6+), and knowing you have options in the discard pile would help (including her being much more likely to be a 5-5). Again, I think she is a massively promising leader and feel creative/experimental players might bump her a tier or two even with this set...But the card pool really caps her - agree 100%! Remember how say double aspects cards were all not rated...until people re-evaluated the cost/benefit ratio (even not optimal might be worth it - say a 6 cunning/vigilance).
@@Thorrk_THT So you think she is bad even as a 5-5 leader, drawing a discard pile card and deploying as early as possible? (Basically under ideal circumstances?)
@@WhiskeyjackZA Yes even that is not very impressive given the fact that she has no leader ability and competing with the best leader in the game.. Simply compared to Boba fett: 4/7 is better than 5/5 with a very relevant leader ability and obviously other benefit like Firespray...
More often than not if you deploy her while it still matters you only get a 2/5. If you wait it will be rare that a 5/5 with no abilities will have much impact on the game. You would be better off running Boba and never using his ability or flipping him. That would still be strong than Aphra as you don't put your self on the clock against one of the most commonly played decks in most metas.
@@WhiskeyjackZAplaying a 5/5 on the same turn as Vader deploys as a 5/8 with good abilities and support cards is absurdly bad. It’s incredibly rare and not very strong to have 6 different costs and n your discard by the 4th turn let alone the third turn. It’s not clear how people think they are going to pull this off
Boba seems terrible to me. +1/0 for a single turn to a single unit after having to spend an action is nothing. Other leaders that give an experience token or shield or give +1/0 as a static ability are much much better.
It's +1/+0 to every single Ambush and Sentinel unit you have in your deck for a turn. That's extremely efficient. Oh look my Obi Wan is now a 5/6 instead of a 4/6 or my Echo Base defender is a 5/3 instead of a 4/3. Etc etc etc. Having an extra attack on ambush and sentinel units is a massive game changer in the right situations because it allows you to reach kill thesholds you previously did not have access too.
but you have only three techs in deck and he could be killed quite easily, too. and defeating the resource means you want to use his skill only at the last round and if game will be played longer you are at disadvantage. and green han also can ramp and use tech ;)
Heroism Command is a quite powerful color combo. His ability is very easy to take advantage of, and he has very little restricting deck building as keywords are almost always a good thing.
I think Jabba should be higher, top of "Solid" tier or even "Meta staple" tier: he has stable source of giving bounties from his ability, so he is great for Bounty hunter cards which are powerful (Jango Fett, Krrsantan) and even have a 3/4 opening for 2 with Reputable Hunter. He even doesn't have to run bounty cards in his deck thanks to his ability. Furthermore, on his flip turn he can play something for a combined -3 cost, so for example Devastator at 7 resources. Add his Rancor to the mix and he is super powerful and versatile.
I know all that and built a deck around it, but there is several problems with that:
Using Jabba ability to work with bounty hunters is time consuming and will make you lose initiative and the pay off is not that amazing.
Secondly it restrict your deckbuilding option a lot for a payoff that is not that powerful.
Qi'ra will be a meta staple. Going forward and with this set, I predict we will see more leaders you don't want to flip as early as possible. A lot of set 1's golden rules were partly defined by the small card pool. Qi'ra's flip turn, I have found in testing, works best as a leader counter-card and/or board wipe - when needed. I often don't mind after her flip turn for her to be sacrificed/die shortly after, since you switch back to the shield ability for your big hitters that follow. Her ability is good for early grit units and then later more for the shields on bigger units and turning grit on if you want with the ship. Again, in some situations you might never flip - for instance, grit units with shields don't want her to flip.
She is a leader that rewards creative deck building and less linear play. It is typically why you see content creators that tend to be more experimental/creative / like her and those that prefer more linear and tried-tested playstyles - be more cautious.
Yep, I'm very bullish on Qi'ra and Young Han
Agreed. I think the best use of her flip is leader trading because she either trades with every leader (other than Palpatine & Chewbacca) in the game or she kills then and survives becoming a high priority 6/2 or 7/1 monster of a unit. Even though she requires a different play style, I think it’s worth it
Hondo Smuggle Ambush. Totally playable. Gives you a lot of late game reach and g/y villain has more than enough tricks to make it to late game
Hey dude love your content. 2 requests for the future. Please use the normal looking leaders for future video. Most players will never see or play against a showcase leader (at least in person) so it’s much easier to read and recognize the standard looking leaders. (I my self tie up all the meaning of cards based on how they look)
2. Even though the ability is shown on screen I think it’s worth reading / explaining the ability of a card each time you talk about it. Not everyone has read them, or more importantly understand how to use them. Especially when making content BEFORE new sets are physically out for official release. (Means that most players have never seen the cards in person yet)
You’re my favorite SWU creator so wanted to share! Keep up the great work.
Thanks man, appreciate the feedback
1. Good point that is easy to fix.
2. The reason why I put the leader's ability on screen is so people can stop the video and read the ability at any time. If I had to read the leader's ability everytime, it would make the video even longer and it would be quite boring for the majority of my audience who already know what the leader does and are just here to hear my analysis on it.
I think people are too focused on Bossk being a bounty centric deck, I believe that is his weakest form and a trap. I know you played Vader a lot in set 1, build a Vader deck, then swap the leader for Bossk. Ive been having a great time testing with that. The only bounty I have is the ramp bounty (and if you can get that off with Bossk out it is insane but not necessary) The problem with Vader Ramp is how slow Vader comes out, Bossk comes out on 5 (And if you ramp once, comes out same turn as Sabine) and has an extremely solid statline of 4/6 so he is a very solid OB target. I've had games where I ramp to 9 resources on the 4 resource turn, it is actually kind of nuts how quick he can get to the late game. And my deck is extremely greedy (it's paid off for me in the 5k and other tournaments) with basically the entire green/red end game unit pool. (3x Krayt/Devastator/Walkers/Palp/Vaders)
Interesting take
I think if your plan is really to play Bossk almost exclusively for his early game body then I think I would rather play Gideon, he has -1 attack, but his ability is very strong in early game and having access to Gideon's light cruiser is a nice bonus.
But anyway I think the big strengths of Vador as a deck is the fact that your ramp effectively does double duty by unlocking stronger units AND getting one of the most powerful leader in the game faster. By playing a cheaper leader you are missing out on that aspect, not only that you are also missing out on vader's ping which is also a big deal.
Neither vaders lightsaber nor force powers work good with Bossk. This makes zero sense to me
@@nathanrhoades6504 To be fair, a lot of Vader decks don't play his lightsaber or force power cards.
Great video and list.
Would be cool to see a combined view with spark of rebellion at some point when more testing has been done.
Do you think there are any spark of rebellion leaders that are going to be jumping up to “meta staple” (or top of “solid”) with the increased card pool?
I will make a separate video with SOR leader that got better or worse with the new cards.
With R2D2 and Rey you keep saying he can be a 3-7 but it’s 3-6 right? Like starts as a 1-4 goes to 2-5 then 3-6. You said it in your Rey deck video too I’m just making sure I’m not adding it wrong
Yes you're right I am sorry , 3/6 it is !
I think Moff Gideon is going to be better than people think. Triple Dark Raid is really good into his Cruiser or a Reinforcement Walker. He can keep board pressure insanely well and wins you favorable trades between ground units.
That's a very good point.
Bonjour Thorrk,
Si je peux m'autoriser deux suggestions :
- une tier-list mise à jour des Leaders du set 1 ?
- et je trouverais également enrichissante une vidéo où tu exposerais l'affinité la plus efficiente à jouer avec chaque Leader.
Question I know finn isn't good but could he have a strong game against all thoes bounty decks? That play cards that give bounties could he defeat them as they are on his units? And give his units a shield?
No, opponent upgrade are not under your control even if they are on your units. :(
Here's my 2 cents and very small take about Finn. Blue/Hero may be weird too make and find something unique about each of them. Will see how this evolves in the future of course but for now it seemed tricky to make.
he will be good if we get upgrades that give you bonus when they are defeated.
I think the leaders are somewhat emblematic of how I feel towards the second set in general, I'm not very happy with it to be honest.
Set one was such an amazing meta, so many good stuff. If you look at the rares, there's like...30 or something rares that are playable, legendaries, about 12 out of 16 playable ones, maybe more. This set? I feel like 10 good rares is a stretch, and maybe like 6 legendaries give or take? It just feels so underwhelming overall, and everything that it brings, looks like it's going to just make existing good decks even better, instead of really turning the meta on its head. I mean, did red heroism really need the additions of Poe and Wrecker? When aggro is already as good as it is? Did yellow villain really need 4-LOM and Zuckuss? Did green villain really need Maul? I don't know, I'm not feeling it. In set one, you had a very good spread of decks, and in smaller events, it was not rare to see a more unconventional build or leader make the cut, etc. Now that everything that was already good is gonna be absolutely turbocharged to the max, I think you can forget that happening, it's cutthroat decks or bust. Have you bothered with this topic, Thorrk?
ok so couple of things:
- First of all it is normal that has we get more sets a lower % of the cards in the set will be competitvely viable and it's only gonna get worse as more sets are release, the only way to avoid that is to power creep the hell out of every set which is not what we want. That's why we have rotation btw.
- Set 1 is meant to be a fondational set where there are a lot of cards and leaders that are generaly useful as they set the standard for the what the aspect are meant to do moving forward. On the other hand expansion set are meant to bring more targeted and specialized archetype. This means set 1 are always more generaly powerful, as the cards they countain are usually more generaly useful.
- I agree that the Leaders and the Legendaries are clearly weaker than in set 1 on average. For legendaries I think it's kind of a good news as it will make the set cheaper to collect. However Common, uncommon are cleary on par with what we have in set 1 and I would even argue that rares are stronger in set 2 on average.
- Yes some already powerful decks are clearly getting stronger, but this doesn't necessarly mean that the meta will be worst off. New powerful archetype will appear, there are more opportunities to counter the popular deck. It's extremely difficult to predict how things will shape up. I feel like you are "getting hurt before getting hit", for now the meta is not established yet and there is plenty of powerful decks to try out as I shown on my channel, enjoy it while it last and we will see how it goes.
@@Thorrk_THT I think you're right, I'll try and stay positive, and wait till we can see how it turns out.
I too think rey is stronger than i gave her credit for at 1st glance but i still think shes going to struggle vs decks that play for mid or late game. Having 6 hp on flip feels super vulnerable.
Luke will probably be a bit better against those decks compared to rey since he gets rebel synergy himself andnis a bit better at locking a game up. (Also lukes lightsaber is a pretty cracked out card only he gets to use)
If you are playing Rey right shes almost always actually a 3/7. But I slotted her instead of Chirrut and a couple other minor changes (Wrecker, Daring Raid, and Razor Crest in, Obi to SB and cut a copy of a couple other cards) and so far it just feels great all the time
Aphra evaluations again suffer from the notion that it is all about bringing the leader out as soon as possible...Now of course, too late to impact the game is bad (so early as possible has been a good metric so far), but we will have to see how this holds and how it impacts abilities. So using your example, I can see a world where for instance you want to bring her out when you can play 7-8 resource cards (say turn 6+), and knowing you have options in the discard pile would help (including her being much more likely to be a 5-5).
Again, I think she is a massively promising leader and feel creative/experimental players might bump her a tier or two even with this set...But the card pool really caps her - agree 100%! Remember how say double aspects cards were all not rated...until people re-evaluated the cost/benefit ratio (even not optimal might be worth it - say a 6 cunning/vigilance).
if a 5/5 leader that draws you a card is on turn 4 or 5 is bad, then I don't see how she gets any better if you delay here deployment.
@@Thorrk_THT So you think she is bad even as a 5-5 leader, drawing a discard pile card and deploying as early as possible? (Basically under ideal circumstances?)
@@WhiskeyjackZA Yes even that is not very impressive given the fact that she has no leader ability and competing with the best leader in the game..
Simply compared to Boba fett: 4/7 is better than 5/5 with a very relevant leader ability and obviously other benefit like Firespray...
More often than not if you deploy her while it still matters you only get a 2/5. If you wait it will be rare that a 5/5 with no abilities will have much impact on the game. You would be better off running Boba and never using his ability or flipping him. That would still be strong than Aphra as you don't put your self on the clock against one of the most commonly played decks in most metas.
@@WhiskeyjackZAplaying a 5/5 on the same turn as Vader deploys as a 5/8 with good abilities and support cards is absurdly bad. It’s incredibly rare and not very strong to have 6 different costs and n your discard by the 4th turn let alone the third turn. It’s not clear how people think they are going to pull this off
aphra is a nasty sneaky one
Boba seems terrible to me. +1/0 for a single turn to a single unit after having to spend an action is nothing. Other leaders that give an experience token or shield or give +1/0 as a static ability are much much better.
It's +1/+0 to every single Ambush and Sentinel unit you have in your deck for a turn. That's extremely efficient. Oh look my Obi Wan is now a 5/6 instead of a 4/6 or my Echo Base defender is a 5/3 instead of a 4/3.
Etc etc etc.
Having an extra attack on ambush and sentinel units is a massive game changer in the right situations because it allows you to reach kill thesholds you previously did not have access too.
Finn removes bounties and stuff right?
No he doesn't, bounties are always controled by your opponent.
@@Thorrk_THT card like Rich Reward can be removed by Finn? Or if someone enchtrenched your leader?
@@Ameno12345 again no
Lando with Tech will be a staple. Since Tech give all resources smuggle.
but you have only three techs in deck and he could be killed quite easily, too. and defeating the resource means you want to use his skill only at the last round and if game will be played longer you are at disadvantage. and green han also can ramp and use tech ;)
Good video was wonderful if Lando would be last or not lol he was close
Lessgooo thork with the good takes 👏
R2 would be 3/6 FYI
s
i dont see how hero boba will be good.
Heroism Command is a quite powerful color combo. His ability is very easy to take advantage of, and he has very little restricting deck building as keywords are almost always a good thing.
i just think its too early to say who's meta and who's not. the set isnt even out yet
The point of a prediction it's to make a call before it happen. So yeah it's too early to say for sure what is going to be meta but that's the point.
This is a messy tier list.