One of the toughest decisions to make in a game of Star Wars Destiny is who to target, and ultimately (hopefully) kill first once the dice start rolling. This article series seeks to explore the options and come to some sort of a conclusion.

Some decks have a clear cut answer as to who to take down first, eHan eRey isn’t one of those decks. Even if you think you know the answer, a large portion of the community likely disagrees with you. I’ve heard staunch defense of each point of view, and I’m going to lay it out below. I’m presupposing you know the ins-and-outs of the eHan/eRey deck and how it stacks actions by putting ambush upgrades on Rey, so I’m not going to go into a full deck strategy. But we can take into account the following when we first sit down and resolve our mulligans.

Things to Consider:

Rey’s text is abusive , allowing the opponent to stack 2-5 consecutive actions pretty easily.

, allowing the opponent to stack 2-5 consecutive actions pretty easily. Han can get Second Chance put on him, and if the Battlefield is Jakku: Starship Graveyard it can happen repeatedly.

Han can also quickly accumulate shields with Ambush and then Riposte for additional damage for zero resources.

Rey’s Dice absolutely suck

Han’s Dice are pretty good, but hit hard , especially with all of the guns this deck plays

One other thing to consider is that as long as Han and Rey are both alive, the opponent can start with 2 actions, activate Han, and if he rolls his disrupt side, take out your resources before you have the chance to effectively use them. All the more reason we need to figure out who to kill!

Evaluating Rey

Early Game Concerns:

Rey only has two things going for her when she’s the secondary (or tertiary) character: She’s the cheapest Elite Hero, and her text is gross. It is arguably the most easily abusive character text in the entire game.

Rey’s gametext abuse comes in many forms, first, in the ability to roll and immediately resolve dice. As mentioned above, this can allow Han to take your resources from you before you can use them. By stacking three actions, the opponent can do things like roll both characters and resolve all ranged damage before you can do anything about it, or resolve some of Han’s Dice and then play an event, or add shields, or play that annoying Riposte.

By giving the opponent to play a near-solitary game, Rey demands attention. And, this gets even more abusive late in the game.

Late Game Concerns:

Let’s assume for a moment that we’ve killed Han already and are left with just Rey. She likely has guns on her, most likely Holdout Blaster but possibly even Jetpack or DL-44 Blater Pistol. These weapons, without Han on the table, don’t do a whole lot of damage. Rey had no Focus sides, and nor do any of the equips this deck generally plays outside the 1x One With The Force. With Rey’s dice only consisting of Melee damage (and only one side of base Melee at that), it can be difficult for the opponent to push through late game damage unless Rey is fully equipped or has a Rey’s Staff on her.

However, and this is really only true if the battlefield is Jakku: Starship Graveyard, the opponent can cultivate a situation where they are able to play an upgrade (usually a gun), immediately claim, and get another gun back from the discard pile – at the start of next turn, play that ambush gun, and roll/resolve damage. Doing this severely limits your ability to interact with your opponent’s dice. The only advantage here is that if you survive you can mostly roll and resolve your dice at will, especially since Han/Rey plays so little dice removal – there are some niche spaces of course if they’ve got Rey’s Staff or Force Throw sitting on their Special side, but if those cards are out we’ve taken less damage from the initial onslaught. However, because the opponent has resolved most of their dice they can claim, get a gun back, and do it all again. Over a long enough timeline they will find a way to whittle you out of the game.

Possibly the most important thing to keep in mind is that when you do kill Rey, the opponent is likely going to be able to get a Holdout Blaster on her, in which case it will transfer to Han.

Evaluating Han

Han is a tough bastard to kill, and his gametext is pretty clear on that. Building this deck with maximized ambush allows Han to repeatedly mitigate damage by adding shields peripherally whenever it wants. Coupled with that is the menacing Second Chance.

What a baller card. This thing is sneaky because even if you don’t think your opponent has it, once Rey is dead or you’ve shown that you are going after Han first, the opponent is digging for it, trust me. This card is brutal to deal with on its own, but when you couple the additional shields before and after you’re able to pop it off, makes Han a juggernaut. The only positive to this card for you is that it does take away an upgrade slot from Han, but if he’s also got a Jetpack and another blaster it might not matter.

Dealing with this card and Han’s shields is an intricate dance. You have to set up a turn where you can do maximum damage, popping this thing off and then dealing 5-7 more damage over the course of the turn. If the Battlefield is the aforementioned Starship Graveyard, you may want to just concede and get some lunch, because while you’re being forced to take the same exact turn over and over, your opponent is laying the beats with Han’s heavy damage. You can try and start claiming early, but you’re just giving your opponent a chance to maximize their damage with their bevy of 3R sides.

On his own though, Han is limited in what he can do, especially if the opponent didn’t have a chance to max out Rey’s upgrades and starting putting some on Han. And, some decks (villains) do have solid ways to deal with shields, which obviously mitigates Han’s real strength.

Concusions

There’s no way around it, Han is going to do some damage, but with the deck’s propensity to put its guns on Rey, taking her out (and hoping she doesn’t pass two Holdout Blasters to Han) is the way to go. She’s by far the easiest to kill (even though your opponent can make it very tough on you with cards like Draw Attention and Heroism), and making it a 2-, 3-, or 4- on Han will make things a lot easier.

The one caveat to this is if you happen to have the opportunity in the first round to put 5+ damage on Han (and I’m talking damage ON him, not just popping shields and doing 2), you should consider attacking Han first. As mentioned above, the real issue with him is his longevity. Putting him halfway dead really puts the opponent in a tough situation if they are only playing one Second Chance (which I think is likely) – they need to find it early and they need to put it on Han in lieu of throwing a weapon on Rey. Even if they do get Second Chance out, Rey will be weaker and you likely have bought yourself an important turn early in the game when you are near full strength.

If you can quickly and easily kill Han, maybe with a no mercy or a godroll from your all guns deck, then allow Rey’s shitty dice to try and take out all of your characters late game, you should have an easy time with this deck. Just remember to always (always) take your battlefield, unless you happen to be playing Jakku, in which case you better be playing a Han/Rey mirror match or I don’t know what you’re thinking!