Yesterday we received the official Standard Holocron update from FFG, if you haven’t seen it or the accompanying article check it out! The article outlines the major changes that we already knew about because of the email that was sent to all of those attending worlds – check out BobbySapphire’s and HonestlySarcastc’s articles on the topic if you haven’t. What we didn’t know is that Phasma, Ruthless Tactician would be coming off of the balance list. Here is a reminder of what this version of Chrome Dome looks like.

First off I applaud FFG for doing this since it gives us another powerful card to test with. Given the previous environment and 10/14 cost she saw no play. Now that C3PO, Wat, Arena of Death and Droids Day Out have been nerfed and she is cheaper I foresee her being something you will have to prepare for going into worlds. But the big question is will she be good?

First Impressions

The big thing that comes to mind for most people when discussing this change is her former reign of terror with Kylo Ren, Tormented One.

If you had bought two copies of the 2 player starter you already had a combo that would soon be nerfed. This was pretty embarrassing for FFG but the pair proved to be too powerful and Phasma too cheap. If that was the case back then why would they take Phasma off the list now?

Context is Key

There are a few major factors that led to the dominance of Kylo Phasma. The first thing to point out is that the card pool was vastly different back then. You could play the following cards with Kylo/Phasma.

These cards created a situation where Kylo was the main threat and Phasma could close out the game with Emperor’s Throne Room. All four of those blue cards were available to both hero and villain decks which made primarily blue decks viable but because of Kylo’s ability they were put in check.

The blue offensive upgrades are way worse now (probably a reaction to them being too good before or at least very good). Force Illusion is in a class of its own and was pretty important to keeping alive the character that your opponent committed to attack. You add that with the healing power of ancient lightsaber with the shield creation of Shoto Lightsaber and it gave aggressive 2 character decks way more health than most have now.

The cards were not only better for the two character decks but supports were way worse for decks looking to leverage large amounts of resources. Vader’s Fist, Entourage and Megablaster Troopers weren’t around and cards like Watto, C3po and Jabba were also not available to play them quickly.

Phasma, RT Now

The addition of Phasma gives Kylo, TO the best partner he’s ever had. This is great news for anyone who despises Reylo as that deck is literally 30 blue cards making Kylo/Phasma insanely well positioned going into worlds.

But remember all of those things I said about old Kylo/Phasma? Yeah… the cards for the deck NOW are WAY worse. Before starting out at 22 health felt more like 30 but now it feels closer to its printed value. With three color support decks available in both villain and hero flavors Kylo, TO is actually a pretty bad card against a whole metagame.

There are a few possibilities for Phasma with other characters, I’m particularly excited to try her with 3 character line ups. I go into that a little in my Vlog below, check it out although some of the things are repeated from above.

The metagame could be in a weird place if Phasma and Kylo auto beats Reylo since you will have a potential rock paper scissors parading set up between that and 3 color support decks. My gut tells me that it will most likely crush Reylo but how it will fair against everything else is unclear to me although my money would be on it being bad into 3 wide support decks and fine into a random Sea of Jizz. Oh and don’t forget about Palp, Palp being heavily Blue has me thinking it will be good into it but time will tell.

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Take care and as always,

May The Rolls be with You!