eTesting is in full swing, and even though my eyes are bleeding out of my skull from staring at TTS all weekend, it’s time to write my weekly column, and I’m willing to sacrifice my 20/10 vision for all the lovers and haters of TheHyperloops.

There are a buttload of cards I’m worried about for Gen Con, but I wanted to talk about a few today. I don’t know how long this is going to be so I’m going to cut the preface and get with the good stuff.

Kylo Ren, Tormented One

Kylo Ren is shredded.

Kylo has always been a ridiculous monster. Even when the two player set first dropped I thought he was a problem, the way he could just murderize mono-colored decks. The fact that the two player set wasn’t playtested outside of FFG’s internal team worried me even more. His 50% damage sides in addition to his color naming auto damage and twelve health make him more than just a boy in a mask. And his moderate 17 point cost has always made him a “big” worth building around.

However, for the longest time villains were absolute shit compared to heroes. Even though Kylo/Anakin won the world championship in the hands of Edwin Chen, not very many top players would back it up as being the best deck for that weekend, even directly after. Ed did correctly predict a heavy Stairs meta, and the fact that Sabine showed up in higher numbers than expected made it a perfect meta choice for the weekend, but best deck? I think not. But, that was without Way of the Force…

What’s that got to do with anything? Everything.

Way of the Force gave Kylo Ren, Tormented One two major support characters. We all joke about the fact that ALL of the 10/13 Villain characters got balanced (FN-2199, Unkar Plutt, and Captain Phasma [JK she was NINE/13 – also in that unplaytested 2P set <hmmmm>]), but the fact that they all have meant that brutally strong characters like Kylo, Cad, and Thrawn were missing their peak efficiency of a full 30 point squad. Neutral Anakin pulled some weight at worlds for Ed, but overall he’s a pretty medium character; he’s not even that great in draft. The appearance of dice-turning, and damage increasing support characters at 13 points in Snoke and Arihnda Pryce have made 17 point villain characters great again.

Both of these characters combined with Kylo Ren have been tearing up Store Champs and each has claimed victories over the first two weekends of WTF Store Champs. If Kylo decks become the most played decks in the format going mono blue with Snoke could be a major liability because of a perceived weakness in the mirror, but Kylo/Pryce (KRAP) plays so few red cards it doesn’t have much of an advantage. I do like that KRAP is more likely to play Close Quarters Assault but they don’t get that much of an advantage with two extra melee sides, but there’s no doubt about Snoke adding damage to Kylo’s already strong 2X sides makes him kind of bonkers. Long time member of our Coaching program DrBearsec took down a store championship this past weekend with his version of Kylo Snoke against stiff competition.

One major issue with these decks is that they play pretty broke. Not only do they have to manage Kylo’s pay side (though all the focusing obviously helps) a lot of the good villain mitigation costs 1. Doubt, alongside Hidden motive, can’t hold a candle to Guard and Pacify in the blue melee match vs. heroes. Playing weapons on Kylo makes it much harder to keep him alive, and while cards like Binds and Chance Cube help, they can also be a double edged sword; if we’re taking actions to play binds and then a weapon we give our opponent an opportunity to sculpt a decent anti-Kylo hand of mixed colors, and if the Chance Cube die gets mitigated we’re left without being able to play a weapon for the round.

But, in any event, for a guy who has played a lot of mono colored decks in my events this year, Kylo scares me. He knocked me out of worlds, dealing me my only two game losses of the week, and while I have faired pretty well vs. him while playing Stairs, losing the ability to slam Rey’s Lightsaber for extra shields so easily makes that matchup a lot rougher. I think Kylo Ren decks will do pretty damn well at Gen Con, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t considering him myself. The hardest thing will be actually constructing the perfect 30, with over 800 possible cards, narrowing down to just 15-20 different cards is getting nigh impossible.

Resistance Crait Speeder

I’ve been playing quite a bit of villain vehicles lately (Snoke/Bazine/FOST [Bazine’s dice are pretty dope for snoking]), but I had to see the truth in Resistance Crait Speeder, which I personally think is the single greatest reason for the Aayla nerf. eAayla/eRose/Anakin (or Ezra) was going to dominate the meta because of this card. Now, a five dice start with Rose is much harder to achieve, and can’t be done without sacrificing die fixing Yoda or 7 point yellow characters (though Rose/Yoda/Gungan Warrior might be a thing). But Star Wars Card Best Brian Herold won a store champ this weekend with Rose/Wedge/Hired Gun, and A store champ was taken down by Rose/Jedha/Jedha as well, it really seems like any Rose + Crait deck could be viable.

Rose with this Speeder is absolutely busted, especially when you have things like R2-D2 (LEG), C-3PO, and Yoda to continually remove the damage to it round after round. Heroes now have two potent two-drop vehicles without any pay sides or modified sides in Crait Speeder and T-47; speeders are life. The bottom line is that a 2R/3R/3Ind for 2 resources when vehicle decks can generate lots of resources with the characters they choose (Yoda, Rose, and Anakin all have more than one resource generating die-side), Weapons Factory Alpha, and Rally Aid, means that it’s now easier than ever to spam hard-hitting vehicles, and Resistance Crait Speeder is the scariest of the bunch, though the ARC-170 isn’t far behind.

Cassian Andor

I can’t believe Cassian for one die is ten, lol. Someone won a Store Championship on Sunday with single die Cassian, Elite Yoda, Anakin mill; what a squad! The picture on Facebook showed Cassian with a cunning, thanks Yoda! What’s crazy about Cassian and why I’m afraid to see him across the table from me is that who knows what our opponent will even be doing? Original from Arrowbrook Gaming mentioned on their latest podcast with HonestlySarcastc that he was running a Yoda Cassian damage deck – he used the mill battlefield as a troll so people would mulligan poorly (sup Zoo Lock), and then dropped Force Waves and X-8s! He totally wrecked me with it a couple times on TTS last week, instilling the true fear in me. Someone with a similar idea took down a small store championship in the Cleve.

But, Cassian isn’t just good for shenanigans, he’s a damn beast. HonestlySarcastc likes to call him a mini palp, and he ain’t wrong. While his 1R/2R sides for damage are just OK, that they are chained to indirect makes them much more potent especially when we’ve gotten our opponents down to one character. The fact that he has two discard sides is what scares me the most, as those sides can be huge benefits vs. any deck looking to mitigate your dice or drop vehicles on you, that they’re tied to damage only makes them more ridiculous. What’s more is that Cassian has some pretty nice pairings because of his cost. I’ve heard a lot of rumblings about Poe/Cassian and Finn/Cassian to set up big turns with Quick Draw and Hit and Run for big unmitigatable damage. Even if you don’t go the speed route (Hyperspace Jump and Retreat are pretty good I hear), we just finally have a good ranged character for heroes in yellow.

And then there’s mill. In addition to the three wide variant mentioned above, Cassian Yoda also took down my local store champ this past Saturday (in mill form), and possibly others. Cassian Yoda mill is fast, and has cards like Clandestine Operation to really put the game out of reach quickly when combined with all four of Yoda/Cassian’s character dice milling our opponents AS WELL AS DOING SOMETHING ELSE; it’s truly insane. Short 35 minute rounds don’t scare us as much when we can mill our opponents in three rounds and we’re running Hyperspace Jump to boot.

There’s still a ton to test before Gen Con, but I’ll be testing against these cards the most over the next three weeks. Until then,

Thanks for reading,

BobbySapphire

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