Today I’m grading all of the cards from Across the Galaxy. This is a quick summery of what my grades mean. The pluses and minuses give it a little bit of a leaning in to the other grade

A: Format All Star. Tier 1 character. A two of card in many decks or a 2 of place in the best decks.

B: 1.5 character or a card that appears in some lists as a two of but its pretty deck dependent.

C: Fluctuates between tier 1.5 to 2 character. A card that can be a 1 of in some lists but not a format staple or is very specific for a niche deck.

D: Probably bad but the design is interesting and not a complete failure.

F: You suck, coaster status.

Blue

Qui-Gon Jinn, Defiant Jedi Master



NJCuenca: When you add one to Qui-Gon’s die sides he is obviously an excellent character. The question is: how often will he have 2 or more shields? Well… when you win the roll he starts with two shields, lets say that’s 50 percent of the time, that’s already a character that is way above the pay grade. Even when you don’t win the roll you can resolve one of his shield sides on himself which then turns on his ability. Those two facts are what makes him good. A random roll of 2 shield 1 resource turns into two resources and two shields and that is going to be excellent. And lets not forget his second line of text which is way harder to achieve but is icing on the cake. The biggest problem is when opponents focus him down which will make his ability turn off. It will be an interesting game of cat and mouse as both players have their dice out, one waiting for the other to resolve their dice first.

Qui-Gon’s ability is particularly strong against slow character decks. Our current metagame is full of slow 3 wide decks which Qui can feast on. He might be first to claim which will be powerful for a character that is slow. That is a double edged sword since ending the turn with 2+ shields will be the best when planning for his roll off. Still, its going to be tier 1 card for Standard format but it won’t be oppressive. A-

Qui-Gon Jinn’s Lightsaber



NJCuenca: The general rule is that you have to be pretty gnarly to be a 3 cost upgrade if you don’t redeploy. Look at Handcrafter Lightbow and pre nerf Maul’s Saber, both were cards that decks were build around. QGJ’s Saber is another card like that for QGJ and Rey2 decks. Aside from the fringe Built to Last deck you probably aren’t going to want to play it but in those decks its going to be gross. B

Darth Vader, Terror to Behold



NJCuenca: One of the biggest question in this set is: how good will Vader, TB12 be? My hot take is that he will be a tier 1 character with the caveat that he will rarely be the best competitive choice. At any point where he becomes dominant you will quickly see an uprising of decks to counter him and thus it will be hard for him to stay on top. I think you will see him floating around the top tables for the foreseeable future. Even if I’m wrong are you really going to be upset if you open Ani? A-

Darth Vader’s Lightsaber



This card is just nuts on Vader and mediocre in other places which is a flavor win. Its going to be hard to justify rolling in most character dice for 1 resource but going late you could certainly do worse things with your resources. Having only 2 base sides will make it much harder for non melee/Vader decks to use effectively. This is an unfortunate card because its only really for Vader, TB12 which makes it a must own 2 of for Vader players. Starting off a new deck with 4 new legendary cards is going to be a restrictive entry to some people which is sad since I want to see him mess stuff up from the first day. If you are planning to avoid Vader, TB12 then you might want to trade these immediately. D or A+ for Vader.

Vader’s Fist



See HS’s article on this card. If you have two Snoke dice you can just get two of these and ignoring the rest of the set… I almost want to put an “lol” at the end of that statement but there’s a chance that its truth. Even Vader, TB12 decks might want it but I suspect they will favor Vader Saber’s as their top end. A

Red

Handheld L-S1 Cannon



This drawback doesn’t matter as much because whoever you put this on is going to be targeted by your opponent first which will make you not want to keep adding on top of that. Going later it could matter but the early round efficiency will make this a must play for many aggressive range/indirect decks. Heck, the card is so good that support decks might just play it since its a really good rate and the drawback doesn’t matter because they don’t even play many upgrades. A

Iden Versio, Inferno Squad Commander



NJCuenca: Iden Versio’s dice looks like a better version of Poe2 and Old man Luke which are obviously solid characters right now but one of the biggest problem is that she doesn’t have an obvious partner. Perhaps she can replace Count Dooku in the Dooku/Talzin pairing and add a Profitable Connections or some other 3 cost plot like that. Maybe her and Hondo could be good buddies because they are descent characters? New Han and Tobias Becket might be worth exploring as well. The negative plots also open things up for her but I’ll let you do all those options yourself. There are certainly options but none of them excite me.

Her ability is very good but the current format doesn’t action cheat much which makes that stock significantly lower.

Comparing her to old Luke is slightly off since melee weapons have been better than range weapons (although the L-S1 is near Ancient Lightsaber levels of good) but her dice are actually better than old man Luke – 67% of the die is a solid hit early and later on half is great. With everything being above average for a 15 and an occasional relevant ability its obviously a “good card” but I’m not sure if the combination of everything being just a bit above curve make up for her being in a bad color and damage type.

This card doesn’t feel Legendary to me. Legendaries do cool stuff and are splashy. This card is a solid “hate” card and I’ll feel bad if I open it compared to another legendary. I judge this card more harshly because it’s a legend and I feel that is fair. The character is someone that most people won’t know as well which will suppress its value early and from a marketing perspective I’m not sure why they do that. This card does feel pushed but red range villain might be so bad that this card might not show up at top tables. B-

Jyn Erso, Daring Infiltrator



This feels more like a legendary character to me – the ability is proactive, flavorful and powerful. I’m cautiously optimistic that Jyn will be playable. The ability is a hard thing to quantify but I think it effectively makes your opponents deck worse throughout the course of the game. She slots really nicely in with Cassian creating a two character combo that can threaten to kill through damage or mill and uses all of the annoying time walk cards like Retreat and Hyperspace Jump. I think that team will generally want to win through damage but that threat will always be there and if your opponent wants to get cocky and use two force illusions it might just be time to punish them. Love the card and I’m expecting it to easily be a tier 1.5 character with the potential to become a format bogeywoman. B+

Jyn Erso’s Blaster



Guns haven’t had a 3 cost redeploy and developers weren’t shy because this one is a doozy. It will primarily be for Jyn decks since both parts of the ability work so well. Its a bit of niche card like Vader’s Saber but I feel it will have more applications since it can redeploy although it being legendary will make you think about playing two in your non Jyn decks. C+ or A+ for Jyn

Umbaran Hover Tank



On second thought, if you have Snokes you’ll probably want to pick these up too because it seems like a strict upgrade to many vehicles we already have. In a world where 3 wide is king this card will certainly do a ton of damage. Even the 2 disrupt will be insanely annoying for opponents who wish to do big resource stuff. A

BB-8



The card’s fine but its for a very specific deck. How good that deck will be is a big question. I’m thinking that a deck with him will be at least be tier 1.5. I do dislike this being a legendary since it doesn’t feel that different from C-3PO which is arguably a better card. B-

Yellow

Dryden Vos, Ruthless Crime Lord



Eww. F

This is the worst Legendary in the set and I feel bad if you open it. You can’t build around the special because the effect is random or you could and have a bunch of expensive cards in your deck and only have 1 side that will resolve it. It might be a big design constraint to have it be non random but even then it would take an insane amount of set up. It does feel like a legendary ability but I feel like this is a wasted opportunity. It will certainly be a “fun” card to play in order to make your dreams into memes but please don’t buy this unless you happen to be a Dryden Vos fanboy… that might be a hipster thing?

Han Solo, Independent Hotshot



I think he’s better on his hero side since that part of his special is good all of the time. Even though that side is great Han doesn’t jump out at me. His two solid 2s and his special make him great in an aggressive deck. Is he better than Cassian though? Maybe? He doesn’t go with Jyn2 which really limits my excitement but half of his die does 2 damage. Its hard for me to say that’s bad. I just have no idea where he would go, maybe with Poe2 or even Iden Versio? That’s certainly a lot of good dice sides. B-

Lando Calrissian, Smooth and Sophisticated



His ability works every time. Great design and unique die sides for his cost. There is a lot to love about Lando and there are plenty of directions you can take him in. This is the card that will reward good deck building, mulliganing and I hope it ends up being good although I’m worried the restrictive nature of his power action will make using him weaker than using, say, Snoke. I’m optimistic because its the kind of card I like looking into but he might end up being too expensive. B

Millenium Falcon



Maybe with Lando, Hera or Armored Reinforcements this will be playable but it’s very expensive and doesn’t do a ton of damage. You do get a ton of resource value and I love me some value. You can in theory recoup all the resources you spent on the Falcon if you used it off of Lando’s ability. In reality the sexiest thing to use her with is Hera since it gives you a free Escape Craft and potentially 3 resources or 3-4 damage. Now we are talking about something I can sink my teeth into. That’s a whole lot of set up for something that doesn’t threaten damage but all of those resources can quickly turn into damage. Its a unique card and I’m certainly excited to try it but I’m slightly pessimistic. D+

Shadow Caster



BobbySapphire wrote about this card earlier in the week and to hear a more positive take you probably want to go there. This card only seems reasonable when you are playing Armored Reinforcements and Rebel Engineer which is very niche. On the villain side I’d want to be playing Tie Fighters and Hover Tanks. What remains to be seen if you are just better running a traditional line up of vehicles instead of vehicles and mods. There is a very good chance that this will be playable if all the stars align but there’s a good chance that this will just be a meme card. If this becomes good the format does have answers to vehicle cards that want to go all in on mods. B-

Tobias Beckett, Thief for Hire



I like that Tobias lets you start the game with three resources which is pretty great from a deckbuilding perspective. His special works pretty well with Truce which will make that card a little more playable. His special is very good, at times gaining two resources. We’ve come a long way with our die sides, back in my day you had to pay 18 for those dies sides (kind of, Han1 is pretty close) so there’s a chance he’s playable but like many of the middle cards here Snoke’s dominance will be hard to challenge. At 11 cost I will admit that he is somewhat intriguing since an 11 cost character with 11 health that guarantees that you have 3 to start seems strong. B-

Final Thoughts

Two character decks are a hard sell in a world full of mass indirect nonsense. Many of the legendary characters that are middles (elite 15s) which I find hard to judge off the bat because they all seem to be shaping you to play a middle middle line up, except for Lando who wants you to go in more of a vehicle style with more health in order to outlast opponents – I’m a little more optimistic about Lando.

On second glance the characters in the set seem more interesting than I gave them credit. The middles are more aggressively costed which is good and the top end blue characters in QGJ and Vader give blue players a realistic shot to compete with Snoke and friends.

Thanks for reading. Take care and as always…

May You Pull What You Want!

-NJCuenca

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