With the latest spoilers for Across the Galaxy, I can officially say Vader is back! Darth Vader – Terror To Behold is a monster card, just revealed in a new FFG spoiler article. Vader is everything you could want from such an iconic character. You can expect him to come out swinging (think that last scene in Rogue One) with three melee damage sides, a two, three, and four-for-one. His die is rounded out with a two-shield and two-resource side. This is the type of dice you would want to see for a character costing 18 points and 23 for elite. With 15-health he is now tied with Palpatine as the highest health character in the game, which is probably right where he should be.

Vader also has a power action that is game changing. If one or more of his character dice were removed by your opponent during their last turn, you can discard a card to roll those dice into your pool. The power action basically stops one use of mitigation against his dice. This has been the problem with high cost characters in Destiny in the past, their dice are too easy to mitigate. Vader’s power action partially solves that problem.

Overall, I’m very excited to see if Vader can make a splash in the meta. He could become a high-variance character that could swing the opponent off the table with little recourse. With that said, he also seems really fun and it’s great to see such an iconic character getting his chance to shine.

The Other Cards:

Along with the spoiling of Vader, FFG showed us a few more blue cards from Across the Galaxy. These are all cards that pair very well or have an advantage when played with Vader.

Darth Vader’s Lightsaber:

This card immediately eclipses Maul’s Lightsaber as the best villain weapon in the game. On Vader, it allows you to use one of the best character die we’ve ever seen at a cost of one resource and deal a free damage. The die itself is also quite impressive, four damage sides going all the way up to +4 melee damage. With Vader’s three damage sides it should be easy enough to pair this and resolve the dice. I would expect opponent’s to focus their mitigation on this dice so that you won’t be able to use the ability and because the mitigation will be sub-optimal against Vader’s character dice.

Vader’s Fist:

This card is right away one of the best supports ever created for Destiny. The dice, is impressive with four damage sides, though having two pay-sides could be a huge setback. The real power of this card is in its ability. When you play it, you may roll the die into your pool. Then it has a power action, which lets you roll its die into your pool yet again. Meaning, the first turn you play it, you’ll get three uses out of this and on subsequent turns you’ll get two uses. If you’re able to focus the dice to its non-pay sides, you can potentially do nine damage on the first turn and six thereafter. There is no other support in the game that can churn out that much damage by itself. I’m not sure if this will see play, but it is another card like Vader that just waves goodbye to mitigation.

Endow and Darth Vader’s Meditation Chamber:

Endow is an interesting card. My first thought on seeing this was that you could use it to play Force Speed on Vader or another blue character, using the Force Speed special before having activated the character. Otherwise, it doesn’t seem worth it to me to play this on something like an Ancient Lightsaber to get an extra use of its die. This feels like the weakest of the cards spoiled in this latest article.

Darth Vader’s Meditation Chamber is a two-cost support that when exhausted, heals one damage from a character and places a card from your discard pile on the bottom of your deck. If you spot Darth Vader you also draw a card. While this could be a good counter to mill strategies and the heal is nice, I don’t see this card making much of an impact.

Deadly Advance:

The only non-villain card included in the FFG article, Deadly Advance has the potential to create some high damage output. In the past, I have favored playing three or four-wide character decks focusing on supports. It seems that this card (and the last card we’ll talk about) is made to punish that type of deck. At two-resources, this seems fair for its effect and like Endow, I don’t think will see much competitive play.

Fear And Dead Men:

I’ve saved the best of the rest for last. Fear and Dead Men is a scary card, especially when paired with Vader. This card, even more than Deadly Advance, is meant to simply wipe three or four-wide character decks off the board. Or, if you’re unlucky enough to be playing something like Battle Droids against this, has the potential to wipe your entire team on turn one. The fact that you don’t have to pay the resource cost on the dice, is what gives this so much potential. Paying only one extra resource to resolve Vader’s four-melee damage side against each of an opponent’s characters is just insane. This, along with Darth Vader’s Lightsaber and Vader himself are the cards I’m most excited about from this latest FFG article.

We’re very excited that spoilers continue to roll in! What do you think about these latest Across the Galaxy spoilers? If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting us through our Patreon!