Hey all!

With Spark of Hope dropping in little over a week I have already started to dive into the set by playing some cards. This isn’t something I normally do as I usually have a reason to play the current meta, but that is not the case this time around and we need to prep Scott and Eldis for their trip to GenCon. There are a few things I am already excited to play but one of the main pairings I wanted to try was C-3PO and R2D2 together. I love that they are characters within the game and they seem to have some solid potential together.

So I get some test games in with a quickly thrown together list. Sadly Hero doesn’t have many bombs to drop outside of the Entourage package, so I jam 2x of the 6 cost Falcon in and see how it feels. Here is my list:

Nothing really stands out. No crazy cards within the deck. I could have crazy turns where I did play a Falcon (tutoring the Escape Craft out), two Entourages and a Hired Muscle all in turn one. That is 13 resources worth of supports on turn 1. I almost felt like I was playing Snoke but for heroes. Overall the deck can ramp but it is held back by the fact that it has 25 health for a three wide. We also do not have the whole set so we still could get some crazy support hate.

The biggest issue I have? Military Camp with the droids.

This lets you activate both droids at the same time and trigger their abilities. You also have a solid roll off average of 5, meaning you have a high chance to win the roll-off and get your battlefield.

For comparison here are other teams roll-offs (percentage is how often that R2/eC3PO/eSatine will win):

eVader/FOST: 5.3 (42.5%)

eRey/eKylo: 3.3 (85.9%)

eGeneralGrievous/Aphra/Messenger: 4.7 (58.7%)

eYoda/eLeia: 4 (74.6%)

eIG88/eSnoke: 5.7 (34.4%)

ePhasma/Messenger: 3.3 (88.6%)

Just give you a glimpse into some of the other decks you will see when the set drops.

Sure you could activate them, have a 55% chance to natural roll a resource on 3PO, then use R2’s ability to focus to another, then use 3PO ability to take 2 resources, then exhaust the plot to take 2 more and be at 6 resources on your first action turn 1. That is a great play in and of itself.

The real degenerate combo? Activating, getting the 55% chance for a resource or the 17% chance to get a disrupt on R2, focusing to either a resource or a disrupt (whichever you didn’t get), then disrupting for 2 and taking 2 resources on your first action of turn 1. Now you are at 4, and your opponent at 0. This combo feels just awful to play against, there is no interaction in it and no interaction combos are not something this game should be getting it to. At least ones as consistent as this. Also a reminder that this happens the first action of the game, your opponent does not have a chance to drop an upgrade to stop them from being disrupted.

Should anything happen? I am not sure but if this combo sticks around there will be a lot of salt to spread around. Balancing R2 or 3PO is going to feel bad and I would be against that. We already had to errata two legendaries last set (Force Storm and LAAT) while people are still calling for Entourage to be hit as well. Now we have our 2nd set in the block and already potentially needing a fix with our friendly companions? That is not a good look for the game. Simply an errata/ban to Military Camp could work. Overall it is slightly frustrating that clear mechanics that are meant to be played together are being pushed too far.

I will say that I feel like the deck doesn’t get overly worse, now you are just slower in activating your characters (or everyone runs 2x of Hush Comlinks!). A change to Military Camp just turns off the consistent feel bad play while keeping the deck intact. First action disrupt has always been a low percentage play from the decks in the past, but now we are looking at around 63% chance this combo comes off.

I am usually one to say we should hold off until the set is spoiled but I have a hard time seeing anything that directly counters this, except for decks that go all in on winning the battlefield. Hope I am wrong but this combo is degenerate and 3PO should have a red arm…. Don’t get me started on Rebel Traitors and Order 66 but at least those weren’t designed together!

-JustJack