We are all very excited about the new characters but some of the old characters get a boost as well. Let’s take a look at one fan favorite and see how what new toys he gets.

Palpatine, Galactic Emperor

Palpatine has gotten a small boost since he is able to pair with a two cost plot. All three of the plots are reasonable inclusions and the inclusion of one over another will depend on how you want to construct your deck.

Fortify is generic value so that Palpatine starts at 16 health guaranteed, you really can’t go wrong with it. Taking Ground gives you a great chance at winning the roll, build with that if you really want to abuse your battlefield or if you really want to take the shields and give your opponent their battlefield. Stolen Intel is great when a starting card is very important to your strategy, if you are planning on playing and building around Sith Holocron then I think you want to play Stolen Intel.

This does not contain Hidden Motive as the DB won’t let us publish that card as of yet but that should be in there somewhere if you want to play the upcoming format.

This version above forgoes Sith Holocron and tries to resolve 3s reliably while going deep with mitigation. The idea is that if you maximize your damage output via making Palpatines dice super consistent then that should be good enough to take out a character by round two. Coupled with your own mitigation you will hopefully win the race.

In the past decks have dealt with Palpatine via mitigation. A card that completely destroys mitigation is Resilient. Getting that on turn 1 means that if your opponent wanted to use mitigation they will be much harder pressed to do so effectively. Because of Resilient we are able to use Aim and Use the Force with less fear of being blown out. In previous formats your opponent could reliably control a Palpatine die every turn and you were at the mercy of drawing Sith Holocron in order to be robust enough to overcome that. We all know how good Palptine is when he’s rolling that hot lightning. Resielient and Endurance makes it so you have access to his most important resource. Resilient might look like it doesn’t actually do anything until you sit across from it and cry. This list will have money to use powerful mitigation like Mind Trick. The mitigation is similar to life gain like Rise Again, I’ve avoided that since we have nothing to bring back.

This list might be too all in on using Resilient to protect your dice but we have Endurance as a back up. This isn’t all roses though. Resilient is a bit of a tempo loss and almost requires you to roll reasonably well. Still, going long your ability to have access to Palpatines dice every turn seems worth it.

I’ve played some games with the list above (including Hidden Motive) and it felt pretty strong. In the end you might still want the Sith Holocron with Hidden Intel package but then things like Kylo Ren’s Starfighter are harder to fit and that card is a pretty powerful in this strategy.

A Holocron Palpatine list would look something like this:

This is probably something a little closer to what will be the standard but there are a lot of cards to try and the right combination will be important for Palps success going forward. I think Stolen Intel is the best 2 cost plot since a card is almost as good as a resource, a shield is fine but no one is playing Take Cover. Imagine you could play Don’t Get Cocky but your opponent wouldn’t get the cards. That seems like a great card to me and one worth playing if we are playing such synergy relient cards like Holocron. If that extra card you drew was an Enrage, Sith Holocron, Force Speed or a Holocron partner you’re definitely making good use of the extra card. Even if the card you draw isn’t something you play it still is insurance for rerolls. When you draw so many 0 cost things sometimes you need an extra card for consistency. In the past I’ve been burned by Holocron decks but perhaps that extra card from Stolen Intel and seeing an extra card from Outer Rim Outpost on the following turns will make it consistent enough to be tier one?

I chose all of the new force abilities because we need to test those. Force Rend kills all 0 cost upgrades for free and Force Illusions for 1 which equates to 3 damage in this deck or will let you No Mercy someone back to the shadow realm. Force Wave helps you defeat 3 character decks that are extremely tanky which is something Palpatine has had difficulty with. Those two new force powers have resource sides which we haven’t seen from some of the powerful force powers, since we are playing Rise Again in this version they are welcome. Hidden Motive is more important in this list once that becomes legal- this list is very money hungry. Resilient is less good in this list since your opponent will have non-character dice to mitigate. I feel its insurance just in case you don’t draw Holocron. Outer Rim Outpost will give you access to another card before you make your end of turn discard. When playing cards like Sith Holcron, No Mercy and Rise Again getting one card deeper can be the difference between losing and winning. This list certainly has more upside than the previous one but the other one tries to be more consistent with its game plan.

There are a lot of options with Palpatine and I’m sure neither of these lists is optimal. Palpatine is really interesting because he has a lot of tools at his disposal and it might be in a place where if a good deck builder can find a solid 30 they will fry the competition. Let me know what you think the best list looks like or if your approach is vastly different. Thanks for reading!

And as always…

May The Rolls be With You.

-NJCuenca

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