In Star Wars Destiny I’ve always followed the rule that you should play at least a four dice start. Three dice starts have traditionally been very poor in destiny, for the longest time there was little to no reason why you should be playing a three dice start. People experimented with it because they wanted to play two particular characters characters together or they overvalued health. There have been exceptions to people having success with a two or three die start but nothing like this past regional season. This past season the deck that gave people the most Regional wins and top finishes was a 3 die start line up, I’m speaking of course of Darth Vader, Terror to Behold with Greedo.

Why is Vader Different?

Vader/Greedo or any other partner is not your typical three die start. His 3, 4 damage and 2 resource side are worth more than a die that you would get from a normal four die start. if you divide those dice resolutions in half you are getting about two dice worth of effects. There have been characters that have had big rates like these but the big thing that makes him oppressive is that he laughs at one of the most important counter measures in the game – dice removal. The combination of that and cards that push his damage in otherwise bad match ups like Fear and Dead Men and Vader’s Fist made him a terror on the metagame since anyone could just pick up Vader and roll people out of the tournament. The power action acts like an insurance policy for this strategy, previously people played Galactic Emperor Palpatine but because of its inability to protect its own dice the strategy would crumble.

Vader is a prime example of the golden rule broken with a positive results. I find it important to revisit this concept because cards change ideas and my understanding of these concept also change. Could there be other reasons that we might want to break the Golden Rule? Previously I mentioned health being a reason people might want to break the golden rule but that alone isn’t enough. Health allows you to survive but if you aren’t generating assets from your characters then you will eventually get out valued and the extra health becomes meaningless.

The Case of Droid vs Ciena

There was a point in time when people questioned which of these line ups was better. The idea of playing Ciena had merit since she has two resource sides that are snoke-able which creates a huge advantage in the first round. On top of that the extra three health works really well with the deck since it deals itself a bunch of indirect damage. Heck, the deck plays Bubble Shield which means that the extra 3 health is worth about an extra card and resource, not too bad. That’s all good in theory but in gameplay it doesn’t work as well. On various occasions you can’t use Snoke’s Power Action because you either rolled badly or they disrupted the only dice that was worth Snoke-ing, this is an issue for both teams but when its used as a big selling point its more of a gripe. But, the biggest problem with the Ciena team is that Snoke only has one die which makes Aphra the clear target. In the Battle Droid line-up there really isn’t a good choice – you can kill Aphra first and leave them with a two die Snoke who will make all of their supports incredibly consistent or you can kill Snoke and leave them with Aphra who will allow them to draw more cards making their hand more disruptive plus giving them more cards for rerolls and offensive threats, its lose lose. The biggest problem with this case is that Ciena doesn’t do enough. Your opponents are most likely going to leave Ciena alive and sure there is the damage moving from cards like Dangerous Maneuver but sometimes things don’t go according to plan or they take some time to get going and losing Aphra early hurts the first group way more than it does the second one.

Cards with Great Dice Like Effects

Both Snoke and Aphra have great abilities making them feel like they have an additional die. Convergence introduces a variety of new characters that have powerful abilities which I’d say are equal to about a die. This concept isn’t new, think of all the characters that have seen top play with great abilities or Power Actions in destiny.

All of these abilities can equate to that of a die or card but they are pretty expensive and people who tried to use them as a single die character found that it was better to play them as a two die character. Convergence has new options that makes the idea of using a single die character with a great ability more palatable.

I find myself intrigued by the potential of a three die start. If we played these three characters together we’d have a 29 health team with three dice but three additional abilities that equate to a die each.

if you haven’t read one of our fundamental about finding positive EV I definitely recommend checking that out. It’s a bit outdated because it uses older cards as examples but the concepts are certainly still relevant. In addition to what resource are worth at some point I think it’s also important to discuss what a card and an action are worth. That’s definitely too much stuff for one article but its something to think about when building decks and it will give us a better idea of what power we will be getting from our character line-up. If you don’t know where to start just use cards that have been printed as a guideline for what the effect value is in relation to resources, damage and cards.

What is Jabba’s Ability Worth?

When activated he will get a yellow event or bounty. This makes it so that his activated ability will cause the delayed effect of whatever he gets. I don’t think it’s a perfect equation but I feel that specifically for 0 cost cards it’s almost that. Well-Connected is the perfect card to get from Jabba. On the next action you can get a free resource, this makes it so that an activation by Jabba in this particular scenario is equal to a delayed resource. I think that we can all agree that this is a great outcome for is activated. When we get an expensive card say an Entangle this does not mean that his activation equals an entangle because of the resource cost. We only have so many resources for our events supports and upgrades. In this scenario it just provides selection, however, it is important to note that Jabba can make a lot of resources and a lot of times getting Entangle from Jabba does equate to playing Entangle.

What is Dengar’s Ability Worth?

Dengar’s ability is worth a mediocre die effect. I’m not as high on Dengar but he is similar to Rey, Finding the Ways and that was a very powerful card when it came out. The biggest issue is that Bounties aren’t the best and using them limits deck space and the payoff is dealing a damage… not really worth it unless the bounties are really good and we get payed for him being a Bounty Hunter on top of that.

What is Wat Tambor’s Ability Worth?

Wat’s ability is only limited by the amount of resources you can pay. The ceiling for him is pretty high realistically being 2 or 3 damage or a resource, that’s pretty great. A 9 point character with his die and an additional die effect of that magnitude is certainly going to see play.

All three of these characters pay you off for building your deck in a certain way which doesn’t make them free by any means but whoever can build with them well will be payed off with a very cheap character that has high value. Mother Talzin is a similar card to these but that deck restriction is insanely high compared to Tambor or Jabba that I don’t think it’s fair. Also, a focus effect is worth less when you have less dice which doesn’t play well with playing a three dice start.

Thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments if I missed anyone that falls into characters that are worth breaking the golden rule for. Take care and as always…

-NJCuenca

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