Hi;

Does the combination of Chewbacca (YT-1300) and Determination work in the following way?

Chewbacca takes a critical damage. The player first checks the critical card and if it is a 'Pilot' Crit the player has a choice - Use Chewbacca's ability and simply face it down with no outcome, or use Determination's text to completely discard the crit - hence taking no damage at all. Is this correct?

Please include with answers the locations your getting your reasoning from.

Cheers

I would say that Chewie's ability overrides Determination, thus making Determination redundant. Determination refers to a faceup damage card, with the pilot trait, whereas Chewbacca immediately flips it without resolving it, thus ignoring the pilot trait. For Determination to work, the card must be faceup for the pilot trait to come into play and Chewie's ability doesn't let this happen. His ability is always in effect.

Both abilities have the same trigger condition (When you are dealt a face up damage card). Thus, the controlling player may choose the order in which to resolve them. So yes, Chewie with Determination can discard the Pilot critical hits before they get flipped over by Chewie.

From the FAQ, pg. 7:

Chewbacca

Any time Chewbacca is dealt a faceup Damage card, he flips it facedown without resolving its effect, including the Injured Pilot Damage card.

Damage cards flipped faceup by card abilities (such as Saboteur) are not considered "dealt," and therefore Chewbacca’s ability does not apply.

As dbmeboy states, controlling player chooses when the same trigger condition applies. Chewie may also choose to flip the 'pilot' crit facedown instead of using Determination to discard it... should the controlling player so desire?!?!?