Does the Determination elite ability cancel a bit if it is a pilot critical? The card states to discard a pilot critical, not flip it face down. Does this mean the damage to the ship doesn't take place?

Yes.

Consider the following:

Leebo with Determination (or as we like to call the combo, Leebomination), is dealt a face-up card.

Leebo deals the top two cards of his damage deck, and discards one of them with his pilot ability.

If the second one is a Pilot card, Determination kicks in, and he discards that one as well.

Leebomination has an appx 41% chance to discard both cards in this scenario, effectively negating 2/5 of all [KABLAM] results that he would otherwise suffer, while still taking the lesser-of-two-evils for the remaining 3/5 of the cards.

Leebomination has an appx 41% chance to discard both cards in this scenario, effectively negating 2/5 of all [KABLAM] results that he would otherwise suffer, while still taking the lesser-of-two-evils for the remaining 3/5 of the cards.

and then, when you take this combo, your opponent doesn't roll any Kabooms, just Booms and so you never get to use the ability at all.

Did that to someone in a tournament once.

Leebomination has an appx 41% chance to discard both cards in this scenario, effectively negating 2/5 of all [KABLAM] results that he would otherwise suffer, while still taking the lesser-of-two-evils for the remaining 3/5 of the cards.

and then, when you take this combo, your opponent doesn't roll any Kabooms, just Booms and so you never get to use the ability at all.

Did that to someone in a tournament once.

Hush, you :-3

Determination gets rid of an incoming card so that it never happens.

Determination does NOTHING to cards you already have. If a card lands on the ship face down but it later turned face up by some effect then Determination can do nothing to it. This also applies to Chewbacca's pilot ability.

Wow!!! Just... Wow. Almost a must card, instead it is sieriousky consider it. Always.

Leebomination has an appx 41% chance to discard both cards in this scenario, effectively negating 2/5 of all [KABLAM] results that he would otherwise suffer, while still taking the lesser-of-two-evils for the remaining 3/5 of the cards.

and then, when you take this combo, your opponent doesn't roll any Kabooms, just Booms and so you never get to use the ability at all.

Did that to someone in a tournament once.

Its called HLC

Wow!!! Just... Wow. Almost a must card, instead it is sieriousky consider it. Always.

It is also a great filler for ships where you simply do not want to lose their special ability before they die.

Like Howlrunner and Kenkirk.

In short,

Determination is a 1pt insurance for a pilot's native Ability.

^ (old damage deck)

Wow!!! Just... Wow. Almost a must card, instead it is sieriousky consider it. Always.

Consider it but consider everything else as well.

How likely are you to suffer face-up cards being dealt to you?

How much would those cards hurt you?

What else could I spend the points and/or slot to get?

There are times Determination is great. There may be times the opponent needs to land one or two cards on a ship to destroy it but he keeps on throwing face-up cards at the ship (normally a GREAT thing) only to see Determination throwing them away. There are also plenty of times Determination is just another point for your opponent because it either doesn't see face-up cards or it just sees the wrong ones before it is too late to do any good.

IF only there was a way to put Determination and Draw Their Fire on the same ship that actually has enough hull to survive the times it misses.

The odds of suffering a face-up damage card increase with the following:

1. A high chance of canceling incoming damage
2. A high hull value
3. A very specific number of shields (S=n(D-E)-1, where S is your shield value, N is any integer, D is the expected damage your opponent will roll, and E is your expectation of mitigation.)
4. Greedo crew
5. Anything that denies your opponent the ability to modify their attack dice with Focus tokens (or similar)
6. A metagame in which crit-builds are popular

Things 1 and 3 are based on the fact that Hits are canceled before Crits.

If you roll 3 attack dice, your ratio of Crits to Hits is 1:3, as is native to the dice. (25% of all damage is Crit)

If you are guaranteed to cancel 1 die per attack, the ratio climbs to 131:135. (49% of all damage is Crit)

The results are even more dramatic as damage mitigation increases.

Things 2, 4, and 6 should be fairly obvious.

Thing 3 is a formula for the following scenario: The attack in which you lose your last shield, you take exactly 1 damage to Hull as well. This is functionally the same as taking your first attack, and setting the suffered damage to exactly 1 result (a 37:27 ratio, or 58% chance that the one damage is a Crit.)

Thing 5 is simply that Focii alter the native ratio of Crits to Hits from 1:3 to 1:5, making Crits relatively more rare.

It's the best 1 point ever spent on Leebo!

Wow!!! Just... Wow. Almost a must card, instead it is sieriousky consider it. Always.

LMAO... sorry about my spelling and grammar. That's what I get from posting from my phone.