Good morning and happy Monday everyone. Today I want to talk about the Ace Pilot, Poe Dameron. Is he good? Is he bad? Let's talk about it!

1) Poe is a 12 HP hero with 14/18 point spread. His die faces offer 33% damage, 33% utility and 1/6 special die face. His special effect is his bread and butter, but we will discuss that later. Overall his die stats are fairly standard. He deals above average damage but at the cost of 1 resource for 3 damage. At first glance he would seem a bit over coasted and a bit underwhelming. So why should you field this card?

2) let's look at his special effect. Discard any card, resolve any die face. And if it's a vehicle, you can reanimate it. Well what does that mean? Lots of things. This effect is powerful and flexible. 2 things that help win games and keep you in control of the game. First of all his effect allows his to pitch any card. Second you resolve a die face of any card that has a die. So Poe could discard FO TIE and use the special effect to discard all shields on all characters from a single opponent. That's pretty good. Or Poe can pitch Falcon to gain 2 resources and then reanimate the falcon for 3 resources instead of 5. Poe's effect is good, but only exceptionally good based on how and when it's used.

3) Poe is not really great by himself though. He requires a team to become a monster. Poe and Finn are the two cards match made for eachother. Finn allows you to add red villain vehicles to your deck. Poe can use them to wreck you. It's a beautiful combo. Imagine this. AT-AT is a red villain vehicle. Poe can throw it at you for 5 damage with his effect. Not fun bro. Without Finn, Poe has no access to Falcon, FO TIE, AT-ST and a majority of the cards Poe wants to throw around and then reanimate. Poe with any other hero is significantly weaker based on the current card pool we have.

4) So what other options do we have? Well Poe can run a 2x2 build with Rey. And this is a unique the because Poe won't be throwing vehicles around like crazy. But he will be mustering a lot of resources, disrupts and shield die faces. Poe and Rey shift from aggressive burn damage to economy disruption. Rey provides with damage using equipment and Poe helps keep the opponent off track. This is not the most optimal deck in my opinion. But it will get the job done.

5) The biggest strength of Poe is how flexible he is and how he can be paired up with many other heroes and do well. This is also his worst feature as well. As a single card, Poe isn't very good. He requires combo pieces and others to help him shine. So without proper synergy and deck construction, Poe will more likely fail than succeed.

Overall Poe, I believe is very good and a high level card. He can dish out massive damage or use great utility of any card. He is fun to play and gives players lots of options and play styles to try. However he is limited in how powerful he can be by the other hero you add to his team. And this limiting factor can indeed limit his potential in battle. He is fairly built and priced and I believe we will see some seriously good Poe decks in the release of this game.

So let me know what you think. Do you like Poe? How would you play him? What are your thoughts about this card?

This is an interesting topic because it highlights a potential problem with characters like this: You have to roll a 1 in 6.

His ability is obviously very powerful, but without a good amount of "free" ways to reroll (ie, ways that don't force you to pitch cards or throw away actions), you may never see it until it is too late, especially if your opponent is wise to it and removes the dice when you do finally manage to roll that special pip. Time will tell I guess.

FWIW, he does seem to compare favorably to Han Solo for the same cost (Han has 10HP, has same "damage" sides, 2 disrupt instead of 1, and 2x 1 resource sides in place of Poe's 1x + special). I do think that if Han gains more than 3 Shields through his ability he will likely be slightly better generally speaking, unless your Dice get hot or you have other ways to just automatically give you the special result on Poe and your opponent can't/doesn't mess with it.

I am tempted to think that the characters which have Passive abilities will be generally better than those with "specials", but we'll see; it depends on cost, reliability, other stats, and the amount of impact it has. Off hand I think if Poe drops a Falcon or AT-AT or something equally huge in the first couple turns he will probably dominate, but otherwise be susceptible to being countered or having the game snowball out of control where it is less relevant.

I expect he will have his day, I am just not convinced that in the first release that it will be consistent enough to be a serious thing. It might just be easier to try and generate 5 resources by turn two by playing Han/Rey (or something) and dropping the Falcon that way, since you are much less likely to have that get wrecked by bad luck/rerolls/removal.

Like I said, time will tell.

If your playing Finn, Poe has another advantage of Han. You can include Red cards. I know you can include weapons and vehicles because of Finn's ability, but Poe being Red opens up all red hero cards. Small advantage I know. I also think there is plenty of avenues to turn his die to his special, just have to hope your opponent doesn't cancel your die somehow. His ability of firing off the best side of a die and playing the card in one action is pretty sweet.

How many vehicles do you actually need in the deck for Poe to be worth it?

Any Yellow character with Poe gives you access to 2 copies of the Falcon and 2 copies of Black One.

(Personally I'm holding out hope that Padme will cost 9/12 since she doesn't do damage, if that holds true (or even if she costs 12 with 1 die), I'd be tempted to use her instead for the second Poe die and the more supportive dice).

Poe with Rey seems Gross. The only synergy is that it gives you four dice but having someone with 1 resource and no melee damage gimps Rey's dice quite a lot.

With the set as it is I don't think Poe is viable without a yellow hero so he can deploy the Falcon, if you're looking for someone with a big chunk of ranged damage Han is better, if you're looking for someone to bring red cards into your deck Leia is better.

Seems like there's not much reason to run a two-dice setup with Poe. I mean, it'd be nice to double the chance to hit a special, but jumping to 18 ruins your chance to run the Poe/Finn combo (Finn is 13/16).

The game is practically begging you to run a Poe + Finn X2 configuration (14+16).

Poe has a short list of possible partners simply because he currently only has access to one vehicle on his own accord. I expect a lot of red vehicles moving forward, so he is bound to become a less restrictive option.

That's fair, things could change as more vehicles are added.

I guess I was mostly just thinking out loud from a cost savings perspective. He's got an interesting ability and definitely wanting to get one, but as I'm looking for ways to save a few bucks as I'm building a collection, Poe just doesn't strike me (for now) as a legendary card that I'll be in a hurry to rush to the secondary market to get a second die for.

That's fair, things could change as more vehicles are added.

I guess I was mostly just thinking out loud from a cost savings perspective. He's got an interesting ability and definitely wanting to get one, but as I'm looking for ways to save a few bucks as I'm building a collection, Poe just doesn't strike me (for now) as a legendary card that I'll be in a hurry to rush to the secondary market to get a second die for.

It seems that he will get better as the game goes on since more vehicles and red cards will be added, making his choices more versatile. Also he might be a very cheap card to pickup early on since a lot of people overlook him. So it might be best to grab him early and watch his stock value go up.

He needs a haircut. Space Hippie

Really really really wish Poe's elite cost was 17 or that Finn's basic cost was 12, so you could do an elite Poe with basic Finn. I really feel like to take advantage of Poe's ability, you need double the chances at that special instead of just one.

Also is there a partial view of the AT-ST somewhere that I missed? I can't remember seeing it, but I've only been using TTS, and they only use fully spoiled cards.

Really really really wish Poe's elite cost was 17 or that Finn's basic cost was 12, so you could do an elite Poe with basic Finn. I really feel like to take advantage of Poe's ability, you need double the chances at that special instead of just one.

Also is there a partial view of the AT-ST somewhere that I missed? I can't remember seeing it, but I've only been using TTS, and they only use fully spoiled cards.

On the FFG teaser we saw 1 side of the AS-ST and it was 5 ranged damage for 1 resource.........Very scary.

Really really really wish Poe's elite cost was 17 or that Finn's basic cost was 12, so you could do an elite Poe with basic Finn. I really feel like to take advantage of Poe's ability, you need double the chances at that special instead of just one.

Also is there a partial view of the AT-ST somewhere that I missed? I can't remember seeing it, but I've only been using TTS, and they only use fully spoiled cards.

On the FFG teaser we saw 1 side of the AS-ST and it was 5 ranged damage for 1 resource.........Very scary.

Dang really?! I must have bad eye sight, because I just watched it and still didn't see it. But I'll take your word for it! That's awesome... As an AT-ST should be. I did notice another card I hadn't seen yet called "Second Chance." Yellow upgrade. Says something like "When you would be defeated, instead discard this card and heal 5 damage." It was placed on Finn. So maybe another something to help the Poe/Finn shenanigans deck?

Oh yes, that card is something very likely to make the deck. The biggest question is cost....if its 2 or less its going in. If it's 3 or more, might have to think about it.