Since FFG didn't give us any new cards, let us discuss the father of Luke, the Lord of the Sith.....Darth Vader! This card I am super excited to play just because its Vader. But is he any good? Maybe, let's find out.
1) He is 13 HP for 16/21 points. He has 2 and 3 damage faces for free with a 2 disrupt and basic utility after that. Are these stats good? Well yeah! He deals damage equal to Luke without costing anything and he has the possibility to snipe 2 resources form the opponent. Seems legit. The 2 disrupt is actually his best hidden feature I believe, Vader is a damage monster, but every once in a while you will roll this face and the opponent will now have a problem.... What do I do about losing 2 resources. People playing high cost cards like mind Probe or Falcon will need 4-5 resources. Vader laughs at players trying to save resources. So now the opponent must commit to playing a card early or not being bale to play a card at all. Damage is wonderful but having a fairly good disruption die face makes Vader rather unpredictable in a given situation.
2) But what is Lord Vader most known for? Why killing people to death of course!!! So we have to look at his card effect. After you activate Vader you can pick an opponent (multiplayer confirmed!!) and force them to discard a card of their choice. This is so good! Vader above can choke your resources AND choke your card options. This is just one cart of the combo, but wow this is brutal. Your characters, resources and cards in hand are not safe from this guy. The bigger threat is how Vader's effect will also force you to draw through your deck faster. The rules of the game force you to draw back up to 5 cards in your hand whether you like it or not. Vader is removing a card AND slowly milling you at the same time. Essentially in 5 turns, Vader has stolen 1 extra turn for you. This is a very powerful ability and really a harsh one to deal with because the longer the game lasts, the better chance a Vader deck has to win.
3) 16 and 21 points....This is by far the most expensive card we have seen for a single character. This means that Vader is not going to have many options in team building if you run him at Elite (2 dice for Vader). You can run him with 1 die but I think most players will field him at his Elite level of 2 dice. He is a beast, he has LOTS of HP and he deals damage and economic disruption in spades. But he still needs support to win games. I feel because of his costs, Vader will only shine in really specific decks, since he is not a very splashable card. This can be proved wrong in the future, but with the base set only we will have to see how many decks Vader can work with and win games.
4) Vader or Luke? This is a question I have seen and hear a lot. I have opinions about both but I personally think Vader is the better card. Now mind you this is NOT between Vader and Luke with Qui-Gon and Kylo Ren and all these elaborate deck theories. This is Vader vs Luke each with their 30 card deck. Vader and Luke deal the same damage. Luke draws a card and Vader eats a card. Vader has 13 HP and Luke has 12. We haven't seen all the cards available but both heres and villains have good blue cards and neutral cards. So what is the tipping factor for me? The 2 disrupt. Vader can eat 2 or 4 resources depending on his roll. For me that is huge. Damage will be dealt, but ruining an opponent's economy and with such a large range of disruption? I feel that is the tipping point to make Vader the stronger card. Now mind you this is a CLOSE matchup and I love the themes between father and son. But personally I feel the 2 disrupt is better than the rest of Luke's die faces.
So what do you think? Post and let me know. Are you
#TeamVader
or
#TeamLuke
? What is your favorite thing about Lord Vader?
