Good morning and happy Thursday, tomorrow we get a new FFG article (hopefully) so let's talk about cards. This time its a utility piece that we have discussed in a lot of places, Jedi Robes.
1) Jedi robes is a rare card you can get in the starter deck with Rey/Finn, but you can also pull it in booster packs. So I don't think this card will be very hard to find. This card costs 2 resources which essentially is an entire turn of economic resources and offers a decent die with s ome good utility. What this card really offers is consistency for whoever is equipped with it, or any die you roll in general. 33% of the die is Focus, which means you can spend this focus die to change any other die to a face of choice. Putting this on any hero makes them much more likely to deal damage when you need it, and that's important. You can also trigger special effects more consistently as well. The rest of the die offers some disrupt and resource gathering, but what I find most powerful is the ability to have strong dice manipulation from this card.
2) The card effect is a unique one thats always on, but much better when played round 1. Gaining 2 shields is NO joke. Shields are a very powerful tool to win games because it extends your HP into ranges that can be difficult to whittle down. The effect is considerably worse after round 1 when you only get 1 shield for 2 resources...So that is something to think about, do you run 1 or 2 copies of this card in a deck? Since you can have a full mulligan at the start of the game, it is likely to see this card in your starting hand pretty consistently. And if you run Luke, his +1 draw will really increase the chance of getting this card out turn 1.
3) Whats the strategy with Jedi Robes? Well this card is a strong early game card. Round 1 is when you want to play this card. Get 2 shields on a character and then roll some dice. Robes will increase either your economy (Through die manipulation or gaining resources) or dampen the enemy economy (1 disrupt side isn't bad early game). But middle to late game you want something better, like a lightsaber or some other bomb card. So this now becomes trade fodder for the upgrade. Once you find your bomb, you will want to discard Robes to decrease the new card's cost by 2 resources. This gives you a economy discount and upgrades your field state to a much better position.
Jedi Robes is a really good card. I don't believe you always need to run a playset, but some decks really want to see this early game (Qui-Gon and Luke come to mind). Robes offers a lot of value in early game, but tapers off terribly once you get to round 4 or more. With that in mind, use it wisely since a lot of cards are very powerful in the 1-2 drop slot and round 1 slot.
we were thinking about you from the future when we made that comment. The force is strong with Rick.