Favorite card design(s)

By Kdubb, in X-Wing

So we all know the designers have some big swing and misses with cards, but along the way, we have found some gems. Of all the cards, which are/is your favorite designed card?

Pilot:

Keyan Farlander

Having a ship that takes a negative effect and turns it into a mod that makes him even deadlier is awesome. It's unfortunate he is a bit too expensive, but when his ability works, it's glorious. I'm really curious how FFG plans to get bwings back in line. I'm not a huge fan of the Rebels material dominating the game, but if getting that bwing prototype means getting the original jousting champ back in the ring, I'm all for it.

Upgrade:

Lightweight Frame

A more recent design, but a fantastic one. It is the perfect universal buff card to the 1 and 2 agility ships that needed it without going too far over the top.

what are some of your favorite card designs?

For me, in my limited experience, are Countess Ryad, followed by Poe Dameron.

For an upgrade, i will pick Comm Relay, as it allows to store my favourite action, wich is evade.

Adaptive Ailerons. Frustrating as hell when you get wrong, but gives the TIE striker the mobility it needs to feel special.

Totally agree with you, Magnus. This upgrade is well balanced with advantages and disadvantages.

Lando Calrissian as crew is very faithful to the character, funny to play.

For a pilot, I will pick Turr Phennir, even if I don't play him anymore.

Edited by Wedge Nantillais

For a pilot, I absolutely love the Concept of Eaden Vrill. Unfortunately I can never quite make him work. He is a few points too expensive. (Really he should be roughly 30 points, still 3 points more than Manroo.) Or in the wrong ship, if he was in a ship with an astromech especially the ARC-170 he would be fairly high in the meta. (Eaden Vrill ARC-170, R3-A2, Ezra Bridger Crew).

For upgrades, I love accuracy corrector. It gives you the option to cancel your dice if you want to miss. You do not need to add the two hits, it is optional. This can trigger multiple other upgrades. (Munition Fail Safe + Fletchette Torpedoes, Gunner, Operarations Specialist etc ...)

Stay on Target, Boba Fett, and BoShek are obviously brilliant designs. :)

Lone Wolf

It takes skill to make sure you're not within Range 1-2, it works on both offense and defense, but has a negative that it only works on blanks. It's not an autoinclude but can have a high reward with the right player and right build. It's perfectly balanced which is why I like it so much.

I quite like Omega Leader's design.

1 hour ago, pheaver said:

Stay on Target , Boba Fett , and BoShek are obviously brilliant designs. :)

Must be a Paul Heaver fanbo--oop! Sorry Mr. Heaver, didn't know it was you.

**slowly backs away**

In truth, SOTL has saved my butt a handful of times, so... thanks!

I don't really use him anymore but palob is fantastic as a card. That ability is so thematic and scummy.

Reys pilot card. A great design that made arcs matter on a large turret ship.

17 minutes ago, TBot said:

Reys pilot card. A great design that made arcs matter on a large turret ship.

I like it too, it's also not too good such as Dengar's. It's a very balanced design.

I still think Chardaan Refit is the best fix card they've done. It's just so elegant. No special abilities, no cumbersome rules, and yet there're still good reasons to take it and good reasons not to take it.

Lightweight Frame and (maybe) Unguided Rockets are pretty good too; they're a little wordy, I suppose, but they do a good job of fixing several ships at once while not going overboard on any of them. The downside is that it does constrict the design space, but...for now, they're very good cards.

2 hours ago, pheaver said:

Stay on Target, Boba Fett, and BoShek are obviously brilliant designs. :)

I'll be honest that I've had harder time picking an upgrade card other than Boba Fett crew. I thoroughly enjoy using it and feel what it takes to make it work is equal to what it can do/it's cost of slot and price. It's one of the main cards that have kept my Ketsu/Bossk list in matchups that it should have a hard time with such as Kanan/Biggs (discard TLT) and any KyloRAC list (discard Kylo). Any scum list where I can fit him in, I try to.

For Pilot cards I'd say Omega Leader. The ability, chassis, and upgrade cards it comes with balance it all out together for a great and deadly ship.

Well since I don't care if people liked me or not, Twin Laser Turrets.

nostalgia-critic.jpg Hear me out...

So back in the day Wave 6 the meta had a major problem with point fortresses. Large ships often with PWTs that had more than 60 points thrown in them were essentially point fortresses. Back in that day Large PWT ships only had one counter, swarms which could out grind them in terms of throwing dice. However these point fortress could take upgrades like EU and C-3PO which were highly defensive. Thus games often went to time. Thing with swarms ships were expected to be lost as long as they can kill the ship, but with games going to time the point fortresses will have to kill a few ships then EU to run away thus winning on time and MOV.

This was also complicated with a lot of 2 hard damage mitigation from soontir, C-3PO, and evade tokens. So with this problem FFG had to figure out a way of getting past all the token and guaranteed evades that was protecting ships without simply making a 5 firepower weapon. So the solution was a weapon that throw out more dice than tokens could protect while being capped at 2 damage. Thus TLT was created. It threw out two attacks which gives high agility ships a chance of avoiding damage, yet ships that depended on evade tokens or the miracle green die (C-3PO, Emperor Palpatine). So the idea the firepwoer 3 and 4 weapons still have higher damage output. Also it had to catch large based ships with Engine Upgrade so range 2-3 was a best fit for the turret weapon.

Now of course it is not perfect, as it was pointed out TLT tends to have a higher average damage output than a 3 firepower primary. Being a turret weapons too and not like the HLC outrider where there is no attacks at range 1. So in a way TLT can be considered power creep, and I can't argue that. However given it's task of ending point fortress and the reign of token tanks it has done exactly that.

1 hour ago, Ailowynn said:

I still think Chardaan Refit is the best fix card they've done. It's just so elegant. No special abilities, no cumbersome rules, and yet there're still good reasons to take it and good reasons not to take it.

Lightweight Frame and (maybe) Unguided Rockets are pretty good too; they're a little wordy, I suppose, but they do a good job of fixing several ships at once while not going overboard on any of them. The downside is that it does constrict the design space, but...for now, they're very good cards.

I'm not sure how much they constrict because they either are going on ships which had few alternatives to consider in the slot anyways, and the few that did exist are still worthwhile to consider, such as chips or scanners over frame. I'm not very high on unguided rockets and I would prefer a couple high damage blows in its place, so that's another example.

Easily Adaptive Ailerons

While it can bite you in the butt sometimes if you arent careful, it also offers you a surprisingly flexible reactive maneuver. Not foolproof obviously but USUALLY whatever you dial works with more than 1 of the TotallyNotABoost predial maneuvers, and i find i change my original plan with the striker when i set the dial down vs when i go to activate him a LOT, especially when its a kturn or sloop.

Its powerful but limiting just enough to not be broken. The fact that you HAVE to do it can be a bother and a half sometimes and its only 3 different maneuvers to select from.

its weird. You'd think such a mechanic would be really difficult to get used to but actually i adapted to it flawlessly (...pun..). I use Pure Sabaac as a 25pt filler a lot and i actually dont think ive hit many rocks with him or unintentional/unavoidable bumps. Least not that i recall, anyway.

I'm gonna have to say what knocks it out for me with lightweight frame is that whole rolling 1 green die after the initial roll thing. Not that hard to word it so that you could roll them all at once, is it? Senseless verbiage.

Expertise is an example of what I think a well designed card should be. Plenty of counter-play in the game, excellent and powerful effect, well costed, not available for everything and not automatically included on everything either.

2 hours ago, Sparklelord said:

I'm gonna have to say what knocks it out for me with lightweight frame is that whole rolling 1 green die after the initial roll thing. Not that hard to word it so that you could roll them all at once, is it? Senseless verbiage.

Expertise is an example of what I think a well designed card should be. Plenty of counter-play in the game, excellent and powerful effect, well costed, not available for everything and not automatically included on everything either.

My only issue with expertise is while

it can be countered, there isn't much "in game" countering. It goes a lot like this- "did you bring a stress source? Yay or nay?"

cards like it I feel would be better off if they turned off when the opponent met some requirement that will be actively available in any scenario, such as strong blocking.

Edited by Kdubb
27 minutes ago, Sparklelord said:

I'm gonna have to say what knocks it out for me with lightweight frame is that whole rolling 1 green die after the initial roll thing. Not that hard to word it so that you could roll them all at once, is it? Senseless verbiage.

It's a way to make sure you have the correct number of defense die, I guess. Imagine defending at a Ghost through a rock with a Tie/SF. You'll get your 4 defense dice still.

Also, allows you to Palp after rolling your first set of defense die.

1 hour ago, MegaSilver said:

It's a way to make sure you have the correct number of defense die, I guess. Imagine defending at a Ghost through a rock with a Tie/SF. You'll get your 4 defense dice still.

Also, allows you to Palp after rolling your first set of defense die.

Coulda still said, "immediately before you would roll defense dice, if there are more attack dice than defense dice, roll one additional die" which would work exactly the same in all situations except Palpatine.

Using the Palp rule for the last die, while technically correct, doesn't make sense to me.

Glitterstim. Expensive 1 use card but a powerful buff and thematic.

Cruise Missiles - takes skill to pull off that 5 dice attack (as it should) and also takes skill from the defender to close range 1, or force a 3 bank from your opponent instead of a 4-straight. Lots of strategy involved in a simple 3pt missile card. I love it.

Quickdraws ability - Finite revenge shots that takes planning around when up against her. "Should I shoot this round and try to eliminate shields?" "Do I wait until I can arc dodge her?" Then, just the opposite when flying her "If I sloop and am wrong, my opponent gets free shots on me and erases my shields." Great ability that is finite in life and isnt OP like a certain revenge shot ship.

1 hour ago, Q10fanatic said:

Glitterstim. Expensive 1 use card but a powerful buff and thematic.

Great choice. Stims always feel great to use, but on the other side, when I'm playing against them, I always feel like my opponent hasn't gained any insurmountable advantage, and there is usually a little bit of a "nice, I forced him to spend it!" Kind of feel.

Pilot - Sabine (if I can get her in an A-wing I'll probably never fly anything else)

Upgrade - Expertise