It seems like we haven't really had that much discussion here about the new cards from EaW, and might get people talking and thinking about cards. Mainly because I haven't had much of a chance to play so want to see people's opinions (this also means a lot of this is theory). So - what are people's top three cards from each side/colour, gameplay wise?

Villain Red

Thrawn , Imperial HQ, Ciena Ree - Thrawn is obvious, what with being **** amazing. Imperial HQ seems like it could generate a lot of value over a game, with the numerous pay sides that Villain Red has. Ciena is kind of 'by default' as I don't feel Villain Red got much this set. Unfortunately she's pretty much surpassed by NuPhasma, but she's still a decent filler character.

Villain Blue

Really not sure here! My gut instinct is Hate, Vader's TIE Advanced and either Quinlan or Seventh Sister. But having played with Quinlan I was pretty unimpressed with him as a damage dealer, and I'm not really convinced that Seventh Sister and her Seeker Droids have enough synergy with other things to be really worth it.

Villain Yellow

Relby V-10 Mortar Gun and Buy Out are easily number 1 and 2, being powerful enough to build decks specifically around abusing them. Number three is harder - LL-30 Blaster Pistol, Hound's Tooth and Deadly all seems good in the right decks. Cad Bane and Little Piggy's both feel like potentially viable characters, but without having played with or against them I'm not 100% sure how they will end up.

Hero Red

Kind of hard to gauge, as many of their new cards will only be good in certain decks, but will be very good in those decks. Hera, Ghost and Reckless Re-entry all fit that bill, while Y-Wing and A280 Blaster Rifle feel like more generically useful options. I'm also looking to see whether Rearguard ends up being viable - shields are generally not great, but potentially removing multiple dice for one resource with no drawbacks feels very strong.

Hero Blue

On paper I'm not sold on either Mace or Ashoka, but I haven't had the chance to really see them in action. Kanan feels like he's a decent low cost option who's only real problem is that he's not Rey. Bestow and Funeral Pyre both look like they offer some flexibility in moving around upgrades and getting extra uses out of them.

Hero Yellow

Running Interference is a very powerful effect, regardless whether it ends up getting changed or not. Impersonate also seems strong but expensive, but potentially lets you undo a lot of your opponent's hard work at killing your best character. Third choice would be either Sabine or Ezra, depending on how good she ends up being as a tentpole versus how useful he ends up being as a low cost guy who can somewhat fight/be a walking distraction.

Neutral Red

Electrostaff helps make melee damage more viable for Red decks. Pinned Down is very good dice control for decks that can use it. Third is probably Deploy Squadron to help get lot of big dice into the pool, or the combo potential of Feint.

Neutral Blue

Ancient Lightsaber is decent. Lightsaber Pull is powerful, though I'm not sure that it's great right now (there's not that much variety in options to actually search for with it, compared to other colours). Number three? I'm not quite sold on Shoto Lightsaber. Voices Cry Out feels like it could be a bit of a sleeper, though other similar effects have proven not to be that good.

Neutral Yellow

X-8 Nightsaber is a decent gun with Ambush, which is relevant to a fair few Yellow characters. Threaten feels like a very good option for more aggressive Yellow decks, netting you either damage or dice removal. Third is possible Disable (depending on how good big supports end up being) or Persuade, because free dice control is always good.

Neutral

Rend is obviously a powerful meta card. A-47 Airspeeder is quite good for vehicle decks (a rare example of the Heroes getting a straight better deal). Number 3 is probably Partnership or Endurance; Partnership is a Hit and Run that costs a resource but can also get you a support activation, while Endurance 'countering' opponent's dice control could be quite strong.

Played 10+ game now, tried some villain deck, while my friend played hero:

-Seventh sister is fun, but set aside the obvious "ready" card, I agree with you there is not enough synergy (I hope someone can come up with a nice card I did not understood that would be nice with her). I currently built 2 very different deck with her, 1 damage/Control and other one, full agro with vehicule/Friends in high place.

-Yellow villain: Contain the best card in this set, and probably broken: Coersion. This card is the equivalent of Poe/Maz vs 4 character decks. I played 2 game in wich i was able to play on turn 1: Once forced the use of "Leadership", and the other one, "price of failure". This card alone will make several cards almost "very risky or totally unplayable" in tournaments.

Chak

I only play Blue, so I'll give my opinion only on those cards:

Villain Blue:

-Seventh Sister. What is great about her is that she can be a 2 dice, 10 health character for only 11 points. That's actually pretty great. If you can get a second (so third) droid on her, she become a good controller/support. Damage is good, but hitting the discard/disrupt 3 can really mess with your opponent turn, or the 3 shield can save your life to face another turn. Villain blue doesn't have a lot of way to regenerate shields.

-Temptation. I like this upgrade. For only 1 ressource, it's a good way to ramp. Rend might be pretty commun in a lot of deck, so running Sith Holocron might not be a good idea. Temptation gives you a cheap dice that can be overwritten later on by a better upgrade. While you have it, the special either gives you 2 ressources or draw 2 cards.

-It will all be Mine. It cost a lot. But if you have the occasion to play it, it's pretty much game over for your opponent.

Hero Blue:

-Kannan Jarrus. Wow. This character is quickly becoming my favorite character of the game. So much potencial! And he's priced perfectly. You can run him single with Luke or Ben. Or Elite with Qui-Gon or Chirrut. He's also cheap enough that you can run him Elite in a 3 character deck. Hitting the Focus with Kanan is fantastic, letting you change one die to the face you need at the moment. Hitting the Ressource let you take it without giving the chance to your opponent to disrupt it, making it easy to play a 3 ressource upgrade first turn if you want. Definetly my MVP.

-Fearless. I like to draw cards. Gives me more control. Then there's the obvious synergy with Qui-Gon ability, and you can add Luke's Protection to get 3 shields a turn. Really not bad... unless you want to claim fast...

-Funeral Pyre/Reaping the Crystal. Not sure here between the 2. I like Funeral Pyre because in a blue deck, ressource is always short so keeping one upgrade is nice, it might even keep Luke Lightsaber playable. But Reaping the Crystal has a lot of potencial. It can be a Lightsaber that cost only 1 on a Padawan. It can be a Decisive Blow that cost 2 instead of 3. It can be a Master of the Council that cost only 2 if you combine it with It Binds all Things.... Again, it helps with your economy, which is always a good thing.

Neutral Blue:

-Ancient Lightsaber. Pretty obvious. Fair die. 2 black face can bring consistancy to character with mods like Rey or Quinlan. Healing 2 can change the momentum. Looping it with Lightsaber Pull. It Binds all things to make it cost only 1 (like a Field Medic). If you run a blue melee deck, there's no reason not to take one (unless you don't have it).

-Shoto Lightsaber. Might be because I play a lot with Qui-Gon, but I really love this lightsaber. This set gave us two cheap saber. Unless going against Imperial Inspection, it means you can get fully equiped pretty fast. So don't forget to bring your Rend card. Love the free shield too, or removing one from your opponent, pairs well with Inner Strength special.

-Lightsaber Pull. Of course to pair with Ancient Lightsaber, but it can be good if you don't pull a weapon early.

Seventh Sister is freaking great. 3 dice for 14 points is fantastic.

then you get two more seeker droids on the table and those droids really start hurting the opponent. I've made a deck with her and eQuinlan. Temptation is such a good card, because the opponent draws cards, because of Quinlan, then you discard those cards with the droids. It feels really good. 12 Grey cards in the deck protect against Kylo and I never feel outmatched by dice or rolls, unless playing against Sabine.

im super surprised people aren't more jazzed for the LL-30. It's such a solid card.

Im disappointed in the grand inquisitor. I paired him with eCienna and it was just mediocre. I felt imperial HQ and prepare for war would be enough, but that 3 for $1 just hurts.

Ciena, Elite Hux, and Friend is going to be strong. You can first turn an AT-ST or other high cost vehicle turn 1 easily, play the bulk of your events for cheap, and that focus side is also nice on Hux. Ciena allows for easy triggering of salvage stand if you pair yellow.

LL-30 I'm shocked isn't getting more praise. It's a Villain only holdout with a SLIGHTLY weaker die, but a very nice special on it. It marks only the second weapon to be ambush and redeploy since launch too. The Relby I beautiful if you've got the resources to play it like a thermal detonator in the early game too, especially against 3 and 4 character decks.

2 hours ago, Red Castle said:

I only play Blue, so I'll give my opinion only on those cards:

Villain Blue:

-Seventh Sister. What is great about her is that she can be a 2 dice, 10 health character for only 11 points. That's actually pretty great. If you can get a second (so third) droid on her, she become a good controller/support. Damage is good, but hitting the discard/disrupt 3 can really mess with your opponent turn, or the 3 shield can save your life to face another turn. Villain blue doesn't have a lot of way to regenerate shields.

-Temptation. I like this upgrade. For only 1 ressource, it's a good way to ramp. Rend might be pretty commun in a lot of deck, so running Sith Holocron might not be a good idea. Temptation gives you a cheap dice that can be overwritten later on by a better upgrade. While you have it, the special either gives you 2 ressources or draw 2 cards.

-It will all be Mine. It cost a lot. But if you have the occasion to play it, it's pretty much game over for your opponent.

Hero Blue:

-Kannan Jarrus. Wow. This character is quickly becoming my favorite character of the game. So much potencial! And he's priced perfectly. You can run him single with Luke or Ben. Or Elite with Qui-Gon or Chirrut. He's also cheap enough that you can run him Elite in a 3 character deck. Hitting the Focus with Kanan is fantastic, letting you change one die to the face you need at the moment. Hitting the Ressource let you take it without giving the chance to your opponent to disrupt it, making it easy to play a 3 ressource upgrade first turn if you want. Definetly my MVP.

-Fearless. I like to draw cards. Gives me more control. Then there's the obvious synergy with Qui-Gon ability, and you can add Luke's Protection to get 3 shields a turn. Really not bad... unless you want to claim fast...

-Funeral Pyre/Reaping the Crystal. Not sure here between the 2. I like Funeral Pyre because in a blue deck, ressource is always short so keeping one upgrade is nice, it might even keep Luke Lightsaber playable. But Reaping the Crystal has a lot of potencial. It can be a Lightsaber that cost only 1 on a Padawan. It can be a Decisive Blow that cost 2 instead of 3. It can be a Master of the Council that cost only 2 if you combine it with It Binds all Things.... Again, it helps with your economy, which is always a good thing.

Neutral Blue:

-Ancient Lightsaber. Pretty obvious. Fair die. 2 black face can bring consistancy to character with mods like Rey or Quinlan. Healing 2 can change the momentum. Looping it with Lightsaber Pull. It Binds all things to make it cost only 1 (like a Field Medic). If you run a blue melee deck, there's no reason not to take one (unless you don't have it).

-Shoto Lightsaber. Might be because I play a lot with Qui-Gon, but I really love this lightsaber. This set gave us two cheap saber. Unless going against Imperial Inspection, it means you can get fully equiped pretty fast. So don't forget to bring your Rend card. Love the free shield too, or removing one from your opponent, pairs well with Inner Strength special.

-Lightsaber Pull. Of course to pair with Ancient Lightsaber, but it can be good if you don't pull a weapon early.

Interesting. Im going to have to give Kanan a try. Need to get a second copy. I've been trying super hard to make a good Ben deck. Been running him as elite with ackbar but it just ain't working. Running Ben elite makes you not want to use the guardian ability. Maybe I should run a single Ben with a double kanan. My problem with my current deck is the lack of speed. I never claim the battlefield which has cost me the game twice. Simply because my opponent got to roll in and attack faster then I could. Instead maybe I'll use single die Ben to guardian kanan and stack kanan with the upgrades. Being able to resolve kanans die without using an action will definitely speed things up. He can focus to bens 3damage or maybe just deal that odd ranged side and then allow me to also resolve my melee in the same turn. Good possibilities there.

And I need to find some seeker droids to give my seventh sister a try. Initially I was underwhelmed by her but it's worth a shot.

As a side note I think the card destiny is going to be huge for blue hero decks. How many times do you have a crap roll and end up with a couple of disrupts when your opponent has no resources? Or a pay side you cant afford. And as you mentioned blue struggles to get resources as it is. Boom! Destiny card to pull in your crap die and play an upgrade or something like my ally is the force.

1 hour ago, jedi moose said:

Interesting. Im going to have to give Kanan a try. Need to get a second copy. I've been trying super hard to make a good Ben deck. Been running him as elite with ackbar but it just ain't working. Running Ben elite makes you not want to use the guardian ability. Maybe I should run a single Ben with a double kanan. My problem with my current deck is the lack of speed. I never claim the battlefield which has cost me the game twice. Simply because my opponent got to roll in and attack faster then I could. Instead maybe I'll use single die Ben to guardian kanan and stack kanan with the upgrades. Being able to resolve kanans die without using an action will definitely speed things up. He can focus to bens 3damage or maybe just deal that odd ranged side and then allow me to also resolve my melee in the same turn. Good possibilities there.

And I need to find some seeker droids to give my seventh sister a try. Initially I was underwhelmed by her but it's worth a shot.

As a side note I think the card destiny is going to be huge for blue hero decks. How many times do you have a crap roll and end up with a couple of disrupts when your opponent has no resources? Or a pay side you cant afford. And as you mentioned blue struggles to get resources as it is. Boom! Destiny card to pull in your crap die and play an upgrade or something like my ally is the force.

Dream scenario with Kanan and Ben or Luke is to use Kanan's focus to get Melee3 on Ben/Luke die and then use My Ally is the force for minimum 6 damages.

As for Destiny, I already been using it a lot in my Qui-Gon/Rey deck and I'll continue to do so with Qui-Gon/Kanan. Perfect scenario first round is to give an upgrade to Kanan, roll him in, then use Destiny to give an upgrade to Qui-Gon. That gives you an early edge and hopefully the upgrade you gave Qui-Gon will compensate for the Kanan dice you removed to use Destiny. It's even easier to pull off now with Lightsaber Pull, although you ideally want to keep those to get an Ancient Lightsaber back after use.

I’ve gotta say, Quinlan Vos is one of my favorite characters in the game because of his obvious thematic pairing. His title is literally Dark Desciple ! He works perfectly with Ventress - just as he should. She makes them ditch their whole hand, and then Quinlan destroys them with his special.

I also really like Mace Windu. His problem? He’s basically the hero Palpatine, so he gets killed really easily by dice control.

I like K-2SO. He’s a good pairing for Rey, since most upgrades go on her anyway in a normal game, and then you Bestow a powerful upgrade to him for that awesome double-tap. His dice rock, and now you can finally get a multicolor hero melee deck!

Also, Buy Out. Why is this card a thing? Unkar’s gonna destroy everyone with this, since there’s so many great resource generation cards in this set. I’ve opened four boxes and I still haven’t pulled a single Buy Out. Saga Set next time...

And I really like all the new cheaper character costs - I still need to try it out, but I really think two Hired Guns paired with two Rookie Pilots could be awesome!

6 hours ago, Red Castle said:

black face can bring consistancy to character

Oh no...

For me its:

Villain Red

No opinion yet .

Villain Blue

Sister hands down. Im yet to find her a good companion cause Grand Inquisitor is just so so but after initial meh when she was spoiled after playing im in love with her. After you get her another droid she just goes on both damage and control rampage. Cost/Quality ratio is just insane: 11 points for 2 dice , 10HP character? Im down anytime.

Villain Yellow

Same no opinion yet.

Hero Red

All the Vehicle cards - Hera, Ywing, Ghost. Maybe they are not super strong but they really allow to make another archetype of a deck.

Hero Blue

Ashoka. another 11 points "2 dice" character. Paying 1 for her reactivation is not such a big deal.

Hero Yellow

For now i tested only Lando and he is solid. Mostly just cash giver but i like him. I got my butt kicked hard by Padme/Lando deck.

Neutral Red

Sonic Cannon - yea im the simple guy. Lando, Unkar , Poe - many decks will love this. It requires setup true, but Lando can easy play this on turn 1 by hitting just one of his 3 res sides.

Neutral Blue

Ancient looks solid but since i didn't hit one yet its pure theory here. Shoto was great "wooow" at start then it was a disappointment due to fact that it comboes nicely only with another Shoto or Ancient. And most other blue melee cards are vibros, makashi or other 3 res stuff (and thats pretty expensive to play 5 res just to get a combo)

Neutral Yellow

No opinion yet.

Neutral

Well ill go with battlefield here: Main Plaza. In any deck where you can claim fast this is hands down the best stuff you can have. It opens a lot of mind games for your opponent too - should i forfeit my dice and claim just to deal this 2-3 dmg?

8 hours ago, Vitalis said:

Villain Blue

Sister hands down. Im yet to find her a good companion cause Grand Inquisitor is just so so but after initial meh when she was spoiled after playing im in love with her. After you get her another droid she just goes on both damage and control rampage. Cost/Quality ratio is just insane: 11 points for 2 dice , 10HP character? Im down anytime.

I am enjoying playing the Sister as well. I'm having some pretty good success with 7th Sister / Gamorrean Guard / New Phasma. It has a lot of health, Guardian, and lots of fun tricks, like playing double Feint on your Sister with an ID9 upgrade on her.

2x Feint, 2x Leadership, 2x Price of Failure is the dream. I've been up to 5 Seeker dice in my pool, but haven't been all the way to Christmasland yet.

15 minutes ago, RJM said:

2x Feint, 2x Leadership, 2x Price of Failure is the dream. I've been up to 5 Seeker dice in my pool, but haven't been all the way to Christmasland yet.

So let me see if I have the strategy right. 2 seekers in your deck. and a bunch of extra seeker die available. Feint with sister to get a seeker in the pool which doesn't have to be removed because its not a character or upgrade die. Do it again. 2 seekers in the pool. Leadership a unique red to activate her again (resolve character die and upgrade die but leave extra seekers in pool). Repeat. 4 seekers in pool. Price of failure to ready her again, roll in, resolve character/upgrade die only. Repeat. 6 seekers in the pool. Roll her in for a final time with 2 seekers attached. 9 seekers in pool. Assuming they all land on damage you get 45 damage. Plus all the other damage you did with all the other activations. Do I have that right?

Of course problems are: impossible to set up, resource cost to play all of those events, need both seekers to come up early, can't have 6 cards in you hand without extra set up, don't have spare cards to reroll, mitigation will remove some of those die, etc. Still I can see how a baby version of this would be pretty cool. Probably wouldn't be too hard to get out 10 to 20 damage in a round with a much simpler setup. Seems like a fun "achievement" to aim for. How many seekers can you get in the pool. Challenge accepted.

16 hours ago, jedi moose said:

So let me see if I have the strategy right. 2 seekers in your deck. and a bunch of extra seeker die available. Feint with sister to get a seeker in the pool which doesn't have to be removed because its not a character or upgrade die. Do it again. 2 seekers in the pool. Leadership a unique red to activate her again (resolve character die and upgrade die but leave extra seekers in pool). Repeat. 4 seekers in pool. Price of failure to ready her again, roll in, resolve character/upgrade die only. Repeat. 6 seekers in the pool. Roll her in for a final time with 2 seekers attached. 9 seekers in pool. Assuming they all land on damage you get 45 damage. Plus all the other damage you did with all the other activations. Do I have that right?

Of course problems are: impossible to set up, resource cost to play all of those events, need both seekers to come up early, can't have 6 cards in you hand without extra set up, don't have spare cards to reroll, mitigation will remove some of those die, etc. Still I can see how a baby version of this would be pretty cool. Probably wouldn't be too hard to get out 10 to 20 damage in a round with a much simpler setup. Seems like a fun "achievement" to aim for. How many seekers can you get in the pool. Challenge accepted.

Yea thats wonderland of course. But even with just 1 droid attached and feint you end up with with 3 droid dice. That is 3 damage and some other value 2 dice to resolve. That is nasty as it is and not so hard to setup.

I've built cad bane/nu phasma, imperial hq if out early is the mvp, no worries using your resources to play upgrades on cad and worrying bout his pay damage, running it with 2 holdouts, 2 LL 30, 2 sniper pistols, the action economy is ridiculous and with deadly on both its just constant damage

12 hours ago, Vitalis said:

Yea thats wonderland of course. But even with just 1 droid attached and feint you end up with with 3 droid dice. That is 3 damage and some other value 2 dice to resolve. That is nasty as it is and not so hard to setup.

And not just damage, I think the strength of SS is that with her droids she is extremely flexible. You're more than likely going to be rolling in many flavors of sides with the droids and you're free to pick any of them to be The Big One, meaning she and her droids can be in virtually any type of deck and contribute significantly and consistently.

Assuming you have 3 droids in the pool and want to see 1 specific side, there's a 42% chance that you'll see that side on one of them at value 3. If you're interested in one of two sides there's a 70% chance that either will show up at least once. At 4 dice it's 52% and 80%, respectively and at value 4. Very little in the game has that kind of consistency and strength combined and both increase for every die added.

1 hour ago, SwagonBallZ said:

And not just damage, I think the strength of SS is that with her droids she is extremely flexible. You're more than likely going to be rolling in many flavors of sides with the droids and you're free to pick any of them to be The Big One, meaning she and her droids can be in virtually any type of deck and contribute significantly and consistently.

Assuming you have 3 droids in the pool and want to see 1 specific side, there's a 42% chance that you'll see that side on one of them at value 3. If you're interested in one of two sides there's a 70% chance that either will show up at least once. At 4 dice it's 52% and 80%, respectively and at value 4. Very little in the game has that kind of consistency and strength combined and both increase for every die added.

Indeed. In the game I posted the pic from above, I made my opponent discard the 4 cards remaining in his hand. Then I was able to reroll the other discard side to a damage side, and resolve for 6.