So, I wrote this up in another thread, and I've experimented with it on Vassal, but I'm curious whether Fool Me Once (from the Ahsoka Tano pack) helps Leia Organa become playable:

My basic thought here?

The general use of this card to remove an opponent's discard pile helps out against Zillo Technique shenanigans. Not great, super situational, but occasionally it may screw up that Rule By Fear/Targeting Network/Shared Experience combo and take away some blocks from popular Imperial metas right now. Maybe not great for Worlds (European players still seem to favor Scum, at least on Vassal), but it might work out for you. (For that matter, a Han/Leia list won a Regionals in, what, Michigan?, so it could conceivably help against Leia, too!).

The obvious real value in this is hand economy made-to-order for Leia: free-cycle a 0-point card to look for a 3-point card. Leia doesn't mind the two strain: putting two in the discard is just stocking the shelves for her Military Efficiency grocery run! Or if you're whatsoever worried about that, take the strain as damage ... then recover it with her surge. Fool Me Once could have been Leia's command card on her initial release, and we all would have nodded sagely and said, "Ah, yes."

Does HOTE make her playable?

HOTE has given Leia much-needed partners for Battlefield Leadership. Han Solo may not like her telling him what to do, but he might swallow his pride to take a third (fourth with Return Fire?) shot each round. Run Leia with Chewbacca to focus him with 3P0, fire, focus him with Gideon, and fire again with Leia. Debts Repaid clogging your early hand? Fool Me Once + Planning + Officer's Training brings you that much closer to On the Lam. Playing against Daniel Taylor's objective control Imperial List? Go ahead and send a few rSmugglers in to contest and set off Debts Repaid ... then realize you might reasonably expect to re-draw it this game, and make him choose whether to kill Chewie (while Leia gives him second shots on the way down) or try to kill Leia, and set off Debts Repaid. Leia does extra work here: she gives the opponent a reason to shoot someone besides Chewie before Debts Repaid goes off.

Or let's talk about the Wookie in the room: Drokatta. Think blast 2 messes up box planning for rebels and makes Imperials spread their myriad troops around? What about the threat of blast Four -- the possibility that got ESabs nerfed? Drok hits like a truck.

The trick with Leia will still be cost-building. Leia + WA Chewie takes up 19. Adding in Gideon, R2, 3P0, and Hera (you might REALLY want that last surge) requires another 12 of your points. That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for Debts Repaid-fodder rSmugglers, front line EEchoes (or rWookies), or your favorite friends.

Want the Son of Skywalker build? Leia + Jedi Luke is 20. You still want the droids for card-draw and Devotion, but maybe now Murne Rin makes sense for a second spy (Luke isn't hanging around near Hera, and Murne can add a surge to Leia and help keep her be-hair-bun'd head down), and once you're including Mak (Edit: Murne, not Mak), surely you want Mak to bring Comm Disruption up to 3-spy denial. So Leia/Luke/R2/3P0/Murne/Mak/Gideon is 36 points. With Planning, R2, Officer's Training, Fool Me Once, and Devotion, you're reliably going to draw Son of Skywalker on round one, and possibly re-draw it with Leia. Is that enough? What's left? Two Smugglers? Hera? Or drop Mak and add in 2 ESabs for objective runners and a possible Maximum Firepower hit in the late rounds?

Top tier lists? Maybe not. But I think Leia has every possibility of seeing niche-builds on the table again. In a Vader-heavy meta, you might even include Slippery Target once or twice for cheap On the Lam'ing: "Sorry, Dad, I have plans." Card wind up useless in your hand? No problem; you drew your whole deck by round 2.

3 minutes ago, GottaBadFeelingAboutThis said:

The trick with Leia will still be cost-building. Leia + WA Chewie takes up 19. Adding in Gideon, R2, 3P0, and Hera (you might REALLY want that last surge) requires another 12 of your points. That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for Debts Repaid-fodder rSmugglers, front line EEchoes (or rWookies), or your favorite friends.

Of course, here you could play with Murne instead of Hera and add in Ahsoka, Balance of the Force, and Heroic Effort. You're going to draw all those beautiful cards you're adding with the extra three points, and you can use the full spy care package of Intelligence Leak/Negation/Comm Disruption. Still no "pawns" for Debts Repaid, but hand Ahsoka a block token and watch your opponent try to figure out who to target.

Y'know ...

Luke has the Leader trait.

In theory, he could Son of Skywalker, Leia could re-stock it in the same round, and Luke (or Leia) could use Planning for multiple Son of Skywalker uses in the same round. Or R2 could scomp it.

Especially, say, Round 3.

If the Deployments include R2-D2 and Rebel High Command, you're drawing 3 cards in round one, a 4th with scomp, and 3 at the end of round one.

If the command deck includes Devotion, Planning, Terminal Network, Officer's Training, and Fool Me Once, you could conceivably pull another 6 cards before round 2. That's a max-possible 13 of 15, and with Devotion, you've got good odds that one of them will be Son of Skywalker. Draw it already? Go ahead and have 3P0 devotion R2 to draw Terminal Network. Take 2 strain with Fool Me Once to clear your Command Deck, and by round 3 you can Son of Skywalker, re-draw it with Battlefield Leadership, and Scomp Link it back with R2.

Fairly reliable multi-SoS on round 3. If you keep Luke and Leia alive that long.

Anyone tried this in practice?

That sounds fun. I will try it soon!

8 hours ago, GottaBadFeelingAboutThis said:

My basic thought here?

The general use of this card to remove an opponent's discard pile helps out against Zillo Technique shenanigans. Not great, super situational, but occasionally it may screw up that Rule By Fear/Targeting Network/Shared Experience combo and take away some blocks from popular Imperial metas right now. Maybe not great for Worlds (European players still seem to favor Scum, at least on Vassal), but it might work out for you. (For that matter, a Han/Leia list won a Regionals in, what, Michigan?, so it could conceivably help against Leia, too!).

The obvious real value in this is hand economy made-to-order for Leia: free-cycle a 0-point card to look for a 3-point card. Leia doesn't mind the two strain: putting two in the discard is just stocking the shelves for her Military Efficiency grocery run! Or if you're whatsoever worried about that, take the strain as damage ... then recover it with her surge. Fool Me Once could have been Leia's command card on her initial release, and we all would have nodded sagely and said, "Ah, yes."

This is brilliant. Great work here!

I still have some trepidations with running Leia because it's really tough getting enough damage output to justify her cost. Below are damage computations from the IA Damage Calculator from a basic Leia attack at 4 Accuracy. Top image is showing % chance for at least 3 DMG, bottom is at least 4 DMG:

Red: vs. 1 Black Die
Green: vs. 1 White Die
Blue: vs. 1 Black Die +1 BLOCK
Yellow: vs 2 Black Die

Before Jabba's Realm and HotE, having a 66%+ chance of doing one damage vs. one die defenders wasn't that bad. Now, with the rules changed to grant Victory Points when defeating figures AND with the big single-figure deployments having increases in health and defense, it's hard for Leia to do enough damage to punish your opponents for leaving Vader, IG-88, JK Luke, AT-DP, etc. in position to be attacked.

Prepared For Battle might be a more important card for her than Fool Me Once.

4 hours ago, cnemmick said:

This is brilliant. Great work here!

I still have some trepidations with running Leia because it's really tough getting enough damage output to justify her cost. Below are damage computations from the IA Damage Calculator from a basic Leia attack at 4 Accuracy. Top image is showing % chance for at least 3 DMG, bottom is at least 4 DMG:

Red: vs. 1 Black Die
Green: vs. 1 White Die
Blue: vs. 1 Black Die +1 BLOCK
Yellow: vs 2 Black Die

Before Jabba's Realm and HotE, having a 66%+ chance of doing one damage vs. one die defenders wasn't that bad. Now, with the rules changed to grant Victory Points when defeating figures AND with the big single-figure deployments having increases in health and defense, it's hard for Leia to do enough damage to punish your opponents for leaving Vader, IG-88, JK Luke, AT-DP, etc. in position to be attacked.

Prepared For Battle might be a more important card for her than Fool Me Once.

You've got to think of her damage output as an addition to Chewbacca, Han, or Drokatta's attack. Think of it as your bonus for keeping your big hitter and Leia alive!

Still don't think she's costed as efficiently as Palp, but her range and speed let her play from back, even if you miss her shot on accuracy. I think she's playable!

While everything else seems correct, Fool me once still is not good ...

7 hours ago, DerBaer said:

While everything else seems correct, Fool me once still is not good ...

Maybe not "good," but Fool Me Once is cycle-able. Essentially, the point is that your command deck is limited by card-cost strength, so you always have a mix of weaker cards and stronger cards. Would you take 2 damage on Leia to draw On the Lam, Son of Skywalker, or Assassinate, on the theory that you can recover the damage when she takes her shot in the same activation?

What Fool Me Once does is turn your 1 in 15 shot into a 1 in 14 shot. Again, by itself it's not worth much, but combine it with Planning, Officer's Training, Scomp Link, and some other options, and suddenly you've got a chance at access to half your Command Cards in round one. Need Urgency for a little extra movement? Chewbacca get unexpectedly stunned and need some Heart of Freedom help? Want to be sure you draw either Son of Skywalker or Devotion? Or even Shadow Ops?

I may well try to bring something like this to a regionals or store tournament next year. I don't think I can get in the practice reps before Worlds, and -- while this deck-control mechanic gives you a lot of control -- you still have to win with the figures you have on the board, so it may not be able to crack the meta. But it does feel like there's some possibility here, and that's more than half the game to me!