There's no true card advantage in this game. In competitive 1v1 games there tends to be a design balance between Tempo and Card Advantage. By Tempo I mean short term board state advantage that lasts for the current turn or one turn out. As it relates to Magic, Tempo advantage is playing an 1-drop creature or playing an instant to make a 1:1 trade. By Card Advantage I mean long term non-board state advantage. As it relates to Magic, playing hard card draw or Wrath of God to make a 2:1 or 3:1 trade nets card advantage. But in SWLCG the draw-reserve mechanic makes true card advantage in many ways moot. The real goal in SWLCG is to control the board state while maintaining Tempo which is exceptionally different from other games.

For example, take some of the two powerful cards in the game currently: Force Choke and Jedi Mind Trick . One allows you to, if played properly, remove a character at no cost; the other allows you to delay in order to swing in. The most important icon in the game--Tactics--allows you to further temporize the current board state allowing you to put more pressure on 'now' instead of later. Granted as in other games, multiple tempo advantages aggregate into being long term card advantage usually as your opponent is forced to sacrifice better quality in favor of regaining tempo. But my point remains.

Okay, I'll admit that Reconnaissance Mission is actually slight long-term card advantage, but it is relatively minor in many cases as it nets you 3-5 extra cards. However, in my experience prolonged games with it out tend to make you lose to decking prematurely or cause you to lose tempo as you're on a new tempo clock in contested games. I could also see an argument for Fall of the Jedi as card quality advantage as you are more likely to see your key cards slightly earlier. Conversely, cards like Mission Briefing and Counsel of the Sith more often than not give you temporary advantage as you will not likely be using said advantage on the current board state instead of future board state (or you will be discarding).

So what do you guys think? Is SWLCG wholly a game of controlling Tempo or is there some other subtle Card Advantage that no one has really talked about yet?

I agree that card advantage seems insignificant because of the ability to draw your reserve value every turn. This game seems to focus on turn by turn board presence and the edge battle system. Card advantage does come into play when taking into account the amount of cards you can devote to the edge battle, though. On the other hand you could still win with one high force count card vs. a few low force counts.

I look at card advantage differently in this game. you want to have more cards in hand when it matters so the objectives that draw cards on the opponents turn seem really good because they allow you to play some units on your turn(maintaining your tempo) and then on their turn when they attack you will have an extra card in your hand for edge battles.

When you are drawing/filtering more cards than your opponent you will draw your threats faster.

TGO said:

Yeah, pretty much this. The best objectives in the game are, IMO, Mission Briefing/Counsel of the Sith, Fall of the Jedi (draw through an extra card per turn without coming closer to a deck out), and Forgotten Heroes.

This is an odd and ultimately inaccurate argument. I would say that the mechanics of this game make card advantage even more important because there are so many elements that involve the use of cards in your hand. Just like pretty much every card game ever made the player who has more cards in hand or in play has far more options than the one who doesn't. I think that's pretty difficult to refute and thus sort of unravels this whole thread.