I’m not going to sit here and wax intellectual on all of the V-Cards in 7.4 because I feel that it will sully my triumphant return to blogging for this website. However, our latest V-Set has been out for about a month now and I’ve had some time to seriously evaluate and play with the cards and would like to express my opinion on some.

 

Yadda, Yadda, Dark Side:

First up, the Tank Stuff.

I find it both cute and telling that our two tank helpers were made by members of SoCal.

Baktoid Amor Workshop – This is an interesting card, allowing you to essentially start four effects in a Combat Readiness V Tanks deck. Being able to start the Tatooine System and Watto’s Junkyard then pull the Desert Heart is very good. Being able to start Endor and The Dark Forest then pull the Forest Clearing is probably even better. God forbid we use CR-V to start the bunker, use Blizzard four to pull Derdram V and move him inside, and put a Perimeter Patrol on the Sanctuary Moon… GG’s Light side. I’m not going to spell the whole start out for you, but it’s pretty damn good.

But Gemme! A deck like that can’t activate well, can it????

Of course it can, with the OOM Command Battle Droid – This guy is very good. He adds a dark Icon wherever he is AND he adds one to your force drain. While his forfeit isn’t as nice as the tank commander, and he won’t give you the ping off We’re in Attack Position Now, he still draws you your two destiny in the tank. Him on Endor giving you drains of three at each of your locations (Dark Forest, Forest Clearing, Back Door) is disgusting. Did I mention he pulls either Cease Fire or Defensive Fire once per game? That’s what I thought.

 

Floating Refinery is a very good card. With the recent addition of storm clouds, giving us this to put retrieval back into cloud decks that are lacking any real activation advantage. Dropping the Obsidian TIES to each of your cloud sectors while protecting them with Talon Rolls is a quite good strategy against the heavy Capital-Based space packages out there is very good. It doesn’t take too much to keep these guys safe. The added activation basically makes up for having to pay to drain, and the retrieval makes up for your having to turtle. Let the Protocol Failure combined with some Propagandas and undercovers deal with the ground and let your Refinery retrieval deal with any space drains your giving up. Turtle at one ground site and make it extremely hard to attack you there (maybe Jabba’s unbeatable crew at the Audience Chamber, maybe Greivous somewhere with his helpers? You figure it out), and let that Storm Clouds force drain bonus get you there.

 

Your Powers are Weak Old Man, Sidious’ Lightsaber, Cyborg Commander’s Lightsabers - Cute plural on that last one, and cute card choice. Much applauded. It seems the PC has realized just how damn good they made Master Kenobi and now give us three cards (in addition to the four or five cards that already exist) to stop Kenobi’s Army from moving to their used pile in order them to be abused by 3P0 with his parts showing. The lightsabers are pretty balanced since they are relegated to characters who are pretty shitty. The interrupt is great b/c it can go in any deck as a one or two of, not kill the destiny, and have applications with its second effect, though I think it’s pretty lame that it’s a lost interrupt. It’ll get used for sure, but I don’t think it’s so strong that it couldn’t be used once per game instead of lost.

 

Where are you taking this… Thing? - another cute card title/pic. PC is killing it this set. I think this is pretty good. It’s a decent response to Nabrun, but it’s a pretty awful answer to Master Kenobi and Resiliance. This is one of the few instances where the PC actually made something stronger for dark than it did for light, but it’s not a whole lot; the only advantage really is that it can be pulled by Fanfare, but with all of the other Immediate Effects you need to pull right now, that’s not much of an answer. That already only makes it just slightly better (or at least just more timely) than Oota Goota Solo? Neither of which are event close to as good as the bad ass light side card Quite A Mercenary.

 

Cards for both sides:

Desperate Counter V & Hindsight V - These cards are pretty great and I think they are a must include in any deck now (I told you we had too much to pull with Fanfare already). They can stop a big drain of three that would otherwise really put you in a tough spot early, they handle things like blowing the bunker, Center of Tyranny, and Hindsight combined with an Atrocity follow up makes the dark Hoth objective look downright stupid to play (if it wasn’t already).  Giving the opponent any card is pretty moot when you can soak this amount of damage at a key part in the game. The other game text is almost irrelevant, except for maybe late game to stop some tracking, but few games go to that level without already having used this to soak damage.

 

Light Side:

Rebel Sacrifice - Communing is already so good that I don’t really see what the death star is adding for you. Your activation isn’t going to be very good, and you can almost definitely find something equally strong if not stronger on Tatooine, the system with the most related sites in the entire game. This also eats up a starting slot. Sure, you can use Path of Least Resistance to run guys around, but if that’s your plan, why aren’t you just playing QMC anyway? We tried to make this work at the beginning of the month but found that tatooine and exterior sites with nice text are just almost always better.

 

Lucky Shot - This card is almost unnecessary. It’s not amazing, but it’s a card light side needed. One of the only things dark side can do is give their ability 3 characters big forfeit because of Light’s ability to draw lots of destinies easily with very little to stop it. A Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith can be really difficult for Jedi-Based decks. This takes care of them pretty hard. I don’t really understand the Close Call cancelling, but Outflank has been a blowout before and this is just another utility card with a decent destiny that a deck like TRM or the 2/2 deck can use to it’s advantage.

 

Yavin 4: I actually don’t mind this system. I don’t know why you’re playing it, as it seems like it takes a LOT of energy to liberate the entire galaxy. I do like it however for any decks that are looking for a second system and don’t want to have to pack anything for Lateral Damage. Lots of players like to have an extensive space package in their mains based decks, playing this with Kiffex makes it extremely hard for you to run into problems in space with things like Artoo in Red 5, Dash in the Outrider, the Super Falcon and the Home One, all of whom are already fairly impervious.

 

Temporary Foothold - This is the perfect card for a deck like 2/2 or TRM. Or really any light deck that can easily hold a system and a site (think Home One and an immunity Jedi). It stops the protocol failure combo, This is Outrageous and control, but you still have to be able to handle undercovers. I don’t think this will see too much play, but the aforementioned decks or say, Profit or COT, might really benefit from this card.

 

Mace Windu - Now this is a card. A destiny 3 fully Immune Jedi? This is an excellent answer to Darth Vader, Betrayer of the Jedi. Forfeit unable to be reduced is an extremely strong mechanic and his retrieval and total weapon destiny +1 text are also solid. This takes a lot of oomph out of the very strong BOTJ, but I think that he was one of the few advantages dark had on the ground versus these guys. Mace Windu goes next level and negates half of Vader’s very good text.

 

Booster Terrick - I don’t know what deck is going to play him, but if you can find him a home, stealing a star destroyer is straight up stupid. Imagine getting your hands on a Conquest?? Thank youuuu.

 

Combined Fleet Action - This is a great card to have active so that your opponent only has to do about 14 damage to your life forces for a win.

 

That’s all I really have to say. I’ll be sure to post more exciting things after the MPC and my return to serious tournament play after a two year absence. Between the MPC and World there is plenty of time to talk about decks and plays, so this was mainly a dry run to get some awareness going into that.

 

Deck