Hello, my name is Parker, and my name is Ned. And this is The Force Unlimited, yet another Star Wars Unlimited podcast. This is episode number 17. We are recording June 16th, Happy Father's Day, Ned. Happy Father's Day, Parker. Did you have a good Father's Day? Were you fetted by your offspring? I feel like we have reached the appropriate level of progressivity in the universe. I was gifted a wide variety of cooking implements with which to make me happier when I cook meals for my family.
So I have been complaining about the state of some of our frying pans, and I got new frying pans and new spatulas. So I kind of think that would have made some spouses, female spouses, angry in the 50s, 60s, not being appreciated. We have reached the point now where I am elated by getting these things. So we are probably 10 years out from me feeling not me, but future male generations feeling. Future male members of our society feeling presented, and why didn't I get something romantic?
But we are close, right? We are getting close to that level of parity. So I was delighted. It was a wonderful gift. That's awesome. How about yourself, Ned? Anything? I got a card. I got a card. We went for the... Was it Rare? Was it a bike ride? What? No, it was not. Well, I would say it was a legendary. I think there was only one copy of this card in existence because it was made by hand by my child, which is adorable.
And then we went out for a bike ride Sunday Parkway. So I went for a lovely Mexican dinner. Got some seafood enchiladas. I didn't realize Chipotle did seafood, but... Yes, I would have been fighting with Chipotle, but they bumped it up a notch. An executive decision was made not to just get there the old seven... Talk about seafood. I did not know they did seafood at Taco Bell, so that is sketch. Ned, tell me about the match we just played. We played a Vater Green against Palp Double Green.
I copied card for card. A list that won a local. It was in the hot list on smooth. Sorry. It won Premier Lugar 2605, 2023 Showdown CL by Kik. Kikdb on hot decks under smoothy. I... This is our last episode of Ned recording under Spark of Rebellion. We will record one more episode under Spark of Rebellion, but this is the last episode we will release under Spark of Rebellion. And so kind of as a callback to that more on that, dear listener.
I played Vater Green because that is the first deck I played with real cards at my first pre-release. I was able to open... You know, it's the only time you get to play Vater or Luke and Limited. I took advantage of it to play Vater Green, so I wanted to call back to that. That went poorly for me. It did not go well. Yeah, it did not. Back-to-back defeats, crushing defeats. Yeah, I can't say that I felt under a huge amount of pressure in any of the games.
I mean, like... I had a terrible mall again into a bad hand game one, so I can kind of blame it on that, but game two... Sure. I mean, it's just a bad matchup. Game two, I drew exactly what I wanted every single time, and I died. Yeah, and I even made a horrible misplay where I failed to read the text on Command because I don't normally play Double Green. But, but, yeah. The famous, the famous, the nerf that Command is kind of weak because they added that non-unique clause.
It originally did not have it, and it was the modal choice, I believe, per Tyler. It was the modal choice that everybody chose. So they laughed pretty late in Sparkle Billion Devcycle, added the non-unique clause, which arguably makes the man a rough scene. It does make it... To the vein of hair-a-players everywhere. It makes it remarkably less good, which is unfortunate. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I, for one, will be glad when I don't have to, when the 7-er-resource turn comes around, and we're playing two green villainy decks, just watch Vaders slam into each other, or... Vader, and to Vader, and to Vader, yeah, that was a lot of slap-fighting, yeah. There was a lot of slap-fighting for control, and like, what else are you gonna do, right?
You can't... you play the card, because it's good, and the card specifically leads itself into a play pattern, where you throw it down, you attack their best unit, and then you hope that you spin into something that keeps you from being slapped back and returned. Yeah, so I blocked the order, and yeah, you know, it'll still be there, Ned.
It's not going anywhere, but we have that wager that mall might take a dents out of that, which brings us to our next segment, Dear listeners, Sorter in the Court. Looks better than we can. Wrong court, Ned. This is America, GD. That pun Sorter looks better spelled out than it does sound. But, Dear listeners, I think it's fair to say the force on the moment it traditionally hues a little away from the conventional topic du jour
in Star Wars Unlimited. We don't do preview discussion. We tend to talk about weird esoteric things. There are exceptions. Again, tonight's episode is the last one we're gonna air before the end of Spark of Rebellion, and I thought, Ned and I thought it would be fun to do a slight review of Spark of Rebellion, but rather than acknowledge that we are ever wrong in any way, rather than go through all of the decks or all of the cards,
I may have alluded to once or twice that I used to be an attorney. So, Ned and I are going to argue because banal, pedantic esoteric arguments are not always something lawyers love, but Ned is not a lawyer, but we still love doing that as well. The more pedantic and banal, the better. So, we're just gonna pick a couple topics that we think are half two sides. We're gonna take a side, and then we're just gonna talk about it, and we're gonna argue with each other.
Even if, and this is important, dear listener, Ned and I are an actual agreement, we believe that we have a commitment to zealous defense of our point of view. So, topic number one, I'll let you pick whether you want to be four against, but the claim before the court, before for some limited court, is Boba Dex warp the meta. I will pick the against side of this.
All right, I'm going to, then I'll take four. So, you're the affirmative. All right. Yes, so I believe, I am claiming that Boba Dex warp the meta. So, we're speaking specifically about Boba the leader, the villainy yellow leader. Yes. Yes. I, yes, Boba Dex specifically is the villainy leader. Boba the unit is very arguably pushed, pretty pushed, but Boba the leader, and Boba the leader, at this point we now have two sets worth of leader previews, and one.
Boba is just, Boba the leader is the most pushed stat wise. I don't know if that's because they thought Boba is cool, because the Dex have an unhealthy fixation on villainy yellow. I've heard this has been a problem in the past with other games that have colors and villainy and star wars. I don't, I can't, I described to why maybe they underestimated how good the ability was, but turn, but the Boba leader is handily the best leader with the stats.
It has Mando stats for five, where is every other Mando gets Mando stats of four, seven for six problem one. His ability is good. In yellow, yellow has a Schmorgus board, board of one and two costable cards to take advantage. Yes. And, and, you know, so, so he has just an amazing flip turn, right? He flips on resource five. You've got the five resources. He flips. He can probably, you know, generate another two resources.
Seven resources on resource five is huge. If you can use all of them, that is. Yeah. And, yeah, and don't, don't, Ned. I know you were never an attorney, but never concede my points, man. That's, that's all right. If you can see my points, I'm an actor. I believe in being fair. I believe in so. All right. Yeah. And, and I think the fact that you have Boba yellow, who is tempo bordering on agrar.
Right. That, that you can run under some competitive agron X. But you also have Boba green, who dominates what the mid range and, and gives the kind of lower band of control decks, the, the soft control decks, a hard run for their money is, is obscene. And last, my three points overstated covers too fast is spread. It is fast for tempo. It is fast for mid range. Yeah. And three is that there are a couple of leaders who have that kind of one turn that you have to plan around. Right.
Yeah. And most control decks, I didn't, a blue Vater, where you're, you're worried about super laser blast. You have to plan on super laser blast, which costs eight. Yeah. You have, palp, which I just suffered at the hands of which he flips on eight. Right. Like you have to plan around losing one of your units for the rest of the game at eight.
Boba's flip turn is at five. It is, it is, you know, turn that that turn, especially in green bubble with ramp. Like you have to be prepared for a dominating turn. You have an agrar that can run under palp, an agrar that can run under. I didn't blue Vater, like you can avoid the super laser blast. Even a very aggressive like Sabine Yellow deck is going to get to resource five, especially against ramp. So you have to plan around that turn that awful turn in every single game.
And so those are my kind of the three arguments in favor, like, I'm not saying it's brokenly good. There's compelling arguments to be made to run other decks, but Boba definitely like defines the meta for spark of about. So I am going to take it against. So I'm going to start off by putting out my case. So my case is mostly an empirical case. The reason why it's mostly an empirical case is that early on in SOR, we saw Boba decks extremely dominant.
Remember that episode that we did where I ran the simulations to for tournament results, we were seeing about like a 60% effective win rate for Boba green for, I mean, it was Boba green against the field. Right. And since then, Boba has not maintained that level of control.
I'm saying it's a bad deck. It's still a very, very good deck. But if you look at results that are coming in nowadays, if you look at like the garbage rollers, tierless, you see a lot of Boba, but you do not, you also see other things, right.
So if we're talking about like warping the meta, every strong deck requires that you plan around it, right. Like I hear your arguments for for the eight turns, like your, your item, your Vader, your palp control turns that are coming on eight where you're trying to run underneath them.
You're a mid-range player, you have to have a plan around that. You need to understand that because frequently you're not going to be able to close the game out by turn eight. It's just, it is hard as an aggro player, you can can close the game out by turn eight if you're doing well, which is meaningful.
I think that to the extent that you are requiring a plan against Boba, you also require a plan, I would say against Sabine and the Sabine plan, like it is less of a deterrent defined, right. Like Boba, specifically, you need to have that plan for the five resource turn.
And that five resource turn may come on your five resource turn, it may come on your four resource turn, but you need to have a plan for that for Sabine, there's not like that same key turn that you're focusing in on. So it's less like a shiny object, but you need to have a plans to survive, like turn two and turn three and not let them get like heavy on the board, because if they're heavy on the board, and you're not in a position to like overwhelming brush and clear it off or some other multi target removal, not that anybody runs bombing run.
In the event that like bombing run became part of the meta, some other multi target removal, the house runs bombing run objection. Okay, note it, note it. Brown Batman runs bat bombing runs, but yeah, continue. So it's a so granted it is a strong deck, but you're not seeing the meta results that suggest that it is a dominant deck. It is a deck that has a key turn and that key turn does come early, but there are other decks that have earlier turns that you need to be planning around.
And those decks are certainly not considered to be meta warping there, they are just like there are agro decks and healthy format will have agro decks you need to be able to survive dealing with agro decks. So make sure that you have a plan for that, and I don't think that that boba is necessarily so out of band for those.
The final point that I will make is that it is and can be very, very fast, but in general, I would rather for the health of an early game, have an agro or tempo oriented mid range leader be the bogeyman then to have an agro be the bogeyman.
Again, this is me just sort of observationally, I don't mind losing to aggro, I don't mind losing to control, but for a lot of players, it is more frustrating to lose to aggro, like a hyper agro list, because you feel like you have not gotten a game in the game is barely even gotten started already lost and then control, there are numerous documents to like player frustrations around control.
Because you have to play in a very different way, you have to have your mind oriented in a different way to play against control for so for newer players or players who are not trying to like play aggressively competitively, you want to if you are a game designer until your game is established, it is really important to try and make sure that people get very positive experiences because you don't have like a big backlog of goodwill to line back on if your meta is bad.
So making sure that mid range decks are good and yeah, ok, boba might be a little bit over pushed stat wise, we can make arguments that it is a strong deck, but meta warping, I don't see that it is more meta warping than other comparably powered decks. That is kind of my counter argument. Okay, dear listener, we are going to have to let you be judge responding in the comments, we don't normally call for that, but it is the only way we can ask for that.
Get in the comments. Get in the comments, our boba decks, do they warp the meta? Next, green, next claim, before the court, green has too big of a color pie slice, I will take the against. Thank you, thank you Parker. I will always defend the green until the meta is stale and boring. So Parker played Vader green as part of a nostalgia, like this is the deck that I went into with, this is the deck I want to exit with.
When I started playing, when I was first looking at swoo when I was first getting excited about swoo, I was very excited about Palpatina. I was very excited about just Villainny green seemed interesting to me, but the more and more cards that I saw in green, the less I liked it because I felt that I was, I like playing things that are more scrappy crappy.
Either in the aggro sense or in the control sense, I'm not a big fan of like dominant, the dominant strategy, I want to be like one step removed. And part of that, your honor, Ned's personal deck preferences aren't relevant. Is it about the color green and the objective abstract? With your honor. So I played double green, pal, specifically because it is a double green back that is basically only playing double green for command.
And command is just there to act as a crumbly reversion of resupply and supervisor tech. Like, we saw you just needed a third ramp. I just needed more ramp, right? So I'm playing a double green deck. I'm not getting elements from other colors to try and supplement this. And again, this is like small sample size.
I'm not, but I did not feel hard done by in terms of my access to useful tools to kind of go into a more theoretical level rather than just talking specifically about the deck that I just played against another deck. Green, the kind of core idea that they talk about that Xander and folks talk about is that greens, ID is kind of oriented around units, but the problem is that units are the primary pieces of the game, right? Like attachments go on units, events generally exist to affect units.
There are not decks that exist in the game right now that can run, that can win unit lists, right? Like I can imagine in some distant future where you're able to run 20 identical copies of Fichibi or something like that that you can have a primarily event driven deck. But for now, everybody has to play with units. And if your core ID is your good at units, then that means your core ID is your good at the game.
So historically, as a piece of historical evidence, green in magic for a long time had creatures as its big identity. And so it had both go wide and big boys as part of the color. So go wide meaning lots of small units. Lots of little stuff, right? So you had some decks that were lots of little stuff and some decks that and also like the big green monsters that you get to attack with.
And eventually this had to be split out because it was cannibalizing too much of the color pie from other colors. And I'm seeing this same feeling again, we're one set in. There's a lot of ground to cover. I could absolutely be wrong, but I'm seeing the same kind of a feeling where you get both the big boys, you get like 97th Legion, you get Devastator, you get the big green starships are a thing. You don't see like big, big starships in other colors at about the same rate.
And then you also see things that paint lay well with lots of little boys. So you've got or a lot of little units, you've got like gentle Krell, you've got you wing reinforcements that goes dig through your deck and brings out a bunch of units. You've got Vader where it's himself as a body and then he brings in another body with him. Moreover, in Swo removal is less needed in every color because units can attack other units.
So your units, you don't have like a problem that you see in again, some other games where you're not allowed to attack other units. And therefore if you have good units, you effectively also have removal for as long as you can maintain control of the board. So it feels weird to me that green gets fight effects by an effects being like strike true, overwhelming brush where you're using your units power to inflict a damage on other units without getting hit back.
But also you get ambush as a core keyword. You see it on ECL, which has seen an enormous amount of play. Green Vader, one of the reasons why it's played is that it's a big green ambush unit that brings out other units. So you've got a color where you've got ramp, which makes sense. You're trying to ramp up to the big boys totally. And then you've got ambush where ambush is a tool that is really useful when you're behind on board.
Like if you're ahead on board, you don't need ambush because you can just attack into other people's units with your big units that you already have on the board. But ambush lets you catch up. If you are behind and you ambush in a strong unit, that's the way of getting you in on the board and also dealing with their units. So you're you're able to not be as behind. But the fact that you are going to probably be ahead in resources and you are also going to be having this ambush.
It turns ambush from a tool to catch up into a tool to try and maintain that strong presence over the board. So I feel like green has too much good stuff. And I think that in the future I would really like if some elements were split out among the other color pipe. For example, I think that the Crel effect should probably have been in red. I think that red is the color about throwing away your units and Crel, drawing cards for having your units die, feels kind of ready.
And maybe they don't want to be red. Yeah, I mean, it feels villainy. You can make a lot of arguments, but double green seems like a weird home for it. And then ambush, I can understand if you're behind in green, you need a way to catch up. Your unit base ambush is a good way to do that. But I feel like ambush has a much more natural fit in yellow because yellow is either like the tricky color.
And it's a color that doesn't have kind of removal baked in. So maybe that would be a good home for it. But you know, I'll say we'll see like there have been some very good yellow ambush units spoiled in the next set. So maybe yellow. This is just an aberration. Anyway, so the prosecution rests defense green has the appropriate amount of the color pipe. It just has the obvious portion. I think the key thing is we're looking at Sparker of rebellion and Star Wars unlimited is a unit based game.
And as the color of units, those two dovetail very nicely admittedly, but the missing component that I think you're not latching on to. And they were actually seeing play out is that Sparker rebellion is the most basic of set. It has to cover the obvious stuff, the really easy you're learning to play stuff. And I think you're seeing that in that green, you know, start out very high in the meta.
And then as people are learning about it, shifting to other colors. But green is the, it's the tiniest of colors. And so it's the one that you're new to the game. You're bringing in assumptions from other games. It's got that, okay, I'm in a unit based game. This is the unit based color. So by learning the game, I learn how to play green. Once you've got a good grasp of Star Wars unlimited, I think you are well in your way.
You're most of the four aspects on your way to getting a good grasp of how to play green. Green wants you to play the game the way Sparker of rebellion assumes your playing. But in a similar manner to they've alluded to, they've stated that in future sets as the pool expands a space dominant strategy that having an overwhelming number of your units in the space arena will be a viable strategy, not like planned, like in that in between space between cars.
They've already designed and tested in cars that we've seen. There is a meta where space is a viable strategy. And I think similarly, there are event heavy strategies, future card type heavy strategies that don't lean as heavily into green that are forthcoming. But the obvious stuff in Sparker of rebellion is, oh, I need units like I need the most basic of ramp. Like you can't get any simpler than resupply. So that seems obvious. You can't get any simpler than 97th Legion.
Get the big, big resources. But to that end, they've said, I don't think green is as big boy as you think it is because green, they've said, is the big boy of space. And green obviously dominates the capital ship. Yes, trade. The good capital. I mean, you're, I mean, Avengers amazing. One of my favorite cards, if not my favorite card in Sparker of mine. The Tom S Phewman, they certainly said rockstar we're gonna leave now is time to go underground is sq.
good if you're playing with building, it seems like a compelling card but against you know you've got relentless you've got home one you've got a devastating right like there's just there's so many green capital ships but if
you look outside of vehicles right same thing you've got a couple nice big boy walkers but but outside of vehicles non-vehicle traits right north of cost five in green is Vader and 97th Legion and 97th Legion is not really playable right so you've got one and I get and I realize I acknowledge I'm
making a caveat of non-vehicles but like it's a very specific slice of big boys you don't get we're not gonna get a lot of cool iconic big boys you're not gonna get a lot of unique to get that power bump right out in green right like and that aren't vehicles who can't get the good attachments right you don't get to have a lot of lightsabers on green outside of here and so and but Crel's not Crel costs five yeah he's also not playable I was saying yeah like
north like getting past the mid game and to end there just there isn't yeah you know I could short Crel's fine like there's some five costs but the only want non-vehicle green units who cost more than five or 97th invader so it's a very specific subset of big boys so one it's obvious and as the game is able to explore non-obvious places I think green doesn't have too big a slice of the color pie I think it's big boys are not as big as you think but really I
think the proof is in the pudding and that it green might have a lot of like obvious tami-esque aspects of the color pie and that's why you saw them so early but the game's shifting right and and I think part of that is because people are learning to play around ECL right like I don't think green dominated early meta even because green was too powerful I think ECL is fantastic but as people as the meta shifts there's a lot of people looking for those 30 hip-point
bases and if you're going for a 30-hit point base I think you can move out of green which is why you're seeing like a shift you know boba green runs ECL but boba yellow runs 30 hip points right so being green runs ECL but so being yellow runs maybe jetticity but like plenty of them run 30 hip-point bases so if it covered too much of the card I mean I get why like from a pure melvin standpoint maybe it covers more ground conceptually than then suits you but
front I mean it doesn't cover too much in that we're not needing to see any carveouts it's it's not dominating enough of the space all right your listener judge listener in the comments please does green have too big a slice of the
color pie next claim there's too much good stuff in sparkerbellion not enough build around Ned which I think for against I kind of want to do the far away if I want to do the prosecution here I know I'm knowing being selfish but I I'm perfectly happy to talk about build around cards and sparker
a billion then all right lay the case the core argument is a bunch of the set up payoff cards and spark of rebellion kind of don't work so an example of this I think that's obvious is van Gardeis van Gardeis is a card it says do a thing we discussed back in the previous and I think it's been born out empirically doing the thing does not give you enough of a payoff right like you can you can jump through hoops and you can get a big payoff but your payoff is it really
there another example this is galactic ambition galactic ambition is a card it has a really bold claim on it it's like okay you're gonna be able to do this exciting thing but like the payoff is you get devastated around a couple of turns early and it's less good and you did 10 damage to your base so like these kinds of like we're setting up a challenge for you can you jump through the hoop the jumping through the hoop doesn't get you what you want it doesn't get
you anything another example I think about this is you're my only hope which I could see you know I have tried to build very weird decks with Han where basically you run no one in two cost units you only run three and up so that you're never trading down for your my only hope and potentially you're you're trading up but it just it's not it's not good enough it just doesn't pay off and if you have these set up payoff cards you want for people who are or degenerate
giants like me you want the payoff you if you say do something weird you'll get paid off you you want the payoff to be there if you do something weird another example of this is even in the mini setup cards these these aren't cards where
it says like build a deck around me but these are cards that say like I want you to I can you can envision us doing something very odd with this something unusual something cool let's do it so an example this is like Macy Windu is a machine gun right where you've got Macy Windu you suit him up with
a bunch of stuff and then you just just motor on your opponent's board doesn't really work doesn't it it just you know even for as expensive as he removal is and for as good as light sabers are the Macy Windu machine gun does is just too long to get set up and then the payoff is is not good. Chubaka the unit in yellow hero yellow again this says to me like okay here's an idea you're gonna lay them up with electrost즈 you're gonna try and do some kind of a goofy thing where you're able to hold the
fort against the whole opponents board. I remember there was like a brief surge where like maybe with Chubaka leader you can get something going but it never really materialized. It's an interesting strategy but it's not a great one and and again like if I can appreciate interesting strategies but in general you want at least some of the interesting things to yield fruit. Another example
this is a card that I dearly love sneak attack. You know I look at sneak attack and I see okay this is a way that I can get units slightly discounted and that I can guarantee that I'm able to get an on attack and a wind-feeded trigger out of them right because they're coming in ready it is very likely that I'm gonna be able to get my on attack trigger out of them by attacking and it's very likely that I'm gonna be able to get the wind-feeded trigger out of
them because they're guaranteed to die at the end of the round. There's just not enough good on attack and wind-feeded triggers at least in set one for me to be able to to have fun with sneak attack. Almost every time that I have drawn sneak attack I have researched it and I have tried many many times in hero yellow to make sneak attack go it just had it. Another example this is typo strategies where typo strategies are you're looking for a keyword not
like a proper keyword but like a type of a trait. A trait. Yes a trait. Thank you.
Thank you for the and you build around it and there's hints of that with trooper right like there's taggy there's Vanguard Elite with the one green guy there's the volunteer soldier that is a fine card in trooper specific decks theoretically but you know there it just doesn't pay off you you don't get really paid off for running a bunch of troopers even though there there's a fair bit of this type of stuff another example is vehicles you look at vehicles
there's the what the Walker the the neutral forecast Walker that comes in ready if you control another vehicle there's the hard point blaster that's the attachment that's specifically for vehicles and seems pretty attractive but you know if you build the type of deck you do not get paid off you know wedge screen was typo right like wedge says build a vehicle type old deck and you will kind of get paid off but as we discuss back when we talk about wedge you know
wedge is fine but giving ambush to vehicles is on on your five resource turn you're not being able to ambush in a vehicle after you play wedge you can't you know on six okay you just are embushing in vehicles but already a bunch of the heroism green vehicles are already ambushing so why what what what you're not getting a you're not getting a payoff so in short the cards that we see and the decks that we see are very heavily scientific towards good stuff decks and
not as much towards weird build around let's do a weird thing and get it to pay off and I appreciate that in a competitive environment you're not always gonna see that but but come here come on against there's plenty of build around even though good stuff is awesome and my arguments are twofold net one okay you're wrong and two leaders I'll start with my first argument type is is is not sufficiently build around when you choose terrible types but we've got
plenty of good types in this game that are good around you have the obvious one force force is totally viable right like you're looking for your heads it's it's limited to certain colors right red blue and I sideboard I sidebar sorry getting my turn TCG and lawyer turns to step sidebar I cannot wait for a more yellow and green force I cannot wait for a for color force but we have plenty of force it is build around you've got decks like Vader blue and cheer who are
running lots of force units and looking for that critical threshold for their key cards maybe not competitively viable but specter is crazy build around and that's the entry level that's the two constrained build around that I don't like but but exists you have rebel which isn't quite build around enough and that it's not limited to certain leaders certain cards to care but it's there in set one you've got cards like the official right embers royal guard
you're looking for some you know embers royal guard is fantastic if you have enough officials so then it kind of tweaks the am I looking you know if I include one more official I it makes ERG worthwhile does that push make this official worthwhile is a constant deck the decision and then you take a step back and you say okay so you got cards like Fitchy V right like that is absolutely a deck that well this is a good card in my red hero deck but it's
not a hero card so I can't run it because I need to meet some minimum threshold for four cause I believe in I need to meet some minimum threshold of events for BOSC and for Greedo I mean people care less about Greedo but it's there well I'm saying you're gonna run Greedo no matter what right is like
have any events in your deck Greedo and your yellow like yeah I'm flipping yeah hundred hundred percent of the time that's a that's a ease of fantastic you know one cost unit so if you pick good types for one set there's actually plenty of build on but they but I think you're leaving out the key like it's almost invisible right because you're only focusing on the main deck but and they're talk about what they had learned from other games only that was their topic
but they were talking about what they learned about the other games one of the devs might have been Ryan maybe it was Tyler I don't want to as mentioned that they had you know they built in the best aspect of Commander into the core
game that they're leaders in the core game and I don't think you can discount that that that by picking your leader you've already picked a card to build around you have Vader blue you have I didn't read and you have a credit read those all three are blue red villainy decks that are all very
different because you are building around their leader ability and we're going to get more blue red villainy decks in another set but we're always talking about smarter rebellion but we've you know of the what five villainy blue red you know nobody's playing IG 88 Grandinquisitor blue is
a color is people it's good yeah that's a fourth deck that is blue red villainy and and so you can't like discount that original build around choice the the that credit and I didn't have a non trivial amount of overlap but
the rest of those I mean even if you call you know collapse credit and I didn't into into two buildarons they're different than Vader blue and and uh... grandinquisitor right the the so you've already built around those cards uh... they are the defining thing you build around and and so you got
if you pick so that's it I rest good types prove there's good buildar on leaders are build around so listener in the comments is there too much good stuff is there not enough buildaround or is there plenty and it's great the
way it is uh... net next statement next claim before the court uh... saboteur uh... should have been uh... two abilities uh... disagree so i will take the against that i will represent the uh... defense so taking taking the prosecution case um... this is an extremely minor net pick
but like i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna bring it before the court because small claims court is the thing um... I keep forgetting about the stupid shield thing I keep forgetting the defeat shields on attack i look at saboteur my brain shortcuts that you can attack around uh... sentinel units
and i do which feels like not enough yeah i mean like it you know that that feels like plenty and not only that but also uh... the number of games in which i have an attack point base and with a set with a saboteur unit they've pointed at their cell block garden and i've said
saboteur and they've gone oh is larger than i think counts so the fact that saboteur gets around i either saboteur needs to be signposted more recently people need to spend more mental energy around it which i think is hard to ask in a competitive card game
it needs to be made like a screamingly obvious thing and forgetting about and having that shield extra writer on it just makes it harder to to occupy the brain space of saboteur is an ability that does a couple of things that's it so i'm going to hit you with some my anti-slap
uh... loss its net uh... for a unfairly wasting my my time and making me spend money on the defense what reading the card explains the card uh... this is why they put reminder text on the cards uh... two saboteur i think people forget the shield because in sparkler rebellion
uh... there there's less shield than there could be i think we're about to see a lot more shield we're seeing about to see a lot more stacked shields and and so there's no way to make saboteur do more stuff just in sparkler rebellion but i think uh... it is an answer to two problems
and having and i i think you have to do that too for one right because sentinel does a thing it doesn't matter what you're playing my sentinel does something and shield does a thing doesn't matter what you're playing my shield uh... uh... does a thing you can't have an anti-card
that exists only as an anti-card to a thing because the subset of space that can take up you know and and the topography of the set is smaller than whatever it's anti right like for if you have a card that just goes around sentinel any number of how many people are playing sentinel a fewer number people are going to play uh... the anti-sendle because it's a dead card somebody is in playing sentinel so you got a two for it that it's anti-sendle and anti-shield because then
you reach in the critical mass of people who are playing either sentinel or shield to make saboteur worth it so you got it you got a two for it and and we're going to see more of it uh... i think i i i i'm sympathetic to your inability to uh... read the card because we have so few
just sentinel cards compared to similar to shielded but i mean even shielded we have a number of cards that what they do is they come in with a shield uh... you know a crafty smuggler uh... and suddenly defender we have a number of cards a lot of cards that are just sent
uh... dictate the flow of the battle we actually don't have a ton of cards that are just saboteur there are a saboteur plus rate or saboteur plus seven sensors shenanigans or whatever so it's one little word shadowed by a bunch of text but that doesn't mean that the
the keyword should be split it's very much exist uh... as two things don't even get in the comments dear listener judge shunned down net's wrong second panel to make claim before the court zander is a sift lord subtitle villainy too strong net judge before or against
i feel like i've been doing a lot of the prosecution so i'll take a little return as a defense here okay one hundred percent true i i believe in this uh... all the way i believe that zander is severely in control of everything uh... that's happening at star was a limited development and i think
star was a limited development uh... very much is is too pro villainy uh... you've got all of the the top end uh... leaders are i mean you later and and luke arguably eagle vaders all a little more valuable to look but i think that's because vaders backed up by more good stuff behind luke you've got
canon only one whereas you know villian you've got uh... you've got to go you've got both of the fact uh... you you've got uh... seven sister you've got uh... you know you've just got so many like iconic singular units in villiany who are doing great things heroism has got on solo right like this
uh... it's uh... i feel like the heroism decks are carried by a lot of less iconic characters uh... and midrange uh... same thing right like the the back guys you got the top end better and villian the midrange better uh... in villiany uh... civilizor tech
they have it right and and and they don't the heroism has no no counterpart uh... you both at boss auto includes there are as many auto includes in heroism and so far uh... we have no multi-target removal in the heroism we have we have some like bombing run in neutral but both
overwomen barrage and superlays are blast are in uh... villiany and i think this is a result uh... of a natural parallel between the nature of tcgs um... heroes want to save the day and so thematically hero cards wanted be saved the day cards villians want to make somebody else suffer
so thematically make somebody else suffer cards belong in villiany but tcgs are about making the person across from you suffer like a fundamental level like maybe you're nice and you do it fast maybe you're meaning you drag it out for fifty five minutes
but the other day you're trying to make someone lose this is not a place for you trying to get to union does not place you're trying to get to harmony you can't all get along there are two of you and one of you is going to lose and so i think that thematically seems obvious in villiany
uh... in a way that green versus yellow it's not obvious question blue versus red it's not obvious question black versus white villiany is the color of murdering which is did villiany is the color of doing lots of damage to your opponent because they're you don't like them and you want to win
and so i think they take the easy layups the easy thematic layups and give it to villiany because it seems obvious and so then your left with a lot of play the game hero cards are fun to play but villiany cards that's what i've got hero cards are fun to play villiany cards win so
the uh... for the defense i would uh... begin by uh... addressing in the question of midrange you said that there's no comparable card to super laser tech but there is uh... dispatcher dispatcher does have the similar ramp effect in heroism and you know you can make arguments about it's less good
uh... but particularly in luke shells you do see a lot of play for uh... the dispatcher so there's that as far as like these middle tier like who who are we backing up uh... you can make yes you can make arguments about like the top end in heroism being less exciting in the sense that
like unit vader unit palpatine uh... don't seem to have like unit vader you can you can drop parallel with unit luke and but hann doesn't really pair well is is not comparable to palpatine but i think that in the midrange you do see a lot of very solid units i think that canin and isra are both
perfectly good solid units that do see a lot of play asrael asso just because he's in a color pair that that is not played as much very well but i will say that that frank oz is yoda i have seen running around with a lightsaber too many times for me to count
and for like a relatively unassuming two four draws a card on defeat card and restore and restore and restore that that muppet has inflicted more losses on me that i would care to count uh... to just sort of minor nitpicks under the kind of book of the claim uh... i think that it was very explicit when they were talking about set one that they didn't have room for all moralities for all archetypes is that they said they were going to have uh... set one lean heroism towards aggression
they were going to have it lean more towards control in villainy just because they need to you have only so many cards and so because you have heroism leaning aggression you are naturally going to have fewer exciting unique characters because you're playing with the the crummy bottom end right like
if you're playing aggro you are playing a bunch of goofball you know nameless jokers that died and like battlefield marine echo based defender are both cards that don't really have comparable analogs in villainy and are quite strong um... past that we look at the empirical evidence and here i'm
citing like the the garbage rollers met a snapshot dated june third yes villainy runs the table in control and hard control but heroism runs the table in aggression burn single-handedly on the back of say being and then in tempo and mid-range heroism is two of the three
uh... minadex with um... bobah fat being the the soul stall work villain in uh... those uh... sections so if you're gonna just like count again this is an extremely artificial sampling but we see pretty good representation from both sides of the morality access and then
i expect as we move into set two we're going to see more of these like iconic hero characters in higher power forms as we have more heroism uh... control and and slower mid-range decks so i i feel like uh... i can't speak to zander's character i'm sure that he's he's an upstanding uh... individual
and uh... he's welcome to come on to the show to dispel any doubts about his uh... trips to exegol and and general uh... villainous behavior just for fun just for fun pure tourism yeah uh... but it's press all right all right listener get into the comments uh... net and i are trying out
a call to action uh... because youtube keeps telling us we should do that uh... is villainy too strong in spark of rebellion and for our last claim uh... spark rebellion is uh... while there's room to grow in star wars element in spark rebellion is the most or one of the most diverse uh... balanced set ones uh... that net and i have encountered uh...
in our tcg lcg career uh... i'm gonna dibs for net okay all right only fair so uh... i think we've got almost every color is represented uh... every aspect pairing is represented uh... for every uh... harrah or gin there is a laya or hawn um... some uh... of the leaders uh... some aspect
pairings like uh... blue villainy both leaders are are totally viable um... uh... you know uh... it's there's nothing's been dominant uh... the whole time uh... as you made the claim uh... which i'm not conceding but i'm now folding into my own argument uh... that boba uh... you know started out very strong but the meta has responded uh... we've seen control at the top uh... we've seen control dominate we've seen aggro at the top we've seen aggro dominate um... there's uh... a full spread of
leaders you know you can't go 16 for 16 i think that's an impossible dream but i'd say like nine ten of the sixteen have made serious showings at at at events somewhere i think that's uh... commendable uh... and and i haven't seen anything like i mean there are sixteen leaders which is
more than i mean more options than i've existed in most uh... fantasy flight games uh... there are more archives available that uh... period than i exist and so the fact that they're viable uh... is is incredible arrest now i may be a simple country lawyer i know when i'm like so uh... the defense
arrests uh... okay uh... i apologize on behalf of everyone who had to listen to that terrible accident i'm really sorry i just i i i had to i think the accident and uh... the apology might be our first uh... youtube short uh... but again uh... we've now uh... thanked ffg twice in a
week because we thank them for our preview cards but uh... you know thank you to fantasy flight uh... this sparkler of allion brought me back uh... into uh... tcg's after twenty years uh... it has been that compelling uh... sparkler
rebellion has brought nid uh... into discord it is that compelling so uh... set that is that good uh... it's been it's been a blast playing i am ready for shadows i think that you're ready for shadows i am ready for shat i'm excited to try out some some new strategies i'm excited
to get my heart broken by bill around jank again and uh... well we'll see how she goes uh... everybody's excited about the new leaders i'm actually really excited not g.i. but whatever i'm really excited to see the the sparkler of allion leaders get get an infusion get get changed up
uh... been thinking about a uh... blue sublime control shell uh... trying to use the being of control probably terrible idea but i'm excited to try um... so thank you ffg thank you for sticking with us dealist and we started this uh... with with uh... sparkler of allion and we are now into shadows uh... the the podcast is now more than one set long uh... and when you next year from us in two to three weeks uh... i hope your pre-release is gone wonderfully abuse