The Art of Drafting: Chapter 1, Part 3

Dissecting the Rivals Set Part 3 – The Grays

Written by Kamper_SWDHK

You will play a lot of these to get to 30 cards in the deck, regardless of whether you have managed to rainbow or not.

Vibrosword 3 COST UPGRADE *REDEPLOY*
Redeploy.

Yes, I wrote the word redeploy twice because it is how relevant this is. Always having access to Vibrosword allows you to overwrite non-redeploy upgrades on your dying characters to protect your investment. It is only an okay die, but the fact that it can redeploy makes it playable in every deck. Third-best card in the set.

T-21 Repeating Blaster　3 COST UPGRADE
Special: Deal 2 damage to a character. Then you may reroll this die instead of removing it from your pool.

There are two kinds of draft games. In some games, you struggle to find the extra buck to play your upgrades. You fight with sub-optimal weapons and do underwhelming things every round. Those are the good games. And then in some games, you struggle to find anything dice card you can play and end up flooding your resource pool with resources that you cannot spend. You fight with nothing at all and life sucks. T-21’s special is a game-winning upgrade in one of those games. When you are swimming in resources, the special is such a GREAT deal. Put this in your deck.

Bespin Wing Guard　1 COST UPGRADE
Action – Exhaust this support and spend 1 resource to force an opponent to choose and discard a card from their hand.

This card is hard to evaluate. Discard is worth a lot in a draft, but the first discard from Bespin cost you 2, which is way too much IMO. In one of those games flooded with resources, Wing Guard is a great way to spend those resources. This is by no means an auto-include, but if your deck has cards that can discard/mill, this is a must-have closer.

Emulate　0 COST EVENT
Turn a character die to any side if there are 2 or more copies of that character in play.

If you run 2 or more Rivals character, slot this in your deck. When it works, it is excellent.

Fight Back 1 COST EVENT
Remove one of your dice to remove a die showing damage.
Is a discounted He Doesn’t Like You good if it costs 1? Yes in a draft.

Surprise Attack 1 COST EVENT
Resolve one of your dice showing damage increasing its value by 1.

Not worth it at all. When you have too many resources to burn, it is normally because you cannot draw your arsenal and are stuck with only your three character dice. Surprise Attack has barely any impact in any given game.

Supply Pack 1 COST UPGRADE
Action – Exhaust this upgrade to reroll any number of attached character’s character or upgrade dice.

If you somehow draft an elite character, this may be playable. Most of the time it reads, ‘Action: Discard this to reroll any number of your dice’.

TL;DR
They are not as bad as they look in drafts. The 2 dice cards and Fight Back should be in every draft deck.

Battlefields:
The two that come with the Rivals kit is very good. You do not have to draft a battlefield for your team at all. Only pick a battlefield when you have absolutely no choice.

Dry Fields – Atollon
Claim – Gain 1 resource if you have no resources.

Pick this when you don’t plan to give up value to claim the battlefield. This is the safe choice.

Sith Temple – Malachor
Claim – Remove one of your dice to deal 1 unblockable damage to a character.

This is powerful but can you guarantee your claiming? If you do, pick this as it can win games.

Conclusion:
You can potentially include 14 cards from the Rivals kit in your deck (20 cards – 4 characters – 2 battlefields). If you manage to build a rainbow team, you are already set with the 6 Colored cards, 2 Gray weapons, Fight Back, and Emulate. That means that you only need to make sure that 20 of the 30 you draft are somewhat useful if you make a rainbow. Your deck quality should be very reasonable.

However, if you don’t rainbow, you need to find 22 playable upgrades/supports/events in your draft. You will have a character or two among your picks, that means that the number is more like 22/28. The last 2 cards you get each round are usually absolutely rubbish; that makes it 22/24. The margin of error is incredibly slim.

The Key Takeaway:
If you don’t rainbow, you will need to put in some absolute trash in your deck. ALWAYS RAINBOW if you can.