Do You Know Da Wae of Da Force?, Issue #5: Just Mill, Baby!

Written by Matthew Willaims

Mill is my single favorite archetype. I was very pleased to see that it became a stronger possibility as the sets have been released. Legacies was a huge step forward for mill. With a new Cassian being released that has major mill implications, I thought this would be a good time to start deck brewing.

Cassian is yellow, costs 10/14 for 10 health. His ability says that anytime you resolve one of the his dice, you can choose to do indirect damage or force the opponent to mill a card. The great thing about this is that you are guaranteed mill with any non-blank side so you have a 5/6 chance of milling. If that weren’t enough, Cassian has two 1 discard sides and a 1 resource side, in addition to 1 ranged and 2 ranged damage sides.

So who do we pair Cassian with? I have a few ideas:

While Cassian’s ability to mill is great, it also allows you to choose indirect damage to trigger Jedha Partisan’s effect. At that point, if you resolve both of Cassian’s dice and have at least one Partisan resolve an indirect damage die, you’ve milled four cards and put your opponent on a pretty impressive count.

Hero mill’s biggest problem has always been finishing those last cards in hand off, not milling the deck to zero. Cassian has two discard sides and each Jedha has one. You could very well finish their deck off by the end of turn three without a whole lot of luck. The health pool is limited, as is access to Red and Blue cards that could help sustain you, but any mid range deck is going to have problems putting Cassian and friends away.

This deck’s biggest issue is that it’s mono-Yellow. I’m not talking about fearing Kylo – Tormented One, because he hasn’t made up an appreciable part of the meta to this point. I am concerned with the inability to run Force Illusion, Field Medic, Dug In, or the many other cards that Rainbow Mill can use to keep alive.

Yoda would be obvious partner number two. With Cassian, you’d be looking at only 20 health. However, in the ideal roll, you can mill four and force discard two. Additionally, Blue gives you some protection, more varied removal, and a few cheeky mill cards.

These aren’t game changers, but they can at least help move things along. If you can get rid of 8 cards per turn, through mill and discard, they’ll barely creep into round four, so a slight increase in your output can still have you finishing up in round three.

Rieekan just doesn’t make sense as a partner for Cassian. Though Red is desirable here, a lineup of Cassian/Rieekan/Jedha clocks in at 30 points exactly and maxes out at four mill and two discard. However, if you don’t have any way of keeping the shields around, Rieekan’s two mill are shut down. I like the previous matchups better.