Written by DarkAngelAz, with Introduction & Conclusion by JGG
Introduction
Welcome back to another issue of High Stakes Spoilers. As promised, here is issue 3….
11 health for 11/14 is good and she has three damage sides. Her Power Action is okay, but no more than that basically being a one damage swing at the cost of some tempo by having to only resolve one of her character dice. I like her passive ability, as it means she can basically play any weapon and not have to worry abut mismatched damage sides.
At 14 elite she has no shortage of partners in the mid range, especially in Blue but Cara will slot into any middle, middle weapon build very nicely. Her ability combined with Jedi Leia could mean a regular damage output while also adding 2-3 shields a turn.
If Cara was good then her blaster will see lots of play in upgrade decks. With five damage sides (because the passive ability on the blaster is immense and increased consistency can never be underestimated) and only one being a pay side is such good value for 2. The redeploy if it is on Cara is nice but not really relevant to the value of this card.
This will see play in a lot of Hero decks, and rightly so.
This is an interesting ramp card, which in a Red upgrade deck will see play as resource regen. But at less than 3 upgrades, it just doesn’t feel useful enough to play. With two upgrades, a net gain of one more resource at the cost of a card, and an action, feels too weak to justify including in most decks, but I could be wrong about this.
First up we have the Star Wars: Destiny debut of Ki-Adi-Mundi. A respectable 11 health for a 12/14, but we can’t really consider what value he has without talking about his passive ability. High Stakes introduces a new mechanic to SWD, Renew. This is discard pile recursion and a number of spoiled cards (and possibly more) have this. You can play a card with Renew from your discard pile for it’s renew cost before setting it aside. This mechanic opens up new design space and while initially, quite rightly, it seems focused on Blue Heroes. I am sure other colors and factions will start to interact with it. Being able to aggressively discard cards for re-rolls or search for particular cards whilst still knowing some of those can be played will make for a very interesting style of play.
Ki-Adi’s Power Action synergizes perfectly with a Renew discard strategy and his die seem very much focused on small melee damage and dice fixing with an incredibly valuable 2 focus side. Being able to partner him with Anakin and manipulate those big hitting dice would be where I would look initially for a powerful mono Blue build
This event is a wonderful piece of design. It follows the normal Renewed Hope template of mitigation by having a targeting restriction to play and on what dice it can remove, but very much playable in a Blue deck. The Renew costs 2, rather than 1 to play it from hand, just adds a little check to balance the power of successive actions removing dice.
This card fits its name very well. I don’t see it being played outside of a Renew deck, but it could provide a lot of sustainability for those decks but the cost is potentially high in terms of cards being discarded. I like it, and it feels like in a Ki-Adi-Mundi deck, it should see use.
Everyone’s favorite Non-Jedi Force User. This version of Ahsoka isn’t the snippy apprentice or the brash woman who has fought Maul and lived. Nor even is she Fulcrum of the Rebels, this is the finished article. Focused, assured of her own abilities, and relaxed about who she is.
Her die is a parallel die with the first Ahsoka, which is a nice touch from design too.
13 in Red or Blue feels a little awkward for a good partner, but with Yellow, it feels like there is a good range of options.
12 health for 14/17 doesn’t feel amazing with only two damage sides, but her Power Action (once you have two (or more) weapons attached) is where she really shines. Add in Jar’Kai and she can slap most characters around like a rag doll without too much difficulty. There are a number of candidates for what those two weapons should be (including the aforementioned Cara’s Blaster) and which leads me neatly on to….
For two resources this weapon, particularly if on Ahsoka, it is immense. Three damage sides all of which could be increased by one if the attached character has two weapons attached. Being non-unique on Ahsoka is as it should be.
A cheeky little event, which has the very necessary restriction of having to be an elite character as no-one wants Younglings or Zombies exhausting for free gear. I am sure in a reset deck there will be a role for this card, but the cost of exhausting an elite Blue character is high. Lovely art selection for this card too I felt.
Conclusion
As always, thank you so much for reading our article on these 9 spoilers from High Stakes. We are not done yet, so stay on the look out for Issue #4. Thanks again, and May the Force be with you
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