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This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend two pre-release events at my local game store. Two events is not enough to have completely solved a format, and any analysis based on just a couple of data points is going to be flawed and subject to high variance. If you had a different experience at your pre-release that's awesome, and hopefully it gave you insight into the Jump to Lightspeed limited environment that you can apply to draft or future sealed events.
Friday Night
My local game store was pretty busy, it looked like lots of people were excited to play this set; and with good reason! To many people's disappointment, Twilight of the Republic (set 3) didn't really shake up the meta that much, and many folks were hoping that with the introduction of pilots and lots of strong ships, that the new meta game would shift. Pre-release is the first opportunity to play with the cards that folks were excited to see, so it makes sense that lots of folks would come out to this one in particular.
The first pack I open, I stare down at my first legendary.... Unity of Purpose.... hah. The rest of my pool was certainly better, I pulled a Darth Vader, Scourge of Squadrons and a Turbolaser Salvo, both of which I think are pretty solid. With that, and a few other solid Aggression, Command, and Villainy cards, I build my first deck of the format, a Boba Fett, Any Methods Necessary command list. Initially I wasn't thrilled to run that leader. I was really hoping to get there on Thrawn but unfortunately I only had 4 when defeated cards total.
That turned out to be a blessing, I think.
My first match of the night went well, in my set review I thought that you would probably be flipping your leaders as pilots maybe 60% of the time and they ought to be backed up by a strong body if you couldn't get there on the pilots, but now I think you should be trying to flip your leader as a pilot basically all of the time. Now obviously, this change of heart could be due to the fact that I was playing Boba Fett, who has a rather strong "when flipped as a pilot" ability, but many leaders have such an ability. Even if they don't, just making one of your units permanently big, difficult to remove, and able to attack immediately with these new stats is a scary prospect for your opponent. In constructed this may be different, maybe the threat of Rival's Fall is enough to keep folks thinking twice about flipping their leader as a pilot, but I think in draft and sealed it's going to be right most of the time to do that.
Full disclosure, my record in 4 best of 1 rounds was 2-2 on Friday night. I'm not sure if I built my deck with not enough ships (12 ships) or I just drew poorly, because in the games in which I lost I wasn't quite able to stabilize from my opponent's nuclear flip turns.
Saturday
With renewed vigour, I show back up at my game store eager to prove the 2-2 was a fluke. I open the kit and find.... no playable legendaries. But that's okay! As I often say, games of limited are won on the backs of the common folk. And uncommon folk. Commons and uncommons, you know what I mean.
I throw together my best cards and find.... I am in Aggression Command and Villainy again.... with Boba Fett as my leader again. Look, I didn't force it (why would I force a deck that only went 2-2?) with sealed you work with what you opened and that was what I opened. This time I learned my lesson from yesterday and ran as many space units as I could justify so I would always have somewhere to put Boba and some way to use Focus Fire.
With my updated knowledge from the night before, I payed extra-special attention to control my opponents vehicles whenever I could. If it was coming up on their leader's flip turn or I suspected they had a common or uncommon pilot in hand (I don't tend to play around rares or legendaries during pre-release), I would take out whatever ship would be most problematic to be piloted. Sometimes taking it for myself with Pantoran Starship Thief, a card that I undervalued. The card isn't exceptional, but getting to take a unit they were likely going to deploy their leader onto on a common flip turn (turn 4 or 5) felt VERY strong.
I would also love to give a nod to Eject. Once again, this card is not amazing and sometimes you'll resource it, but when it works for you it REALLY works for you. One thing that people don't know about this card is that can target your opponents ships. Sometimes your opponent will pilot a ship and use it to eat one of your smaller units, expecting you to need to cash in your larger unit to deal with it, but with eject, sure you give them a ground unit, but you can oftentimes just destroy a ship and draw a card. Maybe you also have a way to deal with the ground unit. Definitely not the greatest card in the set but it got me a decent amount of value at pre-release, it's something to keep an eye on in my opinion (no one EVER saw it coming).
Keeping careful control of the board whenever I could and making sure to interrupt my opponent's tempo as much as I could, I managed to 4-0 my Saturday pre-release. Call that a redemption arc. Thanks Boba Fett for believing in me.
General Takeaways
One thing I was very much right about was removal. Oh my goodness removal was SO good in this format. I'm a long time draft/sealed player, in both Magic: The Gathering and Star Wars Unlimted. It's almost a community in-joke how good removal is in these limited formats, so when I say it was EXCEPTIONALLY good here, I really mean it. Of course, removing a unit immediately after your opponent put a pilot on it was oftentimes just completely game winning, but there was also the case of removing units BEFORE your opponent could put a pilot on it, especially their leader. If your opponent is playing vehicles leading up to their flip turn, you should absolutely deal with that. If you can delay their leader's flip by even 1 turn, that is quite a large tempo loss that will often result with you winning that game.
I'd like to re-iterate how strong pilot leaders are. Each game I had an opponent with a leader that could not pilot felt like a MUCH easier win when compared with leaders who could flip into pilots. That's not to say that sometimes you don't want to build Grand Admiral Thrawn, ...How Unfortunate or Rose Tico, Saving What we Love, who are strong leaders in their own rights. I just think that oftentimes if you can build towards a pilot leader in draft or sealed, you should seriously consider the ability to pilot as a major benefit for your game plan.
If you're drafting a leader who can flip into a pilot, you obviously need to make sure you get enough vehicles to make that happen. I think the number of vehicles in this set is at a weird intersection. If you're completely ignoring them, you are going to certainly wish you got more, however there are plenty. I think that so long as you are paying a tiny bit of attention to vehicle number in addition to your overall resource curve, space-ground balance, and other draft metrics, you will end up with enough vehicles. Just don't expect it to always happen automatically, especially if those around you are looking for vehicles as well.
Also, a couple of synnergies at low rarities. First Order Stormtrooper played on turn 1 with Boba Fett as your leader is VERY strong. Especially when your opponent will be likely playing to space.
Vonreg's TIE Interceptor, Ace of the First Order is obviously strong with Major Vonreg, Red Baron, but it's also quite strong with the common Determined Recruit.
The command shaped elephant in the room
Now as I've said, two pre-release events does not really solidify a pattern, but I would be being dishonest if I didn't mention this. The fact that both of my decks were Aggression Command and Villainy isn't particularly shocking given how strong Boba is as a leader, but what was a bit more shocking were the decks of my opponents. After round one of Friday's pre-release, 7 of the top 8 decks were running command. At the end of the night, most of the decks that went 3-1 or better were command. That continued into Saturday as well, although I was admittedly less vigilant.
This doesn't necessarily mean that command is the strongest aspect in the format for limited, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Notably, draft and sealed are different formats, and most folks only play sealed at pre-release, meaning limited players like myself have our eyes set on draft. Draft is often a slightly faster format that allows for decks to have more synergy, so maybe the surplus of units that would pull folks into command at pre-release will not be as format-defining in draft. I will update with my findings as I begin to draft this set.
Summary and Draft Implications
In summary, my prediction about removal being better than usual in this set, frankly, did not go far enough. You should be evaluating efficient removal on the same level as most "bombs" in this format. Being able to either 2 for 1 your opponent's pilot, or control the board to avoid their leader flipping on curve just feels completely insane, and I will be keeping this in mind in draft.
Having a leader that flips into a pilot is also very strong. I noticed that all 8 of my pre-release games this weekend were in some very large part decided by the leader in a way that is much more extreme than a typical pre-release. Games where my opponents did not have a pilot leader felt much easier to win, and games were often completely over a turn or two after a pilot leader flipped. Games felt like a scramble to be on top the turn your leaders flipped, and that led to some fun and atypical play patters. I am very much looking forward to seeing how draft plays out this set!
Expect there to be an accompanying video on my Youtube channel where I talk about my thoughts in more depths and do a couple of "crack-a-packs" with draft in mind. That video is not up (or even filmed) at the time of this article being published, but hopefully it should be soon. Check out the channel here and subscribe so you don't miss any updates!
May the force be with you.
