We recently published a post explaining why we’re hopeful for the future of Destiny. One of our arguments was that there is a huge legacy of cards to enjoy.
However, if we’re going to be able to take advantage of the legacy of characters in Destiny, many of them need balancing to make them competitive.
If FFG don’t do it, I believe this should be the first move by the continuing committee as it has the potential to dramatically open up the game without the need for more cards. One power of a community team is they have ability to be nimble, so they should not be afraid of making bold balances, as these can be rapidly corrected if a problem arises.
But which characters need balancing? In typical echobase fashion, I’m going to analyse some data to answer that question.
Here’s the data I’ve got:
- I have every character lineup from every Top Cut in the entire 19/20 Prime Season. This means I’m only looking at characters in Standard (Legacies onwards) and during the Spark of Hope meta. This adds up to 620 decks, containing 1527 characters.
- I have a list of every card in standard thanks to swdestinydb.
By comparing the two, I can find out every character that’s never featured in any Top Cut (in the current meta). I think this is a good indication that the character is currently over-costed.
There are 143 characters in standard (not including Covert Missions). Of these 143 characters, 62 have never been in any 19/20 Prime Top Cuts. That’s 43% of characters.
For completeness, here is the full list of all 62 absent characters, sorted from worst value (1 = probably needs balancing) to best value (62 = might not need balancing) using the programme I wrote to calculate a very rough value for all characters:
set | character | set | character | ||
1 | CONV | Chewbacca | 32 | AoN | Outer Rim Outlaw |
2 | AtG | Savage Opress | 33 | LEG | Boba Fett |
3 | TPG | Rey | 34 | AoN | Fenn Rau |
4 | LEG | Battle Droid | 35 | SoH | Wicket |
5 | LEG | Wedge Antilles | 36 | LEG | Jedha Partisan |
6 | LEG | Hondo Ohnaka | 37 | CONV | Ahsoka Tano |
7 | WotF | Boss Nass | 38 | CONV | Maz Kanata |
8 | LEG | Tarkin | 39 | SoH | Amilyn Holdo |
9 | WotF | Count Dooku | 40 | WotF | Rex |
10 | WotF | Fifth Brother | 41 | RIV | Jawa Scavenger |
11 | WotF | Luke Skywalker | 42 | WotF | Executioner |
12 | CONV | Asajj Ventress | 43 | WotF | Ezra Bridger |
13 | LEG | Han Solo | 44 | AoN | Clawdite Shapeshifter |
14 | AtG | Barriss Offee | 45 | RIV | Anakin Skywalker |
15 | CONV | Dengar | 46 | AtG | Luce |
16 | AtG | Nightbrother | 47 | LEG | Veteran Stormtrooper |
17 | SoH | Old Daka | 48 | AtG | Val |
18 | AtG | “Mauler” Mithel | 49 | AtG | L3-37 |
19 | LEG | Luke Skywalker | 50 | CONV | Enfys Nest |
20 | AtG | Qui-Gon Jinn | 51 | LEG | Jedi Temple Guard |
21 | LEG | Jar Jar Binks | 52 | LEG | Rose |
22 | RIV | Ketsu Onyo | 53 | AtG | Force Mystic |
23 | CONV | K-2SO | 54 | WotF | Jabba The Hutt |
24 | LEG | Palpatine | 55 | LEG | Finn |
25 | WotF | Force Sensitive Outcast | 56 | CONV | Sly Moore |
26 | CONV | Ezra Bridger | 57 | WotF | Sebulba |
27 | WotF | Jedi Sentinel | 58 | LEG | Dark Advisor |
28 | AtG | Super Battle Droid | 59 | SoH | Dark Mystic |
29 | CONV | Obi-Wan Kenobi | 60 | LEG | Bib Fortuna |
30 | CONV | Kes Dameron | 61 | CONV | Vigilant Jedi |
31 | SoH | Nightsister Zombie | 62 | SoH | Youngling |
Some of these characters were a surprise to me. A number of them feel very fairly costed, but nevertheless none of them have made any Top Cuts during this long Prime Season.
I believe many of these characters need balancing, or they’ll sit forever in your binder. The characters at the top of my list aren’t necessarily the first that need balancing: my points value system sure isn’t perfect: a few did see play pre-Spark of Hope, such as Rey, Hondo, Tarkin and Dooku, plus characters like Chewbacca will be stronger once Covert Missions lands.
Nevertheless, in the current meta they just don’t seem to be able to cut it, and might need a little help or else we may never see them again:

For comparison, R2-D2 is our most popular character featuring in 118 Top Cut decks (19% of all 620 decks) followed by C-3PO on 112.
Taking the sting out of the most powerful decks in the meta is the other way to open it up to new decks. I’ve already written that I think hero droids urgently need another nerf as they continue to be the only deck to consistently outperform their already high representation. Click the image below for that article
Following close behind R2 and 3PO, our next most popular characters are: Sentinel Messenger: 95 appearances, ReyLo: 93, Chopper: 90, General Grievous (Convergence): 75, Palpatine (Convergence): 67, Aphra: 48, Watto: 44 and Mandalorian Commando: 41.
I don’t think any of these characters need an errata or points balance immediately, though these are ones to watch.
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