I’ve always rated the card Rebel Traitor highly thanks to its ability which acts as pseudo action cheating, as well as providing the power to mess up the opponent’s sequencing. It’s also fairly costed for the die sides and health.
I believe the character could be strongest in a support deck, where you rely less on character dice, but it was effectively nerfed when it got added to the restricted list, to avoid an OP interaction with Order 66, meaning you can no longer play it with Theed or Vader’s Fist.
This is one of many examples why I think the restricted list, in its current form, was poorly implemented, though I agree that some form of action was necessary.
Because of this nerf, I’ve not really considered building with it. However, the arrival of Pulse Cannon and then Face The Enemy has made me revisit this character. The success also of the Crime Lord deck in the recent UKEU TTS event, made me decide the time had come.
Face The Enemy is one of the most powerful cards in the game, but one strategy to play around it when facing red villain is to play the card you’re worried about losing before the opponent activates one of their characters. It’s not guaranteed, but can be a lifesaver if you’re Bane and have a Shien Mastery to drop, or you’re on Trandoshans and only have one bounty in your hand.
Rebel Traitor allows you to circumvent the play restriction, resulting in an oppressive combination which prevents an opponent from being able to play a card before they get hit with it.
Pulse Cannon and Crime Lord meanwhile are powerful dice, which are vulnerable to removal. Putting a Crime Lord on a Rebel Traitor gives you a one in three chance of Crime Lord-ing an opponent’s character without the chance for mitigation, as your opponent has to activate a character instead of playing a card as their next action.
Similarly, guaranteeing the Pulse Cannon PA as your second action means you can hit the opponent hard and fast with disrupts and damage before the opponent has had a chance to play a card. So long as you have a good resource engine, even paying one to disrupt one isn’t a bad opening move against resource starved decks.
With 8 character points and 6 cards lined up, I needed the rest of the deck. I’d like characters to draw attention away from the Traitor, resource generation and another yellow character to push the Crime Lord strategy, and a red character to give me Face The Enemy. If I’m trying to generate resources, I might as well play supports as they’re the most efficient use of money villain has available.
I considered Watto, but Jabba won out due to his ability to pull Reap and the fact he’s a leader for Megablaster Troopers and Counterintelligence.
Wat Tambor was the obvious red character for supports, and is certainly a good character for drawing fire.
That all said here’s what I’ve been playing:
This deck came out as a pretty staple Jabba supports deck, but with the Traitor as its secret weapon. It’s by no means perfect, it’s probably too light on mitigation (maybe it could do with an Electroshock), but it’s fairly effective, providing more tools to victory and being more disruptive to the opponent’s plans than a classic supports deck.
The lack of Vader’s Fist, Hidden Motive and Forsaken hurts a bit, but I feel like the upside outweighs the down.
Wat continues to be incredibly powerful with TIE Bombers and The “Duchess”; backup damage comes from Megablasters and Fickle Mercenaries; there’s plenty of hand control in the form of Face The Enemy, Counterintelligence and Probe; and I have a healthy number of yellow events to target with Jabba.
When mulliganning, if you’re up against a little-big deck go deep for Crime Lord. It’s very doable as a round 2 kill with Jabba’s +2 sides, so long as you can control the opponent’s hand round 1.
If you’re against 3-wide, you might want to consider the supports approach, using the Traitor for Face The Enemy plays, and drop a surprise Pulse Cannon later in the game.
Have fun.
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