Last night on the Destiny Junior TTS channel, we were treated to three new spoilers from the soon to be released Continuing Committee expansion: Faltering Allegiances.

Before we get into them, the other thing that happened over the past few days is that the Renewed Hope team re-released their first spoilers using new art and templating, and wow, what a difference. We discussed the criticism levelled at the team in our previous article, and the speed with which they turned these around and the professionalism with which they took the criticism for the original design was impressive. Everything about the new look is better: the art, the framing, the positioning, the font, the logo (which looks really good), the points… everything. Good work team:

Anyway, on with the new spoilers. First up, Saw Gerrera:

The first spoiler and the one everyone’s been talking about. Saw Gerrera features absolutely unprecedented monster die sides and a brand new design idea: an elite character that costs less than its non-elite version.

We already knew this was coming, as Agent of Zion spoiled a snapshot of the points cost of an 18/15 character a week or so back, which set off some pretty interesting speculation. What this means is that Saw will not be the only character with this flipped scoring system, as he comes in at 17/15.

At 17 points you get 12 health and the monster die. Despite the die, I would say that feels quite overcosted in today’s Destiny. For the same number of points you can get non-elite Transformations Vader, who comes with 15 health, and die sides that when combined with his Power Action are better (I think). Or sticking with hero yellow for a mere 10 points you could get Transformations Han. With only one die, he’s also going to be easier to mitigate.

Where the real money lies is in a 15 point elite Saw. You’re going to roll out on average 7 indirect, which is huge (and don’t underestimate that 3 disrupt side either – it could easily be the most oppressive side on the die). However, every time you roll out or re-roll his dice, you deal yourself 1 indirect per die. Effectively this means that you can subtract one from the net damage output of his dice per roll. Hit a 4 indirect on a die on the roll-out, and you’re getting 3 damage net. Hit a blank then re-roll to hit a 4, and you’re netting 2.

You really don’t want to get mitigated after hitting yourself for damage, so you might be looking at Instigate for some ambush activation, with Drop In rotating out of standard. The huge sides help against some mitigation as they slip past cards like Forsaken and Electroshock.

If Aphra has taught us anything, it’s that if you’re going to be hitting yourself for indirect, you’re going to need a lot of health to soak it all up, and that means either going 3 wide (though I would so love to pair him with ePadme) or packing a big health partner and some healing, such as a red Wookiee, Valorous Tribe and Run To Safety (the trooper subtype helps here).

I like the idea of pairing with red, as that gives access to Target Acquired to focus down all the indirect damage, and the Admiral/You Are In Command Now combo. Yes, he should be a leader from a Star Wars canon point of view (plus Legacies Saw was a leader) but I understand the decision not to, to prevent the easy Admiral play.

In infinite, he feels like he might be broken with Enfys and 0-0-0, but those will be rotating out of standard thankfully. If you forget what the new standard will be, here’s a handy swdestinydb link which will take you to the full new standard card list.

Overall, I really like not only this character but the new design space it represents. I think he’s going to be popular, and may well spawn his own deck archetype, much like Aphra did for villain. I think he’s also going to be fun, and that’s important. I’m currently undecided about how good he is though, but I’m swaying towards not top tier, unless we see some cards to support dealing yourself indirect, as we did for Aphra.

Hmm, I’m not sold on this character. The die sides are OK, and clearly modelled on the Jedha Partisan. The one indirect when you discard the last card of your hand is a nice little bonus, though it feels like a shame you have to mill yourself in the process. There’s just too many good 8 point yellow characters I’d take first. I don’t think I’ll be playing him unless there’s some excellent ‘spot Partisan‘ cards.

I like this card. The spot requirement is pretty easy for yellow (there’s just so many scoundrels and we just gained two partisans). And you’re dealing yourself 2 indirect to remove a die and that seems pretty on par. In fact if anything maybe a bit better than on par when compared to cards like By Any Means which deal 1 damage to yourself but cost a resource. The downside of course is non-character die only. Despite this limitation, this is going to be at least a one-of for me in all my scoundrel decks from now on, and may become better if there’s unspoiled cards that interact with dealing yourself indirect damage.

But why doesn’t it have ambush? The card literally has ambush in the title, and the only other card previously released with ambush in the title, had ambush.

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