Yesterday on Dice Commando, a new spoiler was revealed: Cassian Andor. It’s just one card, but we thought he was worth a review article on his own:

It must be said that Cassian has pretty bad dice sides, though he does at least have a resource side. Those modifier sides are going to be particularly annoying. However, he has 3 strong abilities.

Firstly, he has the Detect keyword. In a vacuum this is pretty good, but with all the Detect interactions we’re expecting from Faltering Allegiances, this could prove to be very strong indeed. This is especially true when paired with new Jyn, denying the opponent the ability to play two cards per round.

The second is his deck building bonus. We’ve only seen 4 cards with the Intel subtype to date: Target Acquired, Secrets Laid Bare, Shadowed and Forewarned. However, there’s bound to be more in this set for this ability to make sense. Forewarned is obviously going to be a great include with Cass if you’re not running yellow already.

A quick reminder that abilities like this are in addition to other deck building restrictions. His ability states the four cards have to be different, but if you were running yellow anyway you’re allowed two copies of Forewarned as you’d be allowed this card anyway. You also can’t use his ability to have 3 copies of Forewarned.

The third and final ability is where Cass really shines. The power to ready a non-character card, and essentially for free, is huge. However, you need to spot a leader and play a yellow card, and Cass is neither.

The obvious thematic pairing for Cassian is eJyn. Assuming we get at least two new yellow Intel cards in hero or villain, we can have 4 yellows in our deck. Also, we get to run the United plot elite, which is going to be huge with Jyn. You could then potentially use Cassian to ready Admiral on Jyn for 3 activations of her per round.

However, the double Admiral reset play looks fairly unlikely. You have to be hitting that special side twice in one round, and it not get mitigated either time, for it to pay off. That being said, given that you’ll be Detecting 2 cards from your opponent’s hand by activating Jyn and Cassian, and they won’t be able to play either of them, you could actually catch their mitigation, so you may be free to crack on with your game plan and pull off multiple resets. Either way, seeing as you’ll be running Admiral anyway, it’s a nice interaction to have up your sleeve.

A more consistent target for Cass’ ability may be a support such as Padmé Amidala’s Starship (which would give Jyn two free shields per round), Ghost, or even the LR-57 Combat Droid (complete with droid mods) to load up that special, or a Mechant Freighter for some extra ramp. If you’re interested, here’s a link to all possible dice supports for this pairing in the new standard.

While this pairing is probably going to be strong and fun, and resilient thanks to Field Medic and Run For Safety, it would be great to abuse Cass’ ability as much as possible. With only 4 yellow cards in your deck this doesn’t sound super-consistent.

Alternatively, if you pair him up with a yellow character, preferably a leader, you can (practically) guarantee using his ability every round as you can stack your deck with yellow cards.

One such yellow leader could be eEnfys Nest. She brings with her two villain cards, meaning Cassian could be used to ready Megablaster Troopers and spam the board with 6 dice. Ramping into 4 resources should be pretty easy with a Reap into an Enfys Power Action on her resource side (plus some help from a double use of the Mechant Freigher). And remember that you can roll in more First Order Stormtrooper dice to your pool even if you have some in there already from the first activation of the Megablasters. You might also think about including Master of Disguise to make Cassian a leader (and scoundrel) too. It’s just a shame that Strategic Planning is rotating out…

Another possible partner would be Satine. She’s yellow, a leader, and at just 10 points elite opens up the possibility of a 3-wide, perhaps with Amilyn Holdo (who is also a leader) for a full-on hero vehicles build.

Something else worth considering might be a build including Clawdite Shapeshifter. At 6 points, it’s the cheapest “leader” in the game, though you’d probably want another leader as otherwise Cassian‘s ability only has 6 health in it.

One final idea, which may be a little silly but could be fun: Cassian/eSatine/Obi-Wan(Tr). If you defeat Obi-Wan in the first round of the game, you could be looking at getting 2 uses out of his spirit per round.

Honestly, this idea doesn’t immediately sound very competitive, but abilities like Cassian‘s are going to create some pretty interesting and unusual decks, and that’s one of the reasons why we like him. The only downside is the Continuing Committee are going to have to work extra-hard to make sure that nothing broken slips through the net.

Thankfully, most vehicle mods have rotated out of standard, but many droid supports and all droid mods have not. An LR-57 Combat Droid or Mr. Bones complete with a Salvaged Arm and a couple of Rocket Boosters could wreak a lot of havoc if allowed multiple activations per round.

Anyway, we’re loving how it’s all looking and can’t wait for some villain spoilers from iRebel.

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