With 3 days to go before release, here we have a review of some Faltering Allegiances spoilers, brought to us by the DDU Network and Eric Wainright/Kroozin.

We though these were going to be the last spoilers before the full set goes live on Friday, but then they went and spoiled 9 more cards in the last 24 hours, so looks we might be doing another. Anyway, for now, here’s 7 new cards:

The second Bazine Netal of the game, and she is a good one. 12/14 for 10 health is so-so, but she comes with 2 resource sides, including a handy +2 resource side as well as the Detect keyword.

She also packs an impressive ability, dealing 1 damage to a character whenever the opponent plays a Detected card. This could add up over the course of a game, especially if paired with another character with Detect, and could go some way to making up for the lack of damage sides.

Where she really shines is in her Power Action. The potential to stack resources on non-character cards could be pretty huge. Here’s some possible previous targets for this ability:

OK, some of these ideas aren’t good ones, but they’re all there for completeness. Of these, the Z6-Jetpack and LR-57 Combat Droid may be the best, though there may be a build revolving around loading up Force Storm with a bunch of double focus sides in your deck to keep it on the special, much like the pre-errata Palpatine/Wat Tambor deck. All of these could be dealing 6+ damage per resolution the round after its played, which could certainly start adding up.

The Construct the Death Star play is an interesting one, but since you have to remove one of her dice showing resource to trigger the ability, this works out to only +1 resource per round. Given she’s not exactly ideally costed for a Death Star build anyway, this isn’t really going to be an issue.

What we love about this character most of all though is there’s just so many options. And talking of options, here’s two more from the latest spoilers:

This presents a neat mechanic, where, for a large investment, you can steal a character. Combined with Bazine, you could, if you ramp hard and roll well, be stacking this with 4-5 resources per round. And remember this rolls in when the character is activated, so is hard to mitigate if it rolls well. Also, those sides can be modified, so if you have a couple of +2 resource sides in your deck, this could pay off quickly.

The problem is though, you’re going to need to resolve this round 1 to really stand a good chance of pulling this off, and you need to be facing a sub-10 point character, probably. It’s fun, and should crop up in casual games, but probably isn’t going to be particularly competitive. Also, it has the intel keyword, so Cassian‘s allowed to have a go.

Here’s another new card which, for an investment, could really pay off:

A mono-red deck can easily be resolving 11 dice in a couple of rounds, especially if it’s full of cheap upgrades and supports. If you get this out round 1 in such a build, it’d be surprising if you didn’t manage to spawn a trooper for just two resources in round 2 or early round 3. And don’t forget that if you have two copies of this card you get to stack both of them with a resource every time you resolve a red die. Two of these in your opening hand is unlikely, but could be killer.

Just to be clear, you cannot spawn a non-unique elite character, but it’s still going to be worth it to spawn a non-elite Kashyyyk Warrior or Imperial Death Trooper. In infinite you could even spawn a Mandalorian Super Commando, even if you’re running mono-red. If we see any non-red non-unique troopers in the future, this could be a fun way of adding a new colour to your line-up mid-game.

It’s slightly surprising this isn’t set aside after resolving, as a just-in-case caveat. There might be a crazy Docking Bay infinite deck that tries to use this multiple times, but realistically, if you’re able to pull this off twice with the same copy, the game’s probably almost done anyway.

The last of the yellow spoils is this curious card:

For two resources, you get to play one of the opponent’s cards. The catch: they get to see the two cards on offer but only show you one of them. Then you pick which you get to play, and which the opponent gets to play.

This could massively backfire. If both cards are approximately similar in their impact, you are gifting your opponent a free card for your two resources. If you mis-pick, this works hugely in your opponent’s favour. This is fun, but unless you know ahead of time what those two cards are, this probably isn’t going to be worth an include.

So how do we know what the top two cards are? There aren’t many options in Standard, though there’s lots in infinite. Here’s a couple of options in Standard:

Thrawn loves this card. He knows what the two cards are after activating, so can play it at the perfect time, and doesn’t need a set-up card.

However, a set up card guarantees maximum value. The best play is likely to be Face The Enemy. You get to look at 7 cards (assuming your opponent has a full hand) and put the worst and best cards on top of their deck, then follow it with Rotten Deal. Misinformation would function in a similar way, but searches the opponent’s discard pile instead, meaning it’s only live late game.

As both these cards are decent cards in a Thrawn deck anyway, we could see these 6 cards (2 Face The Enemy, 2 Misinformation and 2 Rotten Deal) cropping up in Thrawn/yellow decks to pretty good effect.

And finally, we have a few blue cards:

Built in draw for a 9/12; that’s pretty good. The catch: you need to run mono-blue to make full use of it. It’s an acceptable catch, and Sifo-Dyas’ sides are decent if not great. Only 9 health and mostly 1s makes this character a fair character, who will create some interesting lower-than-usual cost builds.

And just to be clear, if you choose not to draw the revealed card, it gets discarded. Thus endeth the dreams of a blue deck with Greez to guarantee hitting with his ability.

We’re glad to see A Renewed Hope continue with the forms. Here, for 3 resources, you get 3 sets of 3 indirect, which is OK. You also get an on-play ability which could be clutch, but is far, far less consistent or valuable than any of the previous on-play abilities we’ve seen from the forms (remove a die showing damage – Soresu, turn a character/upgrade die to any side – Niman, roll this die into your pool – Shien).

The special seems highly underwhelming. Sure, you might get to turn two dice, but you have to turn a die showing damage to another side in order to be able to turn a die to a side showing melee damage. This makes this just so situational, and even if you do get maximum value, it just doesn’t seem that great for an upgrade that costs 3. Remember Force Leap could blank a die showing damage and got re-rolled, and it only cost 1 resource.

It would have been great if this had dropped the ‘Then’, or preferably if you had to exhaust the upgrade to trigger the special, along with a separate sentence which read: “Re-roll this die instead of removing it”, much like Sith Lord. That would probably justify this special on a 3 cost upgrade.

As it stands, people are likely to stick with previous forms over this one, unless we get some really good cards that target this form, like we’ve seen with previous move events such as Pushing Slash, Draw Closer, Falling Avalanche and Circle of Shelter. And finally:

Here we have effectively the introduction of a side-board for Destiny, the first time we’ve seen such a mechanic in the game. To date there are 8 moves available, and this card would suggest we might be getting more in this set. This card allows you to bring all 8 to a game and pick your favourite 2 based on the match-up to shuffle in.

The problem with the card is it feels too random. You’re playing it now to maybe draw the card later. Oh, how amazing would it have been if you got to draw a card after playing it, maybe with a spot requirement such as apprentice… but maybe then it would be too good for ReyLo.

Overall, an interesting card, and one that will be intriguing to see how it plays out in a game.

That’s all for now. 30 cards have been spoiled so far for this set, and 60 more will get revealed on Friday. We can’t wait.

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