A new R2-D2 card has been dropped as a spoiler. The little droid is one of my favorite Star Wars characters and very likely the absolute top of my personal list. Certainly happy to see another snapshot in time of the little droid.
The card design here is really interesting, especially when comparing it to the version of R2 from Spark of the Rebellion. Both of them allow a player to dig into their deck to find alternate cards.
Thematically, this is very cool in that R2 is basically a rolling, beeping, Swiss army knife of cool gadgetry. Need a computer terminal hacked, there’s a tool for that. Stuck in a net and need a buzzsaw to get out, no problem. Hide a lightsaber someplace, piece of cake. Some stow away booster jets, got ‘em.
That the two cards do this same thematic task but in slightly different ways is really a testament to the great work that the design team at FFG is doing.
Which one is better? No idea yet as I just saw the card about 20 minutes ago. One has a cost advantage, however the extra resource gains an extra power for attacking. One lets you dig 3 cards into your deck, but only one time while the other can keep digging one card over and over. The single aspect version is easier to drop into Heroic decks and the other is a bit more limited by having the double aspect.
I’m sure a ton of work goes into each card during the design process. Being able to create two of the same character that work so similarly in terms of theme must make it that much harder. Add on that there is no clear cut “better” version so it’s not a definitive power creep situation.
A similar thematic win was accomplished with the Han leaders. Both the Han from Spark of the Rebellion and the Han from Shadows of the Galaxy help you ramp units out faster with some type of penalty. In various online chats and even in person I heard these get referred to as Han1 and Han2 due to the set numbers.
What then are the R2’s going to be? R21 and R23? R2-1 and R2-3? Artoo1 and Artoo3? R2-SOR and R2-TOR? I’d be willing to let everyone use “R2-Take 2” if you want.
card art (2) community (3) cunning (2) draft (5) get off my lawn (15) guest article (11) guest author (3) how-to (2) leaders (6) podcast (5) pre-release (3) prerelease (3) quiz (2) spark of rebellion (3) speculation (2) spoilers (3) swu harvest podcast (3) tier list (2) vigilance (2) youtube (3)
Leave a Reply