The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t my favorite Star Wars movie but, well, I pretty much abandoned high expectations for these movies long ago. What I’m actually struggling with is that this is the first Star Wars movie I’ve seen — perhaps the first Star Wars content I’ve seen — where I’m not really inspired to create any decks for it. For Episode VII, I added 4 decks. Rogue One, I added 4 more. For Episode VIII and Solo, I added a couple more for each. But, for Episode IX there just isn’t much new there:
- Rey: I think she is still very well captured by the Rey & BB-8 deck made after Episode VII. I might change one of BB-8’s card titles to NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A DROID.
- Kylo Ren: I like his deck the way it is and don’t feel compelled to change it. It’s not like he showed us any new, must-have tricks.
- Finn & Poe: Same. This movie actually reinforced pairing them, and not including Rose. There are probably some quotes that would make better card titles than what I’ve currently got, but I don’t feel compelled to change the deck in any way.
- General Hux: We did see a new wrinkle to his character and his deck could use a wrinkle, but I don’t think anyone really wants to play him anyways. If someone wants to add something to his deck beyond a “look at anyone’s hand” card, though, I’m all ears.
- Emperor Palpatine: He showed a new thing or 2, but not enough to come up with an entirely new deck for him. Someone else can give it a go but I’m not so inspired.
- General Pryde: I don’t see what new quotes or new moves he brings to the table. He’d just be another officer type. We already have several of those, and none of them are my favorite decks.
The one deck I might be interested in are those Jetpack Stormtroopers: Maybe a deck with 2 of these guys as the major, along with 2 standard stormies as the minor, something like that? Or perhaps we could use them as minors to Pryde. They never really appeared together but at least that way Pryde would be semi-interesting.
Any other suggestions?
Edit: Maybe the Knights of Ren? Looks like JAG is on it!
How about something like this for Hux?
COORDINATED ATTACK you have the option to discard 1 maybe 2 cards to have it not count as an action.
CHARGE WEAPON you reshuffle your COORDINATED ATTACKs instead of your FIRE WEAPON
Replace RUTHLESS ATTACK with BETRAYAL: Choose an opponent to discard 3 or 4 cards. Hux draws 3 or 4 cards.
Dream move: 2x Coordinated Attack with discards, Charge Weapon, Betrayal
The only new characters from this movie I could see a deck being made for are The Knights of Ren. I mean, I know in the film they don’t do much, but they look cool and in the EU they all have names and unique specializations. Don’t know if they should be a triple personality deck or 2 two personality deck (although I’m not sure if they are worth making two decks for).
Yeah that’s a good call. I might suggest trying them as a 3-character deck like the Nazgul since we don’t really have one of those in SWED. I suggested that for the Praetorian Guard but I guess they come in pairs so I think the guy went with 2 sets of 2 guards for that one. If there’s nothing like that going on with the Knights of Ren just do 3.
Here’s a rough draft I came up with for the Knights (as a 3-character deck).
3x Knights of Ren: 8 HP each, Brown + Weak Melee Decks
3x Hunters
A6: Apply the following based on the number of Knights adjacent to the defender. 1: Move the defender up to 4 spaces. 2: Move all Knights up to 4 spaces each. 3: Both 1 and 2.
3x Martial Prowess
A3: Apply the following based on the number of Knights still in play. 1: Move the attacking Knight up to 6 spaces. 2: The player controlling the defender loses an action next turn. 3: Playing this card does not count as an action.
2x Heavily Armed
Draw 1 card. For every Knight still in play, draw an additional card.
2x Encircle
A5: Apply the following based on the number of Knights adjacent to the defender. 1: Draw a card. 2: Add 2 to this card’s value. 3: Add 4 to this card’s value and draw 2 cards.
1x ???
A10: Apply the following effect based on the number of Knights in play. 1: Discard 2 cards at random. 2: You lose an action on your next turn. 3: Discard a card to draw a card.
1x Reinforcements
If you have 2 Knights in play, place a destroyed Knight adjacent to any other Knight with 4 hit points remaining. If you have 1 Knight in play, place 2 destroyed Knights to any empty spaces with 3 hit points each.
It’s going to be too much of a “strong early, fades late” deck. You kill one Knight and you’ve taken a lot away from them, kill a second Knight and you almost don’t even have to worry about the third.
I would make some cards unreliant upon the number of Knights and therefore dangerous even if there’s only one left. If you look at the Nazgul, DEATH GRIP and BLACK BREATH intentionally don’t care how many Nazgul are on the board.
Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of. I’ll think over some ideas for new cards and post the deck to the wiki when I have something.
If you wanna keep “Heavily Armored” the way it is I’d make it 2 cards plus one for each, otherwise its just a really weak gain power, this way it would average at 3 but could sometimes be 4.
All that said that card seems really generic and the kind of thing you really could replace with a card that has nothing to do with the number of knights. Alternatively you could maybe have a card where you get a 2nd reenforcement knight if you’re down to 1 and fulfill some extra condition. This is intentionally comedic but maybe something like
x2 Cry for Help- D0 If this is the last knight remaining, and you survive the attack, put 1 Knight of Ren on the board adjacent to the defender with 3 hit points
or something
Thanks for the suggestions and that’s is a fun card idea, but now that I’ve changed my Praetorian Guard to fill the role of Nazgul-like deck, I’ve gone in a different direction with The Knights. Right now, I’m trying out two 3-personality decks (one melee squad and one ranged squad) of which only the ranged squad uses ideas from my above draft.
Since these aren’t easy decks to get right, I’m letting them both brew for awhile (although the melee squad (Ushar, Trudgeon, and Ap’Lek) is further along).