A
Pirate to be Respected. and Feared
By
Ryan Searby
With the release
of the Scum and Villainy expansion, the IDC wished to provide
the Star Wars Trading Card Game community with cards that exemplified
the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars universe. The Card Development
(CD) committee tried to incorporate a good balance of units represented
in the movies but also wished to spotlight a few characters from
the Expanded Universe (EU). Nym (A) is one such card.
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Nym is a Feeorin
that hails from his homeworld of Lok. Orphaned at a young age,
Nym had to do whatever he could to survive in the unforgiving
universe. As it turned out, Nym had quite a knack for piracy.
By the time he was an adult, Nym had already put together a crew
of pirates and built a reputation for his swift and efficient
strikes against anyone he felt had something worth stealing. He
carried out his guerrilla tactics in a spoil from one of his raids,
a bomber he named the Havoc. Although he harbors no love for any
organization save his crew, Nym does possess a strong sense of
justice. When he saw first hand the enormous military strength
the Trade Federation had amassed, he joined forces with mercenary
Vana Sage (the only person to ever capture Nym) to help cripple
the Trade Federation's assault during the conflict of Naboo.
During the
card creation process for the Scum and Villainy, Nym was a character
that was immediately and unanimously recognized as one that needed
to be in the set. His entire character profile fit everything
that CD was trying to highlight and provide to players. There
was some debate over what Nym (A)'s stats and abilities should
be but not as much as some of the other cards in the set. His
build cost (5) and stats (30 Speed, 5 Power, and 5 Health) changed
very little from his original card submission. He can compete
in the Character arena, and is a viable option against the new
Stealth units such as Lando Calrissian (J). As for his abilities,
CD knew he had to be a pilot since he originates from the video
game Star Wars: Starfighter, however CD wasn't sure what pilot
abilities he should provide, and what other abilities he should
have, if any at all.
One of the
main goals of the set was to make every card as playable as possible.
Originally, Nym (A)'s pilot abilities were +2 Power (rather that
+1) and Armor. It was felt that these two abilities fully represented
Nym as a consummate pirate who can strike quick and hard, and
escape battle with hardly a scratch on him. Ultimately, however
the power boost outweighed the cost of the card. CD envisioned
putting him on something like Luke's X-Wing ©, or the new Vader's
TIE Fighter © and felt that he gave these units too much Power
for only 5 build. So the choice was clear: either drop the Power,
or jack up the cost. CD opted for the former.
CD is very
pleased with the final result of this card. They feel it gives
players a new powerful pilot option to help fortify your starfighters,
and a card that is very representative of the EU character from
which it is derived. Hopefully, players will see Nym (A) in the
same way and utilize his power in their own decks.
Thoughts
or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.
About
the Author
About the
Author: Ryan Searby has been playing the Star Wars Trading Card
Game since January 2005, and a member of the Rebelbasers community
since August of that year. While relatively new to the game, he
has been a workgroup associate for the Card Development sub-committee
of the IDC since its inception. He posts on the Rebelbasers forums
as "pocketaces98".
