Star Duel
By Ryan Searby

This week, the IDC returns to give you insight into yet another Dark Side card from the new Star Wars Trading Card Game expansion Scum and Villainy. Since Darth Vader is the chosen one, and one of his remarkable talents is the ability to pilot any type of craft, it is only fitting that he has a starship worthy of his piloting prowess. It is also fitting that Star Wars TCG players be provided with a Space card worthy of any Dark Side deck. For such a card, players of all levels should look no further than this week’s spotlighted unit: Vader’s TIE Fighter (C).

With the Scum and Villainy expansion, the Card Development Sub-Committee (CD) of the IDC chose to build on one of the only, previously available, exclusively Dark Side, stackable space units in the game. In fact, CD wanted to create a card that would rival its light side counterpart: Luke’s X-Wing. Considering the amount of effort and ingenuity that went into creating the newest X-Wing (see the article, X-Factor), CD knew it would have its hands full creating a card with as much usefulness for Vader’s TIE Fighter.

Rethinking Vader's TIE Fighter
To begin, CD realized that even though the original two versions of Vader’s TIE Fighter were in their own ways useful, they were not widely popular and saw little play. This was especially evident with Vader’s TIE Fighter (A), which CD felt had great potential when it was originally released, but was simply outdated by newer cards and themes. What CD attempted to do was create a new card that held on to the (A) version’s essence, but could withstand the test of time and be useful to players for years to come.

One thing was clear from the start: Vader’s TIE Fighter (C) needed to be stronger statistically than its predecessors had been. So the first thing CD did was boost the Power and Health of the (C) version to 4 and 3 respectively, while maintaining the 50 Speed precedent set by the (A) version, while keeping the cost of the unit at an attractive 5 build. This gave the unit more of a fighting chance in the Space arena, and, as CD felt, greatly increased the unit’s playability.

Originally, CD was intent on giving the (C) version Critical Hit, if it satisfied a certain condition. For example, one ability suggested was; “If Vader’s TIE fighter is the only unit in the Space arena, it gets Critical Hit 4.” To start, CD really liked this idea and tinkered with the condition, eventually morphing the entire ability into various forms of “Vader’s TIE Fighter gets Critical Hit X when attacking a damaged unit” (Where X ranged anywhere from 2 to 5). However, it eventually became clear that Critical Hit was simply too similar to Luke’s X-wing (B), and CD would have to come up with something different to give Vader’s TIE fighter its own distinctiveness.

A New Power
CD realized that with all of the destructive power that Luke’s X-Wing (B) possesses, it still has one drawback in that it can only hit one unit at a time. A single intercept from a lowly one Health TIE Fighter DS-61-9 can essentially neutralize the X-Wing’s destructive capabilities. It became obvious to CD that Vader’s TIE fighter should be able to circumvent this hurdle. CD thought: ‘What better way to do that than to first allow the fighter to hit more than one target by giving it Overkill, then make it easier to do damage by giving it Accuracy?’ CD concluded that these two abilities in conjunction made a wonderfully powerful unit that could rival the damage inflicted by the X-Wing. To cap the ability off, CD maintained the condition portion of it by limiting the Overkill and Accuracy benefits to only when Vader’s TIE Fighter was attacking a starfighter. This was the logical choice since Vader’s TIE Fighter is not a capital ship killer, but rather a ship better suited for dueling other starfighters. CD decided the condition to the card’s ability was representative of the abilities of the fighter from the movies

Finally, CD felt that to make this card complete, and put it in the echelon with cards such as Luke's X-wing (E), and Dash Rendar (B), it had to have its own unique damage prevention. CD wanted to hold on to the spirit of Vader’s TIE Fighter (A)’s ability to return to hand, so they simply modified it to mimic that of the Snowtrooper Elite Squad. What more fitting way to represent Vader’s—and his starfighter’s—survival of the Battle of Yavin than by allowing it to retreat if suffering fatal damage (as long as Vader is in any arena)? As a finishing touch, CD decided to give the card Deflect; a damage prevention activated ability that is not as boring as Evasion, and somewhat unique to the space arena, (since the only other previous way to grant Deflect to a Space unit was to have Boba Fett (F) pilot a Patrol Ship). This would make opponents of the card think twice before attacking, knowing that some of the damage they inflict may come back to hurt them!

Overall, CD was very happy with this card and felt that it had cost efficiency, good abilities, and enough playability to make it as good as any card they had made for the set. Finally, the Dark Side had a starfighter to go toe to toe with the X-Wing.

Viability
It is not hard to imagine the possibilities that this card contains. It gives players a reason to include Darth Vader (D), the only version of Vader that is a pilot, who is widely regarded as over-costed. Or, if you don’t want to put Vader onto his own TIE fighter, you can add essentially any other starfighter pilot to it and suddenly you have a unit to be reckoned with, and giving players even more incentive to play DS pilot decks. Finally, this card provides Dark Side players with a stackable starfighter option that can hold its own in the Space arena, or at the very least, peck away at your opponent’s forces, unable to be destroyed, while Vader sits in your Character arena.

Vader’s TIE Fighter (C) brings a lot to the table and ups the ante of Dark Side versatility in the Space arena. With this card, the DS will no longer have to rely solely on cards such as Endor Imperial Fleet or TIE Interceptor. Now, DS players have a stackable powerhouse unit that can duel even the Light Side’s Luke’s X-wing to the death…and win.

Thoughts or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.

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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. This is Ryan’s fifth and final article on cards developed for the Scum and Villainy set. He hopes you have enjoyed reading them as much as he has enjoyed bringing them to you. He posts on the Rebelbasers forums as “pocketaces98”.