Battle Droid Sniper Team
By Oren Weiss
Friday, August 22nd, 2008

In my opinion, one of the hardest things about playing Dark Side is playing the Ground arena. In the modern arena, the Light Side has a huge edge over the Dark Side in the Ground arena because of Stealth, which leaves about half of the Ground units at a player's disposal generally useless. The IDC needed to create two kinds of cards in order to give the Dark Side player a competitive chance against Stealth: slower units with more staying power, and units that circumvent traditional attacks. Today, the card I'm going to feature, Battle Droid Sniper Team, belongs to the latter category.

For 3 Build, you get a Trade Federation Droid with 20 speed, 4 power, and 1 health. But the ability makes this unit worthwhile: "[tap]-->Choose one of your opponents ground units and roll 4 dice. For each 2,3,4,5, or 6 rolled, do 1 damage to that unit. Move this unit to the ground arena tapped. Play only at the beginning of the ground battle step starts." This ability is definitely one of the best reserves abilities in the game. It essentially gives this unit the chance to attack any unit in the ground arena, even those with Stealth, with Accuracy 2. Not only that, but this ability also gets around units with Armor, Shields, Lucky, and Parry.

There are many ways to get the most usage out of this very powerful unit. One of my favorite ways to utilize this unit is to discard it after you use its tapping ability. The two best ways to do this are by using Dark Sacrifice or Lando Calrissian (C). Using Dark Sacrifice, after using Battle Droid Sniper Team ability, you can discard it and pay 2 force in order to give each of your other Ground units +4 power. Using Lando Calrissian (C), you not only prevent all damage done to Lando for an attack, but you also gain 2 build points, meaning that playing Battle Droid Sniper Team only costs 1 build to deal a blow to one of your opponent's ground units and prevent damage to a possibly powerful character stack!

In the end, Battle Droid Sniper Team is an infinitely useful ground unit. I would suggest that every player should incorporate this card into their decks. This card is just what the Dark Side needed to combat Light Side Stealth: a cheap yet effective unit.

Into the Abyss
By the second Revan
Friday, August 15th, 2008

In Jedi decks, Force has been generated by multiple means, like Recognition of Valor. However, RAW has provided another Force generator. Into the Abyss has 2 effects. The first one, removing the card from the game, is useful; however there are very few cards that exploit the discard pile in SWTCG. The other half is more useful. You gain Force equal to the amount of build that the opposing unit costs. This is great for a cost of only 1 build!

Recently, in the Ki-Adi-Mundi (C) article, we discussed the problem with his Upkeep, and how it stopped you from using your Evade abilities. Into the Abyss can help fix Ki-Adi-Mundi’s Upkeep problem. Many decks today use some powerful cards, like Darth Vader, costing around 10 build points. That means with Into the Abyss you would gain 10 Force. With that much Force, you can afford to do a lot of evading - especially when Yoda (H) is in the arena.

However, Force is not restricted to activated abilities. There are also powerful Battle cards are extremely useful. With the Hotwire’s banning, Battle cards will be used more frequently. With all the extra Force, you could gain a large advantage easily. Throwing down multiple Battle cards in one turn could cause a whole lot of havoc for your opponent, allowing you to gain the upper hand. Even if your opponent had enough copies of Dismiss or Change Of Destiny in their hand, would they have enough force to stop you?

However, this card has problems. The first is the other cost; the corruption counters. Darth Vader (X) could cause problems too. To be able to deal eight dice of damage to your Jedi is not a nice thought, and that attacking power could always be boosted by Battle cards - or stacking. The Dark Side have several cards that exploit corruption counters, and any of these could be used against you, and cause everything to backfire. However, corruption counters are not highly competitive yet, and it will still be some time before a corruption counter theme reaches tier 1 status.

The biggest problem is premeditation. You have to plan when you are going to use it. You have to know that the chosen Jedi will discard the card you are aiming at - or have a very good chance of doing so. The last thing you want is to waste the card. Also, you want to gain a lot of Force, so you need to hit an expensive target. If your attack was intercepted, you could end up with a measly 3 or 4 Force instead of the bounty you anticipated.

The card is a gamble to play, as everything has to be just right, however, when everything is in place, this card has the potential to wreck havoc!

Obi-Wan's Speeder Bike (A)
By the second Revan
Friday, August 1st, 2008

One popular strategy in the SWTCG is to create a 'tank'. Using a card that absorbs nearly all damage, and keeping it alive, until you can get something else out. This is evident with cards like Yoda (J), with the new Mace Windu's Lightsaber (A) attached and Luke's X-Wing (E), a card so effective that it is now banned from competitive play!

However, RAW has another ‘tank’ card; Obi-Wan's Speeder Bike (A). With Parry 2 and Pay 2 Force -> Evade 2, this card can shrug off a lot of damage. When assisted by Wedge Antilles (B), who can prevent another 2 damage, Obi-Wan’s Speeder Bike (A) has real staying power..

However, one of the best things about this ‘tank’ is that it can still be used when you have other units out. Other ‘tanks’ fail when other targets are shown, but with Dack Ralter (A), you can get Pay 1 Force -> Intercept. It's cheap, and you can still have another pilot. This can help defend your other units when you have deployed them.

Be careful though. Unpreventable damage will destroy this card!