Vicious Attack
By Brian Weeks
Friday, January 25th, 2008

With the revealed preview cards today, Creature decks are about to make a huge comeback. The Rattataki Businessman/Gladiatorial Wampa combo will be seen in all future Creature decks. And today's COTW, Vicious Attack, will make it even more deadly.

Vicious Attack, from the Empire Strikes Back Expansion, has made it's presence known in almost every Creature deck since it's initial release. It's ability reads: "Pay 1 Force -> One of your Creatures gets +3 power for this attack. Enhance: Pay 2 more Force -> That Creature gets +6 power for this attack instead." This card is amazing to me even to this day. The chance to give your unit 6 power is incredible!

As Trent discussed in today's article, "Glory: The Love Of War", the Businessman/Wampa combo can get you a Creature with 10/6/6, Critical Hit 2 and the ability of "If you roll at least one natural 4 for this unit's attack, roll 2 additional attack dice." This combo gives you the possiblity of rolling 8 total dice. With Vicious Attack, this total could be up to 14 Power!

With Cloud City Battleground, Vicious Attack could end up costing only 1 Force! Many other Creature combos will be seeing the light of day once again once Republic At War is released. With more Gladiators and Creatures as yet unrevealed, the future is bright for those players who love their Creatures.

ARC Fighter
By Trent McCrow
Friday, January 18th, 2008

With the Republic At War expansion on the horizon, we will continue to take a look at past TCG cards, both WOTC and IDC, that could be utilized in new strategies. Today's Card of the Week is from the IDC expansion, Fall of the Republic and works wonders with today's preview card Clone Trooper Pilot.

Way back in the ANH expansion WOTC introduced us to Pilots. For some players they are just as much an important part of the game as regular units but for others they are not worth the build investment. It didn't take long for WOTC to introduce units that could have multiple pilots, (these units came in the very next expansion BOY), but the IDC took the idea of multiple pilots to the extreme when they designed the card of the week; ARC Fighter!

Like most synergistic cards ARC Fighter is quite weak for your 4 build investment with a return of only 50/2/2, but when used in coordination with the rest of your decks synergy ARC Fighter can nearly defend a small planet on it's own! ARC Fighter lets its owner have a maximum of 2 additional non-Astromech Droid Pilots providing the opportunity of having 3 normal pilots and one Astromech Droid Pilot!!!

When used with Clone Trooper Pilot (and some cost reducing cards like Lars Homestead and Lama Su (A)) with the maximum of 3 Clone Trooper Pilot's piloting ARC Fighter with R2-D2 (J) just for kicks, ARC Fighter becomes the source of all your opponents fear! This 6 card combo, for an investment of 12 build you are rewarded with:

ARC Fighter
Republic Clone Starfighter
Speed: 80
Power: 6
Health: 6
Accuracy 3
Lucky 3
At the start of the Space battle step, remove 1 damage counter from this Starfighter.

Is your mouth watering yet?

There are so many different combinations you could use on ARC Fighter for both offensive and defensive situations, the options are almost endless. With CW:RAW there will be many new combos you should consider when building your decks and this will be the place to see them!

Swamp Speeder
By Brian Weeks
Friday, January 11th, 2008

Looking back through past expansions whenever a new expansion is released can sometimes uncover some new card strategies. This time is no different. Swamp Speeder, a card released in the Fall of the Republic expansion, has a very useful subtype and ability that could be utilized with cards from the Republic at War expansion.

As discussed in today's preview relese article, the Energy Lance can be used on both Ground and Character units. For a cost of 1 build and an Equip cost of 1 build, Energy Lance is an incredible "bargin", especially if played on the Swamp Speeder.

For a total of 5 build, you will get a 70 speed unit with 4 Power, 2 Health, Critical Hit 2 and Stun 4. Deploy a pilot with damage prevention, such as Wedge Antilles (B), and the Swamp Speeder should be able to stick around for a while. Power Dive would keep this unit coming back for more again and again.

Until Republic at War is released, we'll just have to wait and see what other Aquatic or Republic cards may be revealed. But rest asured, it will be worth the wait.

Trade Federation Battle Freighter
By Brian Weeks
Friday, January 4th, 2008

With the Republic At War expansion release on the horizon, we will continue to take a look at past TCG cards, both WOTC and IDC, that could be utilized in new strategies. And because of the Acclamator I-class Cruiser that was revealed today, the Dark Side must look at ways to defend against this cross-arena attacker. Luckily, a card has already been designed to defend against this Light side unit: the Trade Federation Battle Freighter.

Originally released with the Jedi Guardians expansion, the Trade Federation Battle Freighter and the Trade Federation Core Ship, were two cards that eventually evolved into their own attack strategy ("What Goes Up…"). With some of the newer Trade Federation build reducers that have been created since this article, this "elevator" strategy could be revisited again.

For 8 build (or less depending on the TF build reducer you employ), you get a 10 speed, 7 power and 7 health unit that can be used to deploy a Trade Federation Fortification into the Ground arena. It's ability text reads:
"Discard this unit from the Space arena -> Show a face-down Trade Federation Fortification card in your build zone to your opponent. Put 5 build counters on that card. If there are enough build counters on it, you may finish building it (deploy it into the Ground arena). Play only when no unit is attacking."

The deck strategy discussed in the above article would allow the Dark side player to combat the Acclamator I-class Cruiser in whichever arena the Light side chooses to move it to. And since the Acclamator I-class Cruiser must move during the build step and the Trade Federation Battle Freighter can move "when no unit is attacking", the Dark side gains an added advantage to discarding and deploying to whichever arena needs the extra help.

Check out Matt Hyra's article and deck design and see if you can come up with something even more efficient by using more recent cards for the Trade Federation.