Fantasy Flight Games has suspended three new cards for Star Wars Unlimited, banning them from the Premier format, to redress a massively warped meta overrun by Jango Fett decks. As of April 9, the leader Jango Fett (Concealing the Conspiracy), the tactic Triple Dark Raid, and the unit DJ (Blatant Thief) are no longer legal for competitive Premier play.
We wrote about the likelihood of Jango being added to the Star Wars Unlimited banlist just two days ago, based on his frankly absurd tournament dominance. Of the three Star Wars Unlimited Sector Qualifier events since the latest set Jump to Lightspeed (JTL) released, Jango decks took three bronzes, three silvers, two golds, and 15 out of 24 top eight slots.
Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) goes into more detail about the reasons behind the bans on the SWU website.
- Jango Fett (Concealing the Conspiracy) has been banned for holding the entire meta hostage;
- Triple Dark Raid has been targeted to prevent Boba Fett (Any Methods Necessary) filling the gap left by Jango;
- DJ (Blatant Thief) has gone to prevent the previous king Han Solo (Audacious Smuggler) returning to take back the throne.
Jango Fett (Concealing the Conspiracy)
According to FFG’s article, during the Twilight of the Republic meta the designers were most concerned about Han Solo’s performance. They knew that the JTL would not boost his archetype much and thought that improved aggro strategies would help redress the meta.
It turned out that new cards including “War Juggernaut and Devastator opened up Jango Fett to exist as an extremely aggressive burn deck”, able to clear the enemy board and go straight for the face, “where in Twilight of the Republic he largely saw success as an aggressively-slanted tempo deck”. This has powered Jango to a frankly absurd level of top-table ubiquity.
FFG states that, even if the most powerful cards in his deck removed, Jango “can return to a slightly slower playstyle and still find massive success with his ability to exhaust any number of units while deployed”, and remain incredibly dominant. So the Mandalorian has been frozen in carbonite.
Triple Dark Raid
JTL has turned Triple Dark Raid into one of the most powerful enablers for aggro decks. This tactic lets a player rush out a vehicle ahead of curve, bouncing it to hand at the end of turn. While it doesn’t add to board presence permanently, it doesn’t sacrifice card advantage, searches for a vehicle, and lets players play them out for one attack and their ‘When Played’ abilities far earlier than they normally could.
The wealth of new vehicles in JTL makes it trivial for players to stack their decks with powerful pay-offs, whether that’s the older Ruthless Raider on the four resource turn, or the newer Devastator (Hunting the Rebellion) on the six resource turn.
FFG states that were Jango alone banned, “we would expect Boba Fett (Any Methods Necessary) to find success with the same Triple Dark Raid shell as current Jango Fett decks, and the metagame would remain extremely similar with a different leader”. So Triple Dark Raid gets the axe.
DJ (Blatant Thief)
Lastly, DJ (Blatant Thief) is gone to prevent Han Solo returning to his 35% win rate in the meta. Solo is effective as a great midrange deck, able to trade card advantage for temporary ramp to power out threats early, and to reveal smuggled cards late in the game.
DJ turns Solo into an incredible control deck too – DJ’s ability to steal the resources that enemy control players need to play their big finishers puts them in an unwinnable bind. Either they answer Solo’s early threats and lose to DJ, or hold up resources to answer DJ and lose to the early threats. Powerful aggro decks have held Solo in check so far this set, but as those are getting the chop, FFG is whacking DJ to pre-emptively limit Solo’s power.
Wargamer also maintains guides to the MTG banlist, Commander banlist, and Yugioh banlist, and frankly it’s heartening to see a company taking such rapid and decisive action to curb dominant threats in the meta. Whether these are exactly the right bans remains to be seen.
Has your favorite deck just been nerfed into the floor? We can recommend the best Star Wars board games to take your mind off the pain. Though you’d best get them quick, just in case tariffs tank the board game industry…
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Source: Wargamer
