Desolation Of Hoth Jedi and Rebel Review

Welcome to Part one of the Star Wars LCG Desolation of Hoth Objective Set Review! This time our reviewers will be covering the Jedi and Rebels, going over their thoughts on the new cards.

Both the Jedi and Rebels get some high reviews this pack with cards that will be sure to expand your deck options.

First Up Objective Set 37 A Message from Beyond (37-1)

A Message from Beyond (37-1) - 5/5

This objective set is the exact boost that Light Side character based decks needed, especially to combat against the likes of Emperor Palpatine (23-2) and Force Lightning (23-5). The hands down best card in the set is the two Old Ben's Spirit (37-2) and does this card earn its placement in a deck. Not only Old Ben's Spirit require a large investment by your opponent to get rid of the card it is attached to but it also adds another line of defense for your deck. If you have A Message From Beyond in play as well it means you can keep recurring Old Ben's Spirit to keep your units alive. Calm (37-5) and Weapon Mastery (37-4) just add to the combat tricks available for this set and turn any character; but Yoda (2-2) especially, into a Stormtrooper Cuisinart letting him clear all his focus tokens and gain unit damage icons galore.

A Message from Beyond (37-1): 5/5
Already this is one of my favourite Jedi objective sets in the game. The ability to recur powerful attachments such as Trust Your Feelings, Jedi Lightsaber and with this set Old Ben's Spirit is invaluable to Jedi tactics. This gives you the ability to attach enhancements to "lesser" characters early game rather than wait till you hit a tank unit and be less worried that the investment be wasted or you can turn that tank unit into a nightmare for you opponent to deal with if you keep recycling and Old Ben's Spirit each turn. It can also gain you some card advantage whether it be from recurring cycled enhancements or enhancements that have been used in an edge battle.

Old Ben's Spirit (37-2): 5/5
Everybody hates seeing their Luke or Yoda dying and all it will cost you to keep them round twice as long is 1 resource. This card fixes a problem that I often ran into when playing against Sith decks when could easily protect my tanks with guardian of peaces but would get hammered by a Force Lightning if I didn't have a C-3PO, not anymore. To put icing on the cake slapping just this on Yoda makes him both harder to kill and stronger! I can say quite confidently that this will become a Jedi staple in competitive play.

Weapon Mastery (37-4): 2/5
It's not that the card is bad it just seems that it doesn't seem necessary and will often just end up been used in an edge battle or cycled in the draw phase. There maybe those odd games where it can be used to sneakily take down a unit unexpectedly but outside of that ill probably wishing it was any other crd in my deck.

Calm (37-5): 4/5
This card very nearly got a 5/5 had it been a single enhancement or no enhancement but cost a single resource (may have been too good then though). Having a unit that has a a light sabre and a Trust your Feelings attached is going to attract a lot of tactic tokens from the the other side of the board and having a cheap way to get rid of these is amazing. It can either be played to give that extra defender that can do serious damage and maybe dissuade an attack entirely or you can wait till after engagements and they've wasted all their tactics tokens locking the character down to find to their dismay that he'll be coming over their side of the board anyway.

Heat of Battle (37-6): 3/5
Still one of my favourite fate cards helping do more objective damage, something Jedi can lack on and only further enhances (Get it?) this set.

Overall 5/5
This set takes a big unit type deck with kind of voltron feel to it from on the cusp to being viable competitively. Even with the weapon mastery feeling kind of "meh" I really don't mind taking what is a tiny hit for some really powerful cards that opens up what could easily be the best Jedi build.

A Message from Beyond (37-1): 5/5
This card is terrifying in Jedi decks. As pointed out, Jedi have a reliance on enhancements and the ability to recycle them will allow them to keep the pressure on your opponent. As Tiny pointed out, this card allows extra flexibility in the edge battles which is always a huge bonus in the game. I have a distinct feeling that this card will upset me. a lot.

Old Ben's Spirit (37-2): 5/5
Wow. Just wow. This card can be such a game changer. Character removal is slim in this game currently and sometimes it can be hard work killing one of the many lightside powerhouses. This card just makes them infinitely more durable. Attaching this to a Luke or a Yoda will put so much pressure on the DS player. Not only that but with the above objective you essentially have an unkillable tank.

Weapon Mastery (37-4): 3/5
Its a solid enough card that will allow suprise attacks. Combined with anything that has Targeted Strike this could be gold. Otherwise its nothing special.

Calm (37-5): 4/5
Thankfully this card can only be used on your opponents turn otherwise this would push Jedi into orbit. Being able to over extend on the attack knowing you will be able to defend due to this card is a pretty good gambling chip. One of the hardest things about this game is to know what to attack with and when and this card circumvents that factor. Not only that but this card is an excellent defence against the likes of Palpatine or anything that hands out focus tokens.

Heat of Battle (37-6): 4/5
An 'old' favourite. By now you will have realised this cards use. Sniping a unit off during the edge battle can be very frustrating for your opponent ( or you). I'm a big fan of this card and welcome another copy with open arms.

I'm a big fan of this pod as a whole. Its a well developed objective set with some powerful tools for the Jedi. I do believe that Jedi will always be an enhancement deck and this set goes a long way in cementing that fact. I rarely play Jedi but I know full well that a number of the cards here will annoy me...greatly.

A Message from Beyond (37-1): 5/5
This objective is flat out amazing. Jedi decks rely on enhancements and I have always been hesitant about dropping great enhancements on weenies while I wait for my big boys. Now I can just stick an ultra valuable Trust Your Feelings on a Twilek for double the tactics fun while I wait for the big guys. Then when they die I just get them back. Also, ever been torn about throwing your Jedi Lightsaber in for edge battles? Well now it's not longer an issue. This objective combos really well with Secrets of Yavin 4 as it will pretty much stick around all game. Did I mention it was amazing yet?

2 x Old Ben's Spirit (37-2): 5/5
This card is an absolute pod and deck maker. Remember when you were first building that Jedi deck and Yoda got choked every time? Then you were forced to put in Guardian of the Peace just to keep your big characters alive? This phenomenal card fixes many of these problems. First, in combination with Guardian of the Peace, who comes with lightsaber deflection, you get an insane amount of protection for those big characters. With the Guardians, force lightning was still a huge problem. Not anymore! Add to it the combo options with Yoda and the A message from Beyond and you have the ideal card in a Jedi deck full of big characters.

Weapon Mastery (37-4): 2/5
Nothing special. It's a fine edge card. It's actually a cute little surprise way to take out an unsuspecting character. It could actually make Shi-Cho training reasonable (okay it won't). It's not a bad card by any stretch it just doesn't add too much.

Calm (37-5): 4/5
This card will be critical against Sith. One of Sith's big tricks is to put 3 focus on Han or Luke with Palpatine. They are not elite and doing that every turn can pretty much lock them down for the game, or at least a few turns. Big problem huh? Well it used to be a big problem. A 0 cost interrupt with 2 force icons that fixes one of the biggest problems for Jedi. Yeah that's at least a 4. Heck it might be a 6. If you are running Luke with this pod you should be able to get 2 enhancements on a big boy so the one restriction of the card shouldn't be a huge drawback.

Heat of Battle (37-6): 3/5
Heat of Battle is a great card to have. It's my second favorite fate card at the moment and is always welcome in a strong objective set.

Overall: 5/5
This is an amazing meta shifting objective. It allows Jedi to be much more aggressive. It is actually a viable strategy now to stick enhancements on Yoda and try to go to town. Before Yoda was relegated to a force grabber and only rarely became a beatstick. Now it is possible to make any of the big Jedi (and Han) an insane beatstick. An unkillable machine that crushes everything in sight. This is especially critical with the tournament rules. Frankly, winning just isn't quite enough anymore, you need to have the means to win quickly come regional season. At least for the current meta I see myself putting 2 copies of this objective in nearly any Jedi deck I make.

A Message from Beyond (37-1): 4/5
Being able to recycle some of the Jedi enhancements is really good for Jedi. Especially with the enhancement in this very set that will likely at some point end up in the discard pile. Pull that out and slap it back on a character to help them stay alive a bit longer. Jedi have some of the most powerful enhancements in the game and getting more usage out of them is great. If it did not have to be the topmost enhancement I would have rated it a 5.

2 x Old Ben's Spirit (37-2): 5/5
Prevent death. yes please! This card is an amazing ehancement and the fact you get two, so really four, is outstanding. This is card you will want to use anytime you have it. Place it on your Yoda protect him from being killed and it helps to buff him up with his own ability. Being able to use his over and over with the objective in this set makes it even sweeter and means you will very likely get more than four uses.

Weapon Mastery (37-4): 3/5
It is an okay card that helps buff up a unit to make it able to do more damage. It is nothing fancy but simple and effective. Use this on a Yoda with some enhancements attached and he gets even more powerful and can one shot a Vader or maybe even Palpatine. Also has two force icons so can be useful in an edge battle.

Calm (37-5): 4/5
This card can be quite useful for when playing against Sith and they have stacked a bunch of tokens on your Luke, Obi-Wan or Han. It is 0 cost so that helps it surprise your opponent as you do not have to leave resources ready to pull it off. If it did not require that the unit already had two enhancements on it I would have given it a five.

Heat of Battle (37-6): 3/5
Good fate card that can help you take out an opposing unit before you even begin resolving strikes. Staple card.

Overall this objective set has only increased for me how much I like it. At first glance I was not a fan but now I am working on figuring out which OSet to take out so I can put this in my Jedi/Han deck. It is a really good support set that can help you keep your key characters alive and in the action longer. Jedi relies on a number of "mains" and you want to keep them on the board as long as you can.

And now for Hoth Operations:

Hoth Operations (38-1): 4/5
The one thing keeping me from rating this objective set higher is the lack of other Hoth objectives and Speeders to play off the objective itself, once we get more though I feel like this will be a solid objective set for any Vehicle based Rebel deck out there. Rogue Three (38-3) is a vehicle version of Yoda (2-2), possibly even better since his bonus icons are not edge dependent. The slight downside is that currently there are not that many vehicle enhancements with Wedge Antilles (38-2) and Astromech Droid Upgrade (8-4) being the only two available to Light side at this time. Snowspeeder (38-4) fits well in this set, the only thing I worry about is at 2 cost and only 1 damage capacity it is easy pickings for most decks, until there is a way to beef up your vehicles while this is a good filler unit it won't be around too long. The one oddity in this set to me is Hoth Survival Gear (38-5), if this had been a vehicle enhancement I would have been jumping for joy, but as a character enhancement it is a bit underwhelming. Being able to give a character up to 3 additional damage capacity is really good, but it just doesn't fit the theme for the rest of the set. Overall though in a Vehicle deck this is as close to a must run as you can get.

Hoth Operations (38-1): 3/5
While I Think that edge(1) on all speeders is a real boost for the rebel alliance, having to have a decent number of speeders on the board and have more Hoth objectives than the opponent could leave this objective blank more times than I'd like.

Wedge Antilles (38-2): 5/5
So I hear Trust your feelings is pretty good and here's the rebel alliance version. Gotta agree with Tiny that anyone using this as a character should maybe stay away from competitive play.

Rogue Three (38-3): 5/5
First the RA gets a version of trust your feelings, now they get their very own version of Yoda. This has the potential to be a real objective smasher even without the enhancement providing it doesn't get laden with tactics and a damage capacity of three is icing on the cake.

Snowspeeder (38-4): 1/5
Pretty awful to be honest had it had a non edge dependant objective damage or cost one less it would of been passable as it is you'll be left wishing it was any other card.

Hoth Survival Gear (38-5): 2/5
Pretty uninspiring to be fair but a free enhancement that can make a tank a little more robust, would of preferred it if was a vehicle enhancement instead of character.…

Overall 3/5
Two great cards,a solid card, two weak cards and questionable objective make this objective set playable at a competitive level only because the great cards really are great.

Hoth Operations (38-1): 3/5 (room for growth)
I would rate this card higher if there were more Hoth Objectives. Given time, I will increase the rating to at least 4/5. In my opinion, the Rebel Alliance often suffers with the edge battle, at least to some small degree. This card will assist in that factor. Its a little hard to judge just how good this card will be as there are only a small amount of Speeders available at the moment. If the rest of the arc has more then this card will potentially be a real powerhouse.

Wedge Antilles (38-2): 2/5 or 4/5
As a character, hes pretty average. As a RA version of Trust your Feelings, he is a monster. Anyone who has played Jedi will attest to the fact that TYF is an incredibly powerful card. Combined with Rogue 3 or any of the other hard hitting fighter units he will allow you to make multiple high pressure attacks. Awesome card.

Rogue Three (38-3): 5/5
I love this card. I love Snow Speeders. I fell in love with them after playing the old Rogue Squadron games and bringing down At-Ats with just a tow cable and a hell of a lot of skill. This card is just what The RA need. A well costed unit with some real damage potential. At 3damage capacity as well, it can take a few shots before it bites the dust. A good alternative to Yoda for alliance decks this card will certainly make an impact on the environment.

Snowspeeder (38-4): 2/5
A pretty average card in fairness. Theres plenty of cards like this in the environment, all of which necessary but somewhat uninspiring. It fits the theme of the objective but nothing more. I really like the art though.

Hoth Survival Gear (38-5): 2/5
An odd choice for this objective set. Personally, I don't think it has a place in this set. As for the card itself, I think it could have potential later on when more Hoth objectives are available. Increased damage capacity is always welcome but more now the card remains average.

Target of Opportunity (38-6): 4/5
Another solid card you will all be familiar with by now.

An interesting Objective set that introduces Hoth to RA decks both thematically and mechanically. Its hard to judge just how good some cards will be until more Hoth objectives are revealed. Some cards are just golden though. Wedge and Rogue 3 especially.

Hoth Operations (38-1): 4/5
Edge (1) changes everything. Rebel decks really struggle with playing guys and then winning edge. Just having the DS defender having to put one in to win can be a huge difference. Yes, there are not a ton of speeders yet, but you have 4 with just this pod and Rogue 3 is phenomenal. I have to guess that my decks will have at least 6-8 edge 1 speeders in them.

Wedge Antilles (38-2): 5/5
If you play this card as a character you deserve to have someone kick you in the balls. So let's just assume that's off the table. Trust your Feelings is really broken. Now imagine that card on Red 5 or better yet Rogue Three. Boom your wish is granted. Now go blow some stuff up!

Rogue Three (38-3): 5/5
Rogue 3 is precisely what Rebel decks needed. Even with no text he is very good. 3 damage capacity can be tough to take out and 2 blast damage is great. Now give him Wedge or another enhancement and you likely have a 4 blast damage vehicle crushing objectives left and right. With this card you can now have an arsenal of great vehicles with Red 2, Red 5, and Home One.

Snowspeeder (38-4): 2/5
It's a chud. With Hoth Operations it becomes an edge 1 chud which is nice. But otherwise a 2 cost 1 damage capacity guy with an edge dependent blast icon doesn't cut it for Rebels.

Hoth Survival Gear (38-5): 2/5
Right now it just doesn't fit at all. However, I can definitely see a future character deck splashing this pod in for this card and some blaster damage from Rogue 3. When this card was spoiled I was quite excited about the prospect of sticking it on Yoda. However, then Jedi got their own amazing new pod and that went in instead.

Target of Opportunity (38-6): 4/5
Target is money in a Rebel deck. Your job plain and simple is to do damage and this card does the job.

Overall: 5/5
I predict that this pod is going to be a staple in Rebel vehicle decks for a long time to come. Rogue 3 alone is amazing and Wedge is a pod maker as well. Put them both in the same pod and you are in business.

Hoth Operations (38-1): 4/5
It is very early in to the Hoth cycle but this card will only become better from here on out. Giving every single one of your Speeder units Edge (1) will make it a lot easier to win edge battles on a regular basis. We know we will be seeing more Speeder units as this cycle goes on as we have seen Rogue Leader, Rogue 2 and Snowspeeder being previewed to come in future packs in this cycle.

Wedge Antilles (38-2): 4/5
You will almost never play him as a unit. Using him as an enhancement he is great. Being able to remove that focus from one of your Fighter or Speeder units and get it in for another attack is very effective. Or even use it to attack and then on your opponents turn remove that focus to give yourself another defender on their turn. Use the action on their turn as a bit of a surprise effect. Won't work every time or for long but the first couple of times your opponent likely won't see it coming. Again he will only get better as we get further in to the cycle and have more Speeders.

Rogue Three (38-3): 5/5
Two blast icons and the ability to gain as many as you want to play enhancements on it means this unit could quite possibly attack alone and take out an objective on its own. And all for only 3 cost. This is a very obvious target for Wedge to be attached to and means you could possibly take out two objectives with Rogue Three. This card is a beast and immediately went in my Rebels deck.

This set will be at the heart of any Rebel Hoth deck.

Snowspeeder (38-4): 3/5
Nothing fancy, low health but it is a Speeder meaning it can take advantage of the objectives ability. We know we will see this again in set 59 in Pack 5 along with Rogue Leader and Rogue Two so you will have as many as 4 Snowspeeders in your deck, assuming they do not put it in another set too.

Hoth Survival Gear (38-5): 1/5
It is not that it is a bad card but it really does not fit in with the rest of this set at all. A deck with Hoth Operations will very likely be including mostly Vehicle units (speeders) to make the most out of its objective. On the plus side it does have two force icons.

Target of Opportunity (38-6): 4/5
This fate card is a very good fit in this OSet alongside Rogue Three, especially an enhanced Rogue Three.