SWLCG Edge of Darkness Review: Jedi, Rebels and LS Neutrals

THE RATING SYSTEM:
We'll only be rating the pods as a whole in these series. No in-depth analysis on the individual cards, as everyone already has an established opinion on them and it would take more time than what we can afford. Sorry to disappoint.
While the following isn't particularly precise, the different scores could be seen as:
1 - Poor - Probably a combination of subpar cards, low edge and lack of synergy. Should prove to be a weak addition to a deck even when building around it.
2 - Bad - Overall a weaker pod that can have its moment when properly supported, but usually stays within the realm of "just fun".
3 - Average - A fair choice that is simply outclassed by other options in most cases. May prove to be the superior pick in very particular decks.
4 - Good - All-around solid and can most likely pull its weight by itself.
5 - Great - Cohesive set with with several strong elements which can fit in a plethora of decks. Or it may be somewhat niche but incredibly strong in certain archertypes.


THE REVIEWS:

Embers of Hope: 5.5 out of 15 possible points.


CobraBubbles (1/5) – Ah, the humble Moisture Farmers. These poor blokes have been the butt of a great many jokes since they were released - they’re a top candidate for what to say you’re playing if you don’t want to tell people what’s in your decks, and they also occasionally get compared to Bruce Willis (erroneously, in this reviewer’s opinion). And dammit, they’re also yet another example of FFG trolling me from the past with yet more useless units that I’ve decried umpteen times in this series already. If it wasn’t for the linear nature of time I’d be beginning to suspect they were just doing it to wind me up…
Obviously, our little baldies are intended to balance this set’s strong collection of support cards. 1 cost for Targeted Strike on any Force User and getting a free unit at action speed during conflict are both very strong abilities. Precog and the objective are solid too, if a little marginal. This set is an archetypal example of FFG’s early assumption that putting good cards with awful ones was a universally acceptable way of balancing pods, and of how wrong they were to apply this by making pods with COMPLETELY USELESS UNITS. Yes, I intend to die on this hill.

BakaMatt (2.5/5) – This set is too heavily dragged down by the pair of Moisture Farmers. It's a shame, too, because Makashi Training and Force Precognition are amazing enhancements, but Jedi already leans heavy enhancement, light unit, which makes it hard to incorporate this. It's very hard to pick up the slack from a set that for all intents and pruposes lacks units, which means one rarely wants more than a single copy of Embers in their deck even when running it. Secret Guardian is an amazing card that got saddled into a terrible pod. Guardian, Embers of Hope and Makashi Training are cards I'd love to have in a deck, but not at the risk of dead drawing the rest of the chaff.

Majestaat (2/5) – This set was abyssmal on release since there were so few Force Users to make the juicy cards here worth running. They're far more playable now, but the couple Farmers included here still drag the pod down to the depths of Geonosis. Sure, they're free and save some damage from your Tatooine objectives... of which there aren't many, and even less that need to stick around for longer, making them pretty inconsequential at the end of the day. More importantly, they have zero synergy with the other cards here.
Was it asking too much to get a Force User in the same package?
With two enhancements for them here, the objective and Farmers could have been replaced with something that had more synergy in that department.
Makashi and Precog are pretty decent to say the least, while Secret Guardian is really amazing. But again, not only are the Farmers bad, but they can't even use any of those cards. I don't mind about some subpar/bad cards being included with good cards to balance a pod, but I really dislike it when they serve little to no purpose.


Alderaan's Promise: 5.5 out of 15 possible points.


CobraBubbles (2/5) – Um, I think I can see what the devs were getting at here? Looking at the objective, the Artist and Bail, it seems we have a set of slightly above-curve cards balanced by slight (and thematic) downsides tied to the destruction of Alderaan. A 6-2 objective is pretty good, especially since the downside they chose to give it is inherently mitigated by the first of those numbers. The artist represents a very interesting way of going about designing a powerful card - she’s certainly no bomb, and she only does one thing, but that she does it so well for 0 cost makes her definitely worth the penalty of dying to Superlaser Blast. Bail, on the other hand, is very average. I like that he is both better and riskier when the objective is out, but for that to be really appealing you’d want him to start on the curve and conditionally move above it, and with only 1 icon and no Elite he certainly starts below it.
And then we get to the other half of the set… which makes no sense at all. The Tantive VI is, sadly, a strong contender for most overcosted unit in the game. 5 cost for one goddamn force icon?? It’s especially weird given the apparent theme of undercosting + downsides. The other two cards are there to mitigate those ‘downsides’, but really the risk is minimal enough anyway since you’ll only have one Alderaan’s Promise in your objective deck. We didn’t need two completely awful ways of protecting it, made worse by art that is lightyears off theme. On Diplomatic Presence we get Leia clearly completely failing to impose any, and on the event from the Alderaan set we get a scene that’s obviously from Hoth…
Speaking of art though, in looking back on this set the Artist has pushed towards the top of my ‘cards I love for flavour reasons’ list. Look closely - she’s painting the Death Star. She sees her doom rise over the horizon, and chooses to spend her last moments capturing it in a work of art that no-one will ever see. That tells more about Alderaanian culture than anything in any other SW source I’ve encountered, and that alone bumps the set up a point. Don’t play it, but consider framing the Artist and putting her somewhere you can look at when you’re feeling poignant.

BakaMatt (2.5/5) – Embers of Hope should have been the limited set and Alderaan's Promise should have been two copies. The biggest issue with this set is that you can't make it consistent. Even years later, this objective remains the ONLY Alderaan-traited one! That makes it rare to turn on Bail Organa's stat bonuses, without which he is an overcosted three drop. I don't think the consistency would have overpowered the unit when considering the Forced Reaction drawback attached. Alderaanian Artist would have been a great pairing with some inconsistency and the drawback rider, helping one of the alliance's usual weakness, force control, in a unique and flavorful way. Tantive IV is a good unit at least. The rest of the set's offerings support a defensive style of play that are cute if you're running "while undamaged" objectives, but don't really help along your victory goals directly. This set might gain some value once we see some future Alderaan sets, but even then it won't be spectacular.

Majestaat (1.5/5) – I want to like this. I've tried it countless times. It never seemed to be worth the trouble.
I don't want to see the objective at any stage of the game. Sure, it has more HP than usual, but one extra dial tick is huge. If it had elite, we'd be into something, even if it had the usual 5 points of damage capacity.
Bail was okay. 3-3-3 with a resource and black tactics. He's really weak by today standards. If they remade him, I assure you he'd at least get elite.
The Artist is great. Can explode with her planet? So what, it's a three pips Force holder for free, that also happens to survive a Force Choke. Definitely the best card here.
Having two good force holders/edge power cards was the main reason to run this pod, at least for me. But Rebels have received some more units to fill that role well enough, like Dodonna and their bunch of Endor mains.
On to the Tantive... having such a heavy-hitter in such a pod should be greatly appreciated, I guess, but there's so much wrong with it. It only has 3 combat icons, of which only one is black. Only 3 health, and a single pip. No keywords. How is that fair for 5 cost? Simply put, it's not. It's reaction isn't nearly enough to make it a good deal.
Diplomatic Presence and Misdirection are garbage cards, and when those have a single pip, they're just worthless in most cases.
All in all, you have a set that, while thematic, is filled with overcosted or low impact cards.


To Arms!: 8.5 out of 15 possible points.


CobraBubbles (3/5) – For once, I can overlook the almost-useless units here, since they have semi-synergistic text which improves the other cards in the set. I do wish there was some other thing in here over the second Sullust - another weapon, a resource, a fate, even a different vanilla chud - just for variety’s sake.
The objective is pretty sweet passive economy, even if you only have a few weapons in your deck. Unit enhancements are often tricky to play unless your resources curve out just right, but flop this and you can basically forget that issue. Han’s pistol is at worst a Lightsaber for anyone, and on Han it’s the most efficient stat-improvement enhancement around. If you’ve never played against Chewie with his Bowcaster, you don’t know the meaning of fear. It can be absolutely brutal, especially with new Chewie, who can threaten to add 4 guns to any engagement. You probably don’t want to play it on anyone else, but that makes it a perfect candidate for the three pips it has been wisely bestowed with.
This is an obvious candidate to be a ‘limit 1’ set, but I like that they didn’t make it that way. If you really want to go all-in on Chewie voltron, you can! So long as you don’t mind having four Sullusts…

BakaMatt (2.5/5) – There aren't really any weapons that form the lynchpin of current decks, but if there are any in our future, expect To Arms to make an appearance. An efficient and cheap weapons tutor in Hidden Cache, and good enhancements in the form of Chewbacca's Bowcaster and Han's Heavy Blaster Pistol form the "meat" of this set. Sullustan Weapon Tech is too much investment for the returns it brings and To Arms is clogged with two copies. The objective text itself caters to a heavy weapon format, but while In You Must Go is a fantastic opener to boost resources, it's harder to capitalize on To Arms' discount outside of going with a weapon-heavy deck. This is an okay set to toss in a single copy with a Han and Chewie build for fun, but game design has moved on from sets with uneven filler in general and there are usually better objective calls.

Majestaat (3/5) – I like this objective, though there aren't a whole lot of weapons to pick and discount. Being able to play your mains and enhance them right away is fantastic.
As it often seems to be the case, the repeated units here are what bring the set down. I'm pretty sure those Sullustans would be able to make a bomb with their eyes closed and hands tied, so why couldn't they have some blast? If they're going to be the only units in the set, we could afford to make them slightly better than average, and allow them to work by themselves instead of absolutely requiring some combo-ing. And that's considering the time of release. Some 2-drops are so stacked nowadays that the Sullustans wouldn't set the world on fire even if they had an extra icon.
If they wanted to keep them as pure utility units, maybe allow them to react with any enhancement you play, while limiting the ability to once per turn? Guess the pod would lose some theme, but it would be so much better without breaking anything.
The weapons are very nice. Two black icons on both, with great extra bonuses if they're equipped to their rightful owners. Also decent edge on them if you can't afford to play them.
Finally, the cache, is a much appreciated tutor considering there aren't that many weapons, as previously said.
Overall, the sets works pretty well with itself, lacking some real punch because of the Sullustans, making it a very fair set in a world in which you need to pick evidently strong pods.


Opening Moves: 5.5 out of 15 possible points.


CobraBubbles (1/5) – Ah, the classic ‘let’s chuck a bunch of neutral cards together and pretend they make sense’ pod. Sigh…
I honestly struggle to find anything to say about this one. It has been played - entirely for the Proximity Mine, which is admittedly very powerful. The Barrage is also pretty decent, situationally, but having it in a set with 3 shielding cards seems pretty absurd. I do like the idea of a pod called Opening Moves focusing on the first engagement declared each turn, but the pod doesn’t follow through on this at all. I’m tempted to bump the set up a point just on the back of the Mine, but the overall design is too poor for me to justify that.
*tries to ignore the ****** 1-icon chuds*
*really tries*
GODDAMMIT THAT’S 9 ON LIGHT SIDE IN THIS BOX ALONE!!

BakaMatt (2.5/5) – Another defensive based light side objective. I know I've beat this subject to death in my recent reviews, but the light side most often wants to be on the offensive given its victory conditions. This whole package just feels too passive outside of the Ion Cannon Barrage, with almost every card favoring digging in a defending. I guess you can run this alongside some kind of Ties of Blood based build, or in a heavily aggressive dark side meta. However, even then, the weak units once again pull everything down and there are better go-to choices.

Majestaat (2/5) – Proximity Mine can go from fairly annoying to just brutal, and is the main reason you would want to take a look at this set.
On the rest... ehh... you can run Ties of Blood or Secret of Yavin 4 to get similar utility with much better cards.
I must say, It's puzzling to see a card like Ion Cannon Barrage included in a non-Hoth pod that is so heavy on shields. Might as well ask the Emperor to fry me with lighting.


FINAL WORDS:
These pods were so unexciting that I don't even know what to say. Guess the scores speak for themselves.

Next will be Scum. That should prove fun to re-visit. Should have that in a couple weeks.

And that's it this time. I extend my gratitude to the review team and the readers who motivated us to do this. I'm sure there's room for improvement. If you got any ideas, feel free to comment or PM me so we can make the next article even better.
I must say, however, that there's a limit to how many images can be uploaded. That's why I only selected a few images per pod.

If you're looking for more reviews, you can find them in our forum thread here.

May the Force be with you all!