Jump To Lightspeed Leader Hype

Jump to Lightspeed pre-release is this week and the Two To Basers have been doing some playtesting with the newest leaders!

Here’s everyone’s thoughts on who they are excited to use for this new set:

Beatza - Luke Skywalker, Hero of Yavin

I like that his ability doesn’t cost any resources, and Luke as a pilot is easily one of my favorite characters in SWU. It reminds me of the Death Star trench run scene which is probably my favorite in the entire series.

Initially I’m testing him with Tarkintown and it seems to be pretty good. It’s not too hard to use Luke’s ability and ping abilities go together with Tarkintown like peanut butter and Jelly. Using Tarkintown also opens up access to Aggression, which I think in the right deck is going to be one of the strongest cards in the Jump to Lightspeed meta. Every option on the card is good, and being able to defeat leader pilots with it makes it a must have.

One of my favorite lines so far on 6 resources is to swing with Red Five, play Aggression to ready it, then deploy Luke onto the readied Red Five. Then it can swing 8 to base, and because of Luke’s ability, you can do 5 damage to a unit. If you did 4 damage with Aggression, you just got 21 points of damage total on the board! (if my math is right.) I’m looking to swing with big numbers and do some really fast burn damage with this deck.

I think Luke will be a contender in the meta depending on how well control decks can adapt to the incoming space-heavy meta. Piett can be brutal to play against if you don’t get under him fast enough. Restore can be hard to overcome. But I have outraced Sabines and burned through Thrawns so I think the deck certainly has legs. Another good thing is the deck is relatively cheap to build with Aggression being the only Legendary card I’m using in it so far.

BeeDee - Major Vonreg, Red Baron

I think he is very strong. Paired with ECL, he can deploy strong units for the midgame like Darth Maul and Phasma while having an aggro plan for the early game with an early deploy that has Sabine stats. Vonreg with his ship is 7 attack, and in some cases that is better than Sabine with the Darksaber.

It’s a bit hard to tell how strong he will be, due to him being a pilot leader, and we don’t know how good those will be yet. I think he is a solid rogue tier at worst and at best he will replace Sabine as THE aggro leader.

Gudo - Kazuda Xiono, Best Pilot in the Galaxy

I mostly like that he’s an early deploy leader that can deploy onto a Millennium Falcon and swing for 7 with Petranaki Arena. You can also use Cunning on the flip turn into the Falcon so you can swing for 11 damage on the 4 resource turn pretty consistently. That alone is enough to decide a game.

I also think just having access to tempo plays like Waylay, Cunning, Spark of Rebellion, and Bodhi Rook is enough to justify playing him in double yellow.

I think he will be sneaking into the meta early on being a potential new aggro leader out of the gate. His ability isn’t used every single turn but when it is used it doesn’t waste an action, so he also is an action cheating leader that won’t miss out on swing damage when turning off cards’ abilities. This is the first of its kind that we have seen where a leader can take a second action in a row.

I think there’s ground to discuss if Petranaki Arena is worth the +1 swing damage, but so far the lower HP at 26 hasn’t felt too bad. Might look into Nabat Village to ensure we draw either Cunning or Falcon early on, as those have been huge game deciders in the end.
I would rank Kazuda right into the “A” tier just based on what colors he can thrive in. I don’t think you can go easy when you are sitting across the table from him.

HecThor - Captain Phasma, Chrome Dome

I have not gotten the chance to playtest and really look into what every set 4 leader has the potential for yet, but as of now I am leaning towards Phasma. Main thing that drew my attention is her color aspect and how aggressive it can be, being able to ping to base once deployed and then ping any unit and base sounds great to me.

No doubt Phasma must be paired with ECL. The main reason is being able to play the new 5 cost Phasma unit with ambush, get to take advantage of its when played and on attack, allowing you to buff 1 First Order unit with a +4 +4 (ideally on your Phasma leader) or +2+2 to two First Order units. Makes the flip turn very dangerous for your opponent.

I don’t think it will be a tier S deck but it may have some potential to sneak some wins here and there. Only time will tell if people can come up with a list to make Phasma a dominating threat, or just a fun deck for more casual settings.

Roberttylerlee - Poe Dameron, I Can Fly Anything

I’m most excited about Poe, for sure. I personally think that Poe yellow is going to make for some extreme aggro play that will be very hard to keep up with. Personally, I want to run Poe with Nabat Village. Nabat would allow you to have a higher chance of drawing They Hate That Ship and Millennium Falcon, Piece of Junk in your opening hand. You can THTS out Falcon for 1, flip Poe onto Falcon, and swing for 5 on turn one (6 if you’re lucky enough to have an R2D2 to attach to Falcon, too). Your opponent has to go in to their turn one expecting you to have that combo ready, which can open you up for other plays as well. I think Poe is going to be a staple in the meta for set 4, for sure.

Spork - Han Solo, Never Tell Me the Odds

I’d be remiss if I didn’t pick Han as my favorite leader! While he doesn’t traditionally ramp, like Han1 or Han2, he does have a powerful flip, that if capitalized on, can swing the game in your favor. He flips on 5, which is cool, and when he’s flipped as an upgrade you get to ready your resources equal to the number of odd-costed units and upgrades you have in play. This gives you the ability to ready up your board and then alpha strike with follow up cards like Surprise Strike and Rebel Assault.

His whole shtick is building a deck around odd-costed cards, which is not hard at all to pull off. The old and new Falcons are odd (except for Lando’s Falcon), Resupply, U-Wing Reinforcement, Han unit, the new Han unit; these are all cards this deck wants, and they play into the deck’s inherent constraint.

Just like how the Spotlight deck comes with Echo Base, I think green is definitely the home for him. Yellow could be an option as well, but I think he gets so much more with cards like Chewbacca, Blue Leader, Bright Hope, and the first Home One.

Plus his showcase looks awesome, so I’m definitely hoping to crack that one!