The Spectre of Hera - A Deck Tech Story

Starting the deck tech journey for Set 4, Jump to Lightspeed with a quick article on one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars universe – Hera Syndulla! Tried using her as a leader during Set 1, Spark of Rebellion, but the deck just didn’t have enough “oomph” to get a positive win record.

Issue: Hera for sets 1 to 3 didn’t have enough cards to support her unique hero unit ability and she came out too late without enough answers to meta decks such as Sabine/ECL.

Strategy: The Spectre of success might finally be in the cards with the release of new units that synergize well with Hera. These cards include additions such as Unit Hera, another Ghost space unit card and the Phantom, but that’s not all! Depending on how you plan on constructing the deck I think a variety of Set 4 cards may have a place. The general strategy I was originally going with for Hera in Set 4 is to accept that she comes out a little late, lean into making her a mid-range deck (play control from resources 2 to 7), build a deck around going wide, and ramp!

After some initial testing (about a dozen games each with Hera Double Command and Hera Cunning), some insights I’ve garnered include:

• Make every unit in the deck a “unique” unit to maximize her flip ability, but you don’t need to over commit to Spectre units. I have started to move away from 3 copies of each or none at all (sorry Zebb!).

• Double command is still too slow and without any meaningful removal you’ll get outpaced.

• Command/Cunning has performed overall better then double command. Access to Waylays, exhaust, and other removal has been pivotal.

  
  

With the rainbow of units that Hera provides access to there are still a lot of lines of play to figure out. I’ll be testing each of them throughout the set and provide updates over the next few weeks. Together I’m sure a winning deck can be built!

Until next time, may the Force be with you!