Shadows of the Galaxy introduced the dark underbelly of Star Wars to the game in some interesting ways. Between the Smuggle and Bounty mechanics players got to hide their goods from their opponent and target specific units for special bonuses. But one of the most exciting reveals for each set are spoilers for the Leader cards. Let's rank the Villainy Leaders from Shadows of the Galaxy.

Doctor Aphra - Rapacious Archaeologist

Aphra mills herself to slowly play into a recursion game. With only 2 sets worth of card pool, we don't have efficient recursion to support her. Getting back a single card when she deploys isn't that vital, especially when the card is random. She's not even that formidable in combat, and dies to Takedown. One day, Doctor Aphra may lead a wonderful recursion strategy. Until then, she's bottom of the barrel.

Hondo Ohnaka - That's Good Business

Command likes to boost their units, and Hondo is a perfect example of how to do that. Smuggle turns into a way to pump your units. Unfortunately, the best Smuggle shenanigans, like Tech, are Heroic, which prices them out of playing with Hondo. Strangely, Hondo might be one of the best Leaders to pick in sealed given his ease-of-use - but in Constructed he doesn't pump out enough Experience to warrant leading over other Command Leaders.

Jabba the Hutt - His High Exaltedness

Let's be real, Jabba's finest asset is his 12 Health on the unit side. It's great that he can reduce costs with a repeatable Bounty - allowing him to take advantage of some neat effects and playing on Command's strongest theme. It's even better that he allows one of his minion's to capture when he deploys. But his presence is a threat with massive survivability - even though he only deals 2 damage on the attack. All of that wrapped up into deploying in the late game makes Jabba cool, but not very practical.

Gar Saxon - Viceroy of Mandalore

This poor attempt at replicating Director Krennic. With the focus of the set being on Upgrade cards, Gar Saxon provides a small stat bonus when you do. Unfortunately Vigilance and Villainy provide a poor card pool of Upgrades and units that want a small boost to their attack. Even worse is that Gar Saxon flips on 6 resources - and despite the power to recur Upgrade cards, these decks fall apart. Vigilance and Villainy is better to stick with control.

Moff Gideon - Formidable Commander

Don't sleep on Gideon. Giving a swarm of enemies Overwhelm can be a terrible thing to see on the other side of the board. Sentinels aren't nearly as effective, and single-target removal can't keep up with the amount of small units Command and Villainy can put out. Especially when Gideon deploys with 5 resources, his unit side is an absolute menace and barely out of reach of being targeted by Takedown. While Gideon hasn't been included in Top 8 lists, it's only a matter of time before we see his rise in popularity.

Bossk - Hunting His Prey

Vader and Palpatine both have useful 1-damage pings in the first set. This set we got Bo-Katan and Bossk, which are both free but have narrow restrictions. Thankfully Aggression has some good Bounty cards that can be used with Bossk for the Leader side - but where Bossk really shines is allowing you to collect Bounties twice on his unit side. This leads to some really bountiful actions such as drawing 4 cards at once. While Bossk isn't amazing in combat, he's at least just outside of Takedown range.

Kylo Ren - Rash and Deadly

Aggression is a wild ride filled with Leaders trying weird mechanics and puzzles. I thought Grand Inquisitor was weird - but Kylo proves more interesting. A few Store Showdowns saw Kylo hit the ground running with dozens of small 1- and 2- cost units that all revolve around the Underworld and Bounty Hunter packages. It becomes fairly easy to run out of cards when you're playing everything you draw - and it's even better when you have the freedom to add 2 damage to each hit with Kylo's ability. While his health is lackluster he comes out swinging faster than almost every other Leader in the game.

Cad Bane - He Who Needs No Introduction

Instead of going on about Cad Bane at length, just take a gander at the Cad Bane PQ decklist I talked about recently. If you want an answer to Boba Fett, here's your answer.

Qi'Ra - I Alone Survived

Taking the cake of good Leaders in Shadows of the Galaxy, Qi'Ra has a significant presence in the meta with support from some of the great control cards released alongside her. Qi'Ra has the opposite playstyle of Grand Inquisitor, and deals damage to friendly units to give them a Shield. This effectively gives them a whole extra bout of combat for most units, and if timed correctly can make some units even more efficient. Qi'Ra's Grit and deploy ability effectively makes her a 4/4 when she comes out - which is susceptible to Takedown. Keeping Qi'Ra around isn't necessarily in the cards for her, though, since her deploy has such a massive one-time effect. Qi'Ra's deploy needs to be precisely timed, unlike most other Leaders who want to see deployment ASAP. Which is great for control players, since she can deploy relatively early in the game.

That wraps up our look at the Villainy leaders for Shadows of the Galaxy tune in next time where I'll be talking about the Villainy side. Until then, good look at your Store Showdowns and Planetary Qualifiers as October comes to an end.