Welcome to a brand new era of Star Wars Unlimited. Between the banning of Boba Fett and the release of Twilight of the Republic the game has taken on a whole new vibe. The next few articles will dive into the new set by ranking leaders. Today we'll be looking at the Heroic side of the set.

Twilight of the Republic brings new strategies leaning on token units, and the Heroic decks produce many Clone Trooper units. Having more units on the battlefield lends to their new keyword Coordinate, which requires you to have at least 3 units in play; this will unlock new effects for Coordinated units.

Padme Amidala - Serving the Republic is a Command Leader with a 1 resource-cost ability locked behind Coordinate to let you dig into your deck for Republic cards. This lets her grab late-game high cost units and also Republic Events and Upgrades. Unfortunately, this otherwise great power is locked behind Coordinate meaning that you'll never use it the first turn, and you'll be unlikely to use it second turn which are the crucial turns this would shine. Thankfully, Padme can be deployed with only 5 Resources and has Restore 1 on her unit side to keep you alive. However, her ability to dig is still locked behind Coordinate. That restriction alone makes Padme one of the weakest Leaders in the new set.

Captain Rex - Fighting For His Brothers explores the Clone Trooper strategy in the most straightforward way. The ability to produce token units is powerful, and when he's deployed he acts as a banner for those units to make them much stronger. However, like his Command Leader counterpart Padme, this ability is locked behind a restriction and a steep cost of 2 resources. Rex can only produce one of these tokens when another friendly unit has attacked. When he deploys that unit production grinds to a halt, as he only gets to make one when he deploys. A true token unit deck wants engines that produce tokens and not a single one-time use Trooper.

One of the most exciting reveals in spoiler season, for me, was Mace Windu - Vaapad Form Master. Targeted pings are reliably great on Leaders, and the potential for a second damage comes in handy, especially against larger units or shielded units. The price of 1 resource isn't that steep, either. Unfortunately for Mace, coming out on 7 resources is quite the setback - and his stats don't quite match that commitment to the late game. By the time you're able to deploy Mace and use his coolest ability to wipe the ground arena of enemies it's usually too late.

Next up is the Padawan Who Could; Ahsoka Tano - Snips. Like Padme, her ability is locked behind Coordinate which already means that she gets knocked down in rank since she can't use her ability right away. It takes several turns just gain access to a fairly common Leader effect; attack with +1/+0. Where Ashoka shines, however, is deploying fairly early. Her 6 Health means she resists Takedown, but she only hits for 3 unless she's surrounded by allies - and even then, she only hits for 5.

Obi-Wan Kenobi - Patient Mentor has some potential, particularly in the niche combat between Clone Troopers (which are 2/2) and Battle Droids (which are 1/1) with his ability to heal 1 damage per turn. This creates amazing flavor, but in practice isn't quite effective enough. On his unit side Obi-Wan protects his Clone Troopers with Sentinel and 7 Health, but more importantly he learns to deflect damage from his troops and not just heal. Obi-Wan also comes with a suite of effective keywords like Force and Jedi, which particularly flourish in Vigilance.

My local scene has seen a lot of Anakin Skywalker - What it Takes to Win in the last few weeks. He might not be the most consistent winner, but he's certainly the most interesting. Anakin wants a classic high-risk, high-reward playstyle where the closer to a loss you are, the bigger Anakin gets. With Aggression cards, Anakin can definitely muster up some powerful strategies and synergies that make a good deck. Strangely, many of the decks I see in my local stores run him with Vigilance to control exactly what health breaks to be at for a good turn. Hopefully this evolves into something more consistent soon, or Anakin might get left in the dust.

Quinlan Vos - Sticking the Landing is another interesting leader that has a lot of chatter. Heroic Cunning is in a strange place in set 3, with some of the same top end cards seeing play in set 1, which have slowly become less relevant. However, Quinlan has built in removal that helps cover some of the gaps in that combination. And his ability to continuously ping on the unit side makes him a machine of 1 damage instances.

Yoda - Sensing Darkness was the talk of the town during spoiler season, and has come home to roost. Many competitive players have built different combinations of Yoda to set up a good draw. That on its own is powerful - but his free removal when deploying takes him to the next level, allowing incredibly powerful bursts in a single turn just like Boba Fett used to do. Giving Yoda 9 Health and Restore 2 seems like icing on an already great cake.

Overall, the heroic leaders in Twilight of the Republic seem less exciting and less usable than the previous sets. However, there are many of the leaders that are interesting and might lead to fun interactions even if they're not competitively viable.

Thanks for following along and keep your eyes locked here for the Villainy article soon!