Hi Destiny Players!

Following on from my last article on the value of dice in Destiny, today we're going to get into card analysis proper. This article will cover the Villains characters available in Destiny, and I'll be rating the cards on a scale of 1-10, taking into account their costs, their dice, abilities, and where they fit in the 30-point character "puzzle". That last one is an important one, as the value of a character will change as more sets are released, but I think it's important to consider the wider implications when rating a character

Before we do that, let's have a quick preamble about what "average" dice look like on Destiny characters (I meant to do this in the first article but it was getting a bit long!) so that we know what we're comparing!

Dice in Destiny: Composition of a Dice

If you look across the whole spectrum of Destiny characters, you'll see that there is a common pattern amongst the distribution of faces on most dice. Characters almost universally have:

2 / faces

1 blank face

1  face

and then the remaining two faces are generally selected from the remaining symbols (I'm going to call these "filler slots" from now on), with ,  and  being relatively common and  or  being somewhat less common.

Some characters, however, do sport a third damage face, or a second resource face, and First Order Stormtrooper has a second blank. Some faces will variably include + or a resource cost (generally the highest damage faces, the third damage face, or the second resource).

Most characters have a mix of 1 and 2 values on their sides, with the more expensive characters (or characters that have more inbuilt downsides such as resource costs or pluses) tending towards more 2s. 3s are very rare and generally only appear on higher-cost legendary characters or with a resource cost.

It follows that characters hat deviate from the "norm", whilst not be necessarily "better", are worthy of a little extra attention as to how they can be best used - particularly "support" characters such as Jabba the Hutt, who don't do damage themselves. It's very important to consider this when selecting your characters.

Destiny: Villain Analysis

(I'll be linking the titles of each character to swdestinydb.com - click to see the card stats. Also, apologies for some of the low quality images that I've had to scour the internet for!)

Captain Phasma - 6/10

Phasma's one big selling point is bestowing Guardian. Guardian is a very strong ability - dice control is amazing in Destiny, and recurring dice control, that doesn't cost you an action, is brilliant. You pay for this somewhat in Phasma's below-average dice; with just a single 2 and an array of 1s, she is not incredible for 11/15 points, though she does have above average health for her cost. I think most peoples' first instinct would be to take the two dice version with a couple of Stormtroopers, but I'd also consider running her at 1 dice with two Tusken Raiders instead - more HP means more Guardian, and access to yellow. 

I think Phasma is a character that is primed to be fantastic at some point in the future when she has better options to bring along with her. Right now her Guardian ability can certainly be powerful but she is somewhat lacking in the dice department for me.

First Order Stormtrooper - 8/10

The Stormtrooper does one thing, and does it well; it shoots people (oh, the irony). With no pluses to worry about, a third damage face, and good damage numbers, these little guys are really cool. I don't despair that it has two blanks, as so many characters have poor filler in their 5th slot that I'd rather see the rest of the dice good than have a random 1 discard or similar thrown in here. Plus, this second blank makes Stormy combo incredibly well with Power of the Dark Side for a whopping 5/6 effective damage faces, four of which will deal 2!

In addition to their great dice, 7hp for 7 cost is a very good hp total per point spent. Destiny characters get less hitpoints per point as they get more expensive, so filler non-uniques are a good way to bulk out your hp total.

The final thing that I love about the Stormy is that he fits well into so many 30 point lists. Villains have plenty of unique characters that 14 points of Stormtroopers fit well with, and he is also cheap enough to allow 14 point characters like General Veers to fit a Tusken Raider in for some yellow. That 7 really makes a difference to his playability, and to the flexibility of Villain lineups in general (something that the Hero lineup doesn't have, which we'll get to next article)

Grievous is one of the few places where I think 1 works. When you're taking consistent high damage from a beater like this, you need to make efforts to stem the tide, and having even 1 resource stripped whilst under pressure can really hurt. If anything was going to be in Grievous' filler slot, I think this is probably the best thing he could have wanted, as it compliments his pressure game nicely.

Dooku is interesting. He is not incredibly expensive, but he is expensive enough to rule out a "big" unique character with him as anymore than one dice on either. He's the only character in the game with a stock resource cost on something other than damage - 2  is not something I could imagine myself paying for very often, but could have a nice payoff when used at the right time.  is my favourite filler ability, though Dooku's cost limits him from being able to focus any really big guys - perhaps 1-dice Dooku with 2-dice Grievous is the best way to use his focus on a character dice, so his Focus would probably be most often used on upgrade or support dice. Aside from those things, his damage is average for a middle-cost character.

As if this weren't enough, his ability is incredible - the ability to strip a resource from your opponent every turn, at no action or other cost, means that your opponent is almost playing the game with a 4-card hand. It's even a "may" ability, so it plays well with Mind Probe if you want it to. Speaking of Blue cards, Vader also really likes Force Strike for that big 3.

Kylo plays particularly well with Emperor's Throne Room, giving you a way to use it from turn one whilst offering your opponent a potentially blank claim (more on breaking the symmetry of battlefields in a future article...)

Kylo comes with 11 health, which is on the high side for his cost, which is incredibly cheap! He does have the one downside of having a resource cost on his 2, but given the power of his dice, ability, and hp total - Kylo is a very strong card, not particularly flashy, but he brings a lot to the table for very little investment. Importantly, this low cost lets him combo really well with other powerful villains, and it's easy to put 4 dice on the table with Kylo plus many other Villains.

I think Nightsister's ability is her main selling point, as her dice is pretty weak, having both 1 and 1 fillers, but more criminally, bringing ranged instead of melee as her damage type meaning she does not go well with the + on the blue melee weapons that are a big draw to playing blue in the first place.

Bala-Tik - 8/10

Bala-Tik is currently the cheapest unique in the game, with his 1-dice version being the same cost as non-uniques. And what a cool little dice he has - , which is always nice to see on a small supporting character, and a handy shield. He does unfortunately have a + on one of his damage faces, so you'll certainly want to play him with a range-based character, but other than that his dice is very solid. The fact that you can get two of this dice for just 11 points makes Bala-Tik a very attractive supporting option whilst still maintaining a good damage output, especially if you're looking to add yellow to your deck. His hp of 8 is also not bad for his cost, especially if you're running him at 1 dice.

I'm not a big fan of support-style characters - I don't think that there are enough ways to make them useful enough that will make up for their lack of damage faces (caveat - Crime Lord will be a deck, and who else but Jabba should that be attached to?). That said, if I was going to get behind a support character, Jabba would be it. Cheap cost, a high health pool for his cost, and importantly a very solid dice. Two focus results makes hitting them consistent, and his Discard and Disrupt both being 2s means that when you do want to use them they have impact. Finally, his triggered ability granting rerolls to make these dice more consistent - and being able to use that reroll on other, potentially more powerful yellow dice (whoever he's paired with, Crime Lord, Flame Thrower, etc)

What's cool about the Raider is that, like Jango, he lets you break timing rules - though less powerfully and at the cost of a card. This is strong in combination with his 3 result, giving you an easy way to force it through. If you have upgrades on him, it's also a good way to force through any particularly special dice that you may roll (such as a Flamethrower 4)

Overall I think that the major downside to the Tusken Raider is that he is a drain on your resources to use him well, and he is also a little inconsistent. His ability ideally wants upgrades on him to increase the chance of rolling a dice worth forcing through, though his low health pool makes that a potentially bad idea. He does combo well with the efficient Gaffi Stick (almost like they were made for eachother...) having plenty of melee results to utilise its + abilities and special, and it having redeploy to make sure it doesn't get wasted on him. If I was wanting to buy in to access to yellow I think I'd be more likely to grab a cheap Bala-Tik, though depending on what your deck is doing, the Raider is certainly a playable option.