Coming in at a solid midrange character point value of 13/16, Asajj Ventress – Swift and Cunning opens an interesting thematic line of play that seems unsuited for the color that she is.
Introduction
Asajj Ventress – Swift and Cunning is a blue, villain character with the Bounty Hunter subtitle. With 12 Health and a point value of 13 for normal and 16 for elite, this Character is a solid addition to any team, though may have some challenges finding the perfect partner. The die sides favor a more aggressive line of play with 1 Melle, 2 Melee, 3 Malee for 1 Resources, a Discard Side, a Resource Side, and a blank. The resource side will be a bit of a challenge as this character will need a slightly higher Resource curve than normal to accomplish its goals. The game text reads: After a character that has a downgrade on it takes damage from this die, you may discard a card from your hand to remove one of that character’s character or upgrade dice.
Design Notes
Asajj comes into Convergence just as her previous version is rotation out of the standard field of play. Her previous ability revolved around shrinking your opponent’s hand size, allowing you the option to force your opponent to discard an additional card whenever they wanted to “discard to reroll.” Interestingly enough, the discard aspect of her ability remains, but now it is the controlling player who is required to discard, which is the cost that is paid to remove one of that character’s character or upgrade dice. The catch, that player must have a bounty on them for this ability to be effective.
The idea of bounties, a subtype of the new card type Downgrades, is a very interesting play element, forcing you to choose between this new card type within the tight space of a 30 card deck fighting for events, upgrades, and supports. However, in this sense, a bounty when used with this ability is similar in some ways to an event, giving you access to dice removal which is typically accomplished with events.
Artwork/Lore
Asajj Ventress, as you very well may know, was a key character in the Clone Wars animated series, often crossing blades with Ahsoka, Obi-wan, and Anakin. While the Spirit of Rebellion version of this character focused on her force assassin role from the early part of the series, this version is later, once she becomes a free range bounty hunter. The fact that she remains a blue character shows how important the force is with her still, though this time she comes with additional damage sides instead of a focus side.
Things to Consider
Asajj’s ability is very interesting on the surface. The removal effect requires two things to happen, Asajj’s character dice does damage to an opponent’s character with a bounty attached to it, and a card must be discarded from hand. Once those two conditions are met, the player can then choose one of the target’s character or upgrade dice to be removed. Since it is a reaction to an action, it can be triggered multiple times in a turn. If Asajj resolve two melee sides, this effect could be used twice, taking out more dice and crippling the opponent’s turn. This in turn does come at a cost, reducing your cards in hand by one each time the ability is used.
The challenge with this card, however, is that the downgrade needs to be in play, and it is somewhat easy for the opponent to play around if they want to. You have to roll in Asajj, hope they don’t remove your dice, and then hope that they have dice you can remove. Sequencing those actions is going to be critical if you want to get the maximum utility out of this Character.
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