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#11 R2-D2, Astromech Droid
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Entry: 2 July 1999
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy.
Compiled by jinnandtonic, June 1999.
Thoughts? You like this? You hate this? Email me!
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy is THE card strategy reference for Decipher's Young Jedi CCG. Starting with the first expansion, 'The Menace of Darth Maul', each individual card will be discussed until it can be discussed no further. Nevertheless, if I have missed something, email me at jinnandtonic@angelfire.com, and I will update it accordingly.
See the Article Archive section of The Mos Espa Marketplace for Chad Phillips' Brief Look at R2-D2.
jinnandtonic's Grades:
Economy: B+
- Well, R2-D2/Astromech Droid is a hard card to judge. With Power 1 for Deploy 2, you would think he was grossly uneconomical. But with a Destiny 6, and that Damage of 0, along with Location Bonuses of Power +1 at all Tatooine locations, R2-D2 is still a pretty economical card. Best used in combination with C-3P0 and the Battle card Counterparts.
Decipher: A-
- Maybe I am being a bit lenient here, but who cares! I like so many parts of this card: the Destiny, the Damage: it all meshes nicely with the film. The location bonuses may be questionable (certainly the one at Desert Landing Site, anyway) but the image is nice, and the good aspects outweighs the bad.
Overall Usefulness: B
- R2-D2 is one of those cards that you don't just shove in every Light deck you have once you get him. For starters, R2-D2 is basically a Light Pit-Droid. He only has a Power of 1. Although he may be useful for his high destiny and non-existant Damage, you could slip a Panaka or an Anakin in place of R2 to make your deck stronger. But the real usefulness of R2-D2/Astromech Droid lies in its combinations with C-3P0 and Counterparts.
FLAVOR TEXT: "Thank you, Artoo Detoo. You have proven to be very loyal." - Queen Amidala
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CARD FACTS:
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RARE, GREEN-DOT, STACKABLE
Deploy: 2
Power: 1
Destiny: 6
Damage: 0
Power Bonuses:
Tatooine/Mos Espa: +1
Tatooine/Desert Landing Site: +1
Tatooine/Podrace Arena: +1
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SPECIFIC INTERACTING CARDS:
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Counterparts
(#50, Menace of Darth Maul, Uncommon, Yellow-Dot)
- This battle card allows R2-D2 and C-3P0 to fight together without weapons, giving them a Destiny ? + Destiny ? bonus! That's right, *TWO* destiny draws! While C-3P0 and R2-D2, by themselves, are not the strongest cards going around, this card makes them a Darth Maul-bashing force. Destiny of 3 isn't great, but is okay.
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IN BRIEF:
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I suppose if I had a few spare slots left in my Tatooine/Naboo Light deck that I didn't know what to do with, I'd put a few copies of R2-D2 / Astromech Droid in. High destiny, right? Could be helpful when Panaka aims at Maul in battle, right? Well there is so much more to this card than that. There is an obvious opportunity for a Counterparts-themed deck, containing both R2 and C-3P0 / Anakin's Creation (the next entry, #12!). And there is little to lose! So Maul wipes out your R2-D2/C-3P0/Counterparts combo (you drew two Destiny = 1 cards - can you believe that?!?!), well you only lose the three cards that you used. No Damage. I'm hoping for more cool Light droid enhancing cards in future expansions, along with more droids! (That reminds me, I want Anakin's Pit Droid!)
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GENERAL PLAY TIPS:
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* R2-D2 / Astromech Droid is one of the central characters in your typical high-destiny Light deck. The only other green-dot Light cards with a Destiny of 6 are the two versions of Queen Amidala, so a nice mixture of the three should serve your purposes nicely.
* So lets take a look at the Counterparts-deck theme. You firstly want as many copies of Counterparts as you can lay your hands on (up to a max. of 10, of course!) in the deck. Maybe you might want to put 5-7 copies in, with 3-5 copies of The Negotiations Were Short (come on, it is *the* all-purpose Battle card!). Just remember that the Dark side will not hesitate to include quite a few of Opee Sea Killer (the Dark equivalent of The Negotiations Were Short) so spread it around a bit. The next step is including 5 copies each of R2-D2 / Astromech Droid and C-3P0 / Anakin's Creation. Obviously, most people are not going to have exactly that distribution, and most people are not going to have that many anyway. That's what trading is for! What else? For Red-dot characters, I would suggest Obi and/or Mace Windu, supported by Ishi Tibs. Regardless of what theme you are playing, you are still going to have to focus on two planets, and because all of your green-dot slots have been overrun by droids, Naboo is probably out. I suppose Anakin is another card you may want to have, to feed off the high destiny of your droids and also to stick to the theme. Tell me how it goes!
* The Force Quotient (FQ, like IQ) of R2-D2 / Astromech Droid is of course 7. Interesting to note that this is the same as Qui-Gon Jin, Mas Amedda, and Naboo Officer.
* Silly theme of today: The Mighty Midgets! Yoda, R2-D2, Jawas and Anakin! If you've got the cards to do it, this would be a *fun* deck to play! And it it would probably be effective to boot. Mix in Counterparts and Jawa Ion Cannons for your support. When Kitster and that Rodian kid played by 'Willow' are released, you can add them. Apologies to Kenny Baker and Warwick Smith.
* Style tips:
- Well there are a host of great lines from all four movies you can use when playing a R2/C-3P0 theme deck. Just don't call your opponent an 'overweight glob of grease.'
- Watch your droids around those Jawas. Not exactly natural allies.
- Theme deck: The Amnesia deck. What? Well, it's based on R2-D2 and Obi-Wan Kenobi. You figure it out.
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ADDITIONS:
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Up to you. Think of anything else cool about his card, or combos that you have used to great effect? What about a particular game in which this card made you win? Send anything like that to jinnandtonic@angelfire.com and I'll add it here. Anyone remember the old Star Wars: Droids animated series? Anyone at all?
Rob Jones (2/10/99) adds:
But the real advantage that R2-D2 has in addition to the Counterparts gambit, and high Destiny is the zero Damage. R2D2 and C3PO are best used as sacrifices, pawns if you will, to guard against breakthrough if you play a lot of heavy hitters (Jedi) in your deck; and to strategically place your characters in your Battle Plan(are you sure your opponents battle card is Opee Sea Killer ... and you have none, play R2D2 and go to the next character). I play with 5 of each in my "A" deck and I have only one Counterparts card, if it happens great, if not...no Damage. The only problem is you can run into some "stranding problems" but you just need to pay attention.
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