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#43 Jawa Ion Blaster
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Entry: 28 July 1999
The Unofficial Jedi's Guide to the YJCCG Galaxy.
Compiled by jinnandtonic, July 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@yahoo.com.au, and I will update it accordingly.
jinnandtonic's Grades:
Economy: B+
Fairly economical, is the Jawa Ion Blaster. For Deploy 2 you get a weapon that gives oo? (Power +2 and a Destiny ? draw) to any Jawa in battle or a Destiny ? draw to any other character in battle. Although it is relatively expensive to deploy, it has a nice Destiny of 5 to compensate for this. It is no Blaster Rifle, but it is very economical if you are using the appropriate cards (e.g. a load of Jawas)
Decipher: A
Yeah, pretty good overall. The image is fine, and the game text fits in okay with the film. It *is* pretty hard to go wrong with cards like this, but it is still possible to. Luckily Decipher did a good job this time. The only quibble I have relates to how much this weapon would affect humanoid characters (as opposed to droid), but I digress. I can live with it.
Overall Usefulness: B
It is a shame that all weapons must be rated with note of the Blaster Rifle, which in general play makes a lot of these weapons redundant. Obviously, if you are not using Jawas in your deck, or are using few of them, you will probably not use this card, instead using Blaster Rifles. On the other hand, this is a cool theme card (another one). If you are building a Jawa deck, you will probably want a fair bung of these (maybe even 10). In some ways this card is the equal of the Eopie in terms of the 'second-best light weapon', but the expensive deploy lets it down a bit.
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CARD FACTS:
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COMMON, ORANGE-DOT, NON-STACKABLE WEAPON
Deploy: 2
Destiny: 5
Game Text:
Adds oo? to any Jawa in battle. (Power +2 AND Destiny ? draw) OR
Adds ? to any other character in battle. (Destiny ? draw)
Flavor Text: Jawas use their hand-crafted ion blasters to capture droids for resale.
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SPECIFIC INTERACTING CARDS:
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In terms of the Jawas currently available, let me just say the following:
Jawa, Thief
(#29, Menace of Darth Maul, Common, Green-Dot)
- In possession of the Jawa Ion Blaster, this character will have an effective power of 4 + Destiny, or 5 + Destiny if on Tatooine. Not bad for a Jawa!
Jawa, Bargainer
(#30, Menace of Darth Maul, Starter Deck Insert, Red-Dot)
- In possession of the Jawa Ion Blaster, this character will have an effective power of 3 + Destiny, or 4 + Destiny if on Tatooine. Not as good as the Jawa / Thief, but the Jawa / Thief does have a lower Destiny.
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IN BRIEF:
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Another nice theme card. The good thing about YJCCG, you see, is that every card in the set is potentially a theme card. Unlike SWCCG, where certain cards simply would not fit into any fun theme and still work reasonably effectively, you can probably use every card in the Menace of Darth Maul expansion in a quite specific theme deck (even the sites!). Jawa Ion Blaster is one prime example of such a card. While it is not the best card you could possibly use in terms of flexibility and overall Power, it becomes the best card you could possibly use if you happen to be playing a Jawa-themed deck. It is probably one of the better themed weapon cards in the set, and the only thing that lets it down is it's expensive deploy. If you are using Jawa / Bargainers, you will be only be able to Deploy 2 of them and 2 Jawa Ion Blasters in a single turn, which sucks. Even less if you are using Jawa / Thief cards.
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GENERAL PLAY TIPS:
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* The Jawa Deck will probably want 10 copies each of Jawa / Thief and Jawa / Bargainer. But what about that pesky blue-dot category. I am not sure, but Tatooine based high-powered cards like Captain Panaka / Protector of the Queen and Ric Olie / Ace Pilot would probably do the job. Alternatively, you could stick to the high-destiny theme and go with Padme Naberrie / Handmaiden and maybe even Anakin Skywalker / Podracer Pilot. For the orange-dot category, you will probably want something like a 6:4 or 7:3 mixture of Jawa Ion Blaster and Blaster Rifles, respectively.
* Style Tip:
- You really have to defeat a massive Battle Droid army using this weapon and a bunch of Jawas. The Jawas will be going home with a full sandcrawler today!
* Dream Card Beg: How about Jawa / Scout or Jawa / Merchant for the blue-dot category? Come on, Decipher, make those deck-themes fully realisable!!!
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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@yahoo.com.au and I'll add it here. Jawas have midget-sized Jedi cloaks on! Almost, anyway!
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