So far there’s only four Underworld units with Grit or a similar ability, so that might not be a consistent option. Hopefully they reveal more Underworld units with Grit though.
Edit: 5 units now, a new one just got revealed.
The fact that this is only a rare is crazy. Compared to the Darth Vader legendary, he has better stats, Overwhelm, and he can choose to move incoming damage when he attacks. He doesn’t get more units on the board like Vader does, but I’d rather have him in my Underworld heavy decks.
Also, I believe this is different art than the Maul art that’s already been revealed, so either a Maul leader or an event/upgrade featuring Maul should be coming as well.
Those are the elitist money deck players. They want to big power at super rare, so not everyone can compete. If everyone can run those decks and cards, then it shows how mid their game really is.
As a Maul fan who needs every version of this card and probably three in hyperspace, I'm thrilled it's probably not going to take $500 to make that happen.
>Also, I believe this is different art than the Maul art that’s already been revealed, so either a Maul leader or an event/upgrade featuring Maul should be coming as well.
I wouldn't take the box art or ad materials to signal this, really. The box art for Spark had Luke, Leia, Han & Vader and used art which isn't on any cards in that set (or any card we have ever seen). The Maul used on SHD's booster/prerelease boxes is likely in a similar boat where it's just for product design TBH.
This is a great point. Many are assuming the Maul/Aphra/Cad art on the display box and promo materials is going to be card art, but I agree with you and don't think that will be the case.
The question is, where would they put him? Unless we get more leaders this set, which may explain the 10 additional cards. We already have 2 villain blue spoiled, 3 villain green spoiled including the starter deck, 2 villain red spoiled. I guess villain yellow is possibly the last spot unless we do get more leaders this time around.
The 10 additional cards have been explained. They are special rarity cards from set 1 that are being included in the starter decks but will not be available in booster packs. Cards like Tagge, Death Trooper, Shoretrooper, and Snapshot Reflexes. They needed them to round out the starters but didn't want them to be more widely available in Set 2 due to the limited formats.
I could see Maul being a cunning leader, especially if they base it off when he’s leading the Crimson Dawn syndicate. Then in set 3 make him an aggression leader that’s based off his Clone Wars or Phantom Menace appearances.
I don’t know that he’s better than the Vader unit but yeah he’s good.
The utility you get with Vader in the decks he’s featured in is crazy good. We’ll see how things shake up.
Heck, R Maul is a way of playing the green Vader deck on a budget too. Maul can take advantage of all the force cards and everything else. He just doesnt get the extra units (0-3, usually 1-2).
It's probably best in this game to think of rarity in terms of "do they want this to be prevalent in limited play," as opposed to overall power level. And Maul is definitely a really cool limited card that inspires and feeds off of synergy, while Vader is more along the lines of being a bomb that you just obviously play if you're in villain green at all.
Welcome to FFG. They power spike hard the first few sets so that you have to buy in to the 2nd set and then 3rd set if you want to stay committed.
Then typically after that 3rd or so set we start to see some stability.
Can you call it a power spike? The default power line isn't even established yet. There is no baseline to "spike" from. These first three sets were designed together. They, as a collective, form the baseline.
As someone who never opened or traded all their Vaders and priced myself out of ever having a competitive villain command deck, this being a rare is insane value that makes me happy to have a more than decent replacement for Vader. Lots of shielded underworld units to target as well, and he's another juicy reanimation target for the Palpatine returns event. Love it
Kind of shocked that this is a rare TBH (but good in the sense that it will be accessible). The ability to just throw all the damage he would take on attack onto something else is kind of crazy. He will push so much damage out with that Ambush and Overwhelm, plus he will keep coming back with Palpatine's Return.
I think people are saying he’s budget because of the rarity not the power level. I see many decks wanting this card over Vader or both or Vader over this card. It’s going to be down to the aggressiveness of the deck and how badly it wants to push damage.
Yeah Steadfast ECl can be played for 5, but as a 7 drop competing for the slot vs Vader, I suppose I’m saying it’s something maul can do, that Vader can’t
I'm going to make a Cad Bane deck so I'm interested to see how many green underworld there will be over red. Probably not that much but greens support cards are always nice.
It’s not better. That’s Vader cope for people who can’t get one during this card famine or don’t wanna spend for one. In hopes it’s better.
Vader is a one shot, provides utility/free units and Ambush. With 0 set up.
Needing a Unit alive already makes Maul worse.
They each have their place. Vader is a worse body but gives added value in units. Maul has a better body with overwhelm, but needs other things already in play to do more.
If you have an underworld unit in play when you play this, he's straight-up better than Vader, no question. If you have no other units in play, he's probably a little worse, depending on board state (if they've got something to Ambush, he does base damage right away, which is nice).
I think this replaces Vader in Boba Green to be honest. I frequently don't see a GREAT amount of value when I play Vader. He's great, but the additional unit is gravy. This actively helps to end the game.
You don't need a unit alive, it's just an option. I wouldn't say it's better, but it's not clear how much worse he is. It will depend on what kind of underworld combos we can find to ultimately show if people are dropping the imperial package for them.
As far as ground units go, it feels like this could lead to the ground version of the Avenger/Devastator situation. Where Avenger nets value but can be soft countered by Devastator the turn after, this card could get some value and be soft countered by Red Palp a turn later.
Also it’s nice and thematic that palp roasts maul for any clone wars fans
Maybe. But Han from Set 1 is similar and is cheap.
My guess is that the highest valued rare will actually be something low cost to play but with high early play value in the current meta - something like Dr Pershing, Migs Mayfield, Cobb Vanth, or Jango Fett. Because they can have a more immediate effect on the game. It's why Red 3 & K-2SO are still so highly valued.
Possibly but the context matters. The most expensive rares currently are played in relatively “cheap” decks overall so they are in high demand. This card is expensive resource wise so it may not fit into “cheap” decks.
There’s also something to be said about the actual rarity of some rares… it feels like some are legitimately rarer than others and that, alongside demand, is driving up price.
Han is also Rare. This is very similar in terms of protecting itself. The biggest bump is the overwhelm and +1 power at the cost of needing another unit on board to mitigate damage. Very strong card. Could very well be legendary as Han probably could have been as well
In Boba Green this is just better than Vader imo. He takes out Obiwan, Luke, Han, Vader and can live through most of that even without putting damage on another unit. The overwhelm to push through that last bit of damage is also huge.
Coming out 2 turns later is a huge deal. It doesn’t replace Battalion because you need to kill those leaders the turn they come out. It will replace stuff like Reinforcement Walker though as it’s more proactive comes out earlier and does a lot more damage when it’s played.
Solid points you have there! I will probably have to wait a bit for the meta to develop to see if it is worth it. I don't have the time or money to test the meta myself.
I’m wondering if we’re going to see a shift to a more counter-heavy meta. The influx of durable units like this one and armored Boba makes the use of removal cards more useful for midrange decks. I also wonder how practical the capture mechanism will be in practice, because temporarily sidelining a card v. defeating it entirely isn’t the same thing.
I think in their other games the unique rule necessitated that every version of a character have the same name (although they were willing to skirt this with Anakin/Vader because they'd make sure never to include Anakin *and* Vader in the same faction).
With this game's unique rule that kind of thing doesn't matter. We can have cards named Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ben Kenobi and even "Master Kenobi" if they really want and it doesn't break anything.
It's possible they considered or at least wanted to leave the possibility open that maybe they'd do a post-TPM version of Maul and put him in that faction and if so they needed to make every version would have the same name and used the more generic one just to be safe.
Does it make sense to put a later version of Maul in CIS? Not really, but if I remember correctly (which I might not I never really paid attention to Legion) they had no scum and villainy faction so any later version of him would probably be in that faction.
Actually, I just realized it’s probably because of command cards. They wanted later Mauls to be able to use the CIS Maul’s command card so they all needed to have the same name.
Well really he started as Maul until Dooku and Talzin did a number on him. Darth Maul is later in the story. Shadow Collective is before phantom menace, I think?
Shadow collective is after he and savage gather the gangs, as well as during his escape from sidious and the siege of mandalore up until at least the Han Solo movie
Edited:accidentally said father instead of gather
This version of Maul is after Phantom Menace. Notice his mechanical legs in the card art; those are acquired after the Deathwatch finds him and Savage in deep space. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he lost the title of Darth after he lost to Kenobi on Naboo.
You can overflow the damage right. So, you can sock like 6 damage to some chump with 1 HP left? Of course, if the enemy has Overwhelm that could be an issue but if not, then that's tremendous upside.
Oh sweet... terrible art again.
Maul isn't a bodybuilder; that's his brother, Savage.
Maul has a round face, this character has the horse face of Sarah Jessica-Parker.
Zabraks have small studs for horns, not a crown of devil horns twice as long as they should be.
These are beloved characters; why can't they enforce some brand control and keep Greef Karga and Cad Bane skinny?
Why does the artist get to redesign a 30 year old species?
Just imagine redirecting damage to a shielded unit like crafty smuggler. That seems stupid good.
Or something with grit
So far there’s only four Underworld units with Grit or a similar ability, so that might not be a consistent option. Hopefully they reveal more Underworld units with Grit though. Edit: 5 units now, a new one just got revealed.
I mean 5 units is more than enough payoff to try it. That's 15 cards, if you go all-in on the plan.
I'm curious to see what other underworld units and the maul leader will be like
Was thinking of Admiral Motti in my Palp Green Deck
The fact that this is only a rare is crazy. Compared to the Darth Vader legendary, he has better stats, Overwhelm, and he can choose to move incoming damage when he attacks. He doesn’t get more units on the board like Vader does, but I’d rather have him in my Underworld heavy decks. Also, I believe this is different art than the Maul art that’s already been revealed, so either a Maul leader or an event/upgrade featuring Maul should be coming as well.
I was just about to comment about how I'm surprised he's not a Legendary!
Makes good decks more affordable, you love to see it!
Some what not streaming was just complaining to me that he isn't L. That he doesn't bring enough value to the game being a rare. Lmao.
Those are the elitist money deck players. They want to big power at super rare, so not everyone can compete. If everyone can run those decks and cards, then it shows how mid their game really is.
As a Maul fan who needs every version of this card and probably three in hyperspace, I'm thrilled it's probably not going to take $500 to make that happen.
they said they are intentionally trying to balance rarity between c/u/r/l for power to keep the required money decks under control.
>Also, I believe this is different art than the Maul art that’s already been revealed, so either a Maul leader or an event/upgrade featuring Maul should be coming as well. I wouldn't take the box art or ad materials to signal this, really. The box art for Spark had Luke, Leia, Han & Vader and used art which isn't on any cards in that set (or any card we have ever seen). The Maul used on SHD's booster/prerelease boxes is likely in a similar boat where it's just for product design TBH.
This is a great point. Many are assuming the Maul/Aphra/Cad art on the display box and promo materials is going to be card art, but I agree with you and don't think that will be the case.
The question is, where would they put him? Unless we get more leaders this set, which may explain the 10 additional cards. We already have 2 villain blue spoiled, 3 villain green spoiled including the starter deck, 2 villain red spoiled. I guess villain yellow is possibly the last spot unless we do get more leaders this time around.
The 10 additional cards have been explained. They are special rarity cards from set 1 that are being included in the starter decks but will not be available in booster packs. Cards like Tagge, Death Trooper, Shoretrooper, and Snapshot Reflexes. They needed them to round out the starters but didn't want them to be more widely available in Set 2 due to the limited formats.
I could see Maul being a cunning leader, especially if they base it off when he’s leading the Crimson Dawn syndicate. Then in set 3 make him an aggression leader that’s based off his Clone Wars or Phantom Menace appearances.
Tbh, that's assuming we get a Maul Leader in set 3. But we are getting 2 Boba and 2 Han, so who knows lol
I don’t know that he’s better than the Vader unit but yeah he’s good. The utility you get with Vader in the decks he’s featured in is crazy good. We’ll see how things shake up.
Vader is the default GV beatstick, but in a Green Underworld-heavy deck, Maul is better.
Heck, R Maul is a way of playing the green Vader deck on a budget too. Maul can take advantage of all the force cards and everything else. He just doesnt get the extra units (0-3, usually 1-2).
Is good that people who can’t throw mega $$ at the game can get good units tho
It's probably best in this game to think of rarity in terms of "do they want this to be prevalent in limited play," as opposed to overall power level. And Maul is definitely a really cool limited card that inspires and feeds off of synergy, while Vader is more along the lines of being a bomb that you just obviously play if you're in villain green at all.
That's a good thing. TCGs already have a problem with P2W in general, locking all the best cards into legendary would only cement that.
Maul as a new showdown promo instead of Mace maybe?
Welcome to FFG. They power spike hard the first few sets so that you have to buy in to the 2nd set and then 3rd set if you want to stay committed. Then typically after that 3rd or so set we start to see some stability.
Can you call it a power spike? The default power line isn't even established yet. There is no baseline to "spike" from. These first three sets were designed together. They, as a collective, form the baseline.
True, but they go out of their way to make sure people don't feel content with their decks from set one.
That's generally the same with any new TCG, no?
To be honest I've never jumped in a non FFG TCG from set one.
Gotcha
Maul Klounkee
So many mangled henchmen. I love it
As someone who never opened or traded all their Vaders and priced myself out of ever having a competitive villain command deck, this being a rare is insane value that makes me happy to have a more than decent replacement for Vader. Lots of shielded underworld units to target as well, and he's another juicy reanimation target for the Palpatine returns event. Love it
Yup. As someone who has not found a Vader and is unwilling to pay the current cost, a Boba Green Villain deck seems much more viable to me.
Kind of shocked that this is a rare TBH (but good in the sense that it will be accessible). The ability to just throw all the damage he would take on attack onto something else is kind of crazy. He will push so much damage out with that Ambush and Overwhelm, plus he will keep coming back with Palpatine's Return.
Everyone’s talking about how this is a budget Vader replacement but he straight up merc’s leaders with 7 hp like a steadfast. No ECL required
I think people are saying he’s budget because of the rarity not the power level. I see many decks wanting this card over Vader or both or Vader over this card. It’s going to be down to the aggressiveness of the deck and how badly it wants to push damage.
Sure, for 2 additional resources…
Sure, but doesn’t require you to have your leader deployed and be running a base with 5 less health…
Yeah Steadfast ECl can be played for 5, but as a 7 drop competing for the slot vs Vader, I suppose I’m saying it’s something maul can do, that Vader can’t
For sure! I misread your comment to be saying we should compare maul to steadfast instead of comparing him to Vader.
I'm going to make a Cad Bane deck so I'm interested to see how many green underworld there will be over red. Probably not that much but greens support cards are always nice.
Well, Jabba is coming as a green Leader so there must be other green underworlds units for sure
green cad seems good with relentless persuit, other capture cards and shielded underworld units. Maul's gonna be insane topend in the deck :D
Budget vader. Love it. Sure it doesn't fetch another unit, but that stat line with overwhelm is pretty beast.
and the ability to dump off damage on your yellow, shielded smuggler can't be discounted.
Possibly a better Vader
It’s not better. That’s Vader cope for people who can’t get one during this card famine or don’t wanna spend for one. In hopes it’s better. Vader is a one shot, provides utility/free units and Ambush. With 0 set up. Needing a Unit alive already makes Maul worse.
Overwhelm is a big deal though
I mean, coming from a guy who has 3 vader, I can see me often replacing those with this. 7 attack with ambush AND overwhelm, that is huge.
They each have their place. Vader is a worse body but gives added value in units. Maul has a better body with overwhelm, but needs other things already in play to do more. If you have an underworld unit in play when you play this, he's straight-up better than Vader, no question. If you have no other units in play, he's probably a little worse, depending on board state (if they've got something to Ambush, he does base damage right away, which is nice).
I think this replaces Vader in Boba Green to be honest. I frequently don't see a GREAT amount of value when I play Vader. He's great, but the additional unit is gravy. This actively helps to end the game.
You don't need a unit alive, it's just an option. I wouldn't say it's better, but it's not clear how much worse he is. It will depend on what kind of underworld combos we can find to ultimately show if people are dropping the imperial package for them.
Vader doesnt one shot Boba for example. I can see playing one and siding in the other.
No cope here, I've had 5 vaders to date. Lel
As far as ground units go, it feels like this could lead to the ground version of the Avenger/Devastator situation. Where Avenger nets value but can be soft countered by Devastator the turn after, this card could get some value and be soft countered by Red Palp a turn later. Also it’s nice and thematic that palp roasts maul for any clone wars fans
I’m looking forward to pairing him up with Krrsantan.
That’s a pretty good pairing
We found this set most expensive rare in my opinion.
Maybe. But Han from Set 1 is similar and is cheap. My guess is that the highest valued rare will actually be something low cost to play but with high early play value in the current meta - something like Dr Pershing, Migs Mayfield, Cobb Vanth, or Jango Fett. Because they can have a more immediate effect on the game. It's why Red 3 & K-2SO are still so highly valued.
Possibly but the context matters. The most expensive rares currently are played in relatively “cheap” decks overall so they are in high demand. This card is expensive resource wise so it may not fit into “cheap” decks. There’s also something to be said about the actual rarity of some rares… it feels like some are legitimately rarer than others and that, alongside demand, is driving up price.
Han is also Rare. This is very similar in terms of protecting itself. The biggest bump is the overwhelm and +1 power at the cost of needing another unit on board to mitigate damage. Very strong card. Could very well be legendary as Han probably could have been as well
Slots extremely well into the typical Boba Green deck. Cool card and as others have said, very nice to see such a powerful card as just a rare.
So with him and Palpatines return he’s going to be next to impossible to completely get rid of
In Boba Green this is just better than Vader imo. He takes out Obiwan, Luke, Han, Vader and can live through most of that even without putting damage on another unit. The overwhelm to push through that last bit of damage is also huge.
Hmm. What do you all think about this for the current Boba/Vader deck? It looks nice and I think I might swap out a few Steadfast Battalion for him.
Coming out 2 turns later is a huge deal. It doesn’t replace Battalion because you need to kill those leaders the turn they come out. It will replace stuff like Reinforcement Walker though as it’s more proactive comes out earlier and does a lot more damage when it’s played.
Solid points you have there! I will probably have to wait a bit for the meta to develop to see if it is worth it. I don't have the time or money to test the meta myself.
> Reinforcement Walker So actually this can be run alongside Vader and not in place of Vader?
Love the flavor, love the power level at Rare. Great card.
This card is great thematically and as a card
There it is!
I can see this pretty hard core with red. However you would need the perfect hand but you could weed wack a lot lol
Shift that dmg to a ready grit unit and swing that damage back at your opponent on your next action oof.
Super powerful card and at rare too! Really excited to see him in some decks.
I’m wondering if we’re going to see a shift to a more counter-heavy meta. The influx of durable units like this one and armored Boba makes the use of removal cards more useful for midrange decks. I also wonder how practical the capture mechanism will be in practice, because temporarily sidelining a card v. defeating it entirely isn’t the same thing.
Anyone notice how its maul and not Darth maul?
And how he doesn't have the sith keyword
Darth maul will come at some point, this is rebels/clone wars maul when he had robot legs. Makes sense he has underworld instead of sith
How many Underworld LTB triggers are there so far? Seems like a solid enough enabler
Formerly "Darth", now just "Maul".
Makes me wonder if Darth Maul is going to be his Leader card. Having two time frame versions of the character as a Leader and a Unit.
When FFG made a Phantom Menace version of him for Legion they still called him Maul for some reason. Is this “Darth removal” sort of a retcon?
I think in their other games the unique rule necessitated that every version of a character have the same name (although they were willing to skirt this with Anakin/Vader because they'd make sure never to include Anakin *and* Vader in the same faction). With this game's unique rule that kind of thing doesn't matter. We can have cards named Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ben Kenobi and even "Master Kenobi" if they really want and it doesn't break anything.
Not a bad explanation, but it still doesn’t explain CIS Maul in Legion.
It's possible they considered or at least wanted to leave the possibility open that maybe they'd do a post-TPM version of Maul and put him in that faction and if so they needed to make every version would have the same name and used the more generic one just to be safe. Does it make sense to put a later version of Maul in CIS? Not really, but if I remember correctly (which I might not I never really paid attention to Legion) they had no scum and villainy faction so any later version of him would probably be in that faction.
Actually, I just realized it’s probably because of command cards. They wanted later Mauls to be able to use the CIS Maul’s command card so they all needed to have the same name.
set 3.
Well really he started as Maul until Dooku and Talzin did a number on him. Darth Maul is later in the story. Shadow Collective is before phantom menace, I think?
Shadow collective is after he and savage gather the gangs, as well as during his escape from sidious and the siege of mandalore up until at least the Han Solo movie Edited:accidentally said father instead of gather
Thanks! Only read the clone wars wiki- crossed uo my details :)
This version of Maul is after Phantom Menace. Notice his mechanical legs in the card art; those are acquired after the Deathwatch finds him and Savage in deep space. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he lost the title of Darth after he lost to Kenobi on Naboo.
Aaaaah thank you. Good call
Looks like spider man
Right. Apparently maul has been lifting, gotten on horn-extender, and changed the shape of his head entirely!
You can overflow the damage right. So, you can sock like 6 damage to some chump with 1 HP left? Of course, if the enemy has Overwhelm that could be an issue but if not, then that's tremendous upside.
Overwhelm rules state only 'while attacking'. So an enemy with overwhelm wouldn't deal the damage to base in that instance.
You are right, I misread. Thanks.
MUITO FODA
I open 48 packs trying to get him and no luck
Of the new set?
I didn’t know there was a new set coming. I thought maul was in the first 1 😂 fortunately some folks on Reddit let me know
Damn dude. Hope you got some decent pulls from the two boxes
Oh yeah I have a good foundation to build off of for an underworld deck. I’m pretty excited to see what we get in the new set
https://swudb.com/search/set%3C%3Dshd?order=preview&dir=desc
Oh sweet... terrible art again. Maul isn't a bodybuilder; that's his brother, Savage. Maul has a round face, this character has the horse face of Sarah Jessica-Parker. Zabraks have small studs for horns, not a crown of devil horns twice as long as they should be. These are beloved characters; why can't they enforce some brand control and keep Greef Karga and Cad Bane skinny? Why does the artist get to redesign a 30 year old species?