The problem is here is that future designs would have had to take into account all of her boosts so it would limit the strength of other things or they would need a ridiculous rival. We ran into this issue in design where a piece had to have a ridiculous rival which limited its effectiveness because she existed in the other form. There are a lot of things that become overpowered by her boosts which is why the design was changed.

Can you please specifically list the new update that you are referring to?

Yes, and this is exactly why we had to rein her in. For instance, she was making it so that everyone in the Mantis Crew squad was doing 120dmg (most of it non-melee) on the move, every turn. That original squad base was not designed with her in mind, and so she broke it by being added to it.

The game is now big enough and bloated enough that everybody and their brother has an attack or damage boost. Damage-stacking has been a problem for a while (where low-cost pieces are making attacks for ridiculous damage due to multiple damage boosts) and Attack-stacking is also a growing problem. Therefore, to add a piece that can fit into almost any squad and give a +4/+10 boost...that doesn't make things better. It only makes things worse.

IMO what I really think is that it will make leia get a bunch more looks. With leia it is quite easy to damage her, and you don't have to play a bunch of diplomats to spread out the extra damage. I'll be honest that I never thought to play her in an IG squad or really anything that wasn't based around the "heroes" but it certainly makes her an interesting candidate.

As far as Mon Mothma specifically, I am glad that we were able to potentially catch an overpowered piece before it saw print and had to be errattad 17 times. Imagine if we had caught Daala or Jabba or the Commando Droid officer or any of the other overpowered pieces in the same fashion. Would be a much easier and cleaner as their wouldn't be all the errata we have.

Just because "that ship has set sail" doesn't mean we should do nothing to try to mitigate the problem. If damage-stacking is a problem then MORE damage-stacking is a very bad idea. Damage boosts certainly have a place on future pieces, but we are now at the point where just about any damage boost needs to be given clear restrictions due to the vast amount of bloat in the game. There are too many possible interactions to properly check and test all of them.

It might be great if a piece gives a much-needed boost to some under-powered pieces that we'd like to use. However, if that piece also creates broken combos with other (more powerful) pieces, then that's a problem and it cannot be allowed to remain. That's how you get powercreep and a stale meta. The better answer is to create specific pieces that boost those under-used pieces. A great example is the new Juno Eclipse, who makes Vader's Apprentice into a much more useful and terrifying piece. VAR/VAU used to be utterly useless but with Juno is now very powerful and a lot of fun to use.

Are there some under-used Rebels that you'd like to see get a boost? List them here (or perhaps somewhere that it's on-topic) and let's see if we can come up with some ideas to bring them into regular play. I'm always all for this kind of work.


We seriously considered this (creating Rival: Diplomat on a new Mantis Crew piece we were designing).

However, it quickly became apparent that by doing this we would be repeating the Bastila ABM problem. Because ABM was so powerful (including a damage boost), whenever we designed a new character that gave a damage boost, to prevent problems we had to build in some way of keeping Bastila out of that squad, whether that was Prideful for a specific sub-faction or bizarre Rival that makes no sense (on Malak JG), or a number other ways. Basically, we painted ourselves into a corner with Bastila, where new OR pieces couldn't be too strong or else they'd be broken with Bastila.

We recognized the same power level with Mothma and quickly agreed that we didn't want the same problem with her that we created with Bastila. Because Mothma was originally so powerful, we needed to rein her in a bit so that future Rebel designs wouldn't be handcuffed for the next 10 years.

I would say you're only out of your reconning to the extent that you can't/won't recognize that broken stuff is bad for the game. If we see a broken combo, then we have no choice; we need to address it (asap) or the game will suffer.

I agree that Rebels haven't been winning in the competitive scene. I've tried my best with the Heroes of Endor, but this year after playing them in 7 games I've lost 3 of those games...and I think it's accurate to say that few people have as much experience with that squad base as I do. Believe me, I want to see the Rebels in competitive play! But I'd say the answer there isn't to create broken stuff, but rather to pick a specific group of pieces and design for them, rather than create a super-powerful piece that can boost all pieces in the faction (and inevitably break certain ones).

I'm glad it was helpful.
I can understand why people want a piece that boosts their underpowered but much-loved pieces. If that's what we want then let's make that piece...and not a piece that creates broken interactions (which Mothma was already doing and would continue to do if left unchanged).

My losses with the Heroes of Endor were to Yoda/Yaddle jedi, Revan PK/Bastila Ebon Hawk crew, and Nym/Zothip Pirates.