Keeping a Level Head in Spoiler Season

I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and say something you don’t want to hear: you’re going about spoiler season all wrong. Look, I get it. New sets are exciting, and new cards are what dreams are made of. It’s okay, nay, it’s great to theorycraft upon Destiny’s future with every new card spoiled, but depending on how you go about it, you could be doing yourself more harm than good. Today, I’m going to be the curmudgeon, the nagging parent, the hall monitor that yells ‘no running!’. You aren’t going to like me, but trust me, by listening to what I say today you’ll be better for it.

Innocence is Bliss

Picture this. Empire at War just released, you bought a totally reasonable number of packs and opened them up and you’re looking upon your spoils with a world of possibilities before you. There is a huge tournament tonight, prizes, glory and babes galore are at stake, and you want to win. For the purposes of this exercise, I’m assuming that you are competitive, and proud, aiming to find one of the top decks before the rest of the sheep beat you to it. I know there are other ways to play, and the first week is normally devoted to casual decks, but humor me. What is your first step?

If you’re going in blind, meaning you haven’t been paying attention to spoiler discussion, you’ll probably hop online and do some light searching for inspiration, or, if you’re a deckbuilding purist, just jump right in. This applies to literally nobody, as we live in the digital age, love Destiny, and probably have seen every spoiler within an hour of them hitting the interwebs. This means you’ve already got some bias built-in, based on whatever you’ve heard over the past few weeks, and said bias is primed and ready to push you down a path you’ll later regret.

Think back to Spirit of Rebellion release. What did you play first week? For me, it was an atrocious Luke/Mon Mothma list that I dreamed up, building on my previous successes with Luke/Ackbar. I figured a ton of events and free Mothma-rerolls would let me control my opponents to death. I was quickly crushed by a durdly Salvage Stand control and Vibroknife/Force Speed Rey. This anecdote illustrates my main point this week, which is that we know absolutely nothing without context. Lr1k Sonic Cannon might be the best card in the set, or it might be absolutely unplayable, and we really have no way of knowing until we have all the cards in front of us.

This point is one I’ve found is pretty controversial, which is absolutely amazing to me. I’ll try and break it down for you. As I see it, cards must always be evaluated on two axes, ‘rate’ and ‘context’. Rate is the clear, defined measurables of what we are getting for the cost, and is influenced only by what the going standard is for like minded comps (other cards that we can compare to). For example, F-11D Rifle, and all new two cost ranged weapons will continue to be evaluated on rate compared to Holdout Blaster, the pinnacle of that particular classification. For three cost melee, the comp is Z6 Riot Control Baton, and on and on and on. A hypothetical new one cost blaster could be playable, but the first step in determining that is by analyzing it alongside DH-17. If we don’t, we’re doing ourselves a disservice and delegitimizing our argument for or against.

The second axis, ‘context’, is incredibly broad, and filled with equal parts speculation and analysis. Let’s go back to Lr1k Sonic Cannon again. It’s undeniable that 3,4,5 or 6 ranged damage packs a big punch, and is definitely a card that could be good, but to answer whether it will or not requires some thought about what the environment looks like. If Deflect, Unkar Plutt and Kylo Ren are prevalent in the metagame, Lr1k Sonic Cannon becomes a liability, and its value decreases. If these cards are nowhere to be found, and players are still playing two character ‘main/support’ lineups, Lr1k Sonic Cannon will be a defining force in the field. This is the type of discussion that needs to happen around new spoiled cards.

Instead, what normally happens is something like this:

“I can’t wait for Thrawn, he’s going to be soooo good!”

Followed by:

“Grand Inquisitor’s Lightsaber is so expensive, that’ll never see play!”

And on and on it goes. I’ll be honest, these statements frustrate the hell out of me, because, while they may be innocent, they are at best narrow-minded, uninformed opinions masquerading as fact. At worst, they influence passers-by into thinking they are truth. Otherwise known as the Luminara Principle.

Here’s what it comes down to. Yes, by all knowledge available to us as of 8/28/2017, it looks like Thrawn is going to be a strong character, and four resources for an upgrade does seem pricey. That being said, a million things can change between now and set release (or even later down the road) that could cause our analysis of both these cards to turn completely around. Look at Shoto Lightsaber for example. I wish, more than I probably should, that Lightsaber Pull wasn’t spoiled alongside Shoto Lightsaber, just so I could illustrate this point. While by no means is doubled up Shoto Lightsaber on Qui Gon Jinn the only way to use the card, as of today that seems to be the strongest. Were Lightsaber Pull not printed, detractors would point to the fact that it would be difficult to get both Shoto’s out early enough for them to make a large impact, hence the card must be bad.

They might be right, but Lightsaber Pull changes the argument entirely. Giving us two more virtual copies of Shoto Lightsaber (or any other Blue weapon) increases our consistency, and therefore our chances of getting both out earlier increases as well. Whether Shoto Lightsaber will actually be ‘good’ depends on a lot of things, (Blue hero gaining some ground on the other pairings, Qui Gon aligning nicely in EaW meta, etc) but my point stands; evaluating cards in a vacuum is a recipe for disaster. Shoto Lightsaber viewed separate from a possible future where Lightsaber Pull is a card influences our opinion of Shoto Lightsaber, and vice versa. Throw in a couple other potential tools for Blue hero that we don’t even know about yet, and you start to see that the fog of war can hide a whole army for all we know. How can anyone say “Shoto won’t see play because Blue Hero is bad” with any legitimacy when we don’t even know half the set?

Take this argument, distribute it across 160 cards (96 unknown at this point) and the reality becomes clear: for all that we know, we really don’t know anything. Nothing is absolute, because even with perfect information, there’s no way to know for sure how the metagame will be on September 12, September 19, or even in 2018. Metagames are constantly changing, and with those changes individual card values rise and fall. Judging cards without all available information is a pointless exercise, and can even build in biases that are detrimental to your own perspective and evaluation process.

Spoiler discussion is fun, and healthy, and a great way to flex our deckbuilding muscles and get ready for the new set, but if I can be the nagging parent, I caution you to exercise restraint. Instead of writing off Shoto Lightsaber because “Blue Hero sux”, maybe change your stance, or at least acknowledge that the card is intriguing, but personally you need to see more. Grand Inquisitior’s Lightsaber seems expensive in the fast-paced, resource hungry Destiny we’ve experienced so far, but who’s to say that will be the Destiny we learn to know in a couple of weeks? Anything is possible, so try not to deal in absolutes. Unless, of course, we’re talking about Luminara.

Thanks for reading

Trevor Holmes

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