Once known as Ben Solo, Kylo Ren cannot escape the truth that is his family. Grandson and heir apparent of Darth Vader. Nephew and gifted pupil of the legendary Luke Skywalker. Kylo is perpetually torn between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force.
He can take the quick and easy path, killing the past and channeling his aggression through the Dark Side. Or he can choose the Light, requiring patience but finding a power unseen for generations.
“I feel it again. The pull to the light. Supreme Leader senses it. Show me again, the power of the darkness, and I will let nothing stand in our way.”
Kylo Ren – HP 19 – Red Deck – Melee
First Order Troopers – HP 4 – Weak Deck – Ranged
Conflict and Resolve
A0*/D0*
*You may shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile. If you do, you may discard up to 1 Kylo card and 1 Trooper card and add their attack and defense values to this card. If you do not shuffle, increase the attack and defense values of this card by 1 for every Special/Power Combat card in your discard pile. Draw a card.
Darkness Rises and Light to Meet It
A4/D4
You may shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile. If you do, draw cards until you have 4 cards in your hand. If you do not shuffle, look at the top card of your draw pile. Look at an additional card for every Special/Power Combat card in your discard pile. Reveal up to 4 Special/Power Combat cards among them and put them in your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your draw pile in any order.
Crimson Crossguard
A5
You may shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile. If you do, until your next turn, characters attacking Kylo receive damage equal to his defense card's attack value. Reduce this damage by the defense value of their attack card. If you do not shuffle, until your next turn, Kylo receives no damage when attacked unless the attack value is greater than the number of Special/Power Combat cards in your discard pile.
Force Stasis
Special
You may shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile. If you do, draw cards until you have 4 cards in your hand. Then move Kylo up to 4 spaces. If you do not shuffle, until your next turn, opponents roll the movement die twice and you choose the result. If the sum of both results is not greater than the number of Special/Power Combat cards in your discard pile, enemy characters cannot move.
Mind Probe
Special
You may shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile. If you do, until the end of your next turn, players must choose and discard a card after playing an attack or defense card against Kylo. If you do not shuffle, each opponent must choose and reveal a card in their hand. They reveal an additional card for every Special/Power Combat card in your discard pile. Choose and discard one revealed card from each opponent. Draw a card.
Dyad in the Force
Special
Choose any player. That player searches their draw pile for any card, shuffles the draw pile, then puts that card back on top. Then choose a different player. Take any card from that player's discard pile and put that card on top of their draw pile.
3x Conflict and Resolve
2x Darkness Rises and Light to Meet It
2x Crimson Crossguard
2x Force Stasis
2x Mind Probe
1x Dyad in the Force
Simply put, Kylo Ren has been the greatest challenge of Legacy. To capture the character, I feel I need to represent three things:
- His inner conflict between the Light and the Dark.
- His complicated relationship with his family, and by extension, his past.
- His connection with Rey.
To translate these characteristics into my set, the deck should:
- Use a modal structure for choosing between Light & Dark, ala Jedi Exile.
- Prominently feature the discard pile in its mechanics.
- Pair well with Rey, and if possible, be countered by Rey.
I believe today’s build hits all three goals. Kylo’s talents allow you to choose between shuffling away your discard pile for a “rush” benefit or counting talents in your discard pile for a “carry” benefit. We talked about rush strategies extensively last time in Rey’s preview, but a carry deck is basically the inverse. It’s a deck that starts off weak and gets stronger over time, with the potential to carry a team to victory in the late game.
Which path you follow may be influenced by your opening hand, but will depend primarily on your matchup. If you need to win early, leverage the shuffle benefits and play to a small hand that gets refreshed often. If you’re going for the long game, let the discarded talents stack up for huge swings later.
Regardless of which way you go, Kylo’s bread-and-butter combat trick is Conflict and Resolve. Dark Side Kylo can use it to empty his hand to take full advantage of the draw benefits on Darkness Rises and Light to Meet It and Force Stasis. It can reliably attack for 7 or 8. In a pinch, it can add in a bit of desperately needed defense for a Red deck. Light Side Kylo, on the other hand, gets a scaling attack or defense that can get all the way up to an 11 if it’s the last talent you play. That’s a surefire way to close out a game!
Darkness Rises and Light to Meet It is a reliable buildup card for either strategy. Dark Kylo can both defend and draw to 4 cards in hand; an incredibly powerful, but probably necessary, cog in his machine. Light Kylo can grab more talents off the top of his deck and churn through non-talents to make faster progress. Deciding when to pull the trigger on this card will probably always be a tricky proposition for a Light Side Kylo Ren player.
Crimson Crossguard is a one-turn defensive trick for both paths. It deters attacks on Dark Kylo by turning his Red basic deck into an engine for trading blows. It’s worth noting that since its damage opposes the attacker’s defense value, characters with solid Attack/Defense combo cards like Ki-Adi-Mundi’s Jedi Watchman have some natural immunity to it. When channeling the Light Side, it can instead prevent attacks entirely if you’re far enough into your game.
For Dark Kylo, Force Stasis is a solid move-and-draw reminiscent of Hasbro Anakin’s Calm. For Light Kylo, it lives up to its name and lets him constrict opposing movements. If his discard pile is big enough or the rolls low enough, he can even negate an opposing move phase altogether.
For his last unique ability, I wanted to pay homage to the interrogation scenes in The Force Awakens with the Mind Probe card. As a Dark Sider, it functions as a way to wear down an opponent in combat and deter attacks. As a Light Sider, it lets you peer into the minds and hands of opponents with a bit of fun interplay in its reveal mechanic. Like a lot of Kylo’s tricks, I am hoping for some fun tension with the timing of this card. Do you wait to try to see an opponent’s entire hand in the future or play it now and let them conceal their favorite card?
And finally, Kylo shares his one-of with his equal in the Light, Rey. Dyad in the Force is an incredibly flexible card that can either let a Dark Side Kylo find whatever he needs in his perpetually-refreshed deck or let a Light Side Kylo replay any of his tricks once he has the benefit of a large discard pile. Since Dyad in the Force doesn’t care about your discard count, a Light Side Kylo could also reasonably use it early just to get the ball rolling on his discarded talents.
Speaking of his perpetually-refreshed deck, Dark Kylo also has the benefit, and arguably detriment, of unpredictability. Since his discard pile is constantly recycling, it’s impossible to card count against him and luck plays a larger role in his game since you never know what you’ll end up seeing repeatedly. It’s worth noting that due to the nature of his abilities, a Kylo player planning to pursue the Light Side doesn’t really lose anything by choosing the shuffle effect on their first talent played. This is probably hard to take advantage of, but a trick to be aware of.
Since Kylo Ren is essentially two decks in one, his options for teammates are quite varied. If he’s going to play to late game, characters that can keep him alive like Aayla Secura, Shaak Ti, and Kyle Katarn all come to mind. Fellow Legacy deck The Armorer could also optimize Kylo by dramatically speeding him toward the late game. If he wants to be aggressive, he can pair with rushers like Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, or of course, Rey.
If you’re trying to counter-pick Kylo, Rey is an excellent choice. She can prevent him from filling his discard pile and take advantage of his own discard shuffling. Other than that, countering him will depend on his path.
Kylo’s biggest weak point is probably his Red basic deck. With the exception of Han Solo, literally every other rush deck and carry deck in Galactic Battles is Blue, and for good reason. If you can apply consistent pressure and work around his gimmicky defensive tricks, Kylo will have a hard time surviving even with his large health pool. Even if you can’t outright kill a Light Side Kylo, forcing out a defensive Conflict and Resolve in the mid-game means a big blow to his output later. Balance. Powerful light, powerful darkness.
Master the complexities of the Force with Kylo Ren! Next week, strap in for adventure as we explore another kind of duality in Epic Duels with the penultimate Legacy preview!
Galactic Trivia! – Conflict and Resolve is of course named for Snoke’s line “Where there was conflict, I now sense resolve,” but it also has a connection to Agen Kolar’s Resolve card as both discard Basics to add their values.
Galactic Dev Trivia! – This build represents the third major iteration of Kylo. The original concept was to have the Light Side split between cards that counted Basics in your discard pile and ones that discarded a Basic from your deck. The Dark Side would instead “spend” Basics from your discard pile for its rush benefits. Ultimately the Dark Side suffered from needing that discarded “ammo” in the early game and the Light Side got into weird situations since it wanted to have no Basics left. I eventually had to scrap the design in favor of what you see here.