Jerry Reviews Jerry's Set 3 Predictions
Now that Set 3 PQ season is over, let's do a retrospective on my predictions made before the Set 3 release!
Preface:
The last PQ event was on February 23, 2025 per https://starwarsunlimited.com/articles/planetary-qualifiers-of-twilight (though I think one or a few may have been delayed?).
https://www.swu-competitivehub.com/meta/ was used to check leaders’ usage and certain cards’ usage.
My Set 3 predictions post from November:
Predicting the Impact of Set 3’s Leaders/Mechanics in the Competitive Scene
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Preface: I think Sabine and Boba1 will still have high representation in the Set 3’s meta (I know, what a hot take /s). Control didn’t get many tools, so I’m not expecting much control representation.
Table of Contents
What I got Right/Wrong
Preface: I’m only looking at Top 8 decks as that’s the only comprehensive data that we have available.
Coordinate
What I Predicted
I called out the potential in Han2 ECL decks. Aside from that, I think this mechanic is too slow/too telegraphed, despite the cards that generate token units. The payoff of many of the coordinate cards also seems to be not worth the deck building effort.
Reality
This mechanic saw the most usage via Plo Koon, followed by Aayla Secura, and a bit of Ki-Adi Mundi.
Plo Koon was mostly seen in Quinlan and Han1 decks.
Aayla Secura was mostly seen in Quinlan ECL and Anakin ECL decks.
Ki-Adi Mundi was mostly seen in some Yoda, Quinlan, and Han1 decks.
The coordinate mechanic saw 3/21 (~14.29%) coordinate unit cards being played, with the majority of the coordinate mechanic usage coming from just one card - Plo Koon.
I consider myself being mostly right with this call.
Exploit
What I Predicted
I called out the potential of Dooku decks. Aside from that, exploit cards seem to be too expensive for what they offer. I did specifically call out Admiral Trench, thinking it may be the more played exploit card in general.
Reality
No competitive exploit based decks.
Heavy Persuader Tank and Geonosis Patrol Fighter were seen in many Jango Tarkintown decks. But these two cards were mostly played for their vehicle trait to be pulled from Triple Dark Raid, not really for their exploit mechanic (exploit does come into play, but not often). There are also some Jango Tarkintown lists that don’t run either of these two exploit cards.
The exploit mechanic saw 2/22 (~9.1%) exploit card usage.
I consider myself being mostly right with this call, though I was wrong regarding Admiral Trench being used.
Token Units
What I Predicted
I called out some potential cards (but all of the mentioned cards basically saw no play). It’s inherently hard for heavy token unit oriented decks to take off due to several anti-token unit cards, such as the Clear the Field and Blood Sport, and the threat of Bossk decks.
Reality
There are three Set3 PalpSid decks that made a showing in Top 8, but no other competitive token based decks.
Poggle the Lesser and Confederate Courier were seen in Set1 Palp decks.
Outspoken Representative was seen in about one Han1 Blue deck.
On the Doorstep and Droid Deployment were seen in about one Asajj deck.
The token mechanic saw usage of 5/40 (12.5%) token cards usage.
I consider myself being mostly right with this call, as only three Set3 PalpSid decks making Top 8 isn’t significant enough to call the token mechanic as taking off.
Set 3 Leaders
What I Predicted
I ranked Quinlan and Jango (← post Boba1 suspension) as Tier 2, and everything else Tier 3 or Meh.
Reality
Set 3 Leaders:
I underranked Jango and Quinlan as they both should be considered as Tier 1 leaders. Both have 10%+ representation in Top 8 and are the 3rd and 4th most top performing leaders.
Anakin has a ~5% representation in Top 8, which should put it at Tier 2.
All other Set3 leaders saw little to no competitive play (<1%).
While I was able to identify Quinlan and Jango as the notable Set 3 leaders, I under-ranked the tiering for them and Anakin, so I consider myself being wrong with this call.
Conclusion
It seems like I was mostly correct. Of course, I could be influenced by confirmation bias (Let me know what you think of my own evaluation :D).
Set 3’s mechanics weren’t too impactful, as I think Quinlan and Jango would’ve still been competitive decks even without Plo-Koon, Heavy Persuader Tank, and Geonosis Patrol Fighter. We can also see how few Set 3 cards are used in general.
When writing this post, I had some difficulties when evaluating my prior predictions due to some gray area. So, for future prediction posts, I’m looking to make some changes:
I want to give myself a bit more leeway, because though I am pessimistic about a mechanic, that doesn’t necessarily mean I literally expect 0% usage of cards with that mechanic being printed on it. Some cards are simply decent for their stats or may be played for their traits, regardless if they have the new set mechanic or not, e.g. Ki-Adi Mundi and Heavy Persuader Tank.
I want to quantify the tiers in the leader tier list.
Stay tuned for my Set 4 JTL predictions post :)