My $.02:
I've had a lot of experience playing non-sanctioned games with Kaz. When they previewed him before the set came out, I, like many others, planned on making the Quinlan/Qui-Gon build.
Since I wasn't sure about his playability, at my LGS and with friends at home, I started play-testing him in non-DCI games first. When the game was for fun, or against an average player/build, Kaz was awesome. Whipping out reserves every few rounds is just a huge annoyance for most players to deal with. The math does indeed say you will get reserves more often than not and it's really cool. Not having to worry about gambit and/or time-limit was also huge boost to the squad (if the game was based on total elimination, I'd say Kaz is almost unbeatable). So I then set my sights on playing him against some top meta squads to see what would happen.
Well, to put it simply, he did not do well. Even when Kaz would hit his reserves many times in a row, he ran into the same problem over and over: Droids just aren't that good. They are too fragile. There is no combination of 30 points of droids that can deal with big melee beat sticks. It doesn't matter if you hit multiple reserves of 30 points in a row, if the best support you can bring in to deal with your opponent's pieces are a Junk Golem or a destroyer droid, then you are in BIG trouble. I give you the following example.
I was playing 150 point Kaz vs. a JWM swarm on cloud city. I hit reserves on the FIRST 3 TURNS. Lots of awesome droids, insane attack bonuses to them, and my opponent was already starting in with the "that squad is broken, you are lucky, etc." bit. Since I couldn't get shooting lines of sight on the opponent's squad in the cramped confines of CC, I headed them to the gambit area. Any decent player will know what happened next:
The JWMs got into the room, and ripped apart all my reserves. Yeah, I put some hurt on them, but we were looking at my measly HP against their epic HP. For every 26 points of Droids I had, he had a JWM who was worth 3 droids. In the meantime, I suddenly wasn't rolling reserves. Even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. My opponent now had control of gambit with a 40-50 point lead. I couldn't catch up and lost.
Hmmm... that was unfortunate. Lets try it against B&B. Surely it could overrun him on activations. So I made lots of droids who did a great job against the swap fodder. But guess what? There is no combination of low point droids that can deal with Vader himself. He would cut through a ton of them like butter and swap out. Rinse and repeat until the reserves run a little dry, and then charge Kaz. Kaz put up a great fight, but obviously lost in the long run.
Kaz vs. San Hill? LOL. If the San player gets map, rolling reserves is almost the worst thing you can do. You can't get to San's shooters easily, and if you try for gambit, well, we all know what happens then. It's a shooting gallery of free points. The same thing happened in every game: my fragile droids, even the BEST droids available can't do enough damage to kill my opponent, and are laughable if trying to hold gambit against other good pieces.
So, is he playable? I'll say yeah. Can he win some of the time? Yeah, why not. Is he fun? It's one of the most fun squads I've ever played. Is he DCI-tournament worthy? Um... not at this point. I will reiterate what billiv15 asked, can it beat a meta squad more than 50% of the time? I'm going with no. Sure, you'll win some matches with him, but against good players and good squads you will not win tournaments. I don't even think you need the MTB to justify him being weak. I think the fact that his gimmick is based upon bringing in reserves that are weak, and that will inevitably get cut down (usually quite quickly) for some easy points for your opponent is enough to take him out of the competetive build.
If in the future they make some droids with some legitimate staying power, then I think he can work, but at this point, even the most destructive droids are glass cannons that will fall to any decent beatstick. If you want to do an experiment, I give you this last test: take a 150 Kaz squad, and add a whole bunch of reserves at the START of the game. Don't give yourself reserves during the game. Now look at your squad. Even when you START with multiple reserves, do you still feel completely confident you can beat anyone? You may feel confident, but as I look down on my cluster of bodyguards, dark troopers, destroyer droids, and junk golems, and then look across at the likes of Boba, Aurra, JWMs, and Vader, I certainly don't. I see free points for my opponent, that do not have the capability of getting an even amount of points for me first. Don't get me wrong, you will certainly win some of your games with this build, but certainly not all. If you can't pull it off starting the game with the droids, how are you going to do it getting a few at a time?
Just my $.02.
|