The Villainous Leaders of Jump to Lightspeed

Posted on April 3, 2025

After a year of the Star War Unlimited game existing, there were plenty of questions with how much focus the Space battle area would get within the first 3 sets of the game. Well ponder no longer, for as of March 14th, 2025 we were introduced to the main space set Jump to Lightspeed which brings a ton of pro space mechanics to the game. There's the Pilot mechanic you find on at least one leader of each aspect, plenty of other characters within the game, and a whole slew of new Capital Ships to play with!

But this isn't the place to go over Jump to Lightspeed as a whole. Today, we are discussing the Villainous leaders of Jump to Lightspeed.

Vigilance Villainous Leaders

Asajj Ventress - I Work Alone

Asajj Ventress is a Leader with Grit that flips once you have 6 resources, with 4 power and 6 Health... OR, you can Flip Asajj Ventress as a Vehicle Upgrade with the ability "Attached unit is a leader unit. It gains Grit and 'On Attack: You may deal 1 damage to a friendly unit. If you do, deal 1 damage to an enemy unit in the same arena.'" Asajj also has a leader ability of "Action (Exhaust this leader): Deal 1 damage to a friendly unit. If you do, deal 1 damage to an enemy unit in the same arena." Asajj is an interesting leader that doesn't really benefit anyone except herself with her unit side but her leader ability promotes filling the deck with multiple cards with Grit.

Some excellent inclusions for this leader are Banshee - Crippling Command, War Juggernaut, and Power from Pain.

Next is the non-pilot Villainous leader within Vigilance, Grand Admiral Thrawn - ...How Unfortunate.

Grand Admiral Thrawn - ...How Unfortunate

Grand Admiral Thrawn has a static leader ability of "When you use a 'When defeated' ability; You may exhaust this leader. If you do, use that ability again." Grand Admiral Thrawn flips to his unit side at 6 resources with the exact same ability but with 4 power and 7 Health.

Clearly, Grand Admiral Thrawn promotes a playstyle that Magic: The Gathering players call "Aristocrats." Essentially, you kill units, you reap benefits. Rinse, repeat.

There are plenty of excellent Ships from Jump to Lightspeed that work well with Thrawn. Noteworthy ships for this leader are Chimaera - Reinforcing the Center, Fleet Interdictor, Director Krennic - On the Verge of Greatness, and Annihilator - Tagge's Flagship.

But with those brief overviews, lets take a look at the Cunning leaders.

Cunning Villainous Leaders

We'll go in timeline Order for these leaders and start off with this characters first Leader printing is

Admiral Trench - Chk-Chk-Chk-Chk

Admiral Trench has a leader ability of "Action : Exhaust this leader: Discard a card that costs 3 or more from your hand. If you do, draw a card.". Something unique to this leader as opposed to any other is that this leader can flip on a regular action, not an Epic Action. Meaning you can deploy this leader as a Leader Unit multiple times in a game. However, in order to flip Admiral Trench you need to control 6 or more resources, pay 3 resources, and exhaust the leader. Admiral Trench's leader unit is a 4 Power 5 Health unit with "When Deployed; Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. An opponent discards 2 of them. Draw 1 of the remaining cards and discard the others." Admiral Trench is certainly a unique leader with plenty of loot effects attached to him. His ability that triggers on deploy reminds me ALOT of the magic card Fact or Fiction.

But it's hard to say what all cards go well with this leader considering how much he throws cards into the bin. I'd say a few cards from Jump to Lightspeed that go well with this leader are Invincible - Naval Adversary, Moff Gideon - I Know Everything, and Hound's Tooth - Reliable and Deadly.

But Admiral Trench fills our Vigilance Non-pilot leader slot.. So who is our Villainous Cunning Pilot? It's none other than:

Rio Durant - Wisecrack Wheelman

Rio Durant has the leader ability of "Pay 1 resource, exhaust this leader : Attack with a space unit. It gets +1/+0 and gains Saboteur for this attack." and you can deploy Rio Durant to his Leader-unit side at 5 or more resources. Like most Leaders, this is an epic action.

When deployed as a Unit, Rio durant is a 3 power 5 health leader unit with Saboteur. If you chose to deploy Rio Durant as a Vehicle upgrade he has the following traits "Attached unit is a leader unit. It gains Saboteur. If it's a TRANSPORT, it also gets +1/+0."

In the past, leaders that deploy at 5 resources are pretty good. It's nice to get leaders deployed as soon as possible. But Rio Durant feels... a bit niche. He provides an aggressive and evasive strategy with both his leader side and unit side.

Hound's Tooth works well with this leader as well, but lets take a look at some vehicle units that work great with Rio Durant that aren't in the same aspect as himself (But are also from this set).

I'd pair this leader with Tie Ambush Squadron, Landing Shuttle, and Droid Missile Platform.

But, that's enough Cunning for us today. What about something a little more aggressive?

Aggression Villainous Leaders

Jump to Lightspeed actually brings us three Aggression leaders within the Villainous aspects. Two of these leaders are Pilots, but the other is a not.

Let's start off with:

Major Vonreg - Red Baron

Major Vonreg is a leader that promotes heavily vehicle play with his leader ability or "Actions; Exhaust this leader: Play a vehicle card from your hand. If you do, give another unit +1/+0 for this phase." Vonreg's Epic Action allows him to be deployed as a leader unit as long as you have 4 or more resources. Of course, Major Vonreg is a Pilot so he can either be deployed as a vehicle upgrade or a regular unit. When Vonreg is deployed as a Leader Unit, he is jut a regular 2 power 5 toughness guy. However, if Major Vonreg is deployed as an vehicle upgrade he turns that vehicle into a leader unit and gives it +3/+3 with the ability of "On Attack : You may give another unit in this arena +1/+0 for this phase."

He's low to the ground, so Major Vonreg really feels like a Red Deck Wins style leader. Red Deck Wins are just decks that like to swing in A LOT until victory is achieved.

But... let's highlight some cards that are coming out of JTL that work well with this leader.

We'll go over one for each Aspect including Aggression for Major Vonreg. If you are thinking about building this leader, I'd play U-Wing Lander, Kijimi Patrollers, Vonreg's Tie Interceptor - Ace of the First Order, or Death Space Skirmisher.

There's a lot of Red going on with that leader... a lot of Red. But there's more Aggression to be had. Let's take a look at another First Order leader:

Captain Phasma - Chrome Dome

Captain Phasma is a rare leader that you can deploy as a Leader Unit , as an Epic Action, once you hit 5 or more resources. Captain Phasma's leader ability is "Action; Exhaust this leader: If you played a first order card this phase, deal 1 damage to a base." Unlike Major Vonreg, Captain Phasma does not have the Pilot ability. So, Phasma can only deploy as a leader unit. Once she is deployed as a Leader Unit, Captain Phasma is a 4 power and 6 health leader with the following ability "On Attack: If you played another First Order card this phase, you may deal 1 damage to a unit. If you do, deal 1 damage to a base."

Captain Phasma certainly aligns with a quick damage playstyle but also relies on the First Order card type pretty heavily considering you need to have played a First Order card in order to trigger her On attack effect. If I were building this leader, I'd definitely stick with a Command or Vigilance as your base. Mainly for cards that are not in JTL such as Finalizer - Might of the First Order or Supreme Leader Snoke - Shadow Ruler.

However, when it comes to cards straight out of JTL... I'd play with Captain Phasma - On My Command, First Order Stormtrooper, and General Hux - No Terms, No Surrender.

That's a fair amount of First Order affiliation with these Leaders, but, luckily for us, we are not bound to strictly First Order within Villainous Aggression leaders.

May I introduce the Infamous Bounty Hunter:

Boba Fett - Any Methods Necessary

Boba Fett is has a plethora of card types that contain "Underworld", "Bounty Hunter", and "Pilot". Boba Fett has a leader ability of "When you deal non-combat damage: You may exhaust this leader. If you do, deal 1 indirect damage to a player. (that player assigns 1 unpreventable damage among their base and units)."

Indirect Damage is a new way of dealing damage within JTL where you are guaranteed to deal the damage but your opponent chooses where that damage will land.

Boba Fett can deploy as an Epic Action as long as you control 6 or more resources. Boba Fett's Leader Unit side is a vanilla 4 power 7 health unit, but Boba's upgrade side is "When deployed as an upgrade: Deal up to 4 damage divided as you choose among any number of units," and gives the upgraded vehicle unit +4/+4 along with making that vehicle a leader unit.

Boba Fett not only bundles indirect damage on top of indirect damage, but he also can REALLY Buff a vehicle, or even a Capitol Ship, into a huge unit. +4/+4 to a unit with immediate damage on upgrade is no small feat. That could be three of your opponents units down and one big ole hunk of ship left for you. Just a few examples of capital ships coming out of JTL that Boba can make even bigger (and I definitely recommend these cards based off your base's aspects) are Chimaera - Reinforcing the Center, Annihilator - Tagge's Flagship, Victor Leader - Leading from the Front, Ig-2000, and Radiant VII.

All right. . We've gone over Vigilance, Cunning, and Aggression... that leave us with Command. Lets just jump into it.

Command Villainous Leaders

Like the other aspects, outside of Aggression, JTL only brings us two Villainous Command leaders one of which is a Pilot the other not so much. We'll start off with our Pilot,

Darth Vader - Victor Squadron Leader

Darth Vader, much like Boba Fett, is a leader with another plethora of card types that consist of "Force," "Imperial," "Sith," "Pilot." Darth Vader's leader ability is "Action; Exhaust this leader: If you attacked with a non-token Vehicle unit this phase, create a TIE Fighter token."

Darth Vader can be deployed as a leader or vehicle upgrade once you have 6 or more resources. When deployed as a leader unit, Darth Vader is simply a vanilla 5 power 6 health unit. However... when deployed as a unit upgrade, Darth Vader gives the vehicle that is upgraded +5/+5, makes it a leader unit, and gives that vehicle the ability "When deployed as an upgrade: create 2 TIE Fighter token".

Darth Vader really wants you to go wide with your board within the realm of tokens. While there are plenty of ways to build your leader, Vader seems to be pushing toward the wide and aggressive board state. My recommendations for this leader? Trace Martez - Trusting Sister Wingman Victor Two - Mauler Mithel, Tie Ambush Squadron, Scramble Fighters, and Executor - Might of the Empire. REALLY put pressure on them in the air.

Darth Vader, a fierce force in the sky... But our other Leader is command helps get those fearsome ships out there. Lets talk about

Admiral Piett - Commanding the Armada

Admiral Piett is a very straight forward leader with the leader ability of "Actions; exhaust this leader: Play a Capital Ship from your hand. It cost 1 resource less." Admiral Piett also flips once you have achieved 5 or more resources as an epic action. Admiral Piett's unit side is a 2 power 7 health unit with "Each Capital Ship you play costs 2 resources less." If you flip Piett, guarantee that you can capitalize on his unit ability as much as possible. Steer clear of that removal, and ensure your big ole hunks of metal are more threatening than your opponents!

This leader of course requires big ships... I'd say Executor as previously mentioned fits really well in here, but so do ships like Fleet Interdictor, MC30 Assault Frigate, and Devastator - Hunting the Rebellion. Also, not a ship, but I heavily recommend Turbolaser Salvo for this leader.