SY Jackpot – Is this leader ability good for the game?

After being involved in some recent discussion around King of Beggars, the thought occurred to me – is SY's Jackpot leader ability good for the game? The recent concerns I've seen come up with the faction – pre-nerf Drill, Sigi feeling mandatory in every list, and now Savolla + KoB – all seem to be at their worst when played alongside this leader:

Drill – 9 Coins on demand made this leader allow for the largest burst in damage when using Drill, leading to the largest board swings. In addition, the Drill could become significantly harder to remove if you overprofited with it, without requiring any other form of setup to achieve this additional resiliency.

Sigi – Card is immensely powerful to begin with, but Jackpot further amplifies this strength by not only eliminating the floor of the card entirely (needing you to empty your purse to achieve full value), but it even raises the ceiling by getting an extra point outside of what the other leaders can achieve if you include enough gang tags to reach Profit 10, which can almost happen by accident. It also makes Caesar have a higher ceiling (14 Profit maximum I believe?) and makes a combo that would normally require some form of setup by having a spender either already in play or played between the two instead just be utilized as instant on-demand tempo.

Savolla + KoB – Not as large of an offender as the previous two, but it still trivializes Savolla by eliminating the difficulty of achieving maximum value (having exactly 7 Coins banked, or 6-7 if Off the Books) while also being the only leader in the game that provides enough Coins to pay the Tribute on its own if you weren't able to manage your spending properly. On top of that, it even buffs the KoB in deck if you manage to overprofit with that effect as well!

In the interest of being thorough, I'll also list a couple of the upsides of Jackpot being in the game that come to mind along with why I'm not sold on them:

Faction accessibility – I think we would all agree that SY is probably the most difficult faction to pilot, and that Jackpot is the easiest to utilize of the leader abilities within it. Thus, Jackpot gives an easy way to learn the faction by mostly eliminating the consequences overprofiting and by being one of the least strict leader abilities when it comes to deckbuilding in the sense that you'll be far less punished by not running enough spenders. I would argue that Pirate's Cove would be far better suited for this role, as it better illustrates the importance of spenders while still serving as a fallback plan if Coins are mismanaged. It also does so without completely upending the identity of the mechanic, and instead reinforces the importance of proper Coin management in that if you mismanage your Coins you may end up needing to use your charges at less than ideal moments.

It enables unique gameplay opportunities – Thanks to its unique game mechanic, Jackpot provides an alternative to either protect key threats like Gellert and Freakshow by having them buff themselves with their overprofit, or by achieving absurd pointslam through combos like Roland + Salamander or Sigi + Caesar. As such, deckbuilding opportunities become available by deliberately designing your deck in a way that takes advantage of this effect. My response to this would be: are these opportunities a good thing to begin with? As an avid deckbuilder myself, I love having as many options as possible when it comes to directions I can go when assembling my lists, but I honestly don't feel the presence of these particular options is a good thing. Gellert and Freakshow are threats that oftentimes need to be answered, and while doing do is a reasonable endeavor at 5 power, 7 power is another matter entirely and can be setup with minimal effort with zero opportunity for counterplay, unlike the other leaders which would require a buffer/defender to already be in play for protection. As for the combos, does an effect as powerful as Salamander + Roland really need massive pointslam ON TOP of the board wipe and Profit it provides? As for Sigi + Caesar, see my remarks above.

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So that's my take, and I'd be very interested in seeing how others feel on the subject in comparison. Please share your thoughts in the comments below – especially if you feel differently, think I missed something worth considering, or believe I'm just flat out wrong!

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