Decipher dropped all kinds of news. First, Big D issued THREE official errata today. The first was the Operatives errata with a slight modification to suit Sealed Deck play. The change is to the Operative errata. Now operatives can apply their ability when on a system OTHER than their matching system. So Tibrin Ops can apply there ability towards drawing desting everywhere, but on Tibrin.
The second was a bit of a surprise. It was an errata to Hidden Base. Issued to curb the "Force Denial" Startegy prevalent in many tournaments, two changes were made. The first requires the deployment of FIVE BATTLEGROUND systems. On the back of the card, the Dark Side ow probes during the DEPLOY phase instead of the draw phase so they can move their ships away. These two errata will make Hidden Base run and Hide unless playing pure space. And just in case you'd like to know, the following systems are LS battlegrounds:
Anoat
Bespin
Bothawui
Corellia
Corulag
Coruscant
Hoth
Kashyyyk
Kessel
Kiffex
Kirdo III
Ord Mantell
Raithal
Ralltiir
Roche
Tatooine
Tibrin
Yavin 4
The final errata was to Floating Refinery. The card is now restricted to two in play (**). This errata was supposedly needed because of the huge retrieval that such a deck can circulate. Shoot. Maybe Decipher should errate the TIE retrival combo while they're at it (major sarcasm here!!). Looks like ISB Ops may have also just received a boost from this errata, since HB was the Bane of ISBs existence (IMHO).
I will not make judgements on the Hidden Base errata until I go to a couple tournies and see how it works out. As for the Operatives, I still think it is crap that the Ops don't apply their ability to drawing battle destiny. I can understand not controlling a location alone, but that's a bit much in my opinion. While I can see the other side, I think this was a bit too harsh.
So Decipher has spoken. You might want to get crackin' on adjusting those decks, especially if you have tournies this weekend. Force denial may be hampered, but I don't believe it is gone. If you would like to see this article with the full errata, go to: http://www.decipher.com/starwars/productlibrary/faqs/errata012099.html.
Beakman