Written by Jack of The Golden Dice Podcast
January 29th’s Tournament Report
I just absolutely love talking about Star Wars: Destiny, everything from worlds and spoilers to deck crafting and weekly tournaments. Now we are entering the season where, we are a few weeks in to a new set (technically not but it feels like it). With that time you start to see top decks starting to pop up, with Portland and Dallas closing people will be looking at Hondo a bit more and looking at Hero Mill (Yoda/Reiken/JedhaPartisan) a bit more but I always try to make some other archetype work. Since the beginning I have been running blue hero and Rey from Awakenings as my most common character. Awakenings was eRey/eQui-Gon then Spirit of Rebellion was eHan/eRey and I guess Empire at War was technically Rey too. However I felt like I didn’t have a deck in EaW as I didn’t attend any major tournaments, I ran Thrawn/Unkar before the nerf, tried Sabine/Ezra, R2P2(Rey2/Poe2), K-2SO in some form, Kanan/Qui-Gon but I didn’t enjoy them as nearly as I had enjoyed my early decks with Rey – Force Prodigy. So here we are getting into the Legacies meta with over 100 characters are this point and I still find myself looking back at Rey.
With my weekly tournaments and general online hype I know that Tarkin/SeventhSister and Yoda was bound to be everywhere. Tarkin can turn out a lot of damage early and Yoda can stick around and constantly ping you down, to counter it a bit I figured the more health I had the longer I could stay alive.
The Deck:
Characters (30 points, 4 dice):
eAayla Secura – Jedi General
Rey – Force Prodigy
Jedi Temple Guard
Battlefield:
Obi-Wan’s Hut
Upgrades (13 cards, 11 dice):
Ancient Lightsaber x2
Force Illusion x2
Force Speed x2
Heirloom Lightsaber x2
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Lightsaber
Rey’s Lightsaber
Rey’s Staff
Vibroknife
Events (17 cards):
Ataru Strike
Caution x2
Flank x2
Force Misdirection x2
Guard x2
Heightened Awareness
Into The Garbage Chute
Lightsaber Training x2
Overconfidence x2
Reaping The Crystal x2
Above is my first deck combining my enjoyment of Rey with a larger health pool. With eAayla, Rey and Temple Guard I had a health pool of 28 along with Guardian on the Guard. This allowed to deal with indirect damage a bit easier along with still being able to eat some 2 or 3 damage sides on the Guard.
When making this deck it is generally straightforward, you put upgrades on Rey and hopefully get one big Vibroknife play before she dies and everything moves over to Aayla for a great closer. After a bit of testing, I found that having two characters with +2 melee sides was frustrating at times and with special chaining, guardian was not as good. This led me to rethink my deck, I debated and tested a bit of Kanan for Rey or a Padawan for the Guard but still all just felt okay but not great.
Eventually I played against my buddy and co-host Tommy who had slotted Wookiee Warrior in there and I felt it was a good match so I slotted the Wookiee in mine. Which led me to this version:
The Deck:
Characters (30 points, 4 dice):
eAayla Secura – Jedi General
Rey – Force Prodigy
Wookie Warrior
Battlefield:
Fort Anaxes
Upgrades (12 cards, 11 dice):
Ancient Lightsaber x2
Force Illusion x1
Force Speed x2
Handcrafted Lightbow x2
Heirloom Lightsaber x2
Rey’s Lightsaber
Rey’s Staff
Vibroknife
Supports (2 cards, 2 dice):
R2-D2 (Legacies)
Chopper
Events (16 cards):
Caution x2
Easy Pickings x2
Flank x2
Guard x2
Lightsaber Pull
Lightsaber Training x2
Reaping The Crystal x2
Truce x2
Vandalize
If Tommy is reading this he is probably freaking out at the fact that I dropped both Running Interferences, which were good but I found Force Speed to do the job for my Lightsaber Training plays but that does leave them open for mitigation even if they roll poorly.
Still the deck is straightforward with 12 of the standard upgrades you can expect with Heirlooms, Ancients, Speed, Illusion and Vibroknifes. I guess mine is a bit different from some builds with having two of my favorite droids in there who can consistently do work and chain specials for a free electroshock every round if needed.
My event suite is pretty basic too but can easily be moved around to add whatever removal you prefer. Flank is good early game but as I speed up it becomes less and less viable, Easy Pickings is great in a world of specials and Tarkin, Guard is always a feel good play when used on a modifier that has nothing to pair with. I am still toying with Force Misdirection since I do have melee and a few specials, potentially dropping a Flank for one.
Overall I was happy with this build so I decided to take it up to my weekly local tournament where I ended up 3-0 on the night.
Round 1: eJyn/Ackbar
This is a new player to the scene, with this being his 6-7th. I loved playing him and showing him some different combos and ideas for his deck. He is learning quickly and enjoying himself while doing so. Having said that I just had the experience and knowledge of the game to know what to expect. Though this game was a reminder that I wish Jyn was just a few points cheaper…
Round 2: eTarkin/e7thSister
Played against my buddy Joe who was running the standard Tarkin deck, lots of dice. This was a super close game which he started out a little bit ahead. I had a big play with Rey and Vibroknife rolling out the 4 unblockable damage I needed to kill Tarkin through shields and Force Illusion. I felt that I was in a good spot after that but then he was able to get double Mind Probe on the 7th Sister and drag himself back in very quickly. It came down the a fully loaded Wookiee and the 7th Sister and I was just able to roll what I need to win. My two droids were great in this game as I was able to usually remove one Mind Probe with their help. Letting me keep my cards to play later or pitch for max damage. Easy Pickings was great to deal with a lot of his dice.
Round 3: ePoe2/eYoda
Another game where Easy Pickings was great with all the specials he would roll. This game was against Scott who is a great player and it was a constant back and forth between us this game. He was able to get the Canto Bight Pistol and Poe Dameron’s Blaster on Poe and I targeted Yoda first. My logic was that Yoda has two special sides for chaining while Poe only had one. I was again able to sneak through shields and Force Illusion with Rey, a Heirloom and a Vibroknife for 4 unblockable damage to kill Yoda. It was one of those games where I rolled very well when I needed to, and poorly when he needed me to roll well (basically when he had Defensive Position). Was a great game but I was able to roll out damage pretty well and 30 health is a lot to chew through for a Yoda deck. My favorite part was that R2 and Chopper did the final two damage for the win. They deserved it after the tournament.
Overall the night felt good and being able to beat Tarkin and YoDameron shows the deck can perform. It was also very encouraging to see this exact pairing get top 8 at Portland, without Heirlooms! I still have a month to prep for my regional so I still could try out Hondo and roll with him but I am really enjoying running and tweaking this deck.
Hopefully you all enjoyed the article and discussion. My aim is to talk about my weekly tournaments each week with you to show my progression of card changes or deck changes. If you enjoyed it I know I would love if you took a listen to our podcast called Golden Dice as Tommy and myself talk about everything that has to do with Star Wars: Destiny as Tommy gets ready for Regionals in a week and a half. You can find us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/goldendicepodcast/
With that, keep following I Rebel as I know JediGeekGirl has a lot of great stuff in the works and puts a lot of effort into the community! Till next time!
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