Written By Matthew Willaims
This will be the temporary final installment in my mill series, for now. I plan on revisiting it with each release. There are only two win conditions in Star Wars: Destiny, kill ’em or mill ’em, so I assume we’ll get more mill support as each set releases.
As previously discussed, I feel villain mill needs to center around one of two strategies, so we’ll look at two skeleton deck lists and see how they should function.
Strategy #1: Buy Out
We need monies. All the monies. Junkar (or Unkar/Jabba) is the most sensible combination here. I’m not super scared of Kylo – Tormented One, as he’s not a huge part of the meta, so going mono Yellow doesn’t bother me.
Characters (29 points, 4 dice):
eJabba the Hutt – The Great and Mighty
eUnkar Plutt – Junk Dealer
Battlefield:
Otoh Gunga (for healing, but you could go with a resource battlefield here too)
Upgrades (11 cards, 7 dices):
Armor Plating x2
Bartering x2
Blackmail x2
Chance Cube x2
Fast Hands x2
Personal Shield x2
Supports (3 cards, 1 die):
Hound’s Tooth
Salvage Stand x2
Events (16 cards):
Bait and Switch x2
Buy Out x2
Doubt x2
Electroshock x2
Entangle x2
One-Quarter Portion x2
Truce x2
Unpredictable x2
Honorable Mentions: Hasty Exit, Vandalize, Well-Connected, My Kind of Scum, Con Artist/Cunning, Interrogation Droid, Cheat
I find this deck to be a lot of fun to play. As discussed previously, you’re looking to hit approximately 10-15 from two Buy Outs in three to four rounds. At the same time, you have to dump cards from your opponent’s hand, which means you want at least one Blackmail/Fast Hands on the board. That’s a fair amount of resources.
How do we get them? How do I count the ways? First, Unkar has his doubly effective effect of getting rid of a card and getting resources. Sure it can be hit or miss, but it’s a good backup use for dice that don’t have any present utility. Hound’s Tooth can generate a fair share, as can Chance Cube, and you’ve got Truce as well. One of the most fun moments is when your opponent has one resource and you’re sitting there with a pesky two disrupt. Truce and then resolve to get max value.
Another bonus to this deck is that neither character is entirely crucial to the strategy. Once the start in on one, and I find most choose Jabba, just upgrade the other. You’ll be fine either way. Don’t expect this deck to make it into round five very often. Ideally you’d have it wrapped up by round three, but that’s not always possible.
Strategy #2: Command Center Mill
Characters (29 points, 3 dice):
Thrawn – Master Strategist
Bazine Netal – Master Manipulator
Nute Gunray – Separatist Viceroy
Plot (1 point):
Espionage
Battlefield:
Command Center (you read the title, right?)
Upgrade (8 cards, 8 dice):
Blackmail x2
Grand Moff x2
Imperial Discipline x2
Personal Shield x2
Supports (8 cards, 6 dice):
Interrogation Droid x2
Outpost x2
Probe Droid x2
Salvage Stand x2
Event:
Buy Out x2
Crash Landing x2
Doubt x2
Entangle x2
Logistics x2
Probe x2
The Day is Ours
Well-Connected
Honorable Mention: Chance Cube, Con Artist/Cunning, New Orders, More removal cards, Fast Hands (Sort of. You only have one yellow target and a Fast Hands/Blackmail Bazine is just screaming for attention), Vandalize.
This deck’s strategy is streaky, but so is eSabine/eEzra. We’re literally and figuratively rolling the dice here with a pretty solid plan that can admittedly fall apart. I’ve said it before, I think hero mill is super consistent right now but villain mill is just tons of fun.
So what’s the gameplan? Claim a bunch without claiming. And then claim if you can. Every command center ping hits them for two. If you’re trying to win at the end of round four, you only need to get off five claim effects. Considering you may or may not dump their hand every turn, the deck can still get five effects off by the end of round four, and you’ve got Buy Outs to supplement anything that is lacking.
So how do we claim, claim, and then claim? Grand Moff’s power action (hopefully twice), Outpost’s special, and The Day is Ours. What do we do in the meantime? Tick off your opponent. Seriously. This deck is not meant to make/keep friends. Nute’s annoying. Thrawn lets you plan your Probe Droid/Probe pretty well. Salvage Stand and the copius disrupt sides are just nuisances waiting to happen. It’s really not that difficult with this deck to leave your opponent with no dice, cards, or resources. It probably could use some help in the removal department, but a lot of time, your opponent will only have their character dice and that’s about it.
Conclusion:
Working on this mill series has been a lot of fun for me. Not so much for the people that I play with. Seriously, I’ll never understand why people hate mill so much but are find with decks that can one turn kill. Why is a carefully crafted strategy that takes time and finesse to pull off so much worse than the “Me hit you hard” decks? I don’t have the answer.
Try the decks out and see what you think. I always have more fun with the villain ones, because they’re unpredictable and can soar or flame out. However, if I’m going to a tournament, I’m taking hero mill, because it’s just more consistent now.
That’ll basically do it for this series for a few months. However, I am spending the next few weeks playtesting the Trilogy format for the first time, and mill is definitely in my sights. As of right now, I don’t have a plan worth bragging about, but if I do, I’ll be writing another article for it here.
Thanks for reading!
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