Do You Know Da Wae of Da Force?, Issue #3: A Grievous Mistake

Written by Matthew Williams

As I said in my preview article, for over a year now, I’ve found it odd that Rey can run around triple wielding sabers with two hands, like she’s Darth Traya, but General Grievous couldn’t wield four with four hands. Sometimes, FFG goes too far with their flavor (like K-2SO‘s idiotic “ability”) but I think they hit the nail on the head here, at least with regards to character flavor. This opens up a number of interesting possibilities and a really fun deck idea. As always with preview cards, it’s difficult to know what else is coming that could affect this archetype, but I think we already have a slew of cards that could make this an interesting deck.

I’m going to do this a little differently, as this decklist is likely to change quite a bit as more weapons are revealed from this set. First, I want to look at some character pairings and basic cards we need to include to get even close to hitting his power action. Second, I want to look over all of the possible melee upgrades we can include to see if a few favorites emerge. The weapons themselves are the most likely to change as Way of the Force continues to take shape, so it makes sense to separate them for now.

Character Pairings:
Grievous comes in at a huge 15/20. However, he does have 13 health to play with. Still, when looking for how to fill those last ten points, one word needs to be included: Guardian. Guardian will help us keep Grievous alive a few extra moves, and make it possible to go for broke with a massive flurry of slices and stabs.

With that in mind, we’ve got three choices, one for each color. In Red, we have Lobot. It’s a solid card to consider including, but he leaves us in mono-Red. Disregarding Kylo -Tormented One‘s ability, mono-Red cuts out a large number of weapons and support cards. Because of that, I don’t consider Lobot to be much of an option.

All that remains then are Royal Guard in Blue and Gammorean Guard in Yellow. Both colors can really support our main idea in different ways. Gammorean Guard gives more health, access to some awesome weapons, and the main money cards, like Truce and Well Connected. While Blue can’t keep up with the money generation, it does offer some truly clutch cards, like Force Illusion and Intimidate, in addition to powerful lightsabers. Realistically, both options are viable and it is really a playstyle choice. Yellow lends itself to being more aggressive, when Blue helps you get to the midgame a little more consistently.

Knives Galore!
While I believe this deck could likely sustain mixed damage, I’m not really considering adding in ranged at this point. I feel like there are enough quality melee cards that can be included to help keep your modifiers from going without base damage too often.

Since we are obviously in Red here, I want to look at the Red and Grey cards first. Vibroknife and Stun Baton feel like auto-includes here. They’re both cheap, Stun Baton helps with dice removal, Vibroknife can push through shields, and they can be easily overwritten if need be. Additionally, in Red, the Z6 Riot Control Baton and Electrostaff are made for this deck. These alone can push out a tremendous amount of damage, and only the Z6 costs more than two.

In Blue, we’ve got four sabers that are worthy of consideration. The two cost Ancient Lightsaber is automatic if we’re in Blue, and Shoto Lightsaber is a strong consideration. It’s shield mechanic can be amazing (if you remember the trigger!) and you’re less likely to be leaving modified damage on the table with so many upgrades. At three-cost, Maul’s Saber and Heirloom Saber offer a lot more damage. Any of these will trigger Shoto’s ability, and you could have that going as early as turn two. Lastly, blue gives you It Binds All Things, at that can help pay for all of these sabers in the long run.

My gut says Blue is the way to go, but you can only make a good decision by considering the options. Yellow has three really nice weapons, and it has the support events to help you pay for them. The BD-1 Cutter Vibro-AX is great at tearing through shields. Vibrocutlass is amazing, especially when paired with the Electrostaff to remove the resource cost for using it on a non-Yellow character. I’m on the fence about Vibroknuckles, but sometimes that one damage is enough to finish off a character, so it’s worth playtesting

Final Thoughts
If he makes it, General Grievous can put in some serious work towards a one turn kill in the midgame. He takes a lot of careful planning to get him there, but a four weapon power action, melee flurry and then Furious Assault could lead to some extreme table flipping from your opponent. I’m hopeful that we’ll get some more longevity cards in the new set that can make this midgame approach more viable. Only time will tell but I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping that there is a Grievous deck that can take the Store Championship season by storm.