This week I am going to tackle one of my favorite cards from the Awakenings set Crime Lord (AW23). The first time I saw this card I knew I wanted to build a deck that could find a way to use it to its full potential. Today I am going to go over a few of the key components and how they work, share two of the decks that I have found work very well with Crime Lord (AW23), and give a few things to watch out for when using Crime Lord (AW23). For those that don’t know what Crime Lord (AW23) does let’s take a quick look at its Special which says “Spend 5 resources to choose a character. That character is defeated after this round ends.” That is a staggeringly HUGE ability, but it has a steep cost associated with it. Crime Lord (AW23) itself costs 4 resources and the ability costs 5 resources for a total of 9 resources (discounting any discounts to Crime Lord (AW23) through other mechanics). But there is a way around that seemingly cost prohibitive initial take on the card.
First off let’s jump straight into the basic engine behind my take on the Crime Lord (AW23) deck; which is Ace in the Hole (AW92), this card is just fantastic as it lets you roll a dice from any Yellow Upgrade card in your hand into play. Couple this with not only Crime Lord (AW23) but also some of the other powerful Yellow Upgrade cards and you can quickly see how this simple little zero cost Event can be a huge game changer. I wish that Villains had access to a card similar to Return of the Jedi (AW120) for Yellow so that I could continue to loop Ace in the Hole (AW92) but since that isn’t a thing I will have to settle for being able to only play it twice per game. The other key to making this combo work is being able to re-roll the extra dice you just added to the pool and the king of re-rolls is none other than Jabba the Hutt (AW20). There are few things more satisfying than using Ace in the Hole (AW92) to roll a Crime Lord (AW23) dice into your pool and then get a free re-roll on that dice from activating Jabba the Hutt (AW20) to get the Special. Another good thing about Crime Lord (AW23) is that you have a 1 in 3 chance of landing on the Special side since it has two faces with it. Couple that with Jabba the Hutt (AW20) having two dice sides of Focus and you can see how getting the Special on Crime Lord (AW23) is starting to look very attainable. What you need are ways to gain resources which luckily are easy to come by in the form of cards such as Datapad (AW62), Cunning (AW65), and the list goes on. As you can see the core of a deck is quickly taking shape without having to do much else other than piece together cards that do one of two things 1) give resources or 2) change dice faces. For my first take on the deck I went with a mono-Yellow deck because I wanted to take the most advantage I could from Ace in the Hole (AW92) and it felt like I could have access to a very dominant Character lineup by doing this. Thus my first deck was a pairing of Jabba the Hutt (AW20) and Jango Fett (AW21).
Characters:
2x Jabba the Hutt (AW20)
2x Jango Fett (AW21)
Battlefield:
Starship Graveyard (AW174)
Upgrade (18):
2x Crime Lord (AW23)
2x Cunning (AW65)
2x Datapad (AW62)
2x Flame Thrower (AW24)
2x Gaffi Stick (AW25)
2x Holdout Blaster (AW63)
2x Jetpack (AW66)
2x On the Hunt (AW26)
2x Thermal Detonator (AW67)
Support (2):
2x Backup Muscle (AW99)
Event (10):
2x Ace in the Hole (AW92)
1x Armed to the Teeth (AW93)
2x Electroshock (AW159)
1x Fighting Dirty (AW95)
2x He Doesn’t Like You (AW97)
2x Unpredictable (AW162)
As you can see this version of the deck uses ALL of the Yellow Upgrade cards available to it because it was trying to abuse Armed to the Teeth (AW93), Ace in the Hole (AW92) and Fighting Dirty (AW95). You may also notice that I was running Starship Graveyard (AW174) instead of Emperor’s Throne Room (AW167). In testing I found that through my own card effects I could trigger my specials without having to rely on a Battlefield ability which more often than not my opponent was able to use to better effect that I was. It was surprisingly easy to get cards out because the deck generated more than enough resources. It also was capable of dealing large amounts of damage once you were able to get Jango Fett (AW21) online with an upgrade or two on him. Sadly that right there became the issue with the deck. I was using Jango Fett (AW21) to win games and Crime Lord became more of an afterthought in the deck and was filling a “win more” spot. At times it would be useful if I was going up against Qui-Gon Jinn (AW37) or Darth Vader (AW10) where their health/shields made it inconvenient to deal with them through damage. So while the deck was fun and worked the way I wanted it to, it just didn’t focus on the style of game play I was trying to achieve and I felt the deck could be better by taking Crime Lord (AW23) completely out of the deck. Thus I went back to the drawing board and retooled the deck to be more control heavy trying to win through mill and Crime Lord (AW23) which is the deck I was trying to build. I was flipping through my binder and all of the control centered cards seem to focus around Blue so I initially built the deck around everyone’s favorite Villain Darth Vader (AW10) and while he was very strong in the deck I felt like he wasn’t the best fit and quickly made the switch to Count Dooku (AW09); but more on the reasons for that after the deck list.
Characters:
2x Jabba the Hutt (AW20)
2x Count Dooku (AW09)
Battlefield:
Frozen Wastes (AW168)
Upgrade (18):
2x Crime Lord (AW23)
2x Datapad (AW62)
2x Thermal Detonator (AW67)
2x Force Choke (AW13)
2x Force Throw (AW57)
2x Immobilize (AW14)
2x Lightsaber (AW59)
2x Mind Probe (AW60)
2x Sith Holocron (AW16)
Event (12):
2x Ace in the Hole (AW92)
1x Abandon All Hope (AW79)
2x Electroshock (AW159)
1x All In (AW152)
2x He Doesn’t Like You (AW97)
2x Use The Force (AW149)
2x Feel Your Anger (AW82)
First things first the Character choices. Jabba the Hutt (AW20) is key to the deck and has to be included, his dice sides are too strong and his built in ability can fix bad Ace in the Hole (AW92) rolls. The question is who to pair him with. Without getting into the math of which character can do more “numbers” I will point out my very basic thinking on this be it right or wrong; Count Dooku (AW09) lets me run two dice which gives me more options despite having 
less raw potential per dice side than Darth Vader (AW10) and while Kylo Ren (AW11) is an interesting option because of the potential damage of his ability I came to the conclusion that Count Dooku (AW09) fit the deck style the closest. Also for this version of the deck I decided to go with Frozen Wastes (AW168) as my Battlefield because I found that with the slower tempo of the deck and all the other dice control effects I could really punish someone with this Battlefield and it acts as a soft damage prevention ability at times although you could easily switch back to Starship Graveyard (AW174) or any other Battlefield of your choice. As for the Upgrade package included with this you will notice that I forgo Cunning (AW65) completely from this build of the deck because I never wanted to put it on Jabba the Hutt (AW20) over any other action. While the ability to copy another Special effect in play is very strong I found that in most cases I was running Cunning (AW65) to trigger my opponents specials which wasn’t something that I could rely on. The final deciding factor was that I kept finding that in most every game one of my characters will die and Lightsaber (AW59) softens that blow somewhat 
because of Redeploy and the fact that it gives me a backup win condition in being able to do straight damage when needed. The last upgrade I will talk about is Sith Holocron (AW16); this card is bonkers good because it allows you to “cheat” abilities into play on Jabba the Hutt (AW20) that normally wouldn’t work with him. This lets you spread out your upgrades across both Characters which makes your opponents decisions on which one to kill that much tougher. One of the cards I feel makes this deck work better as a two color deck is Use the Force (AW149). Being able to change any dice to a side of your choosing is huge. This lets you fix your sub-par rolls with Crime Lord (AW23), prevent your opponent from getting off their dice against you, and you get all this for one resource. One of the meaner things I like to do is play Use the Force (AW149) to change a dice to a blank side and follow it up on my following turn with Feel Your Anger (AW82) which is a pretty nasty one two punch if your opponent is waiting on re-rolls. As a whole I like how this deck works because you have multiple options; you can win from milling with Jabba the Hutt (AW20) and the other strong Discard dice faces, you can win through damage from Lightsaber (AW59) and Mind Probe (AW60), or you can use Ace in the Hole (AW92) and Crime Lord (AW23) to simply eliminate pesky Characters without having to worry about something so mundane as damage. All that being said this deck isn’t perfect and it does have some weaknesses, let’s go over a few of these and see how they can be played around by knowing them in advance.
One of the biggest threats to Crime Lord (AW23) is dice removal. Cards such as He Doesn’t Like You (AW97), Electroshock (AW159), and Force Misdirection (AW116) can be devastating against this deck as they can negate your two card combo of Ace in the Hole (AW92) and Crime Lord (AW23). The good news is, is that the Blue/Yellow version of the deck has enough Discard that it can usually get rid of your opponents hand and still have time in that same turn to get your combo off without fear of being hit by these. A similar strategy can be used against Jango Fett (AW21) / General Veers (AW04) in that it is also susceptible to targeted dice removal. I’ve also toyed with the inclusion of such cards as Confiscation (AW94) and Disarm (AW158) to combat this and other similar decks that rely on solid 2-3 cost Upgrades and there are a few flex spots available in the deck to customize it that way. The last thing I will touch on is the Hyperspace Loop deck type; I have very limited play experience against it right now, but it seems like this deck has enough options to pressure it in Discard and Ace in the Hole (AW92) tricks to keep the deck on its toes and hopefully they will misplay a turn giving you an opening. Once I get some more testing against it though I may revise my thinking or strategy on how to combat it.
Last but not least I would love to hear back from the readers to see what you guys think of not only these decks, but also what similar decks you have been having success with. Until next time may the dice be with you!
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