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Deck Tech – Breaking the Mold

When I first sat down to write this article, I figured I would just do what I always do and start with the deck list, break down a few key cards, and give a final few thoughts. But when I started thinking about that, it just felt boring and the deck I have today isn’t boring at all, so I wanted to take a different approach. And ultimately this article is a cross between breaking down an intriguing new deck and trying to figure out how to topple the powerhouse of Poe/Maz.

An Introduction

First off, this deck was originally brought to my attention by my play-test buddy Chase; whom many of you have probably seen featured in many of our YouTube videos, and who always comes up with some surprising decks. For weeks we have been brainstorming trying to find a solid counter to Poe/Maz that also has an average or above average match up vs. the rest of the fields (i.e. Palpatine (SR11), Unkar (SR21), DA Vader (SR10), and the like). But our lynch pin for the deck was beating Poe/Maz. If the deck can’t do that, then there is no hope for it in the current meta.

Deconstructing Poe/Maz

What are the weaknesses of Poe/Maz?

This is a question that doesn’t have a definitive answer because the deck doesn’t have a clear and glaring weakness that other decks do. Cards such as Negotiate (AW131) and High Ground (SR128) aren’t too relevant against a deck that can run Fast Hands (SR150) alongside Maz’s ability. Other common removal such as One-Quarter Portion (SR85) and Isolation (AW85) work great, but cost resources which you need for upgrades in order to deal enough damage to kill Maz (SR45) or Poe (AW29) early to swing the game to your advantage. Also, with the ridiculously fast starts that Poe can draw into, you have to have enough health on the table to not just fold to 1-2 Thermal Detonators (AW67).

So where does this leave us? It seems like a pretty bleak spot because most of the usual suspects to mitigate dice are too slow, and the ones that aren’t too slow tend to cost precious resources. But what if we could use the strength of the Poe deck against it? This is where a surprising card comes into play…… Aftermath (SR123). On the surface, this seems underwhelming; how often do you expect or want characters to die? The answer 9 times out of 10 is never, but oddly enough, in this deck, the answer is more along the lines of “If they die I’m going to get value!”

The most obvious follow up question to this is; how in the world do you expect to gain enough value out of a character dying to build a deck around it? And that is the simplest question to answer because of one card: Endless Ranks (AW70).

You now have an engine that doesn’t care if its characters die, because you have a way to recur them. Added to that you have a way to gain value from them via Aftermath, which fuels you into being able to pay for Endless Ranks sooner. Thus you are putting yourself into a position where your opponent could easily kill one of your characters but in so doing will ramp you into even bigger and better threats.

Deck List

So now that we have the core combo engine what else does the deck have up its sleeves? Let’s take a look at the full list and then breakdown the cards from there:

Characters: (29/30)
Bala-Tik (AW19) (8)
TIE Pilot (SR4) (8)
First Order Stormtrooper (AW2) (7)
First Order Stormtrooper (AW2) (7)

Battlefield:
Docking Bay (SR153)

Upgrades: (6)
2x F-11D Rifle (AW8)
2x Z6 Riot Control Baton (SR8)
2x Hunker Down (AW164)

Supports: (11)
2x Aftermath (SR123)
2x Backup Muscle (AW99)
2x First Order TIE Fighter (AW6)
2x Supply Line (SR51)
2x Salvage Stand (SR88)
1x Slave 1 (SR22)

Events: (13)
2x Doubt (SR80)
2x Endless Ranks (AW70)
2x Flank (AW156)
2x The Best Defense (AW75)
2x Imperial War Machine (SR62) (FLEX)
2x Logistics (AW142) (FLEX)
1x Cheat (SR143)

Breakdown

Yep, this deck list sure does look odd. But once we break it down you will start to see some of the choices make a lot more sense in the long run. Let’s start off with the characters. We want Red Villain to gain access to Endless Ranks, so the obvious choice is to fit as many First Order Stormtroopers as possible. The problem is we also want access to a few other cards from Yellow and the lowest cost character we have there is Bala-Tik who, while not able to be the target of Endless Ranks, gives us a few tricky options and acts as a good diversion early in the game. With those three characters, we are sitting at 21 points; the best option we have instead of another First Order Stormtrooper is a TIE Pilot, as its added ability will help protect our dice from removal.

Next up, we have a very small package of Upgrades, and this is two-fold. Because our characters are light on health, they will be dying very quickly so we don’t want to invest too much into them unless the weapon has Redeploy. With the rise in popularity of Unkar/Imperial Inspection decks, we wanted to steer clear of 2-cost upgrades; however, the F-11D is too good of a weapon not to include in Red decks. The Z6 Riot Control Baton, while pricey, has two huge benefits. One, it can’t be targeted by Imperial Inspection. Two, it has Redeploy. So it was an obvious fit for the deck. Lastly, we have Hunker Down, which seems odd because there are quite a few melee decks running around and Vibroknife (SR57) shuts it down hard and turns it into a card you ditch to re-roll 100% of the time. While all these were things we considered, in the end the survivability that this brings to the table against Poe/Maz and Palpatine outweighed the downsides.

Where the deck starts to get really spicy is with its Supports. Obviously, there are two copies of Aftermath which is our main combo piece to generate resources. We also have a resource choke package in the deck by running Salvage Stand and Supply Line. The ability to starve your opponent out of resources early is huge in this game, and once this hits the table it forces your opponent to make a few sub-optimal plays for fear of losing all their resources before being able to use them. Last, but not least, are our finisher Supports: Backup Muscle, First Order TIE Fighter, and Slave 1, all of which are able to deal out damage and pick off opponents. The fun part of running Slave 1 is that once it hits the field, it forces your opponent to worry about rolling in too many dice and leaving their characters vulnerable. When all is said and done, a lot of the support choices for the deck are there to support the Endless Ranks combo and to force your opponent into bad decision making if they don’t know what they are up against.

Last but not least, we have a solid package of Events that feature some very strong removal and a few tech cards to get around a few of the decks shortcomings. For our removal, we have Doubt, Flank, and The Best Defense. What all of these cards have in common is that they are one-action dice mitigation. Basically that means as opposed to Guard or He Doesn’t Like You, there are no conditions to using these (most of the time) and you don’t have to spend one of your actions rolling in dice in order to have your mitigation online. The added bonus of The Best Defense is that it removes two dice and deals damage to one of our characters. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing someone roll in Poe or Palpatine only to use The Best Defense to remove their dice, kill a First Order Stormtrooper with the damage, trigger Aftermath to gain 2 resources, and then having enough resources on your next action to play Endless Ranks. While this is a dream scenario, it actually comes up way more often than you would think.

The other events this deck runs are more flex cards that can be changed to fit your local meta or your personal play style. Cheat is a great card as it allows you to in essence have access to 3 copies of Endless Ranks. Logistics and Imperial War Machine give you ways to manage your resources. You can easily switch our any of these for other cards and still keep the deck running just as smoothly.

Some other options for including in the deck are:

Attrition (SR69) – more value out of your characters dying, though at most you will be doing 12 damage and that is assuming a lot of things go right in your favor.
Closing the Net (AW69) – Another one action removal card that has the added bonus of protecting you slightly against mill decks.
Cannon Fodder (AW68) – Similar to The Best Defense as it gives you a way to proactively kill a character. The downside is that it doesn’t hit all dice sides.
Local Garrison (AW77) – more resource denial with a high initial cost that makes it hard to get into play.
One-Quarter Portion – A very good option for this deck especially in combination with Salvage Stand which can make the downside less of an impact.
Electroshock (AW159)/Friends in Low Places (SR146) – While both amazing cards, the HUGE downside of having to spot a Yellow character means you will get little to no use out of these two cards as Bala-Tik dies early in most games.

With all that said, this deck still does have some weaknesses and most of these are to the dreaded Poe/Maz matchup. As mentioned previously, Thermal Detonator and U-Wing (SR31) are the best cards against this deck as they deal damage to your entire board. If your opponent can kill 2-3 of your characters early, that is a hard hole to climb out of. Especially if you don’t have out any copies of Aftermath. The main goal is to stay alive and mitigate as much damage as you can early so you can take out Maz, thus forcing Poe to roll his Special and not cheat it in. This match up is about 50/50 and comes down to the first 1-3 rounds. If Poe can roll into his AOE damage it’s a tough battle, but if you can avoid taking that damage early, the match usually swings into your favor.

Other Match Ups

Against Palpatine, you have a bit of an easier match up because you can chose where his extra damage goes and all of your removal hits his dice much harder, since you don’t have to worry about Fast Hands. Besides dice mitigation, you also want to get Supply Stands out early, because a Palpatine deck without resources bodes well for you as it eliminates the threat of Rise Again (SR76). It also is hard for Palpatine to chew through 29 health worth of units.

Going up against Unkar (SR21) or FN-2199 (SR2) decks are odd with a slight advantage in your favor. While you have a lot of high cost cards (i.e. Endless Ranks, Slave 1, and Z6) you also have ways to starve the Unkar deck of the resources they are gaining this way. It becomes a very tactical battle of trying to take out FN early while keeping them low on resources to kit him out. Endless Ranks really shines because by the time you lose a character or two, you can have FN close to dead or your opponent will have burned through most of their upgrades trying to kill your characters and having to do it all over again can be daunting.

The rest of the meta behind these three biggest contenders is usually 60/40+ in your favor for two big factors. The first is that most people do not know what they are coming up against when they see this deck. It plays differently than everything else out there and most decks will try to burn down one character at a time which gives you a huge advantage since you can keep bringing them back! The second factor is tied to the first, because with your ability to bring characters back, you are increasing the amount of damage your opponent needs to do by 7 or 8 each time you play Endless Ranks. In a perfect scenario, this means they have to deal an extra 21-24 points of damage before either decking themselves or dying to your onslaught.

In the end though this deck isn’t perfect and it isn’t the answer to how to win every game 100% of the time. What it is, is a way to have a fair chance at beating Poe/Maz and having great match ups against the rest of the current meta. Sadly, it wasn’t the “king killer” that Chase and I set out to build though it comes close…..oooh so very close. The deck takes some getting used to because it isn’t easy to pilot and requires you to make some odd decisions at times in order to have things fall your way. It is a rewarding deck, though, because it is extremely durable and consistent.

Look for a few YouTube videos in the coming weeks to feature this deck, as I am sure that Chase will be taking it to quite a few Store Championships locally where we will be recording games. And as always, May the Force be With You!


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