Today, we share an article from guest author Simon Turner about his experiences in the Australian Nationals.

Star Wars: Destiny Australian Nationals

A Report From a Casual Gamer

By Simon Turner

“Hmm, time to put together a deck for the Australian Nationals,” I tell my deck-building buddy the night before the competition. “I need a deck that can win, what do you like?”

“What? You never play decks that can win!” He says. “I like Wookiees.”

So we end up with a deck that has a Wookiee theme. It even has a fun opener. When I sit down and my opponent asks: “So what are you playing?” I go: “Wookiee.” And place down a Wookiee Warrior. “Wookiee” as I place the second one, followed immediately by slapping my hand down on them saying “Snap!” as I place Snap Wexley down.

No… I Am Your Father

You see, my deck building buddy is my six-year-old son, and he knows how to play Snap. He’s also played a bit of Destiny with me and we both have a great time rolling dice with iconic Star Wars characters. I’m 42 years old and have never played this sort of game before. I’ve played board games and the like with friends and family, but this is all new, uncharted territory for me! Collectible cards, trading, card binders, going to a game store to play against complete strangers, actual competition – sometimes quite fierce, but so far always friendly.

It just so happens that at Milsims Games (my FLGS – which I only recently discovered meant “Friendly Local Games Store”) they meet every Tuesday for some games. Greg, who runs the tournaments, is an awesome guy. We have some nights that are competitive, but mostly they’re just for fun. We take it in turns coming up with extra play conditions, such as “no legendaries” or “red only,” and recently an extra “no FN” rule. New players are welcomed, given extra cards to help their collection, and are rewarded with extra prizes to make sure that everybody has a great time.

I went 2-6 in the Australian Nationals. That’s right, only 2 wins, and it was 2 more wins than I expected (or possibly even deserved!) I calculated my odds (not that you should ever tell me the odds) of winning as being somewhere between Buckley’s and none. There were some people who quit and left after they lost their second or third game. When I got home I was still really excited and when my deck building buddy asked how I’d gone I gushed about what an awesome day it was, how many other cool people I’d met, the fun games I’d played, the decks I’d seen, how great the Wookiees were etc. After all of that he asked if I’d actually won any games because I’d forgotten that part of things! We were both excited that the Wookiees had won a few games, but that wasn’t really the point of the day as far as I was concerned.

There are lots of tournament reports from the side of the room I never got to except when I’d been beaten so quickly that I had time to wander around and see all the Kylo’s, FNs, Phasmas etc. up there.

How It Went

In my first game (both of the tournament and using this deck) I played against a Jabba/Unkar and had a really close game. I was on my last card, he was on his last health. He had a discard die showing so I had to pitch my last card to try and win, I pitched, I rolled, and laughed with excitement as I rolled a blank – good work Wookiee! Not! That was such a fun game, really close, lots of back and forth action! So far 0 – 1.

Game two was against a hero mill trio of Padme, Rieekan and Jedi Instructor. This was such a cool deck to play against, it just pings cards off your deck slowly, but surely, just in little bits. Not as sudden as a Buy Out, so suddenly you realise you’re out of cards! Padme still had five health and a second chance on her when I had no cards left! 0 – 2.

Third was Quinlan/Jabba. I really liked this deck, the discard synergy with Jabba and Quinlan’s special was really neat. Quinlan loaded up and managed to do 9 damage in one go! By now I’m realising that the two Wookiees are really expensive! But I’m still really enjoying playing Wookiee themed cards, like Flank or Let The Wookiee Win. My opponents have all seemed to like the humour in it as well. 0 – 3.

Fourth was Vader/Raider. We traded blows, the Wookiees trying to take down a Lord of the Sith. There was so much health to chew through that we ended up going to time and I lost on a damage tie breaker. Really close game again! Had fun in this match wondering where the Wookiees found Rey’s Staff and Maz’s Goggles. We agreed that it’s best not to argue with a Wookiee. Unless you’re Vader. 0 – 4.

My fifth match was against a really interesting combination of Royal Guard, Gamorrean Guard, and Old Kylo. I may have made a few piggie-related jokes here, but my opponent was just excellent at using the Guardian abilities, spreading the damage right out. This was another pretty close game, and I felt like I had cheated when I won with a Planetary Uprising (hey, it has Wookiees on it!) 1 – 4.

Lunch Break

At lunch I finally had a chance to catch up with my best mate, Clayton. We share a card collection and he’s more competitive than me, but has three young kids and a demanding job, so he only plays against me for fun sometimes on the weekends. With that level of practice and, like me, having had no previous experience in games like this, he was sitting on 2 – 3! He was using Thrawn/Unkar, which we’d had to do some mad scrambling for to get the cards ready (I traded my Force Speed for a Thrawn the week before just in time!) He even managed to get into the top 20 for a while!

Back To It

After lunch the Wookiees and I were ready for an afternoon nap, so were smashed by a Vader and Magnaguard pairing. We laughed together when I rolled my two Wookiees, two Electrostaffs and a Vibroknife (five dice) three times in all to never hit any damage! I guess when Wookiees have a full stomach they’re just not interested in fighting! I really love massive hits of damage (like when Quinlan sliced and diced me) and also huge whiffs (15 dice with no damage!) they make for a really fun moment, a held breath and a lot of laughs! 1 – 5.

Seventh game was against Bala, Guavian Enforcer, and Ciena. In my quest for playing as many Wookiee cards as possible, I had two Planetary Uprisings out at once and won this one almost by accident. It’s nasty with Snap holding the battlefield steady to be able to claim for four damage, and then claim again first action next turn. I only had to do nine more damage near the end and I could see the move coming, and it seemed to take forever to hit just one more damage! I pitched all of my cards just to try and get one single damage. This time it worked and I was now an awe inspiring 2 – 5. I sent an SMS home to let my son know that we’d just won for a second time!

Final game was against Grievous and Jango. I really love Grievous, I think he’s an awesome character and it was really great to see him out and about! I was pretty tired by this stage, and don’t remember a lot about this match except that my notes say: “smashed me!” How technical! This was another really fun match with Wookiees doing their rolling three damage for a resource right when I had no money and rolling blanks when I did – they’re a proud warrior race and don’t perform just because I ask nicely. My opponent outplayed me and we both had a great time in the process! 2 – 6 to end the day!

Tired but Happy

Wrapping up my performance, a lot of the people who had quit after round three or four had still done better than me! I had, however, had a really fantastically fun day, a whole day playing my favourite game with really awesome people! My only disappointment was that you had to be in the top 64 to get the BB-8 card. Fortunately my best mate had made it that far!

My three proudest Destiny moments are now:

1: During a store championship my opponent said “I’ll do three damage to Harry”. Why? Because I always play odd decks, and for a couple of months I’d been playing three First Order Stormtroopers and a Nightsister. They were named Tom, Dick, Harry, and Kate. I always referred to them by name in games and people remembered! Always brought some smiles to the table.

2: At the last store championship I attended, I had lost the previous 13 games in a row over four other store championships and finally won a game! It wasn’t the win that I most enjoyed, it was that the tournament organiser gave out the prizes for those who had earned them, then said that there was one last prize for an astounding achievement – that I had broken my losing streak! So now I have a Phasma playmat and can pretend that I’m a champion.

3: My best mate and I had a complete day of playing our favourite game and between the two of us did well enough to get BB-8 and were officially in the top 100 players in the country! BB-8 is SO going in my next deck!

Thanks

A big shout-out thank you to podcasts like The Chance Cube who have segments for those who are about winning and how to improve, but also have content for those of us who just enjoy Star Wars and having a great time. Also to General Games Australia, who put together a really awesome Nationals weekend for us, with lots of prizes, live streaming, the whole kit and kaboodle. To Greg and Milsims Games for providing me with a completely new life experience that I’m really enjoying. To Lukas and FFG for providing us with this really fun game that can be played at so many levels. To our wives who looked after the kids for two days so we could play games, and who don’t roll their eyes too much when we’ve been talking for an hour about a single card. To my best mate and my son who share the fun of imagining Jabba the Hutt with a Flamethrower in each hand going up against Tom, Dick, Harry, and Kate who couldn’t hit the side of a sandcrawler at all, let alone precisely.

So what’s up next? My deck-building buddy thinks that a deck with BB-8, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chopper, Medical Droid, Astromech, Training Remote, and maybe K-2SO sounds like an awesome deck. And by awesome we don’t mean winning games, we mean having a great time with this truly fun game!

---

Support The Chance Cube

Do you enjoy the content provided by The Chance Cube? Would you like to connect even further with The Chance Cube Family? Consider supporting this content by joining our Patreon. We are a team dedicated to media coverage and community building, committed to bringing you the best of this game, sharing the joy and community that comes with it. Our Patreons enjoy membership in The Chance Cube Hangout, our Facebook group for supporters of the channel, and we have additional tiers that include gifts from us to you as a thanks for the generous support. Find out more at patreon.com/thechancecube.