Know Thy Enemy (Singapore Unofficial Nationals Top 8) 1.0

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• 1.0

Since Star Wars cannot be distributed in South East Asia due to licensing issues, the community created their own unofficial Nationals. Took this to the 23-man tournament. The deck went 4-1 in swiss and lost 1-2 in my only game in the top 8. (Same guy I lost to in swiss)

Game plan is to load up Kylo with Force upgrades first to make him the target while building resources with Thrawn and drawing cards with Dark Counsel. When Kylo has 2 dice upgrades then the Sith Holocron goes onto Thrawn. Adjust the upgrades depending on who's being focused on by the opponent.

Usually you roll Thrawn out first and call 0 to remove any Rends if you've got Holocron in hand. Otherwise, call whatever you think the biggest threat they could have is or the number of a card you saw in a previous round works too.

Use All In and Tactical Mastery to fix your dice and swing hard. Even a die showing focus 1 is good enough as it can focus Thrawn's die to focus 2. You don't have to rely on that combo all the time though as Thrawn's ability allows you to guarantee how well your opponent can mitigate your dice. Feel free to use the focus when you're certain your opponent can't disrupt you.

I had been testing with the weapons version of Kylo/Thrawn but I felt I didn't have the money for mitigation, upgrades and Kylo's 2 for 1 side even with Thrawn's amazing 2 resource side. I tested with a Sith Holocron version but found I was very screwed if I didn't see Holocron. So I settled on a fusion of both decks the morning of the tournament and included Dark Counsel which turned into the MVP of the day. Ancient Lightsaber is mostly for healing but the extra dice is a nice bonus and the +3 melee is great when combo'd with action cheating and focus.

Game 1: eSeventh Sister and General Grievous

One of the Malaysians who came down to play. Fairly certain he was new or at least playing a very new deck because he started with both elite versions of his team. A quick edit to the decklist and off we went. (I felt he should have kept eGrievous since Seventh Sister will roll out 2 dice anyway)

Activating Thrawn, I called out 0 to remove the possibility of Sith Holocron and found his hand to have big costing cards like Lightsaber Pike and Rise Again. I disrupted his economy and used Kylo specials to bring down Seventh Sister in the middle of round 2. Grievous only had a Crossguard Lightsaber at that point and both my characters were very healthy. 1-0

Game 2: eKylo2 and Darth Vader

Several lucky things happened to allow me to win this game. First was that I won the roll-off and decided to go first allowing me to snipe a Sith Holocron with Thrawn. I also saw a Mind Probe and Rise Again which forced my opponent to use Force Speed just to reroll.

Second was my Dark Counsel rolls were amazing. Allowing me to draw 3 cards in round 2 and see my Rise Again. Kylo was at 7 damage at that point.

Finally was the turn I used All In to focus my Kylo dice to their specials and go after Kylo2. Kylo2 had 8 damage at that point and a Force Illusion. I knew his hand was a Mind Probe, a No Mercy and a Hatred. If I didn't kill Kylo2 now he was going to kill my own Kylo. Managed to pull the Mind Probe twice in a row. Vader's single die was easy to control with Isolations and Doubt. 2-0

Game 3: eBala-Tik, eCiena Ree and Guavian Enforcer

I much prefer to face this than Rainbow 5s since Nightsister isn't there to disrupt my Holocrons and Force Illusion can't be used.

I won the roll off and went first, calling 2 with Thrawn to snipe away a LL-30 Blaster Pistol and leaving him with the less useful F-11D Rifle. Getting my Force upgrades by focusing Holocron allowed me to control the dice easily and with so many dice being rolled, Force Lighting got at least 2 rerolls a round. 3-0

Game 4: eKylo2 and Gamorrean Guard

This was according to my opponent, 'very stressful' despite the game being mostly in his favour. Even when there was 1 blue card in my hand, he managed to pull it and deal 2 to my Kylo. Gamorrean Guard kept absorbing my Kylo dice when they were showing 1 melee so I kept focusing on him. My mistake as when I managed to kill off the Guard, his Kylo was fully upgraded while mine was killed off by Kylo2's ability. Thrawn only had 1 Force Throw. Managed to get him to 2 cards in hand though. 3-1

Game 5: eBala-Tik, eCiena Ree and Nightsister

Similar thing happened in Game 3 where I got a Force Lightning onto Thrawn and removed several dice. By calling 0 at the right time, I was able to remove a crucial Bait and Switch when they had only resource and modified dice showing.

Used a Tactical Mastery to Focus into killing Nightsister and weakening Bala-Tik. During the last round I focused on Ciena since I doubt he could kill a character in the same round and I didn't want Ciena to get all the guns. After Ciena rolled out, I gave Bala the kill shot by using All In to focus a Force Lightning. 4-1

Top 8: eKylo2 and Gamorrean Guard from Game 4

First match went well as I was able to use All In to get out a Force Lightning and focus Kylo's dice to deal a lot of damage to his Kylo. Once Kylo went down, Gamorrean Guard was easy enough to deal with.

Second game went against me as the only upgrades I saw were 1 Dark Counsel, 2 Force Illusions and 1 Ancient Lightsaber which got discarded by Disarm. (Misplay on my part. Forgot he had it and he was showing only modified dice so I wasn't thinking about them. This resulted in Thrawn dying in Round 2 and me not being able to get the resources to save Kylo with Rise Again)

In retrospect, I mulliganed poorly in game 3. I had my 2 action cheating cards, Best Defense, Force Illusion and a Dark Counsel which I kept because I would end up with only 2 blue cards. By choosing my battlefield I could guarantee 1 out of 4 chance for blue to be picked if Kylo2 activated as first action.

I should have mulliganed them away as All In and Tactical Mastery are cards I want to see later and what I should been looking for was better mitigation than Best Defense and more upgrades. My Force Illusion milled away my Holocrons which wasn't good but my biggest mistake was using Doubt on Kylo Ren's Lightsaber. It rolled into a special, hit my Kylo who had a shield and rerolled into the 3 melee side. This meant fatal damage to Kylo despite me having Rise again in my hand. Thrawn alone couldn't handle all the Melee damage with just Dark Counsel and Force Throw.

If I were to change the deck I would try and squeeze in Praetorian Guard somewhere so I can pull damage away from the main target and get Medical Center to heal both characters much more frequently. Probably cut a Rise Again and the Deflect.

Kylo Ren could be replaced by Anakin Skywalker for his better dice but Kylo's special is really synergistic when you know your opponent's hand like in Games 1 and 2. I'm also not sure what neutral cards I would change for villains or if I even want to be discarding cards in my deck.