Let the Hate Flow Through You 1.0

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• 2.0
• 1.0

This deck has been tested and improved through TTS.

This looks solid. One question though why no Hold out Blaster?

Great question! Holdout Blaster fits like a glove in this deck. The only reason I don't run it is because this deck is so every card I draw is a candidate for No Mercy.

I'm a little confused on Dark Presence since most of the time you are first rolling out aren't you?

So glad you asked! On the surface, it looks like Dark Presence would be useless. However, it actually ends up being one of the most important cards for two reasons:

1. With Premonitions, Holocron, and Presence itself, you're offered a lot of set up plays before you actually roll out on Palpatine. Ideally, they'll have rolled out one character and you have a Force Push or a Mind Probe equipped and you'll be hitting that discard a lot of the time.

2. Dark Presence also works when you're discarding to reroll, so you can be deep into a turn with a bogus dice pool, discard to reroll, hit your discard and then pop your one or two Dark Presence on the board to remove what's left of their pool.

The best part about this card is that they both trigger even if you only roll one Discard side. While I totally agree that it seems strange and I didn't have this card in my original version of this deck, once you see it in action you'll be a believer!

I'd think of Force Choke instead of Mind Probe. Not sure on premonitions yet as your opponent could also use it. Apart from that: Will build and play it ;)

Thanks, Alper, it's a fun one! The reason I don't use Force Choke is because I find myself using the special to maximize damage on my other characters in most cases. Since Palpatine is alone and can't choke himself, I feel like Immobilize works just as well. Could definitely see it having a place in the list though!

I was thinking about two things: 1. He's alone, so I want him to control as many dice as possible (Force Throw?). 2. Sometimes you don't get your Holocron, I want upgrades that are still playable. But maybe I'm wrong and Palpatine wants to deal as much damage as he can in a short period of time: Welcome Mind Probe.

Wow, I've been playing this deck on TTS as well and I came up with exactly the same deck except that I was running Holdout Blaster instead of Lure of Power. I'll be playing the real deck soon enough :)

If you are gonna run dark presence you should try and have dice that have more focus or discards. It is a great 0 support if it can be reliable. Otherwise something like It Binds All Things is the choice I would use. If you want cheap cost stuff try Trust Your Instincts over Use The Force. Hold out Blaster is great in this deck. I also like Rejuvenate and Enrage.

What about Force Speed? :)

DJRAZZ,

Focus doesn't help since you actually have to roll the discard side. Every upgrade in this deck that would actually settle as board state has a discard side with the exception of Lure of Power. Rejuvenate and Enrage together are basically spending 4 cards on gaining 2 resources. If you're piloting this list correctly, you don't need to spend more than 2 resources a turn. Holdout Blaster diminishes the effectiveness of No Mercy and is overall less effective than Lure of Power

I've been through a lot of iterations and improvements with this deck, and I've had success in tournaments with this particular list already. I'm pretty happy with where it is, but at this point if you're looking for improvements, you should be looking at slotting in Now You Will Die.

@DJRAZZ Trust Your Instincts is cheaper, sure, but it doesn't turn a die to the thing you want necessarily. I expect you don't end up with very many unusable dice in this deck given the quality of palp dice and the upgrades, so really is it good to get a reroll + card draw when you likely only want to change 1 or 2 dice? I expect turning one die to the right thing is far more valuable, even for 1 resource cost.

I also agree with @sinrin's assessment that Now You Will Die would be the next thing to slot. It could even prove better than Use the Force because it doesn't leave the die sit for a turn - you resolve it when you play the card. It does less damage since Palpatine has a 3 Ranged side (you'd be using Now You Will Die on 2-value Palpatine sides likely) but resolving the die w/ the card play has some value too. Still, I expect Use the Force will likely play better since it also has interactions with the various force powers; Now You Will Die does basically nothing for Force Lightning for instance, where Use the Force is still all-star with some of the upgrade dice too.

Force Throw could probably be chosen over Immobilize. Immobilize can pretty consistently produce some shields, but turning dice to blanks has always felt like rubbish to me. On the other hand Force Throw special can swing games. I'm not sure there is a right answer here, just whatever you prefer to have; modest but dependable shields, or dice control that depends on rolling special.

Also, when is Boundless Ambition good? You can dig for things, but what do you really need to dig for that couldn't wait until you draw up at the end of turn? I guess you could refill for No Mercy after making other plays, but will you really have the resources to do that? I just don't see when it really becomes valuable. If Now You Will Die is to find space, my first inclination is to remove Boundless Ambition to make the space.

Excellent points to make, Foz. I like the consistency of Immobilize, but this deck has been building from a strategy that used to use force speed to capitalize on blanks, and in this list the Throw really is starting to make more sense. The only thing I'll have to be cautious about is whether or not I'm pulling my resource curve just a bit too high.

As for Boundless Ambition, you are correct, it is one of the few cards that remain terribly situational in the deck. Most of its uses, like you said, come from restocking for No Mercy which has won me several tournament matches. The other huge play with it is when you're showing special on Holocron but don't have any of your abilities. It can make all the difference in the world for your board state in that particular situation. But all things considered, slotting Now You Will Die could provide the consistency boost that this deck needs to really shine.

How well does Mind Probe really do for you?

It's nice for Dark Presence, since it shows a Discard side every once in awhile. Also, you can never complain if it hits special out of the gates. Other than that, it's mostly used as another Holocron or Premonitions target. It's nice to swap in Force Lightning for free in the late game.

@Foz Boundless Ambition won Worlds. You don't dig for anything with it in particular, you reroll nine times on the turn when you have ePalp, x2 Force Lightning, and a Mind Probe on the table to reach fatal damage. Digging happens with Maz castle, not Boundless Ambition.

Boundless won worlds because the average cost of that Vader Raider deck was so insanely low. I think a Boundless strategy is still viable with Palpatine, so the real question from here is whether or not we decrease the average cost of the deck to run Boundless or not.

@Lerysh He didn't do anything like what you described doing with the card. In the board state you describe, there's no way you need 4 extra rerolls to end up on a pile of damage.

In game one he used it then played Enrage, got one reroll (which any card could have done by being pitched itself if it wasn't Boundless), and then Force Strike. That play doesn't even happen in this deck because we have no card that makes resources for free. If you use your last resource to Boundless, it gets you very little in ePalp (unless you draw a force power and had Holocron special showing).

In game two, he rerolled monster Vader damage off Boundless, but again that could have been off the reroll from discarding any old card. In neither game did he need more rerolls than his last card in hand would actually have given him without Boundless. In Game two he then also played Intimidate, Hunker Down, and Enrage off his Boundless - all 0 costs that aren't in this deck. He primarily used it for a huge surge of cheap cards; cards that do not appear in this deck.

So when I say I think it's weak here, it's because it doesn't do the same things for this deck that it did for the Vader list at Worlds.

@sinrin I don't see how decreasing cost a lot would work here. Some of the plays he was making come from having yellow, others from having Enrage and a number of 0 costs that don't seem good here. I expect it is dubious to push Palpatine's 15 HP any closer to death than he already is, even for a resource, though I guess if you like to live dangerously Enrage could accelerate the deck some. I doubt that tradeoff is worth it when your HP pool is so small though. Without yellow I also doubt the viability of streamlining costs too much in this deck - there simply isn't enough quality material at 0 with only blue to pull from.

-2 Force Lightning (Deflect is a pain), +2 Force Choke. Feeds into D Presence, more economical, etc. Just a personal pref. Build a list nearly identical to this a while back and found that Lightning is situational, whereas FC will always be good whether or not you draw a Holocron.

Nice list.

I agree about the deflect issue. And most decks run it to deal with range damage. Rang Damage is the one vice of single e Palps. But I can't imagine the deck running without it. Maybe you can take lightning down to one and try and bait deflects out with other stuff. Just the fear of lightning is a mind game.

I really don't see Force Lightning as making you any more vulnerable to Deflect since you already have a ton of vulnerability to Deflect without FL. Force Push and Mind Probe have ranged sides, as well as Palpatine's own dice commonly showing ranged. You might as well play FL since they're probably not going to have trouble using Deflect even if you don't.

As for Force Choke, I propose a different angle - might it replace Immobilize? Immobilize grants shields which are somewhat out of favor in the Vibroknife meta and may prove unreliable. Choke controls dice less consistently, but also has sides that lend themselves to being oppressive to hand/resources, which is something the deck could probably use more of.

I've made several changes to this list at this point. One key thing was the removal of No Mercy. I just think you're getting more out of your cards by holding on to them with this deck. Feel free to play test with and without. Tell me what you guys think.

Why no Force speed?

@YoruI play this deck in person and just recently finally got my Force Speeds. While I'm still not entirely convinced you need two in this list, I'm currently running one Force Speed and one Mind Probe instead of this list.

Would Force Speed even do much in this deck?

@Foz, in addition to opening up dream combos like Force Push + Feel Your Anger, the biggest benefit to Force Speed is the fact that you can get both Palpatine dice resolved and avoid removal much more easily. The biggest downside to it is choosing whether or not to have a Holocron or Force Speed equipped at any given time.

Did you consider Force Illusion to help keep Palp alive longer. Also, since you only have 3 slots, would you consider reducing most of your upgrades to x1?

@vayhinger1,

Absolutely, Force Illusion was in the early iterations of this deck. However, what I found was that Force Illusion has anti-synergy with the Premonitions + Rise Again combo. Basically, you end up wanting to use one or the other to mitigate damage in any given game, and I prefer Rise Again due to the fact that it can be cheated out or bring in a Mind Probe or a Force Lightning for just 1 additional resource.

As far as the upgrades go, Palpatine is all about board state. Yes, you could go to one of each upgrade, but then you're half as likely to get to the one you want. I use as many upgrades as I do so I have plenty of overwrite options and my mid game is spent rearranging to the combination of upgrades I want for that particular matchup. Feel free to explore these options, though. It might work better for you.