Good... GOOD! (w/ Guide)

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Good... GOOD! 9 7 6 4.0
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Deck Liga Elite 0 0 0 1.0
Emperor and his EaW 0 0 1 1.0

Foz 1024

Updated for Empire at War

Synopsis

A midrange take on ePalpatine, though this new build is likely a bit more control-leaning than before.

There is a lot of mitigation here which certainly helps keep Palpatine's 15 HP intact. Turns are pretty easy to play most of the time - roll in, resolve things, and play removal whenever it's the best time. I recommend not being too fussy about what you resolve, it's usually better to get something resolved for Palpatine's 2 damage ability than trying to force perfect rolls. Usually anything you roll is relevant anyway.

Changes from version 4.0

The Cuts

Pretty simple changes this time around. The cuts are things that are either outclassed, or situational and so better at 1 copy.

New Toys

This section is my favorite. Some things here are experimental, but for the most part they all look solidly useful to Palpatine's style of play. Quantities may shift as I find out what works better and what does not fit.

As You Command - I'm not 100% on this card. Palpatine's , , and sides are all often useful, which makes me question how often you will want to turn them into . Still, focus is powerful, so I'm going all-in on two copies to see how it feels. You can also resolve blanks as 0 focus if you need to trigger Palpatine's 2 damage ability.

Endurance - This gave me a chill when I first saw it. Seriously this card is exactly what Palpatine wanted. He has the most valuable dice in the game, getting one back for 1 is amazing.

Indomitable - Another likely juggernaut, at least for Palpatine. We're the only deck that can play this at any point in the game, and as we found out with Dug in, 3 for 1 is pretty great value. Pitch it in matches where shields are bad for sure, but it will be quite potent in many games, especially with many new ranged and mixed-damage lineups surfacing in the EaW meta so far.

It Will Be All Mine - Palp tends to keep a healthy stock of around, so whenever your opponent lands juicy blanks, you should be able to take advantage. We can also Force Push him onto blanks. The best combo is Force Speed ->Force Push->It Will Be All Mine. You get to resolve at least 2 of their dice as whatever you want that way; more if they were showing any blanks when you started. It might be so good I push it up to 2 copies.

No Surrender - This seems like it could be useful, but it's always hard to devote slots to rerolls. Still, Trust Your Instincts has become a Vader staple, so I'm giving No Surrender a chance to see if it can do work.

Rend - This seems like the very definition of situational. In some matches you will want it, and others you won't. It's on 1 copy because of that.

Mulligan

Holocron->Force Ability->Rise Again (most matches)

You're looking for Holocron. It's usually best to throw everything back if you don't have one in your first draw hand. Even if you put back a force ability, you're likely to draw more. Next try to lock up something to cheat in with Holocron. After that, Rise Again is good in basically every match where your opponent will try to win by damage. You could value it ahead of Holocron if you're worried the enemy is super aggressive, but I usually don't, relying on die removal to blunt such decks. Other removal could also be reasonable keeps depending on the opposing deck's number and type of character dice. If opponent is likely to be mill instead of damage, you should ignore Rise Again entirely as you won't need the healing. In such matches I would look for cards that support doing maximum damage since mill takes a bit of time to work and has fragile characters. As You Command may help a lot in this by turning you to damage, and Endurance will do work here too as they are undoubtedly packing a lot of removal.

Force Abilities

There is some debate in the community over which abilities to run. Force Lightning creates a huge amount of threat and often closes out games, essential to have in my opinion. Force Push is probably 2nd if we were judging strictly by how useful it is overall. That said, Force Throw and Mind Probe are great if Emperor's Throne Room - Death Star II is prevalent in the meta as they have devastating . I like Mind Probe in this list, it works well with Holocron and likely represents the 2nd best value in getting an ability into play for free. The is great, and I value its other sides above Throw. That left Throw as the least valuable of those 4 abilities to me due largely to its timing difficulties and poor sides in games that don't happen on Throne Room. I don't deny it can make big plays, It just hasn't been doing that enough of the time for me to justify its slots.

Conclusion

If you have any questions or comments, by all means feel free I appreciate the discussion/criticism.

27 comments

striatic 1

How do you feel about leaning so hard on Holocron, now that Rend is in the meta?

The Holocron suite eats up 8 slots - Holocron, Lightning, Push, Probe. Money saved by playing Holocron is consumed by another 3 slots - Rise Again and It Will Be All Mine. Force Speed uses up another 2 slots, and Rend can kill it as well.

Maybe Rend will not prove to be very strong against this type of deck, but if I were asked to imagine a deck that Rend would be dominant against, it would look something like this deck.

outro 146

@striatic I'm betting rend will make Force Speed and or Holo decks less useful on the future meta. It's a nasty little card.

On the other hand it'll be cool to see less holos and force speeds around.

Foz 1024

Ultimately we'll have to wait and see just what effect Rend has before addressing the situation. It's hot to play it right now, but that may not stay the case if decks that don't really need its main targets start cutting those cards, making it dead in many matches. It could fall out of favor if the meta shifts away from those cards in response to its existence.

Foz 1024

Also, if you want value from Rend targets, it's correct to play more than 2 total copies. Including both Holocron and Force Speed makes it more likely that something survives, and if there were more good things that Rend hits, I would include them as well to further improve the value of each. As it stands about the only other interesting card would be Chance Cube, but it would probably be a bit odd at best. Maybe I'll slot it for some tests just to see what happens.

happyfaceonfire 1

Is there any suitable replacements for force speed & force lighting? Like a Ghetto version of this deck?

Teknikal 1

Unyielding? how come this was not included in the deck @Foz?

TheFalconsDejarik 1

@happyfaceonfiremake those force lightning into no mercy and force speed into premonitions. Also protects against rend in providing another way to cheat things out not reliant on holocron aand a form of damage in no mercy capabe of hitting for 7. Ghetto Palp Slashing

Foz 1024

@happyfaceonfire Force Speed is a 0-cost value card. I would consider bringing in another Doubt, the 2nd Rend, or the Premonitions that @TheFalconsDejarik indicated. You could also look at Plastoid Armor which is similar to Rejuvenate, though Rend-able.

Force Lightning is more difficult since it produces a lot of damage and some control too. No Mercy (recommended by @TheFalconsDejarik) could work, but it's shaky with 4 colorless cards here, and even worse if you decide to bring in more Doubt/Rend. It's also more difficult than you would think to keep damage sides to use No Mercy since you typically have at least 1 Palp die removed each turn.

If you have starters you could try Force Throw which can really swing games. Some lists I've seen run Holdout Blaster which may fill the damage role of Force Lightning. I toyed with Lure of Power before also, but it's pretty situational and rarely what you want to see late in the game. Lure is probably the most fun and interesting of those options... while Force Throw is probably most reliable.

Foz 1024

@Teknikal I can't justify Unyielding. Compare with Intimidate. You can pay zero to blow up all the shields that are in your way, or 1 to get around them. I would probably choose Intimidate if I wanted this sort of card, but honestly they seem to be a little too narrow right now. Shields and blocking cards are a small presence in the meta right now because of Vibroknife, so we don't need to pack cards to deal with them specifically unless that changes.

Of course if your local meta has more shield use, less VIbroknife or a lot of Force Illusion for instance, you could opt to play Unyielding or Intimidate. I'm trying to present a general build here, so I typically avoid slotting a card that is only useful against certain cards / strategies.

AirFluff 1

Excellent guide. Never played Palp but will definitely looking into your deck. Thanks for sharing!

astenog27 1

I was wondering why No surrender over Trust Your instincts? why is Trust more of a Vader staple?

Foz 1024

Thanks @AirFluff, I'm glad you like it.

Foz 1024

@astenog27 Trust Your Instincts is more of a Vader staple because Vader is often built to go deep into the round with Boundless Ambition and also to ready up and re-activate using The Price of Failure and/or Leadership. That puts him in a position to Trust both of his character dice most times, and also makes the card draw more valuable since he usually rerolls a lot. Palpatine doesn't usually reroll a lot because people focus removal on him even more. Usually you lose one character die as soon as you activate, and if you reroll the other your opponent will often pay to remove it too, they are that valuable. So Trust for Palp would mostly reroll one of his character dice and maybe an upgrade or two. Given that you might lose the 2nd character die to more removal if you do that, No Surrender seems far better for Palp because the thing he most wants in the world is to resolve his character dice. You usually resolve the 2nd character die no matter what it is, unless it's blank. In my experience you're quite likely to lose that die if you reroll it, so No Surrender gives you a 5/6 shot to resolve a rerolled blank immediately, which often saves that die from impending removal.

STTbear 1

I do not have two force lightings so what could I play instead??

Foz 1024

@call of awesomeness See my post to @happyfaceonfire a few days ago, I go into details about what can replace different cards, Force Lightning included.

AstroLad 368

I started on Palp in EAW with your build, so thanks! How do you navigate the Thrawnkar matchup though? I added 2x Abandon All Hope for it, but you kind of have to rearchitect other aspects of the build to smooth out the cost curve. Have you actually found yourself using It Will All Be Mine much? I know the combo is amazing, but there are a lot of pieces to it, so I find it to mostly be a dead card or an overcosted one. I also went to Obi-Wan's Hut - Tatooine just to remove the benefit from other decks at no great cost other than vs. Vibro (which doesn't seem to be too popular at the moment). But Thrawnkar, yeah...I don't know how I would swing it w/o Abandon, and even then....

Foz 1024

Honestly you probably get slaughtered by Thrawnkar, and I don't see any real way around that. They're probably going to call out your Holocrons before you get them down and remove a character die or more every single turn. It's hard to fight through that kind of resistance with Palp, and you probably don't have much chance of doing so.

I don't think it can be retooled to be good in that match, because it needs high quality upgrades to operate, and if they can't be gotten for a significant discount the deck will never be able to do everything it needs to in order to win. The resource cheating kit also exposes us to huge Unkar discards, again with no great way to dump those cards. I agree Abandon could help some in staving off disruptions, but you would need a lot more disruption to keep Palp's plan safe enough from their level of control, and it simply isn't available to villain blue at this time. Palpatine is also especially vulnerable to Prized Possession and Crime Lord, both of which regularly appear in Thrawnkar. Abandon can help break up Crime Lord some, but blue doesn't offer any long-term answers to these cards and these cards will probably beat Palp in most games.

Ultimately the success or failure of Palpatine has always somewhat depended on the metagame. If Thrawnkar remains as much of the field as it appears to be, Palp probably won't be a good choice. If it goes in another direction, he could be much better off. He has some hardcore weaknesses, but also some crazy strengths. We just have to wait and see how those line up against what the meta ends up looking like.

C3gorach 1

Can someone explain to me why No Mercy isn't seen on Palp lists? I am new to Destiny and in my limited experience the sudden burst damage can outright win games i think...

Foz 1024

@C3gorach It can, but it's hard to use. Palp's lists mostly run 4-ish gray cards now, so that already makes it harder to get the 4 damage consistently. On top of that, damage sides, especially on Palp's character dice, are prime targets for enemy removal. That means unless you get a Force Lightning down, you have to rely on upgrades with few damage sides to try to get one to attach No Mercy to (since most of the time Palp rolls only 1 damage side and it gets immediately removed). If it could be used more easily, I'd be all over it. In reality though, I tried and tried to make it work, but most often the stars didn't align just right and it sat in my hand unable deliver.

airgigio 8

HI! Thanks for this!!! What about put Lancio Telecinetico?

Foz 1024

@airgigio Force Throw is certainly playable. I don't personally prefer it due to it basically only having two sides you actually want. You can resolve the 1 but the 2 sides are just terrible most of the time. It's probably a better pick if your meta is full of Thrawnkar (where becomes very relevant) or decks that play on Emperor's Throne Room - Death Star II since you'd be able to claim it over to special. Otherwise it just felt like it had to be rerolled a ton which slowed the deck down and sometimes made it miss claiming. I picked upgrades that had more useful sides instead to try to keep the deck moving fast.

MaineQat 1

Been doing very well with this, however I am making a couple tweaks to try out:

I took out 2x Rejuvenate for 2x Sound The Alarm, to help mess up an opponents god-roll or careful setup. Seems like it may buy me more than 1 life, potentially, but is harder to justify pitching if needed.

It Will All Be Mine feels too situational - the combination of having it in hand, having the resources to pay, and opponent rolling out a bunch of blanks doesn't happen too often. I just never seem to have enough resources, but maybe that's due to aggressive early mitigation and paying to roll out the upgrade from a Sith Holocron . I took it out and put in a second Doubt, although a second Overconfidence is also fairly tempting. I may try putting it back.

Foz 1024

@MaineQatI like Sound The Alarm, but it depends on how much non-aggro is in your meta. If your opponent isn't trying to roll damage sides, it's practically useless. It also competes somewhat with Overconfidence for handling god rolls. I prefer 0-costs when I can though (because Rise Again is so expensive, mostly) so I'm inclined to say Sound is worth having.

You might also consider finding something else to cut instead of Rejuvenate. It's not all-star, but a free card doesn't have to be. Palp doesn't need to reroll much, so value cards for 0 are really good (as you noted, resources are usually Palp's bottleneck).

I can see that argument for It Will All Be Mine, and we already have 2x Feel Your Anger to punish blanks. Doubt is probably a good call.

Anyway, let me know how your testing work out for you, I enjoy feedback and discussion.

CaineRaistrick 1

Have you used this deck recently? How do you feel it manages in the current meta?

outro 146

@CaineRaistrick I have a similar deck, by that I mean a midrange ePalpie, and it fares pretty well, at least against my local meta. Not 100% wins, but can easily take on Sabine, Hondo, Mace, Yoda ans Sister's variations. I'd say I've probably lost 2-3 times on close games out of around 15 matches.

It really helps knowing the other guy's deck. If you never played against the type you're matching up you'll probably won't be able to hold the tide.

I'd say the worst matchups would be heavy control, exploding damage ones are fairly easy to control with the events suit. Just don't go discarding cards to reroll palpies dice. If you can't get damage, just use any side (except blanks, obv) and control your way 'till you can overwhelm the guy with damage.

Expect to Rise Again at least once. I've had to Rise Again twice in some games, but it's do-able.

CaineRaistrick 1

@outro They're some pretty good statistics! I really want to make Palpatine the meta again so I'm using him as much as I can, it's just finding a deck list really to borrow from, not even been playing a week so still getting used to what cards are good and getting my collection going :D

outro 146

Study the meta, learn the other decks, and you'll be able to use a midrange control ePalpie effectively. And again, my stats are from my local meta. Pure raw damage ePalpie doesn't stand a chance against the current meta. If you don't control the opponent you will lose.