2nd Place Aus Nationals (99 players, EAW legal)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
EMO 0 0 0 1.0

Han Solo 314

I piloted this deck to the final table of the Australian National Championships yesterday, hosted by General Games in Melbourne. I lost the final but each game was close and the deck definitely had the gas to get a win but just didn't manage to get there.

Leading up to the event all I knew was that Kylo/FN-2199 would be everywhere and that I didn't want to play it. I did a bit of testing with Kylo/Grievous because it does well against FN, but Prized Possession in the Thrawn/Unkar match up was just too rough.

I ended up settling on Anakin/Phasma because it had more burst damage than Kylo/FN-2199 and didn't rely on upgrades which could easily be bounced by Imperial Inspection or Confiscation against Thrawn/Unkar.

When I was building the deck my focus was on keeping the cost curve super low. Not including the force powers that were included purely to be swapped in with holocrons, I can play my entire deck for a total of 16 resources. I chose not to include any big flashy upgrades because I was aiming to end games by turn 3 and you don't get enough return on your resources, I'd much rather be playing cards like Force Illusion or The Best Defense... to get ahead in an aggro damage race or a Dark Counsel or Boundless Ambition in order to make my deck and dice more consistent. This deck is all about rolling those on your character dice. I even rerolled phasma's 2 side sometimes, but usually only when my opponent had a personal shield out.

If I was going to make changes to the deck it would be to add 2x Force Speed, 2x Dug in and 2x Intimidate. I'd probably swap them for the DH-17 Blaster Pistols, the Angers and maybe the Manipulates but I'd need to do some more testing to be sure.

My memory of Swiss is a little fuzzy but I'll do my best to remember.


Round 1. General Rieekan/Padme/Jedi Instructor Mill:

I was warned by a friend about this hero mill deck on the morning when I arrived and sure enough I got matched against it first round. I was surprised at how quick the mill was but my opening hand was amazing and my rolls even better. I had a Force Lightning and a Mind Probe out on the first turn. A tactical mastery second turn into a mind probe and phasma specials sealed my opponents fate. [WIN]

Round 2. Thrawn/Unkar Plutt Vehicles:

This was my first game on the stream and it was a brutal one. By the third turn I had two Mind Probes out and my opponent only had an AT-ST. His deck took too long to get going against my incredibly quick aggro. [WIN]

Round 3. Kylo/FN-2199:

My opponent was extremely new to the game of Destiny, but apparently very accomplished at the DBZ CCG and it showed in the way he played. He needed to read a lot of my cards because he wasn't familiar with them but he was able to pilot his own deck which he had borrowed off a friend very well. It was a relatively close game but his lack of familiarity with the cards gave me an edge and I was able to close it out. [WIN]

Round 4. Cad Bane/Phasma (Top 8 Finisher):

This was another aggro damage race, luckily I managed to do 9 damage to Cad and then use tactical mastery to kill him as my first action on the second turn. The game ended with his Phasma with 2 LL-30 Blaster Pistols but mine had 2 DH-17 Blaster Pistols and a Mind Probe. [WIN]

Round 5. Kylo/Phasma (Top 8 Finisher):

My second game on the stream, I didn't have a great first turn. My Vader took 7 damage and only managed 5 on his Kylo. The second turn was a complete blowout, I had most of my dice mitigated and only managed a measly 2 damage while he killed my Vader. The game was completely one sided from that point. Interestingly his build is actually very similar to mine with the super low cost curve. [LOSS]

Round 6. Thrawn/Unkar Plutt Mill:

I don't remember a whole lot about this match but my opponent couldn't get a crimelord or a good buyout off and I bursted down his Unkar turn 2. This deck has an excellent match up against most Thrawnkars and this match wasn't an exception. [WIN]

Round 7. Kylo/FN-2199:

My opponent was really young and had done amazingly well to have a 5-1 record at this point. It was another close damage race and to be completely honest I only think I won because he made a critical misplay at the very end. I think he fixated on the fact that I had a focus showing on dark counsel and thought he had an extra action before he had to play his force illusion and forgot I could just claim for the special. With the force illusion down he would have survived the special and had a good chance of getting lethal that turn. [WIN]

Round 8. Thrawn/Unkar Plutt Mill:

One of the closer Thrawnkar matches of the day. In the end my opponent had to make a bit of a desperate play which came close to winning him the game. He had a lot of focus dice in the pool and I had claimed. His last two cards in hand were Ace in the Hole and Crime Lord. He rolled in and missed the special and fortunately for me with the dice he had available if he focused to the special he only had enough focus to get to 4 resources max. Having dodged that bullet by the slimmest of margins I was able to keep up the damage and close out the game.


Top 8. Anakin/Phasma

Day 2 and the dreaded mirror match. Everyone's decklists were published the night before and we knew what the pairings were so I was able to study up on what I was up against. Amazingly less than 50% of our decklist was the same. We discussed the matchup beforehand and agreed that assuming average rolls the winner could easily be decided by who got shields in the first game. Unfortunately for me I lost the roll and he got the shields. Fortunately for me I managed to pull off a huge blowout play and win the first game despite losing the roll. I used boundless ambition after he claimed to get a mind probe into play with a holocron and hit him for 5 damage, killing his Vader. The rest of the best of 3 played out as we expected, he won the second game because he had the shields and I won the third because I got the shields. [WIN]

Top 4. Thrawn/Unkar Plutt Mill:

By far the best Thrawnkar deck and player I have played against so far. I played really poorly in the first game and my rolls were abysmal. I would reroll double blanks on vader into double blanks multiple times and didn't kill Unkar until I had almost no cards left in the deck. The second game I got myself together and did a lot better, but it was still incredibly tight and some clutch rolling near the end got me a win. The third match was an incredibly tense battle. My deck performed more like I expected it to, killing Unkar relatively early and keeping up the pressure on Thrawn. I was watching his resources carefully, trying to make sure I wasn't drawing too far into my deck in case of a buyout but I got lucky and they were both in the bottom 4 cards of his deck.

Finals. Kylo/FN-2199:

What can I say, my opponent played his deck flawlessly and I lost in two games, but both of those games were incredibly close. He was able to make excellent use of his ancient lightsabers, using them to heal 3 or 4 times over the 2 games which was just enough to keep him out of lethal damage range.

26 comments

Alaric 1

Nice Deck. Hope I am not intruding, but can I ask what was the question you asked the judge at the end of the finals? Cheers.

Han Solo 314

@Alaric you're not intruding at all. Because Vader had one health remaining we were just confirming if the special would defeat Blake's character before I defeated my own. I had a 3 and could claim for a special and lethal damage.

It was pretty much over at that point but it was my only remaining chance at a win. I needed two actions and he could claim to stop me, but then I could rerolled to potentially win anyway.

weitoostrong 195

how good was new orders for you? Also I have to say Blake is a super smart player, I lost to him in round 3.

Han Solo 314

New orders is a great card in this deck. I would usually choose my opponents battlefield and take the shields because I knew I had the ability to flip it back to mine when I needed it. Potentially getting two uses out of it in a single turn is great value, plus it can also ruin your opponents plans. Kylo/FN usually runs rebel war room and you can deny them resolving some of their damage dice if you time it's use correctly for example.

STTbear 1

Love the deck, I was wounding if there was a cad bane/phasma list in top 8. Thanks for the report :) congrats

Tornadoman 1

I am running a mono blue version of your deck, and really find No Mercy to be the mvp of my deck. Have you considered using that card?

palpster 8

@Tornadoman Running monoblue is a huge risk with Kylo seeing so much play right now, also, Thrawnkar is another often seen deck which discards a lot, making No Mercy inherently weaker. In a vacuum Monoblue No Mercy decks are very strong, in the current (though still shifting) meta, not so much.

Han Solo 314

@call of awesomeness There was one piloted by Will Kerridge. You can find all the decklists posted here: torntable.net

@Tornadoman yeah, @palpster has it right, running a mono colour deck in this meta is a really tough ask. 4 of the top 8 decks were running Kylo and his ability is just oppressive if you are running a mono colour deck. My original deck did run it but it got cut pretty quickly because the occasional small burst it gave wasn't worth the constant damage pressure from Kylo.

DHaus 498

First of all, congratulations on your 2nd place finish. That's truly impressive! Secondly, a local from here in Kentucky started calling this deck "Shiny & Whiny". I laughed so hard, I had to share it. Congrats again!

stranglebat 832

@Han Solo Hey congrats on second! I helped Blake prepare for Nats and your style of deck was on our list of potentials for him to play right up until the Tuesday before, Blake was like you and didn't want to play Kylo FN but we deemed it the strongest deck for the expected meta.

I like the slimming of your list compared to our version just wondering if you missed any of the cards we had in ours like Light saber throw or the Riot Baton on the Day? Obviously it worked well for you but I'm always interested to hear about the individual card performances, especially spicy ones like Dark Council.

Han Solo 314

@stranglebat I didn't miss them at all! I cut lightsaber throw because the only melee sides I have in my deck are on Vader and one of those is already a pay side. Riot control batons are amazing, but I wasn't resolving my character dice for resources or playing enrage so at best I was playing it turn 2 if I was lucky and then the game would be over turn 3. It was too much of a resource investment to get enough value out of.

Dark council is one of my favourite cards in the deck. With anger in hand it has 6 sides that I'm happy to see. It got me value in every game I played it all day.

stranglebat 832

Can't disagree with any of that reasoning.

Did you ever test abandon all hope or deemed it too expensive? It feels like a lot of FN players take the cheeky resource end of turn to boost up to 3 for the next turn. Since you are constantly claiming and going first in the round it could be a blow out as a one of, plus it has serious game vs buyout lists.

WillHope@DF 247

@Han Solo of course you got Han Solo man. congrats and thanks for posting the list. Ill be posting my Cad/Phas list soon enough @call of awesomeness

Han Solo 314

@stranglebat I actually think a single copy of Abandon All Hope would be a good include. Not sure what I would drop for it though. Playing it first action against a Kylo/FN deck is probably a good call because you just have better character dice than they do.

@WillHope@DF I think I signed up for swdestinydb.com on the day it launched. I got first dibs on names!

Netta18 7

How about Meditate?

Do you think it will slow you down too much?

Han Solo 314

@Netta18 I could see one copy slotting in for sure. I'd have to think about what it replaces though. You also never want to be using it on your character dice, but removing a Holocron or Dark Counsel blank would be valuable. There is definite some flexibility in this deck, the key is just to keep that cost curve low.

Shardaddy 58

Can i ask you about All in and Isolation? Wondering if All in would be a good inclusion or not, why there wasn't isolations in your deck, and lastly, how are you using boundless ambition (mostly rerolls, looking for overwrite upgrades or something to get the holocron special with?) as i found that outside of FN, boundless isn't that great...thanks and congrats!

ClassyNumber 1

Congrats on the performance!

I am super new to the game and I was thinking of making this deck. However before I do, I was wondering if there was a particular reason why you decided to go with Darth Vader (Dark Apprentice)?

I currently have the two player starter that comes with Kylo Ren (Tormented One). Is getting Darth Vader worth it? Or can I stick with Kylo Ren?

Thanks!

Han Solo 314

@Shardaddy I don't think all in is that useful. You don't really want to use Phasma's focus unless you have to because it is such a major part of your damage and I'd just rather use force speeds. I also don't like isolation for two reasons, firstly you have to spot a blue character to use it when Vader is the main target and secondly because Kylo/FN don't have super scary character dice. You really want to be mitigating the riot control batons and rocket launchers.

@ClassyNumber thanks! You can definitely swap in kylo, but I'd probably change the battlefield to something else.

Han Solo 314

@ClassyNumber check out Damien Madigan's list here: torntable.net

He made top 8 with Kylo + Phasma and was my only loss in swiss.

Dave Sharona 601

FWIW, I believe if you had claimed into a special, killing both characters, the game would have ended in a tie and you would have had to play again.

If I remember correctly, it requires two WINS to win a best of three. A tie does not count as a win as far as FF rules are concerned.

I could be wrong, but that is how it was explained to me. Regardless, these two (Kylo/FN, Annie/Phasma) are the two I built immediately after the 2 player set dropped and I love them both. This deck is WAY more of a burst than Kylo, but man, his damage consistency can be really hard to get around.

Grats on the 2nd place finish! Good looking list. I'm likely to drop Imperial Discipline in mine in lieu of Dark Counsel to try for a spell

Aorakis 4

Even if i have to say it out and loud once again : BORING META !

I have to congratz you for your perf down (under) there ! ;)

Like how you choose to keep a "light" curve with your deck. Still dangerous for your holocrons to get that inspection but apparently it did not happened ?

Cheers from Belgium and GZ again ;)

STTbear 1

Congrats man! I like your deck :)

Ruben88 1

I reallly like how you performed with this deck, relying on both characters' specials is ballsy and takes skill to play I think. I was wondering if you'd swap out any of the cards for Datapad? The special on that dice seems to have good synergy with both Captain Phasma - Ruthless Tactician and Darth Vader - Dark Apprentice.

Han Solo 314

@Ruben88 I considered data pad but ultimately dropped it because I never want to resolve the modified resource sides because my character dice are too valuable to resolve the boxes. Dark Counsel is essentially the same except you trade being a little slower for twice as many sides you can resolve.

Ruben88 1

Thank you for your answer. In our local meta players have started adopting 4 character vehicle decks, how would you strategize with this deck against such a deck?