Hero Vehicles, 3rd Place Vegas Regionals (6-2) 1.0

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First off, I'd like to say congratulations to my good friends in the Southern California crew who (including me) took 4 of the top 8 spots at the Vegas Regional this past weekend. It was such a crazy day, with 53 of the reported 82 registered players showing up.

As a little post-regional fact, I'll have more detailed data later, but there were a large number of different decks with no clear "most represented deck" at this regional. There was a Chance Cube representative who had collected this data and showed it to us at the end saying it was the most diversified regional he'd seen, which is GREAT this far into a new set's release. It's always good to not have a stale meta.

That aside, picking my deck was a matter of well-calculated elimination. My playtest buddy Riley, who has a great background in Yu-Gi-Oh! and Magic the Gathering, helped me playtest 3 decks during the three months prior to this tournament. It was between the following: eBoba/ePhasma, Hero Vehicles, and eYoda/eHondo. Now, the number one contender was eYoda/eHondo (what my buddy Andy ended up taking and getting 4th place with), because I had built it first and had won a box tournament and top 2 at locals three times in a row. It was strong, feeling consistent, and I liked the special chaining. That was until Sabine Wren - Explosives Expert came back into the meta with a mean streak. With new yellow cards for added consistency, the Ezra Bridger - Force-sensitive Thief build became even stronger, and the addition of Hidden Blaster let them get in some shield hate during activation with the potential to ping 2 shields provided they have two of them in hand at the beginning of the round.. Also paired with Yoda - Wizened Master it allowed them to get an easy round one 3-drop with his special plus a shield or focus depending on what's needed. The access to Force illusion also helps as discarding your upgrades is not a bad thing.... so many good things.

Sabine absolutely trashed Hondo and yoda, regardless of resource control. They would kill yoda, and then pay off hondo for game.

So it was with a heavy heart I built vehicles with the ratios I saw were best for the current meta (mixed, and non-specific to one deck). I spent the last month before this regional only playing vehicles, doing well (if not altogether winning) at local tournaments and online tournaments (TTS).

Tournament Report (followed by card choices):

Now, we weren't allowed to take notes during the matches, and I had a pretty casual time at the tournament and forgot to write down important facts. Now, 4 days later, it's a bit fuzzy; but I'll do my best.

Round 1 eObi/eMaz - WIN : I had an excellent opening hand of Rally Aid, Y-Wing, and Into The Garbage Chute. I took 0 damage, started second ( so 2 shields on rose), and ended the round with 8 indirect damage, 2 melee, 1 resource, and 5 shields out from a caution and starting 2nd. This led to an excellent second and third round getting out a Fang Fighter, C-3PO, and that paired with the y wing was an auto special and the opponent didn't have resources to mitigate, as they spent them constantly upgrading Obi-wan. I won in round three with Y-wing special and an amazing 8 indirect from Rose and Aayla (never happened before, so pretty cool).

Round 2 eObi/eMaz - WIN: Again, I was told to focus Obi-Wan and then Maz will be easy. I took Obi down early round 3 and from there vehicles auto-wins with over 20 health remaining and already having 5 supports out. The reason I did so well was Fall Back round 2 to kill shoto and obi saber, leaving them with a Force Illusion, that I used Vandalize the turn after, felt good and was the second time I used this combo today.

Round 3 eObi/eMaz - LOSS: So, this was a completely different caliber of player, our buddy Will from SoCal who has won a store championship and is a veteran of the game and regionals in general. He kills Ezra first turn, and I had a hand of Easy PickingsInto The Garbage Chute x2 Caution and Resistance Bomber going into round 2 of the game. So I was pretty much at a loss having all my Ezra-specific cards in hand. round 3 was a grind game and I mitigated pretty well, but unfortunately only had 3 supports out due to a well-placed hand discard. (can't remember if it was Scruffy Looking Nerf-Herder or Friends in Low Places, got rid of a y-wing the turn before I would place it, which won the game oppressively.Congrats to Will on top 8! Glad I didn't get paired up with him later on, but I would have fared better as my luck past round 5 was insane.

Round 4 WIN - now. "where's the pairing?".... well... I don't actually remember. Now, before you crucify me, let me elaborate on the situation. This game was by far the quickest and most destructive due to a couple factors which I DO recall.

1. They went after Aayla, and didn't kill her until mid round 3
2. They weren't mitigating
3. I had double rally aid, Y-wing, and Modified Hawk (healed up with a double rose special) out on first round, plus a well placed caution that absorbed all but 2 damage thrown at me. The game was over before the 10 minute mark, as I was playing quickly as the opponent was very quick to play every card, so I played in kind and watched them misplay a couple times due to this. In retrospect, I do not think they were trying to fast-play me and may have been nervous, and I think maybe me playing the same way kept them nervous and led to mistakes, and I feel bad about this as I never like to put that kind of pressure on an opponent. It had already been a long day and they had a tough opponent. I won VERY oppressively, but they smiled and shook my hand, ready for the next round, which I was glad to see. (I'm going to guess it was eBoba/ePhasma) MVP of the game: Fall Back

Round 5 eBoba/e7th - WIN - This was a match-up that, thanks to @BgMoore and @PillarsBlitz, I was able to spend a couple days preparing for. I went for 7th first, mitigated double boba first turn with a well placed Easy Pickings, and followed up a strong turn 3 with doing 5 damage into Boba after killing 7th. It was a matter of just spending resources on Resistance Bomber and Modified HWK-290 instead of mitigating his dice on round 4, but I knew I could take max damage and still live, so I spent my time building up my army. The win came that round. I used Fall Back on round 3 and Vandalizeon the Force Illusion left over.

Round 6 eAayla/Chewbacca/Rey - WIN - This opponent was very aggressive and got a little salty at the end because I got extremely lucky and rolled out the only die side out of the 6 that would end the game round 3, as round four would be a "Rey rolls out with 3 upgrades and kills me easily" since Ezra was left by himself. Also, this kept him from top 8, so I understand the frustration.

5-1 after Swiss, I was seeded 4th place in standings for my strength of schedule, which was extremely high.

Top 8

Round 1 (Feature Match) eSabine/eEzra - WIN - If you would like to see this match as it went down, checkout the saved livestream of the event at: http://www.twitch.tv/frontiergamingchannel/v/237345588?sr=a&t=12s skip to 05:41:00 for our match. This game was against my buddy Sam, who is my rival at the tournament store we play at. Always have the best time playing against him as we literally trade wins 50/50, and always have great banter during the match. Such a great guy to lose or win a game to. game 1 The first game went to me as not only did I have a good amount of vehicles out, my opponent's rolls were constantly hitting the triple disrupt allowing me time to mitigate and survive for some great place. game 2 Sabine did what she does best, I took too much damage to the face in round 2 and my roll-out on round 3 was pitiful. game 3 I had double Rally Aid, amazing rolls on Y-wing, and I had great luck with re-rolls and an oppressive field. Also, last to die was Ezra Bridger - Force-sensitive Thief, giving me the ability to mitigate through the entire game. My favorite matchup of the day, and definitely the most challenging.

Round 2 eObi/eMaz: My 4th one of the day, much to my annoyance. Although this was against a SoCal local. I'll use his report here: "I was very worried about playing against this deck. I hadn’t beat it in about 15 attempts with about 5-6 different decks. However, and early Scruffy stopping one Vehicle and targeting Rose and taking her out early saved me. I took out Rose first, Ezra second, then finally took out Aayla. None of my characters died. Much easier game than I anticipated, but I felt like I got everything I needed. I did not pat myself on the back, I just readied for the second game. In Game 2, again, I took out Rose early. Eventually, I took out Aayla, but he had no damage on Ezra with three shields. However, he was down to three cards in hand and no cards in deck. I had 5 cards in hand and 1 in my deck. I used a discard on the Vibroknife to discard one card and a CQA to take out another. With one re-roll to kill both characters, his odds were not very good of winning. He did what he could and came up short and I won by decking him"

His definitive winning moment was definitely Scruffy Looking Nerf-Herder where he hit my Y-Wing. MVP right there. Game 2 was a matter of that my damage was all indirect through Y-Wing and Aayla, so I killed Maz first, which he was fine with. His mill strategy towards the end was not needed, as there was no way, even with a god roll, for me to do the right amount of damage. So I think winning by decking me out was superficial in the face of the win, and he would have won the next round regardless with a virboknife and only 7 damage needed, it would have happened for sure.

He was very tired after this win though, I noticed, and though I was rooting for him for the finals, I was worried about his exhaustion levels. I watched the opponent who took first place, occasionally fast play him, which led to a couple forced misses of Shoto Lightsaber as he'd roll out his character before his Obi Dice had even finished rolling. It's easy to forgot to do activation effects when your opponent's turn starts before yours ended. I think the judge/admin should have slowed them down after the first time that happened, as even in chat people noticed what was happening. I think it was a toss-up who would've won otherwise, and I congratulate both players for an awesome showing; and a great day of great matches.

Card Choices

I won't go into crazy detail like I did for my eYoda/ePadme Mill deck (which was unsuccessful in this meta, unfortunately).But I will choose a couple cards and explain my choices, and how I feel about them retrospectively.

• Resistance Bomber and Vandalize at 1, to fit in Fang Fighter at 2 - This was a tough decision, and I made it as a 'meta-call' seeing as how Fang feels altogether better than Millennium Falcon, which I took out of my previous build for a second Resistance Bomber initially. When Rivals became legal, Fang was a shoe in for this deck. That 3 ranged gun was one of my MVPs of the day, and anyone who wants to make vehicles more consistent, Fang is your boy. Vandalize is a great card at 1, and a very iffy card at 2. Paying for removal after round 2, when you would draw the second one, is generally not needed. at that point your main focus should not be mitigation, it should be ramping. By that time, you've usually lost ezra, and lost the ability to mitigate as you would want. Fang Fighter serves a better round 3/4 purpose than vandalize at 2. Resistance Bomber's 6, pay 2, side was amazing, and put out when I needed it to. but, and I made sure to keep track of this, if I had one out instead of a Fang Fighter, I would generally not have enough resources to pay for that 6 side, at which point the 2 or 3 ranged is much better at focusing damage. See my last matchup versus Obi/Maz for a good example. My indirect can sometimes kill the wrong character versus a deck that you NEED to kill one character over another first. Fang > Millenium. If Hero Vehicles were more prominent after January I would have taken out my Crash Landingand put in a second Vandalize. Hitting C-3PO is the most priceless thing you can do in this game, not to mention RI and Force Illusion. But one is solid for this meta where hitting one is good, and not seeing it for a round is okay.

• Fall Back. DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS CARD. With the exclusion of Millennium Falcon, a second Resistance Bomber, the addition of a second Rally Aid and a second Tech Team, I found myself FOUR EFFING TIMES during round 3 with enough resources to pay for Fall back and hit 3-5 upgrades. Especially during my Ob-Maz and Sabine match-ups where they would throw down a maz's vault nonchalantly. It is one of the best cards in my deck at 1.

• Crash Landing is a very situational card, and helps me keep Rose alive past round 1, or Ezra, depending on who my opponent focuses on. Aayla's a big girl, she can take the hit. If vehicles become a dominant force again like they were early in the year, I'll take this out for a second Vandalize

• R2-D2 was WAY better than I thought he was going to be. His special paired with Resistance Bomber was absolutely deadly. There were about 3 times in the day where R2-D2 won me the game. Shout-out to Eric Wainwright for solidifying my confidence in this card.

Overall I'm very pleased with my performance, and the performance of my unofficial teammates Andy and Sam. Cheers guys!

If I find out what my round 4 match-up was I'll post in the comments later :)