I still haven’t gotten the chance to even sit down and decompress from Worlds. I got home on Monday night and left Thursday morning for my brother’s bachelor weekend in San Diego. Now I am sitting here at 12:35am on Monday in the sky as I am killing time before my plane lands. It is still crazy what all went down and I just wanted to write it out for anyone interested and give my thoughts of why I chose my deck.

So the deck that I ran was eSabine/eEzra with my list here.

To start off I should maybe state why I chose Sabine over any other character and why I chose Ezra over other partners for her. First and foremost I love Rebels so having her so competitively viable is awesome. I have also played her a bunch during the Empire at War days. She was still good then but adding another ambush weapon in Hidden Blaster, Maz’s Vault to stay on three resources and Outer Rim Outpost to possibly get 4 to start a turn and dig through your deck quicker really pushed her to a new level. On top of those things you see the removal package skyrocket with new cards Easy Pickings, Entangle and Hasty Exit. Yellow Hero has the best removal and Sabine gives me access to that.

Now of course most people are now thinking “you played her because of her ability not really those reasons alone” and that is true. Though I find myself in love with what her ability does to my strategy of a game. Being able to get rid of my guns while still being able to play them is such a huge advantage Sabine has against any other deck. It lets me see my Second Chance and Impersonate faster. I can see all my mitigation. I am not hanging on to an upgrade just so I can play it next round. The way Sabine interacts with the graveyard is just broken, now you add ambush to those guns? Wow. To me that interaction with your discard pile along with being able to push out damage without my opponents touching my dice was what made me think Sabine gave me the best shot at Worlds.

Now to her partner in crime. Many people picked a single die Yoda or even Kanan over elite Ezra. While I toyed with both of those builds, and even going crazy with Lobot I never loved any of them. Although being able to Hyperspace Jump and Retreat 4 times in a game is brutal with a splash of red. Ultimately 2 dice is better than 1. Especially when Ezra’s resource stealing is such a clutch ability. So many games I was able to steal a dollar to let me pay for a gun and mitigation before I could get Maz’s Vault down. He also is a great counter to the Hondo lists that were running around, I’d pay Hondo off just to take it right back. Along with a 1 range and +2 range he was able to help out with damage. I have had my fair share of turn 1 kills thanks to this guy (Sorry Shane).

I had plenty of games with this deck, did well at two regionals and felt comfortable against the field. My only worry would be 3 or 4 character decks except for the standard vehicles build of eAayla/eRose/Ezra. They took a little longer to ramp and had more indirect I could throw on the kid. So I will go though my games as much as I can remember, I would’ve loved to gotten this out earlier while my memory is fresh but I was enjoying the beach a bit too much…

Round 1: eObi/eMaz 1-0

I won’t going too crazy into this as I did a YouTube video commentary on it thanks to the Chance Cube stream. All I can say is Easy Pickings is lyf.

Round 2: eKylo2/Anakin 1-1

Here is when Edwin gave me a straight smack down. Round 2 I drew into Second Chance but was unable to play it before he CQAd my hand. Sabine was dead that round. It did not go well at all for me. I managed to sneak around of a few Kylo activations by holding some weapons but it didn’t help with how many dice he got out and powerful ones. Eventually it was Ezra with two holdouts verse a Anakin with a Maul’s, Heirloom and Shoto. Poor kid was doomed. At the time I was disappointed because I wasn’t sure how good this deck would do against the rest of the field but he is a great player and got some good matchups along the way. I felt the pressure now. I knew I had to go 5-1 on Day 1 to have any hope of making Top 16

Round 3: eVader1/Guard 2-1

This was not a bad matchup as Vader‘s ability would save me an action sometimes. Plus Sabine was able to cheat out damage to avoid guardian and kill Vader relatively quickly. He did not seem to draw well either, as he got his weapons a bit too late to really turn out damage. Was awesome seeing big Vader at Worlds and he finished 3-3! Nathan was a great guy to meet and shout-out to him for running what he enjoyed!

Round 4: eRey/eAayla 3-1

In testing I did well against this deck but I was still scared of it. Two Shoto Lightsabers on Rey early would be a lot to chew through. Plus, as Edwin did to me, this deck can have some nasty CQA plays. Ultimately he did not roll particularly well and I was able to take Rey down fairly quickly and mop up Aayla.

Round 5: eRey/eAayla 4-1

I consider myself friendly. I don’t like to create too many negative experiences for my opponents but… I also brought Sabine to Worlds. This was my one game where I rolled out of the world. Going into turn 3 he had Aayla with a Lightbow and Heirloom and Rey with a Force Illusion and 7 damage on her. I proceed to roll out and naturally hit 11 damage to one shot Aayla with a shield on her. Rey was already rolled out so Heirloom wasn’t an issue and I figured I would remove his powerful dice. Right after that I overwrote to play a Second Chance in fear of a Rey discard or CQA. Right after that my opponent conceded. It was my one game Sabine went off.

Round 6: eObi/Maz 5-1

Man everyone keeps talking about diversity and I play two Obi/Maz and two Rey/Aayla decks on day 1. I really do hate playing against Obi since we both have the same game-plan. I don’t want to play Maz’s Vault because it could potentially burn me if he can get off a bit Concentrate or Alter play. This one was an absolute nail biter. At one point he had two Ancients and a Shoto on Obi. I was able to vandalize the Shoto and force the heals on ancients. He quickly ramped back into two Vibroknifes and a Force Speed. End game he activated and didn’t roll lethal but he hit a Force Speed special and I knew he had a Concentrate in hand. He also used Running Interference saying I couldn’t activate. I was able to Jump and roll out next round for the kill. My hands were shaking after this one, very close to being 4-2 at the end of this day.

Round 7: eYoda/eHondo 6-1

There was one person I wanted to avoid today and that was Paul from Arrowbrook Gaming as we had been hanging out with him and Drew this week. So what happens? First round pairing on Day 2. I feel like I am in a really good spot against Yoda Hondo but this one started to get away from me early. Ultimately it came down to one roll where I needed 4 damage to kill Yoda as he had double Force Speeds showing special, a Yoda special and a Yoda double focus. He later told me he could’ve played a second Lightbow, rolled out and destroyed my life. I was able to get that 4 damage to kill Yoda before things got crazy. After that I just mitigated the Lightbow die and kept stealing my resources back with Ezra. Was close early on but after a dead Yoda I could sweep it up.

Round 8: eYoda/eHondo 7-1

This one I started out in control and felt I kind of stayed there. Of course a match between 7-1’s is going to be a good one but I felt pretty in control. Ezra did work getting me resources, I got my battlefield and got an early Maz’s Vault down. He had a nice tech of Energy Slingshot and was able to get a few more damage or disrupt off, which did make me nervous at times.

Round 9: Ezra/HiredGun/RookiePilot/TempleGuard 7-2

At this point I knew I was pretty much in even if I lost. My Day 1 SoS was good as I lost to a 6-0 and if I lost this game I would lose to a 3-0 on Day 2. So knowing I had a pretty bad matchup didn’t bother me too much. Though first round was great, I was able to do 5 to Ezra and 2 to the Guard. Next turn I killed Ezra and started working on the Hired Gun in hopes of turning off spot yellow. Ultimately I should’ve just finished off the Guard as he ate another 3-4 damage from me. I really don’t think it mattered because turn 3 he had too many powerful dice for me to deal with. Ultimately I felt I could’ve done better but on top of having direct damage vehicles, the surprise factor for me meant I was behind

Top 16: eYoda/eEzra/RookiePilot 0-2

These were not close. Again I had zero testing against this deck and I got completely steam rolled. Well played by HonestlySarcastic but man. I think I killed Ezra in one game and no one the next. My rolls were probably below average but I wasn’t sure what else I might’ve been able to do that game. I really don’t have too much to say about this as I was just blown out of the water.

Final Thoughts:

Wow this was a long one but I would rather do it in one go than 2-3 parts. Ultimately I was very happy with my decision to bring Sabine/Ezra. I was comfortable in all of my match-ups aside from the vehicles deck. Looking into early Store Championship season I would say that if 4 wide vehicle deck or Yoda/Ezra/Pilot become big I would shy away from Sabine. Those decks seem pretty good against her, as normally when I kill characters, those opponents lose valuable dice. With these, they can lose a character and still have 5-7 vehicle dice turning out damage. I would say you should be worried in a rise of Kylo2 also but I feel he can be beatable depending on how quick you can kill him. I went into worlds just hoping for Day 2 and I finish 12th. Seriously a great experience meeting everyone, if you can go next year, GO!

-JustJack