The following is a guest post by US Nationals Champion Drew Warren from Arrowbrook Gaming. He discusses his methods for tournament preparation for high level Star Wars Destiny events. If you are interested in writing for The Hyperloops please send us an email at thehyperloops@gmail.com.

Over the course of the last year in which I have played Star Wars Destiny there are several players who have consistently topped tournaments in a game that is allegedly based heavily on rolls and luck. Names like Joe Colon, Nick Obee, and Mads Utzen, along with a handful of others always seem to find themselves in the top cuts of major tournaments. This is no accident. While no top destiny player does it the same way, all of them have successful preparation routines that help them flourish in the competitive scene. With the announcement of Regional Championship dates hopefully coming within the next few days I thought I would take a minute to share some tips and experiences that I have picked up along the way that have helped make my tournaments successful.

Before I get started I wanted to stress that there is no correct way to prepare for a destiny tournament. These are a few of the methods and guidelines that I have used that have helped me. While tournament prep can be made to feel like a grind, it’s very important to never take preparation to the point that you stop having fun playing. It’s often far more desirable to prepare less and have fun than to over-prepare and feel burnt out.

Timelines:

One Month Before

In the weeks leading up to your Regional Championship, if available, you should be looking at the results of other regionals and keeping an eye on the general meta to help give you an idea of what is winning other tournaments and what decks you are probably going to be playing against. Last year Jedi Geek Girl did an amazing job of keeping track of the regional top cuts and it was an excellent reference to use to see what decks were topping. The Hyperloops Gauntlet page is another great reference where you can find specific builds for these decks. This is also the point in time where you want to start forming your own deck ideas and start testing them at your local or home games. Destiny tends to have a very copycat meta and after a deck wins an event it’s a certainty that you are going to see it at tournaments for the next several weeks. It’s important to decide if you want to play to possibly improve on a deck that has won, or play to beat it knowing that it is going to be very common in the field. My general criteria for deck selection at this stage is:

#1. Am I winning?

That’s the whole point to be being competitive and your preparation. You should keep a small document of your wins and loses to avoid your own biases. You might be losing with something and still think that it has some promise but if you are losing you have to change things within that frame to see a different result.

#2. Does it fit my style of play?

You might be winning but might not feel comfortable playing the deck at a tournament for a long time. You might find it too taxing or too boring. Some people feel perfectly fine playing something boring if they are winning while others might get disinterested which will cause them to play worse. Sometimes you’ll have to suck it up and play what you think is the best deck but most of the time decks vary enough that you can find something in your wheelhouse.

#3. Can I improve on the current upside?

Sometimes you get the extra edge by adding a few cards. The Aphra deck that me and Cody piloted had only a few cards different from the list NJCuenca played but adding Podracer and Relentless Persuit made a huge difference. More on that later in the article.

Depending on the amount of free time you have, simply listening to podcasts or event reports could give you a solid idea of what to expect and how to prepare. If you do have the time to grind games at this point, great. If you do not, I would not be concerned but I think it’s a good idea to try to get a few games in wherever you can. Getting a general feel for what people are doing while guide your following preparation.

One Week Before

At this point in time you should have settled on a deck that you are going to play and should be playtesting often. This is probably on the extreme side of things but I like to try and get 50 games in the week before a big event with the deck I am going to play. As many of them as possible should be played against other meta decks. While 50 is probably a bit on the high side where you start to see diminishing returns on your practice, I think a realistic number would be 20 reps with at least one against each deck that emerges as a powerful deck. Keep an eye on what won tournaments the weekend prior as you are probably going to be seeing a lot of that at your tournament. Pick matchups that you are struggling with and make changes to your deck that help against them. For example, if you are struggling with ranged aggro decks, playing two copies of Deflect or a card like Dodge can help swing unfavorable matchups into favorable or at least occasionally winnable games. It’s also a good idea to try and pilot a few of the decks you think you will be playing against to get an idea of where they feel vulnerable in order to know how to attack them. I like to use the week prior to iron out the small details in my deck. A last minute deck change is not impossible at this point if you begin to struggle against a deck that recently topped an event. One of my ABG teammates has actually become fairly infamous in our circle for not selecting a deck until the morning of the event. So a week out is perfectly fine to still be in that type of position.

One Day Before

At this point your deck should be selected and you should have your list almost completely ironed out. Last minute changes are fine but I would recommend keeping them to a minimum. The night before a tournament has really varied with me in terms of last minute practice. The best approach if you have had a low number of practice reps would be to grind games the night before. I have found that typically when I am getting ready to go to an event I find myself at either a hotel or a friend’s house with free time and this can be a good time to catch up on reps. (Editor’s Note: A lot of the time this will be some of the best testing you can get because you are hopefully staying with people who have prepared a lot.) Take turns playing “the other deck” to help give you an idea of how they are going to come after you. Alternatively, if you have gotten a fair share of reps already it’s sometimes a good idea to take it easy the day before so you can go into a tournament feeling fresh and excited to play the game.

One Hour Before

The hour before a tournament is all about nerves and keeping them under control. For me the first game of the day is the most stressful, as the pressure to win is very high and the last thing you want to do is punt a game because you are nervous. Destiny should always be fun and this is the perfect time to remind yourself of this. Catching up with friends you have not seen in a while is the perfect way to keep your mind off of that first game pressure. Be confident in your preparation and most importantly remember that you are there to have fun. Hanging out with my team and friends from all over the country is one of the best ways to spend a Saturday so you might as well enjoy it!

General Advice on Playtesting

One of my favorite quotes is “Perfect practice makes perfect” and this is something I like to apply to my playtesting. Make sure you are playtesting against decks that you are going to see at Regionals. If you are going to bring a Jar-Jar, Qui-Gon, Built to Last homebrew deck that is more than fine if your winning with it, but it is important that you are winning with it against decks that you expect to see at the tournament and not someone else’s equally janky deck. There is tremendous value in bringing a homebrewed deck to a tournament that no-one has seen before but it needs to be tested against the meta decks. If you have time, build and play the meta decks that have won other tournaments so that you can get an idea of how they function. Identify their strengths and weaknesses so that you can use that information against them later.

If you’re looking for general advice you can probably stop reading here but I wanted to also describe a few of my successes through proper prep below for anyone who was interested.

Preparation Successes:

West Virginia Regional 2017 – I was very fortunate to win a Regional last year in West Virginia after playing destiny for only 6 weeks. I probably felt the least pressure of any tournament I have played in because I had already played at Pax Unplugged and not totally embarrassed myself so I was not concerned with table manners or little things you might worry about at your first tournament. I also had no expectations on myself to win. My preparation for this tournament is something that I would encourage new players to pick up as it worked wonders for me. I picked the deck that I thought was the best deck after Pax Unplugged, R2P2 and played only this deck in the weeks leading up to the Regional. While my overall skill level at destiny was probably peanuts compared to other players at that time I knew this deck as well as anyone. I knew the ins and outs of every matchup, what to mulligan for in every matchup, and cards to play around from the other meta decks. I made last minute changes to help me against Qui-Gon/Kanan, and the mirror match which were the decks that were most commonly showing up in top cuts and based on the input of the community. Tiny Grimes calling out Qui-Gon/Kanan as the deck to beat on a podcast three days before my regional convinced me to add in an additional Force Misdirection which ended up being HUGE on the day. The nice thing about this method of preparation is that it does not come with a major time commitment. I was able to play 3 or 4 games a day for 2 weeks leading up to the event and listened to a podcasts at the gym or on the way to work.

US Nationals 2018 – Preparing for Nationals 2018 was a marathon and the time commitment that I put into it is certainly not for everyone but I thought it was important to share since this was my biggest win to date. The North American Championship was roughly a month before NOVA this year and the minute GenCon ended my partner in crime for NOVA prep, Cody Williams, and I went to work. We basically tested every deck that had topped GenCon against several of the decks we had been playing locally and against each other to find what we wanted to play. We settled on Snoke/Aphra/Droid as the deck we considered able to beat everything with no unwinnable matchups. There were several decks that we were concerned with, most notably TACOS and Mill, so we went to work refining our decklist against them. We wanted to make these into winning matchups or at the very least 50/50 matchups. We spent almost all of our free time playtesting, trying out new cards and combos we thought might work, and theorizing different situations that might present themselves. Sometimes simply talking about a potential situation was as valuable as testing for it. We combined our knowledge with other team members and collaborated with other local teams and players to come up with the best list possible and were grinding games until 1am the night before the event started (Ask Cody his record the night before Nova sometime). Overall the effort paid off but this method and time commitment is not for everyone and is not possible for every tournament if you are working full time or going to school. I also think that success is far from guaranteed at this level and other players have won bigger tournaments with a much more casual approach.

-Drew Warren

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