The Belgium Nationals has just concluded and the winner was Franck E. on Yoda Hondo. Just when you thought you were going to be able to predict things the finals of the Belgium Nationals was Yoda/Hondo vs Thrawn/Snoke. I think Vegas was paying 1 to a ten million so if you put a dollar on that match up congrats, you’re a millionaire. However, the rest of the tournament decks seem somewhat normal. Infinite thanks to Warchai for showing me the following beautiful graphic (by way of datapad.be). The top 8 looked like this:

The few things that jump out at me as interesting are the dominance of the Yoda/Hondo player, two Snoke/Thrawn decks in top 8, the one Snoke/Jawa/Ciena deck that crushed and the fact that Snoke/Thrawn beat Snoke/Aphra/Battle Droid. The latter fact is something that surprised me especially in a best of three. I can’t imagine a match I would want to play more as a Snoke/Aphra/Droid player. If you don’t believe ask Drew or Manten.

Is it time for you to dust off your Hondo dice? I wouldn’t go that far. The fact that it had to play Thrawn/Snoke twice indicates that it had pretty favorable match ups in top 8. When your worst match up in top 8 is Snoke/Ciena/Jawa your going to have a good time. Its not to say those are bad decks but just match up wise Yoda/Hondo would be fine playing against Thrawn/Snoke compared to say Snoke/Aphra/Droid.

I watched the the finals of Belgium Nationals and saw a few things that went very wrong for the Thrawn player. I figured I could use this as a teachable moment. It’s really hard playing for such a long time and fatigie sets in and I’m not calling people out on bad play since if you back and watch my matches you can see that I played sub optimally in many spots. The things I saw really come down to something that I want to group under anticipation.

Anticipating What Your Opponent is Going to Do

The best players at any games can usually think ahead a few more turns than the average player – it’s a critical skill at becoming a better player. When I go “deep in the tank” in an event I’m thinking about the future actions and decision trees that will lead me to me winning a game. What makes this skill even harder is that you have to anticipate what your opponent is going to do and then think about the next thing. In Destiny its incredibly hard because you have to think about all the possible outcomes of dice rolls and have contingency plans for certain results. Add to that hidden information from your opponents and sometimes you are just making an educated guess more than planning for certainty. Sometimes you have to choose between high value plays that are less likely than lower value plays that are more likely but that might not be enough to win – that’s one of the most fun parta about destiny.

I could write a lot on this topic but for the sake of brevity and grounding theoretical mumbo jumbo in real play I’ll use this match as an example. If you haven’t watched the match feel free to do so because I’m going to be spoiling the first few rounds of the match.

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The Thrawn player(Chris) wins the roll and chooses his own battefield. Thrawn names zero in hopes of taking a Force Speed or a Hidden Motive as a consolation prize. His opponent kept three cards in hand and considering that Force Speed is one of the best cards in his deck its reasonable to think he drew it. He unfortunately misses and sees Easy Pickings, Double Dealing, Overconfidence, Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber and Cunning. Naming two is also reasonable there since Cunning is one of the cards he could have kept but there are only a few 2s in his deck. If you know that they are playing Double Dealing then its reasonable to name one since there are many 1 cost removal cards as consolation prizes and taking Double Dealing would be great as the first thing you do. This first decision is all under the umbrella of anticipating what his opponent would keep. YoHo(Franck) has a bunch of different cards that are fine keeping so its hard for Chris to choose. I suspect that naming 1 is the most likely to hit if he knows that he is playing Double Dealing, if he didn’t know then zero is more reasonable since those are some of the more powerful cards he can have. If Franck had mulliganed his whole hand then you are Thrawning for the most common cost in their deck which is list dependent but I’d imagine is either 1 or 3. If they have the lists its easy, if they don’t then I’d probably go for 1 since it protects your plan the best – when I’m playing Thrawn I usually default to naming 1.

In the same round the Thrawn player plays and activates Chance Cube knowing that his opponent has Overconfidence and Easy Pickings. I think this a tough spot but you probably have to make that play since you have to present threatening dice to protect your Thrawn dice and you need more ways to make resources. Unfortunately Snoke rolls in a disrupt to match Thrawns and those dice get Easy Picked. The Chance cube did not roll well on the first try but on the second it does. The overconfidence takes out the Chance Cube but luckily it rolls into a Snoke Focus which then lets Snoke power action for 4 resources on the Thrawn 2 resource side. Chris gets to play a Hailfire Droid Tank and then he resolves the die for damage.

Round 2: Thrawn names 3 because he knows that Yoda has an Obi Saber in hand. His hand also reveals a Hyperspace Jump. A bunch of stuff happens but the point that I want to hammer home is that Thrawn knows that the opponent has a Hyperspace Jump. On this action Chris chooses to pay 1 and roll in Snoke with a Chance Cube over rolling in his Hailfire Droid Tank. Franck was showing a Yoda Special and on the next action he takes two resources to get up to three. Chris then rerolls the trash he rolled in and then Franck Hyperspace Jumps. Had he rolled in Hailfire there’s a good chance he rolls something relevant – even that two disrupt does work there. Franck was holding a Deflect but that doesn’t really matter since he’s going to have to play around that card anyway AND if he uses the Deflect you can then roll in Snoke with Chance Cube and make a pile of resources. This is a big anticipation lesson since Chris could have gotten value from the Droid Tank while also saving the resource he spent to roll in the Chance Cube. The correct sequence is to roll in Droid Tank, resolve it and then roll in Snoke, not paying for Chance Cube. You might think Chris has to roll in Chance Cube to force him to use Hyperspace Jump but he doesn’t since on the following round he can activate Thrawn and take the Hyperspace Jump if chooses just to pass a bunch.

Round 3: Pretty uneventful from an analyses perspective. Thrawn names 3 which is reasonable enough. Some of Chris’ actions could have been better to try to play around Froze Wastes but since Franck drew two Force Speeds he was going to get something.

Round 4: This is the other big moment I want to talk about because its some next level stuff. Franck has 5 resources to start round 4 and leads off with a Friends in Low Places. On the next action Chris activates Thrawn and chooses 3. Franck has nothing that costs 3. Based on his number choosing history Franck knows that there is a good chance that Chris will choose 3 again so if he had a 3 cost upgrade he would play it as his first action. The only time he wouldn’t are when he has multiple of them or he messed up. Chris as the Thrawn player should know that the first action Franck will take will be to play a 3 cost card unless he has two or he messed up. There’s also the corner case of Franck drawing his 2nd Hyperspace Jump but that’s pretty unlikely. Perhaps Chris thought that he has to bank on Franck messing up or having 2 3 drops since he is pretty behind. I just feel that the chance of him drawing 2 is unlikely and the chance of him messing up is also unlikely. Given his first action the most likely thing is that he has no 3 drops.

Thanks for reading. I’m going to end it here since I think I’ve made my point regarding some examples on why anticipating your opponents plays is so important. Please let me know what you thought of this or if you disagree with my assessment, I’m always open to being wrong. Take care and as always…

-NJCuenca