This past weekend I didn’t play much Destiny except for Trilogy. Trilogy seems to have a few viable decks as of right now but the consensus best deck is Shadow Caster ready vehicle shenanigans. These decks will also appear in our Trilogy Playtesting Gauntlet and you’ll be able to find a link of that on our main page going forward. First up the BOOGERMAN!

#1. L-337 and 2x Engineers

This list was piloted by Drew from Arrow Brook Gaming to a 5-1 finish. The deck uses Armored Reinforcements to tutor Shadow Caster and then plays 3 mods like Triple Laser Turret on it to resolve its large damage for free. Once its loaded up with upgrades the uses R2 Astromech and Strategic Planning to reuse all the dice on it. The deck is very powerful and the “obvious best deck” in Trilogy because of its high power level.

Unfortunately Drew was paired against me in the first round of the tournament and I ran hotter than a thousand suns. In the first round he had enough resources to get Millenium Falcon with Armored Reinforcements but he did not because it wasn’t in his deck list. Had he had it the game would have been very different since I wouldn’t have to worry about a random untap from L337 dying. That’s a different universe and I believe the amount of resources he gained were unusual for him but its just something to note. In certain match ups gaining that many resources will be tough because of disrupts but I believe that you should probably be playing Falcon for situations when you do have enough resources since it sets up your combo better, plays around vandalize and punished indirect damage since you get a free untap when L337 dies.

#2. Snoke Aphra Battle Droid (SAD)

This is the list I played at the GQ. I like most of the cards in it except for maybe Inferno Squad ID10 Seeker. In theory that card can discard a key card but the downside can sometimes be very real. Climate Disruption Array might be on the chopping block but I feel the metagame is diverse enough to let you play 1 copy. It’s not the best vs 3 wide decks which make me inclined to cut it, especially with people running support hate – if they kill 000 it gets much worse.

I was 4-1 and scooped to my last round opponent because I wanted to play Transformers. He was playing mill and he thought it was a bad match up for him which I agree. I think Aphra is still reasonable since it mops up the sea of jizz because of its high damage output. It’s good to test if you are brewing up a deck since it is certainly the kind of deck people will play because its fun and its not an embarrasing choice either. If Shadow Caster decks aren’t playing Millenium Falcon the match up should be fine but it feels real bad if they are since killing l337 will give their Falcon a free untap. It’s really hard to impossible to time it so this doesn’t happen since your deck is mostly indirect damage and they can choose to kill her at their will. Not sure adopting Millenium Falcon will be standard but if it is then you might want to avoid playing this.

#3. Some Kind of 3 Wide Snoke Fist deck

This deck was piloted by one of our patrons Separatist Krehlo. Sebulba Always WIns is the best answer in the format to both Vader’s Fist and Shadow Caster which made this an excellent choice for the event. S.K went 5-1 beating a variety of decks but losing to Snoke/Piet/Rebel Traitor deck. Congrats to him for the great showing and the awesome deck!

The only thing I’m not a big fan of is playing Super Battle Droid at the expense of taking two damage and having your opponent draw a card (Bitter Rivalry plot). You could just play Executioner or (if you are feeling frisky) Nute Gunray. Executioner has a solid die and ability. Nute is interesting since the format is about big resources and resolving a 2 disrupt on your second action can go a long way towards winning the resource battle, on top of that Snoking the focus and resource side is very strong. His ability will rarely matter but flavor text that might randomly win you the game is better than nothing.

By using Bitter Rivalry your Snoke or Sebulba will be taking 2 damage which ends up being less health than the aforementioned red characters. S.B.D has a cool ability and helps you pair some of your modified range sides better but I don’t think its worth it.

I would have played this list but Reflex told me I was q’d for world’s due to my Gen Con top 4. I played the deck I had made, Snoke Aphra Droid. I felt SAD was close enough in power and felt confident I could 6-0 with it due to its raw power. InvisibleLuis played this deck and ended up going 4-2. The idea was it was a 5 die deck with Fist and Snoke. All of Luce’s dice are fine to Snoke with the discard being solid if you were set up to play something offensive. With five dice you are set up pretty well to win the roll vs most decks and take your battlefield. If you draw either Force Rend or Vader’s Fist vs Shadow Caster decks you would kill their win condition or race them with damage.

The honorable mention in this category is Snoke with Piett and Rebel Traitor. Piet can guarantee that Rebel Traitor will either roll resource or disrupt, on top of that he can fix Tie FIghters to resources or damage. Having a consistent SNoking of resources is always welcomed and should be looked at but what is also interesting is focusing to Disrupt.

Disrupt is particularly relevant vs Shadow Caster/Armed Reinforcements and Fist decks. Shadow Caster decks need at least 3 resources to search for it. By the Piet/Traitor’s third action it can guarantee that it can mess with your opponents money in a big way. This isn’t relevant if they have a well connected or if the Caster decks win the roll and end up playing on Theed but it could stops them from getting falcon and might keep Falcon from being in Shadow Caster decks. This disruption package is way more relevant against Fist decks since you always have to pay 5 for Fist but when you naturally roll a resource with your creature you’ll be able to play fist on the third action.

The biggest problem with these two other dice Snoke decks is that they are very susceptible to getting their dice Doubted and another removed with something generic. This is one of the reason I was very attracted to the Luce version. That version gets Snoke value pretty consistently while the two other die variants Snoke less often.

#4. Naked-ish Vader

At 4-0 I played this on stream piloted by James Self and it was close-ish. I kept one card in my opening hand, Hailfire Droid, out of fear of not drawing any damage dealing cards and I think I had some other reason that escapes me currently. This is wrong since playing Hailfire in round 1 without any of my other 2 drop droids or Hand Canon is not a winning line. I finally got a bad draw and his draw seemed pretty on plan. Don’t ask me how this deck reliably casts Vader’s Fist but it does. It’s kind of like when a mother has to lift up a car when her infant is stuck under it, you just find a way. I think It’s usually a round 2 sort of set up. I’m surprised that James wasn’t playing Theed Royal Palace since it facilitates a round 1 Fist. James said the extra card was helpful for finding the great power cards like Vader’s Fist, Fear and Dead Men and Vader’s Saber so there is some value there. On top of that Hasty Exit is a little more awkward when playing Theed although I’m not sure how much that really matters.

James ended up losing in the sixth round to another Vader list piloted by Chi Nguyen except that Chi was playing Battle Droid and Retribution. The biggest loss there from yellow is Hasty Exit and Greedo’s die is better that Droids but I have a feeling the droid is just there to die off of cards like Crash Landing. Bubble shield seems like a card that I would be interested in as well given the amount of indirect damage in the format so perhaps its better? Retribution does make removing Vader’s dice even worse which is certainly worth something. Its not obvious to me which version is better but I think they are both reasonable.

#5. Smooth Millinal

Runningonion went a combined 12 – 3 on the weekend and Reflex went 6-0 playing this archetype. Does this beat Shadow Caster? Yes, it does. Mr. Onion may have went 6-0 had he not run into me playing SAD which proves my point that its a solid VS the field deck. This is specifically a metagame call although they seemed to have beaten a lot of random decks which elevates my opinion of it. There are also some variations of mill like the one I scooped to in the final round, he was playing Yoda/Anakin/Gungan 5 die. That also might be worth investigating.

Jyn Erson/ Cassian Andor

Congratulations to JREldis for 6-0’ing the trilogy qualifier with this bad boy. I’d be curious to see how many times this played against Shadow Caster as my impression is that its not great there but Scruffy and Vandalize can do some serious work in that match up. The deck has got some things going for it but I don’t love it. Its certainly a deck to test against since its going to be out there.

That’s it for now. I know someone was doing well with Mother Talzin, Luce and Greedo but I didn’t see it on the DB. I feel the Trilogy format is the superior of the formats as of right now since there is a clear deck to beat but there are things that actually beat it that are viable. If you know of any other decks you’d like us to add just let us know and if it starts taking off we’ll add it.

Take care and as always…

May the Rolls be with You.

-NJCuenca

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