This is going to be long...and probably full of typos, as I wanted to write it while it was fresh in my mind, but 1AM is a bad time for proofreading Still, I wanted to be as detailed as possible, and hope this will be helpful.

How I got to the deck I played

Prior to EAW hitting, I was an Emo Kids (which I took top 16 in the Online Store Championship Artificery put together) and Vader/Guard (which I won a store championship with) sort of guy. Those were my primary decks, the latter eventually replacing the former as my favorite. However, as EAW hit, and I anticipated the rise and dominance of Thrawnkar, I was weary of playing Vader/Guard, as one of the biggest power plays that deck has is Price of Failure, and a well placed Coercion could force me to pass out the round. Additionally, with the 2-Player set having recently released as well, I realized that as strong as Vader/Guard was, the mono-crushing power of Kylo 2 a force to be reckoned with. So, I began to search for an alternate combination of characters that played somewhat similarly to Vader/Guard but that would not necessarily run Price of Failure and also dodge the Kylo2 kiss of death. The first deck to the drawing board was eKylo2/Gamorrean Guard. It came in at only 27 points, but gave me a character comparable to Awakenings Vader in Kylo 2 (more consistent but less explosive) and a gamorrean guard that was not as consistent as Royal Guard, but still allowed me the guardian play, and with a beefier guardian – including one that could actually use Makashi Training (a card I got a ton of mileage out of in the vibroknife meta) and Force Illusion (which is just a strong card, period). Most importantly though, it got me yellow cards, allowing me to have extra removal like OQP and He Doesn’t Like You, as well as Truce to assist a relatively resource starved deck to pay for things out of nowhere.

I dominated the melee-filled, almost exclusively 2 character meta at my local store for what feels like forever with that deck, but what was probably about a month. However, I then played in one of Artificery’s online events (I believe it was the Meta Awakens, just after the changes) and found a few weakness in what had previously been a strong deck – it wasn’t aggressive enough to cut through the emerging world of characters powered by shields, and it also struggled with 3 (or 4) wide decks. That tournament was a very useful experience for me – I did poorly (2-3) but in doing poorly saw that the deck I was going all in on was just going to cut it in the wider and evolving post-errata meta. I spent the next month or so experimenting with different decks, primarily with a Seventh Sister/Gamorrean Guard/Royal Guard list that was a variant of the Artificery Meta Awakens winner. However, along the way I also toyed with Rainbow 5s, Kylo/Grievous, and even briefly dipped in the unfamiliar territory of hero decks like R2P2 and Quigon/Kanan as they started to emerge. As I was doing this all, I saw Agent of Xion’s eKylo2/Vader2 list from PAX, and ultimately decided to pick it up.

Refining the Deck before the tournament

Looking at Zion’s list, I Immediately saw a lot I liked, but also saw things I thought could be changed to better fit my play style and also mitigate some of the disadvantages of the cat being out of the bag on that deck. I opted to change out the No Mercy’s to become more resource efficient – they can be game winning plays, but outside of game closers are very resource intensive in terms of cards and actual resources. At the time, I still wanted offensive fire power in that slot, so I put in Lightsaber Throws, which cost one less, added 2 damage (No Mercy generally adds 3, rarely 4) so from a cost-> damage analysis had the same value, but was less all in. However, as anyone who has reps with this deck knows, one of the primary strategies of the deck is to save up for one (and in a slower shield meta sometimes two) Rise Again plays. Long story short, what I found is that while the damage was useful, I could often only play it when I was already ahead – otherwise, I’d rather pool the resource for Rise Again or use on removal. In other words, I found it to be a “win more” card.

Along those lines, I decided to experiment with an event suite that was virtually resource free. I cut Deflect in favor of Your Skills are Complete (more on that later, towards the end of this write-up). I removed the Lightsaber throws for Voices Cry out (Will go into that choice later) I could not bring myself to cut Overconfidence as it is one of my favorite cards in Destiny, but that left me with a package of zero costs events, Rise Again, and Overconfidence. I also knew I wanted to tech in rends in anticipation of the mirror match (which I thought would be common given this decks success both at PAX and in Michigan) to target holocrons, force speeds, and add more gray as well as to take out Salvage Stand in the event that the Rainbow 5s I anticipate facing ran them (which, in my opinion, they should). And, as I could also get use out If it vs. Sabine/Ezra for Running interference, and against some Qui-gon/Kanan and R2P2 lists that opted for force speeds, 2 seemed like an auto include. I needed to cut something though, so I looked for the lowest impact card I could find. In my opinion, it had to be As I have Foreseen. While it is a great card for the information it gives and certainly synergistic with Kylo2’s ability, it seemed the weakest card in the list, especially anticipating that the meta would be mostly mono decks (Qui-Gon/Kanan, Sabine/Ezra, the mirror) or 60%+ one color (R2P2) or so rainbow it almost wouldn’t matter (Rainbow 5’s).

I also changed one intimidate (I found I rarely used more than one in a match up) for second manipulate. Just to give me more (free) control.

After playing with that reduced cost build, I found that while I wasn’t “swimming” in resources, I occasionally had some I could float. I was happy with this list, but as Rends were becoming more common to strike down my holocrons, and as I played more and more games where I didn’t draw the holocrons, I wanted a back-up plan. I decided that a single pair of high value, 2 cost upgrades would be worth it to give me the ability to start a little stronger if I didn’t get a holocron. Anicent Lightsaber immediately came to mind, especially as it gave me mill protection as well and could stall out its resource investment in a pinch by healing me some damage to give me time to get to the Rise Again power play. On top of that, in games where I did get the holocron train rolling, it was a great card to bring back with Rise Again as it was the gift that kept on giving in terms of healing. However, obviously I can only have 30 cards in the deck, so I had to cut two cards. I didn’t want to cut events as I was already decently heavy on upgrades, so I knew upgrades had to come out. And, I felt cutting the big Force Powers were not an option, so it came down to either Dark Counsel or Force Speed. I ultimately opted to cut the Force speeds as I found in play testing I was not getting as much mileage out of them as I would have liked, whereas Dark Counsel’s two focus sides were clutch for consistency and the special was never a bad thing to see.

So with the list ready, I drove 200 miles in the snow, uphill (ok, some of it was!) to get to the tourney.

The Tournament

Round 1 Bye

I used my store championship card here. I actually almost opted to save it for a later regional, but decided I liked my prep and was comfortable in this meta and may not be as ready to go in the future, so I was all in on this.

Round 2 Opponent: ePoe2/eKanan Result: Win

If you’ve ever heard the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, we were both the Tortoise. My opponent did what Poe2/blue guy lists do and shielded up, healed with field medic, force illusioned, etc, all while trying to whittle me down. However, as he was doing his tricks, I too was using Force Illusions and got off Rise Again Twice (!). With less than 5 minutes on the timer left and in Round 6 or 7 of the game, Vader was alive with one damage on him, Kylo had 4 (I think), his Poe had 4, and Kanan had 0. Looking at the board state, I started playing for time (which I was confident I could take since he had already used both Field Medics as well as cycled one (or maybe both) of his Ancient Lightsabers, and I Had two of them out on Kylo. However, those two (and Kylo’s dice) suddenly manifested themselves into the max damage roll possible of 8, and Poe was defeated. From there, I was able to pick of Kanan in the next round right before time expired.

MVP of this game was Ancient Lightsaber, as the Holocrons just never got going until the last round (Once Poe was already dead).

Round 3 Opponent: eQuigon/eKanan Result: Win

Here, I got matched up against a friend of mine from the same local store that I play at in Metro Atlanta. I rolled pretty well. His rolls were decent, but he decided to go all in on damage rather than take shields and ping with Quigon, presumably hoping to burn me down before I could Rise Again, etc. Ultimately, it did not pay off as his rerolls never bore fruit, and I took this one.

Round 4 Opponent: eQuigon/eKanan Result: Loss

This was a frustrating loss for me, and not because of my opponent. He was a very nice guy that ultimately made top 8 as well and a good player, including having some interesting tech choices to differentiate his list I liked (won’t spoil them as that’s not my call to do). However, a critical misplay on my part cost me the game.I may not remember this perfectly at this point between it having been half a day ago and also the fact that I was a bit frustrated after, but I will recap as best as I can. I rolled over Qui-gon and had Kylo2 with 6 damage on him, and Vader untouched (But without upgrades). I was, to say the least, in a strong position. As best as I can remember, the board state was my opponent having double 2 melee on Kanan’s dice, a 2 melee on Rey’s Saber, and a +3 on an Ancient. I had several potential cards available to me to try to keep Kylo alive – Doubt, Overconfidence, or Force Illusion. Doubt wasn’t going to be enough, so it came down to Force Illusion or Overconfidence. Had I force illusioned, I would have milled 5 but survived with 2 HP (which would have been ok, as I believe Kylo had an Ancient on him to heal with, and if I had drawn a Rise Again next turn I would have had the resources to pay for it). That was the safe (and correct) play. However, as I had not seen either Rise Again or many (any?) force powers yet, I did not want to mill out 5 cards. In hindsight, I was so far ahead I could have milled both Rise Agains and 3 force powers and probably have still won. However, while hindsight is 20/20, I didn’t have the benefit for foresight at the time. So, I played overconfidence on the Rey’s Lightsaber and the Ancient. He rolled 3 for a dollar and +3, meaning regardless of which I removed he had 7 damage showing, enough to kill my Kanan. At that point, it was single dice, no upgrade Vader vs. dual wielding, elite Kanan, and Kanan definitely got the best of me.

Round 5: Opponent: ePoe2/eKanan Result: Win

On paper, this seems like it would be played similarly to my first match (or many of the practice matches I had played vs. the more common build with Rey2 instead of Kanan). However, my opponents deck was built very differently and built to rely on speed and claiming with cards such as planetary uprising, defensive position, dug in, High Ground, and Drop Ship. However, Poe died too fast for it to matter. In the first Round, I played an Ancient on Kylo2. Of course, my opponent played a Poe’s Gun on Poe (thus making clear why he took Throne Room instead of his battlefield). I intimidated off the 2 shields he put on Poe, and then got in 2 damage from Kylo’s activation, putting Poe at 2. I then got two more damage into Poe (I believe from Vader’s die on the 2 melee side), putting him at 4 damage, or 7 health remaining. I rerolled Kylo’s die and wound up with a resource side, 2 melee for a resource, and +3 on the ancient. I had no resources, so I took the resource from Kylo. At this point, my opponent rerolled and wound up showing five damage as well (1 ranged on Poe, 2 ranged on his other die, +2 on his gun). I had three choices. I could play Voices Cry out and reroll virtually everything (bad option). I could play Overconfidence on his die to preserve my health total, but at the cost of me being able to resolve 5 damage. Or, I could put 5 damage into him and tank his 5 as well (Kylo had 2 damage on him, so he had plenty of health to survive that). Ultimately, I opted to trade blows and deal 5, because it left Poe vulnerable to a Kylo activation on the next round to take him out of the game. It paid off, as I called (and pulled) a red card, and then it was an upgradeless, out matched Kanan against a Vader with a holocromn and a Kylo with a Saber. Kanan did not last long.

Round 6: Opponent: Cienna Ree, Guavian, FOST, FOST Result: Win Prior to the pairings coming out, I was feeling pretty good. The top table would be the only 6-0s, meaning only one undefeated would come out of Swiss. Sitting at the top table was the Quigon/Kanan who had defeated me, so my SoS was pretty good al things considered. All I had to do was win this and I was pretty sure I’d get in at 5-1. And then the 4 wide hit. It was not a deck I had prepared for and definitely not one I wanted to face. I misplayed a bit based on fatigue at this point, my opponent misplayed couple of times as well I think (though that’s because he was not ready to play around things like the voices Cry Outs by resolving dice as they came out rather than building them all up). I was fortunately able to rend his Aftermath before he got more than one resource off of it, and I killed Guavian before a Hounds tooth hit, so he was resource starved. He did still manage to get a single Endless Ranks off, but it severely cut into his ability to churn out damage – and even though he still got big hits in like that deck does with the AT-PTs and the Sonic Cannon and rolled pretty well early with his FOSTS, I hit Rise Again twice, cycled ancient twice, and even blocked 2 or 3 damage with a force illusion at one point. Eventually, his deck was emptied, and though I likely would have killed him off in what would be the final round of the game, it was a moot point as I hit the double discard on a mind probe and discarded his last two cards, resulting in a mill victory. The Cut: Top 8 Opponent: 4 Wide Villain Result – Loss

So standings went up. I was seeded second, the strongest SoS of any of the 5-1 players! I was pumped! But then I looked down the list and saw number 7 was the same person I had just beat. And let me tell you, he was good at the game and the win had been exhausting, especially after such a long day of play. My list was not optimized to face 4 wide as I was not expecting to face it, and even though I had just beat him I had a bad feeling about the rematch.

The first game, he won the roll off, denying me Throne Room, which I had in our prior match. Still, it started out looking good for me because I rended both aftermaths as they hit the board. Unfortunately, by the end of the game I Had not seen a single force power even though I had only 8 cards left in my deck. Seriously. The one Rise again I Hit pulled a force illusion back. However, once I put that force illusion on Vader (who he was targeting first this game) he wound up with a Sonic Cannon showing 4 and two +2s out as well (I believe from AT-PTs). Vader has 8 HP, so either milled 8 of my remaining 11 or 12 cards, or I let Vader die and tried to win with a full health or near full health Kylo (I think he had 2 damage). Having not seen a force power yet and Kylo being either upgradeless or maybe having an Anicent, I could not justify milling out most of my deck, and decided to let Vader bite the bullet, figuring Kylo had decent odds against the two FOSTs left. Unfotunately, those two FOSTs had heavy fire support. Because of that, I was holding onto all the mitigation I had left for dear life, and didn’t pitch my hand. No Force powers came up. Kylo ultimately succumbed.

Additionally, he knew my tricks this time. He didn’t give me a chance to overconfidence two dice. He didn’t give me a chance to reroll his pool with Sound the Alarm or Voices Cry out. 4 Wide is a slow, deliberate deck that does not care how slow or deliberate it goes. He adapted well. As soon as he rolled damage, the next action was typically to resolve it, not roll out more dice.

The first game was not close, but it was close enough I hoped I could take game two with the help of my Battlefield, which I did choose to play on. I had what I considered a good opening hand that included rend for his aftermath (which I managed to hit), a holocron, and a mind probe. The holocron went out, rolled a special…and got rended. All was not lost though, because I got a second holocron the next round, which I played out ,figuring the odds of both rends being in his top 8 or 9 cards was a chance I had to take. I activated Kylo, and what Kylo saw was doom itself – he had the second rend. Hoping to catch him off guard, I rolled out Vader and hit his discard side and a blank on the holocron. It was what I wanted. I hoped he would do like he had done previously and wait to rend until the holocron rolled a special. He had four cards in hand, but at this point he was rolling hot (He had already done decent damage off just his characters) and I was willing to take the 25 percent (or 33, if he played a card). However, he saw right through my ill-fated desperation, and rended me. At the time, I didn’t think it was over though. I Had Ancient Lightsabers in the deck to get out decently costed upgrades, and I did have four resources if I had to play out the mindprobe. But, Vader quickly fell to the onslaught of the First Order and its toys, so I was left with a decision – put the mindprobe on Kylo to try to get some damage in, or sit on the resources for a Rise again if I drew it. I opted for the mind probe (as I also had a Force Illusion in hand and figured I could stall long enough, but that if I didn’t get Kylo an upgrade I was just never going to do enough damage to kill him before he had all the supports up again (at this point I Had killed Guavian, Cienna had 2 damage and his FOSTS were either untouched, or maybe one had 3 from a TBD). Kylo was dead before a Rise Again or a Saber came up. RIP.

I want to give props to my opponent though. It was in my estimate a risky deck to bring, but he played it very well and it definitely paid off for him.

Takeaways/What I’d change:

I came into this expecting the tournament to be full of Rainbow 5s (the toughest match in my practice games), Quigon-Kanan, R2P2, Kylo2/Vader, and Sabine Ezra, with splashes of Palpatine possibly. I was thought I had good match ups against everything but Rainbow 5, so I teched for it. 2 Voices Cry Out was basically two extra Sound the Alarms, which were good for those end game states full of 2 ranged and +2s. I put in Now I am the Master to blank those guns, and especially because it is a card that is decent against most decks in the current meta – it’s basically a manipulate without the drawback, as often I am as scared, if not more, of the upgrade dice characters have.

Though I had played one game against 4 wide prior to the tourney ( with my Kylo/Gamorrean deck, not my current deck), I did not expect to see anyone bring it/do well with it based on it being weak to Rainbow 5s, which I expected at least 3 of in the tourney and at least one to do well. However, exactly one person brought Rainbow 5s, and while I do not know their record, they did not make top cut. I also only saw one Ezra/Sabine, for what its worth. And, the truth is, maybe, maybe if I didn’t get paired against the 4 wide in top 8, and he got knocked out, maybe I did a lot better. Maybe. But that’s part of the game.

So changes I’d make? The two cards I got the least use out at the tournament were Dark Counsel and Your Skills are complete. I played Dark Counsel only once (often using my initial resources for Ancient Lightsaber rather than it), so I would likely swap out for the Force Speeds I had previously removed to allow some action cheating. As for the Your Skills are Complete, I’d probably bite the bullet and put the 1-resource cost deflects in. I had initially cut deflects not only because of the cost, but aslo because against some decks it is a completely dead card, whereas I figured I could always get use out of Your Skills are Complete. However, turns out there are decks (damn you 4 Wide Villain!) that don’t run upgrades, meaning there are match ups it’s a dead card. So, if both are potentially dead cards, the upside of deflect is good enough it’s worth its cost and worth it being dead sometimes. Maybe I’m being overlyreactionary because deflecting a Sonic Cannon is second only to the feeling that I suspect I’ll get if I ever cunning an opponent’s Separatist Landing Craft in the future..but ah well. It’d be worth the feels!