Velcome, I am Drakoolah. This is my grave.

Sorry, this scene is sort of an inside joke long before any Dooku shenanigans and I felt like sharing. There’s something about visiting Memphis Tennessee to go see a tourist trap Dracula’s grave that makes me laugh. Anyway, you aren’t here for this but this is the sort of thing that comes to my mind when I think of Dracula.

Dracula’s Bride, Spooky Dooky, Dooku Talzin and RIP Lee (that last one I came up with recently) are all the same tag team duo of Mother Talzin and Count Dooku – Darth Tyranus. This is the duo that I used to make top 4 of US Nationals this past weekend. Last week I went over why I was considering playing the pair even though it had been somewhat quiet during the store champs season. You can check that article out here but the quick of it is that I thought it was in a good place in the metagame. But the Dracula’s in the details and some of my card choices made all the difference.

There are a bunch of cards here that were pivotal to my success that were either missing or were singletons in lists that I was seeing. Going into the event I wanted to beat the finalist decks from Gen Con 2018 which were TaCos and 3 wide mill. I also wanted to beat Snoke ramp decks of the vehicle variety. I top 4’d that event playing Snoke/Aphra/ Battle Droid and hadn’t really considered the deck since I had trouble beating mill and Tacos and expected those who were going to play it to have similar results. I expected most people who were playing Snoke to either play value vehicles or, the new kid on the block, Delve/Planetary Bombardment WOmbo Combo style. My read of things was mostly right although I underestimated how many times I had to play (and lose) to the deck I made, woops! (Congrats to Drew and Manten for meeting in the finals, updating the list and doing Aphra proud.) Here are what I think are the most important cards in the deck that may not have been in everyone’s list.

Card Choices

Do not change this battlefield, it is completely insane in this metagame where everyone is trying to go long and take a million actions. You will be claiming in the mill and Tacos match up so this battlefield will save you like 8 damage or 4 to 5 cards if you are playing vs mill – vs mill it can also do damage by taking away shield sides. The Aphra match up isn’t great but when you get this battlefield you’ll at least have a shot.

These are the only evens I’m playing and they are generally what I am mulliganing for because they are very powerful and I want to make my deck as odd dense as possible. In a lot of situations I’d save the Ancient for second round if I had drawn a removal spell and a 1 cost upgrade but most of the time it’s wise to slam it on Dooku and go to town. Force Speed is incredibly consistent when placed on mom and will let Dooku do what Dooku does without letting your opponent respond.

If your deck has three characters I feel bad for you son because I got two Force Waves while some lists had one. This is certainly a metagame call but in this metagame this card is GAWD tier. Its expensive which is why I kept three of the 1 cost resource producing upgrades to make sure I had enough resources to activate it and use mitigation. Early on I would try to flip those 1 cost upgrades to 1 resource sides and later on I would overwrite those cards with the Wave. When I had it in my opening hand I would take a resource with mom over 2 damage and slam it on Dooku. Sure I would most likely not be able to resolve it that turn but it set me up nicely for the following turns. This card can also be surprisingly good vs Kylo decks when they are playing on Throne Room since you can claim to resolve it which can kill Kylo quickly.

I’ll credit Yodaz for beating me up with this card a few times and making me realize that it was very good in the meta. Having two blue characters and being heavy on mitigation lets me get away with playing something so specific and powerful. It was very good at the tournament and going forward I’d probably keep both in. Its slightly underwhelming vs Aphra/Snoke because they don’t have too many range sides but sometimes they roll in that 3 for 1 Range side on Hailfire Droid Tank and you get to live the dream.

These card are similar since they occupy the “keep ’em honest” category of card. These cards are much better when your opponents don’t know you have them but once people know your decklist they lose a little value. All In was fine while Unyielding was MVP. I could see cutting an All In but I wouldn’t touch an Unyielding.

All In just makes things awkward for your opponent’s timing as they might not want to play mitigation on focus dice or dice that aren’t currently threatening but could become scary with a focus – this is particularly an issue when they are playing against a Force Wave. All In does have a very specific window for it to be good but when its good its killing a character. Unyielding just destroys people who lean hard on shields and Force Illusion, being able to ignore Force Illusion feels like a winning play. Many times my opponents would place a Force Illusion on a character and I would start attacking another character knowing that I would eventually draw an Unyielding.

Everything else is pretty standard but I will mention a few short things. The split of Crystal Ball and Dark Council was in favor of Crystal Ball because of Talzin’s ability. In a vacuum Dark Council is a better card but knowing that my opponent had an odd on top of their library had extra value since I was playing Feel your Anger. This is definitely the best Feel Your Anger deck I’ve ever played since both characters can blank opposing player’s dice. The card is also excellent in a metagame with a lot of Snoke Vehicles since they have a bunch of blanks on their upgrade dice. Isolation was fine but not exciting while Spell of Removal is hot garbage and should be something else, even another Isolation.

All of these cards came together simultaneously by accident and through rigorous testing. Its kind of why people looked at me funny when I told them I was seriously considering playing it – they didn’t know how all those little pieces added up to a deck that was in a really good place. I didn’t post my exact list last week because, as always, having a little of that surprise factor gives the deck a little more edge especially when it came to cards like All In, Deflect and Unyielding.

Special thanks to all those who rooted for me, all the RIP Lee players out there that posted their lists and a special thanks to that guy who called me an Evil Genius; it’s definitely the best compliment I’ve ever received. I’ll be working on some decks going forward to attack this metagame for those attending Nationals in other countries. Leave a comment on here, Reddit or Facebook if you think there is a character combo you think has some potential. Right now I’m working on Yoda/Ezra2/Gungan Warrior and I think that could be pretty good but mostly I’m interested in exploring 3 wide Yoda/Force Wave decks as I think they can do some good work in this metagame. WIth Aphra having a huge target on her head I’ll try my hand at some 4 wide decks since they have a ton of health but less dice and being unable to claim in most match ups kind of turn me off from them. Bala-Tik/Snoke/x could be a mirror breaker but I’ll have to test that to see. I’m also suprised by the lack of TaCos present at the tournament. I still think its in a good place and with some tech cards I think its poised to stay relevant.

Thanks for reading and as always…

-NJCuenca

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