Last week the Cascade Games Tabletop Weekend was held in downtown Seattle, WA. After missing the Galactic Qualifier that was in Seattle last March, I was excited to finally be able to play for the elusive spot glass cards. The following is a recap of my experience last weekend, along with some analysis that I hope can aid any of those with upcoming Store Championships.

Saturday: Trilogy Format (5-1)

My Deck: ePoe2 / eYoda

Considering that this would be my first competition in the Trilogy format, I did not do as much preparation as I would like for a premier event. When it came to choosing my deck, I initially wanted to play something you don’t see as often in Standard like eTarkin / eAphra. In the end, I felt that my lack of experience with the deck would hinder my success with it. Therefore, I knew I had to pick a character pairing that I’ve used extensively in order to counteract my lack of practice. I browsed SWDestinyDB and found a post by DJStormtrooper (Tyler) with his decklist that went 6-0 at the Austin Trilogy GQ:

I used a similar decklist with ePoe2 / eYoda at the Portland Regional last January, where I went 5-3 with it. Some character pairings lose a lot of crucial cards when going into the Trilogy format. For example, eRey2 / eAayla loses all the great 2-cost lightsabers. However, I felt that ‘YoDameron’ only lost some of its action cheating (e.g. Force Speed, Hit and Run), yet it maintained the core of the deck (special chaining upgrades and survivability). I went through the cards available in Trilogy and ultimately did not make a single change to Tyler’s list, so I have to give credit where credit is due on his well-refined decklist.

Round 1: ePhasma2 / eTalzin / Greedo (Kristopher) – W

Round 2: ePhasma 2 / eTalzin / Greedo (Corey) – W

Round 3: eAayla / ePoe2 (Matt) – W

Round 4: eZeb / eYoda (Brandon) – W

Round 5: eHondo / ePoe2 (Mark) – L

Round 6: eTarkin / eAphra (Marcelino) – W

My first two matches went smoothly in that I was able to execute my game plan of tanking up, ramping up, and mitigating dice. The ‘Greedo’s Girls’ deck is definitely scary, but in those rounds my opponents did not get that lucky roll they needed to take a strong lead. In Round 3, I was able to use both copies of Mend to keep Poe alive a few extra rounds. That extra health made the difference in an incredibly tight special-chaining showdown.

In round 4, I caught a lucky break when my opponent played the wrong weapon on Zeb right before he died. This meant that his upgrade did not redeploy; and, in the end, I narrowly avoided a loss. After time was called, we finished the last round and I ended up with 18 total damage to his 16. My 2nd to last card was a defensive position, which provided this narrowest of victory margins.

When I lined up against eHondo / ePoe2 in the following round, I knew my luck was about to run out. This matchup was one I dreaded because of Easy Pickings, which could neutralize an entire round. Unfortunately, the match lived up to my expectations and I took my first loss of the day (but shoutout and congrats to Mark for going 6-0!).

The final match was another nail-biter. We both distributed damage and kept all the characters alive until the final round. The last action was my claim of the Sith Temple Battlefield, which dealt the final point of damage on Tarkin and gave me the victory with a single HP remaining on each of my characters. After it was over, I was ecstatic to finish at 5-1. I had earned enough prize tickets to receive a spot glass Obi-Wan Kenobi, which I put to use the following day.

Sunday: Standard Format (6-0)

My Deck: eObi-Wan2 / eMaz

I did not play Obi/Maz at the launch of Legacies, instead opting for an eAayla / eRose / Ezra deck due to my love of vehicles. I made the switch to Obi/Maz after I went 4-4 and barely made it through the Artificery Season 5 qualifying stage. The Hero Vehicles deck made me feel frustrated by the lack of “unfair” plays that it offered. My definition of “unfair” refers to a card or combo of cards that results in a powerful play that your opponent cannot (easily) counter. It turns out that Obi/Maz is defined by this “unfair-ness”, which includes action cheating (e.g. Force Speed, Maz’s ability) and game changing cards that can swing the result of a match singlehandedly (e.g. Hyperspace Jump, Concentrate).

Leading up to the Galactic Qualifier, I made a few changes to my deck that ended up being crucial through my run to 6-0. The first change was a Battlefield switch:

I was inspired to make this switch after seeing it in Obi/Maz decks that got Top 16 at Worlds and Top 4 at Euros.

Other changes:

-2 Running Interference, +2 Force Illusion: RI was removed since it was nerfed to a one time use. It’s still a strong card, but I feel the tempo loss in the early game usually makes it difficult to use. As for Force Illusion, it’s a broken card so I should have included it earlier. It saved me in many situations where no other card could do the same.

-2 Scruffy Looking Nerf-herder, +1 Friends In Low Places & +1 My Ally Is The Force: Scruffy was great to counter cards like Never Tell Me The Odds, but more often than not it just pulled a mitigation event costing 1 or less. As a result, FILP was a natural replacement. The spot yellow restriction caused me to initially hold off on making it a 2-of, but I have since removed MAITF to make room.

-1 Force Misdirection, +1 Hasty Exit: now that the deck is more focused on battlefield control, I wanted a second copy of Hasty Exit. Force Misdirection can be great but awkward at times.

Round 1: BYE

The tournament nearly started with disaster, as I slept through my alarms and woke up late at 10:30 AM, the planned start time for the event. I hurried over to the venue and arrived just in time to see everyone checking their pairings for round 1. Luck was on my side from the start, since an odd number of competitors meant that I received a BYE for the first round.

Round 2: eLuke2 / eLeia (Hunter) – W

At first glance, this matchup is not terribly threatening. However, I quickly learned that it poses a real threat with consistent but fair damage. In the second round, I misplayed and could have used Force Illusion to keep Maz alive a little longer. In the following round, I made a questionable play to use My Ally Is The Force on a Force Speed special. I used those four actions to ensure that my Vibroknife die could finish off a fully-shielded Luke with 1 HP. After that, I was able to win the duel of Obi-Wan versus Leia.

Round 3: eLando / eYoda (Lukas) – W

For Round 3, I knew I was in for a tough match when I paired up against Lukas Litzsinger, the former lead designer of Star Wars: Destiny. His plot, Espionage, discarded an Ancient Lightsaber from my deck, the most important card in the Mill matchup. Although his good fortune quickly ended when I played a Vibroknife and rolled a perfect 8 damage on Obi-Wan’s initial activation (a 0.5% chance). As a result, Lukas was forced to use his first Hyperspace Jump. Despite Lukas discarding my entire hand in each of the next two rounds, I was able to draw my weapons and load up both Obi-Wan and Maz. By the time I was down to my last five cards, I had 5 out of 6 upgrade slots filled. The damage became too much for him to mitigate and I closed the match out.

Round 4: eBoba / e7S (Andrea) – W

It took until Round 4 for me to find a ‘meta’ deck that I was afraid of facing. My fear was largely due to the special side on Boba’s die which can be devastating with all the 3-value sides on my dice. The deck also has a strong mitigation suite and powerful cards like Bait And Switch and Close Quarters Assault. Luckily for me, the match went poorly throughout for Andrea, as she did not naturally roll a Boba special even once. Coupled with the fact that I had a perfect start with Force Speed and Ancient Lightsaber, the match was not as close as it should have been.

Round 5: eBoba / e7S (Sean – Pearl Yeti) – W

The following round I had the same tough matchup, this time piloted by none other than Artificery’s own Pearl Yeti. The match started out slow, with each of us dealing only 2-3 damage in the first round. It continued that way through the second round, but I took the advantage in the third. An early Force Illusion on Boba swung in my favor when the damage it blocked resulted in both of Yeti’s Coercerions being discarded, his primary defense against Hyperspace Jump. I rolled in Obi-wan and his Shoto Lightsaber, hitting a total of 4 damage. In the next action, Yeti was seemingly unable to mitigate and opted to activate Boba Fett. I made a read that he was lacking mitigation and decided to spend two resources on Concentrate, turning my dice into 8 damage and exact lethal on Boba Fett. Maz went down shortly afterward and it became a duel between Obi-Wan and Seventh Sister, both armed to the teeth with lightsabers. I was able to grind it out, with back-to-back Hyperspace Jump being a key card to get extra damage and take the lead.

Round 6: eSabine / eEzra (Kurt) – W

The matchup that I feared the most coming into the event. I have lost to a hot-rolling Sabine many more times than I would like, so I braced myself for a shoot-out. And that’s what I got in the first round, with both of us landing 6 damage on the respective threats. The tide turned when Kurt had an awkward draw in the second round: four weapons in four consecutive draws. He was able to load up Sabine with guns, but it was not enough to kill Obi-Wan through his shields and a Force Illusion. I retaliated and took down Sabine that round, thankful that he did not draw Second Chance. Shortly after, I closed out the game and sealed my ticket to Worlds!

Closing Remarks

After this tournament, I learned a couple things that I plan on applying to my future competitions:

Choose a character combination that you know well. It goes a long way in minimizing decision time when in the middle of a tense tournament match. Always be willing to reconsider a card choice in your decklist. I regret not adding cards like Friends in Low Places and Force Illusion sooner. Bring snacks. A full day of Destiny is more exhausting than one would think.

I had an incredible time at the Seattle Galactic Qualifier! I was more successful than I could have hoped, taking home two spot glass cards and the Thrawn playmat. More importantly, I got to meet some great people and become more engaged with the absolutely amazing Star Wars: Destiny community!

Cheers,

krezerker