Today’s guest post is by Edwin Chen, the 2018 Star Wars Destiny World Champion! He made a sick metagame call and used Kylo Ren and Anakin Skywalker to crush a field of many Mono colored decks. Congrats to Edwin on the win! Credit FFG for the picture of Edwin.



Thanks to the Hyperloops for letting me write about my World Championship winning deck. For those that haven’t already seen it, below is the deck list.

History

This deck was actually originally inspired by the Naked Palpatine list that made Top 8 at Canadian Nationals. It made me want to play a deck that revolved around strong character dice. I also knew I wanted to play No Mercy as I felt that card was underutilized during Regional season. This led to a very janky eVader2/eTalzin deck.

This deck was a mess. It tried to take advantage of Vader2’s damage output while generating consistency off of Talzin. I went 1-3 at a local tournament and immediately unsleeved it. Still, the game that I did win was off of No Mercy which convinced me that the card was good.

Although the deck was bad, when building it, I realized that there were just not enough odd numbered cards to make Talzin viable in a mono blue deck. It was also during this time when eRey/eAayla was making waves in Regionals which led me to play Kylo2 and Anakin for lack of a better partner.

Deckbuilding

A quick note on building the deck before getting into specific cards. I knew that I was building my deck around No Mercy so the majority of my deck had to be blue. Also, because I was playing Anakin, I needed to have at least 12-14 villain cards or else Anakin would have 2 blanks.

Borderline Cards

Vibroknife – One of the first cards I put in the deck, but after having hands with No Mercy and 3 other grey cards, I realized that I couldn’t have more than 4 grey cards in the deck. Also, being neutral didn’t help Anakin either.

Dark Counsel – I do think this card is great and would help ramp upgrades, but after some playtesting, I realized that this was an aggressive deck and I needed cards that let me swing face.

Force Speed – Another close cut. After much thought, I didn’t know what I would be using my extra actions for.

Sith Holocron/Force Abilities – This is a pretty aggressive deck. If I’m spending time waiting for holocrons, slower decks like vehicles will get enough time to gain steam and win.

Lightsaber Throw – Another close inclusion. I definitely wish I had enough time to tinker with this card. Still, with all the pay sides in the deck it may be hard to get off, and most of the time we’re resolving one of those sides instead.

Isolation/Mislead – Just not great removal. Paying one to remove one dice isn’t great.

Sound the Alarm – The two decks I expected the most out of the weekend were eRey/eAayla and eYoda/eHondo. I was already confident enough in my matchup against mono blue, and Sound the Alarm is usually useless against Hondo decks.

Unyielding – This was originally in the deck to deal with Force Illusion. Most of the time I found that I could just punch through illusions with multiple base sides, and it wasn’t that big of a problem.

Crafted Lightsaber – This originally was a 2 of in the deck. I’ve been obsessed with this card since release and trying to jam it in every deck. It just turns out Heirloom and Maul’s are just better… ☹

Notable Cards

Crossguard Lightsaber – Probably the best card in the deck. I would always keep this in my mulligan and it has pretty great sides in addition to a great ability.

Heirloom/Maul’s Lightsaber – Just a one of. In most games I want to end the game by round 4 and I’m already spending quite a bit of resources on pay sides. I would not want to see either before round 3 so I kept the 3 cost sabers to a minimum.

Decisive Blow – Just a blowout card similar to Snare. Unlike Snare, it’s a lot easier to pull off. Over the weekend I only played it 4 or 5 times, but each time it won me the game.

Intimidate – Probably the weakest card in the deck. I was expecting a lot more mill and needed some sort of shield removal. If there isn’t any mill, definitely cut for any other blue villain event.

No Mercy – The star of the deck. It’s a weird card in the fact that in Swiss, no one plays around it, leading to surprise wins. In top 16, everyone was watching out for it and may have played suboptimal in order to play around it.

How It All Works

At the end of the day, this is an aggro deck. It doesn’t have many tricks and doesn’t have any focus sides; all it wants to do is to roll melee and swing face. To bring it back to the Naked Palpatine deck, this deck takes advantage of the fact that every single die has at least 50% damage sides. Chances are that you will always be resolving a bunch of damage every turn.

Still, there are definitely some decisions in the deck. The greatest weakness and why a lot of better players didn’t bring it is the huge number of pay sides which slow down the ramp for upgrades. Still for most games, the plan is pretty simple. Most of the time, opponents will focus down Kylo first, so the game plan usually is to load up Anakin while Kylo fights to stay alive. By the time Kylo goes down, you’re usually left with an Anakin with 3 upgrades 1v1 against the opponent, and typically, due to his strong sides, he ends out on top.

Of course, there are thousands of other decisions to make in the game, but again it just boils down to this: roll sticks, win.

Matchups

Day 1B

eRey/eAayla – This was exactly what I wanted to sit across from for the first match of the day. The game went as quickly as I expected and it was a huge blowout. W eSabine/eEzra – This was piloted by Jack from the Golden Dice podcast. I initially thought this matchup would be as one sided as eRey/eAayla, but the amount of damage Sabine can spit out actually makes it a lot closer. Still, I was able to have Kylo survive longer than Sabine, and that was that. W eTalzin/eBala/FOST – This was the matchup I dreaded along with vehicles. I actually wasn’t familiar with the list and didn’t think I would run into it. My opponent actually killed Anakin before I could get a kill on Bala and he got a free activation. His list didn’t run many upgrades, and I managed to heal off of Ancient Lightsaber for 8 health. It was definitely the closest matchup of the day. W eKylo2/eGreedo – To be honest I was caught off guard by this pairing. Funnyenough, it also led to this photo which really showed how strong the pool was on day B. Regarding the matchup, when I knocked out his Kylo2, he had only dealt about 6 damage on my Kylo2. I do remember that game was won because Greedo’s blanks gave me a huge Feel Your Anger. W e7th/Cienna/Nightsister – I had actually never played this matchup because there aren’t many good OTK players in my area. Still, I was familiar with the list and knew it was largely blue. I was able to knock out Seventh Sister by round 3 as he drew very poorly. He had the resources for Rise Again but never saw it in the first half of his deck. W eBoba/e7th – Another close matchup, but at the end of the day, I just rolled super hot. Every single roll was just a bunch of 2’s, and I rolled the opponent off the table. Pretty brutal for my opponent, but I’ll take the 6-0 for day 1. W

I ended Day 1B feeling pretty lucky. I only faced one rainbow deck, managed to dodge all the vehicles, and played two mono colored decks.

Day 2

Leading up to Day 2, I was pretty comfortable with all the 6-0 decks. Luckily for me there were no rainbow decks at 6-0, and I felt confident at least winning my first game.

eSabine/Yoda – I felt pretty comfortable going into this deck as it was something I had played before. After dumping 8 damage into Sabine round 1 I felt like I had the game in the bag. Unfortunately, he was able to Impersonate all the damage to Yoda and it was pretty demoralizing having to start over killing Sabine with Second Chance still looming. The game ended up going way longer than I expected, and we both ended up with no cards left in the deck. I barely won the game off of a 3 damage No Mercy. W eObi/eMaz – Just a bad game and bad matchup. It felt like every round Obi was rolling 3’s and specials on his round 1 Force Speed, and I couldn’t really do anything. This was a complete blowout. If you’re looking to counter eKylo/eAnakin in the future, consider this deck. L eYoda/eHondo – Surprisingly this was the first and only Yondo I faced at the event. Going in, I felt very good against this deck as I had had a bunch of reps against the Arrow Brook Gaming guys. Still the game dragged a bit as I couldn’t find any removal in my deck. At the end of the game, it came down to a lucky Overconfidence to remove a Force Wave die, and I was able to win off No Mercy. If I had not removed that die, he would have killed both characters at once. Game was uncomfortably close, but I was elated to end Swiss at 8-1.

Top 16

eThrawn/eTalzin – I knew that if my opponent managed to bring this deck to the top cut, he had to be a very good player. I had played eThrawn/eTalzin before and had extremely poor results, so props to my opponent. Still, this was both of our times on stream, and the nerves definitely got to both of us. There were some huge misplays on both sides, most notably when my opponent played Snare with no exhausted characters. The sheer number of misplays led to some long games, and it went to time in Game 3. Luckily, due to the nature of our decks, my deck usually gets the early damage, therefore, when Game 3 went to time, I ended up with a win. e7th/Cienna/Nightsister – Again, I was lucky that I had faced this deck in Swiss and knew what the pace of the game would be. In Game 1, my opponent just couldn’t get much going, and I was able to knock out Seventh before he could get a single reactivation or Rise Again. Game 2 was much closer, and he was able to drop a quick Maul’s Saber. I got extremely lucky because he rerolled the Maul’s 3 times in round 3 and didn’t roll damage once to kill Kylo. I also managed to CQA when he only had Rise Again and Boundless left in hand, which sealed the game for me. eSabine/eEzra – I’m sure many have already seen this match, and I knew going into this matchup that Mike, being the player that he is, definitely pushed the matchup to 60/40 or even 50/50 which definitely showed in Game 1. I could write 500 more words about this game, but in the end, I felt very fortunate to come out of the Game 1 with a win. Game 2 was an entirely different story. Long story short, my Ancient Lighsaber rolled more 3’s than his Sabine, and I god rolled to kill Sabine after Mike had claimed. Sometimes you get lucky. eRey/eAayla – By this point I was exhausted as I had played 10 games of very stressful Destiny, and I was closely following Joe’s game against Mads. I have to admit I was rooting for Mads because I had no desire to face a rainbow deck as my final match. After Mads played multiple Synchronicity , I was feeling pretty good. Regarding the final match, I knew that it was in my favor 85/15, and after seeing his list and not seeing anything that would catch me off guard, I felt very good. For the match as a whole, I was able to ramp up my upgrades much faster off of It Binds All Things and had the ability to nuke Rey before she could get anything going. Still a good, fun match.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I have to say I was very fortunate in my pairings. Although I faced a different deck every match in Swiss, I dodged all vehicle decks and only played one rainbow deck. The top cut also worked out greatly in my favor as my last two matchups were both against mono colored decks. Still, this was something beyond my control, and I can only play the decks in front of me. As the event went along, I felt more and more comfortable with the deck and developed my own cadence and rhythm playing the deck. I guess that’s what happens when you play a lot of games in such a short period of time.

I honestly don’t think Kylo2/Anakin is the best deck right now. With such a diverse meta and a huge card pool, there are definite improvements that can be made to this deck and wide variety of other decks that can easily beat it. This win came down to a combination of reading the meta well and building the right deck to counter it. For those worried that Kylo2/Anakin will dominate before the next expansion, just play Hero mill, it’s a very good matchup.

All in all, this was an awesome event, and I had a blast at my first Worlds. I had a great time meeting everyone from all over the world, and every opponent I faced was friendly and gracious. I can absolutely say I had no complaints about the event as a whole and enjoyed every day of it. I want to thank everyone who went and proved that the Destiny community is awesome. Thank you to all the guys I practiced with from the New Jersey/New York area as I couldn’t have done it without them. This truly was a great event, and I can’t wait until next year.

– Edwin Chen

*Side Note

Shout out to PuzzleWorks in Minneapolis. We had a great time breaking the record for the Hospital room! Go Whitney Wildcats!

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