I wouldn’t doubt if most of you read the title and had to double take the fact that I’m the one writing about it. This is really right up the NJCuenca alley and I’m not known for swimming in the jank tank. Well you’d be right then to be confused unless you’re now thinking that maybe it isn’t the proverbial “trash tier” that it is expected to be. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but it’ll take time to find out and that is the one thing that we have a lot of right now.

Let’s look at the main guts of the Jawa Mill deck and we obviously can’t do that without examining the character itself.

5 Teambuilding points for 5 health and the value of a resource on activating provided that the deck is chock full of Gray neutral cards. The resource is great per round for 5 points, sadly being “limited” to neutrals would be considered a pretty hefty drawback, but we’re in luck that there are enough cards for it to do some work with. I’m not likely to go mono Gray, because it limits our ability for random cards being in the deck that weren’t accounted for. We max out at 4 mill for one of our best options which needs to actually Spot Jawa’s so we’re likely to run 4, if not 5, of these guys and reserve the last 1-2 spots for dipping into a color. We’re going to be aiming for the Mill win condition and you can’t get there without discarding cards.

Wretched Hive and Bespin Wing Guard are the main discard from hand conditions for the deck with Wretched Hive being better during the early game and Bespin being the closer at the end. The cost of Bespin each round can be tough to afford, but if you don’t need to active spend your resources on much, then it can be easily afforded. Hive during the early game is pretty much a free discard on tap, but during the late game the opponent should just be paying you off due to whatever remaining cards being so important for longevity. Don’t leave home without these and if you decide to reach into the multi colored world, but do remember that you have to spot a scavenger for Hive to work. We’ve hit the check mark on some discard from hand, but what about some discard from deck??

Sadly there isn’t much for discarding cards off the top of the deck, but if you hit any of the Utinni! for 4, then you’re already likely in a good spot. Starting with no dice (or a couple) isn’t going to be winning you any Battlefield rolls, so why even bring a battlefield, right? Well not exactly, because most of you may recall some Fuzzy Warriors winning our 2019 Continental Championship on the back of their Battlefield and they only start with one die. Across the Galaxy will be making an appearance for us, along with yellow in order to force the opponent onto a clock that we favor. I’m going deep in my first excursion with the list, so let’s fast forward past the removal and show you the lineup.

I played against someone that ran 5 Jawa, AoN, and Thief so if you’re giving me a bunch of credit, don’t. I am introducing the Villain option into the list for a very particular reason though, which is to make our win condition a bit easier as well as to end some rounds early. The Thief plays an interesting role in the deck, especially Round 1 when we start out with 0 Resources to our opponent’s 2. He can help in the future rounds to make it harder for our opponent’s to pay us when we use Wretched Hive and is our 5th Scavenger as well as the threat of things like Entangle and Desperate Measures, even if we don’t run them. Our Nightsister Zombie is so that we can get the Villain cards, one of which was named already, but access to some other useful cards that work for mill. This is only the first version, so I won’t be going deep into the tank and running things like a Force Jump. I’m not sure how much “money” I’ll actually have, but there are some sick options running around like these bad boys.

Quarrel doesn’t work the “good” way, so you’d have to start off with that before an opponent either has no hand or has no resources and therefore it likely won’t make the deck. There is an alternative option where you run Pyke Sentinel instead of Thief and get to use Bitter Rivalry instead of Allies of Necessity and that might be a better option, but can also be scary if a Jawa get’s taken down fast. Or just run Pyke with AoN and lose blue to keep 5 Jawa’s around. Respite is an option in this version to try to find your gas as well as to make use of our Witch friend. In general, If you can Deja Vu an Utinni! or Cocky, then you’ll have shaved so much time off the clock that the opponent should be having a fit. I’m going to be far reaching in this version and stick with having access to both Clever and Cocky to see how things pan out even though I think going 5 Jawa and Pyke might make better sense because Clever and the other blue just doesn’t seem worthwhile.

This is Version 0 of what I’d be looking to work with. If Clever Distraction and Thief end up not doing anything, then I’d quickly adjust to 5 Jawa’s and Pyke and see how it goes or swap thief into Pyke and run Bitter Rivalry so that I’d start with my 2 Resources and could potentially jam my Deja Vu or T-16 Skyhopper on Round 1. A round 1 Deja won’t do anything without an additional resource though because we only have the 2 Cocky as actual 0 cost cards, so you would actually need to find a 3rd resource in order to afford your copies of removal anyways, which then brings back the question of running Respite so that you have 2 ways to get the extra resource to start (Respite / Merchant Freighter). Most of the removal is pretty cut and dry in that they are 1 for 1’s that you’ll get to play for free and then a couple of blowout options. There are some deep dive options like running Possessed with the Witch for the Big Small decks or for the characters that have discard sides, but we can’t pay for that in this variant.

I’ll try to get some games in and return next week with some video and my findings.

~HonestlySarcastc