The Decks

Light Side

Props to Anton for beating me so quickly that even first turn Luke couldn't save me

Props to Jedi for being better than everyone expected

Props to James for showing that there was a worse matchup for my deck than Sith and going on to take the tournament with it

Props to Alex for deck testing with me and keeping me entertained for the drive down

Props to Leisure Games for a well-run tournament

Props to 3PO, for single-handedly taking out the Emperor's Royal Guard (not even with R2-D2!)

Slops to Chewbacca for killing Mara Jada

Slops to the match-making gods for making me and Dave play each other in the first round

I've heard criticism of the SWLCG community, saying we don't talk about the game enough, we don't share results and decklists and things like that. So, here is me, talking about my deck lists and my experiences of the 8th June Regional at Leisure Games.For this tournament, I had been planning on taking a particular Smuggler deck which involved some Aquaris Freeholders and their buddy Dash Rendar. However, FFG decided that this was not on and restricted the deck. To compound matters, I had been working on a Scum and Villainy deck that was designed to do well against the freeholders. For me, it was back to the drawing board for my decks for this tournament.At this point, it is worth mentioning that my play meta consists of two people, myself and Alex Martin who also attended the tournament. He had decided to fiddle with the Smuggler deck to make it legal by taking out his freeholders and going for some "enemy units with printed cost 3 or higher cannot be declared as defenders" goodness. I decided to throw the whole Smugglers thing out of the window and build myself a Jedi deck, something which I had much experience of playing from last season and that would likely take people by surprise.For Dark Side, Alex decided to stick with the ever trusty Sith that he had built (though his had a not-as-convincing Boba twist in it). I decided to try and stick with my Scum deck.With decks built, we got down to testing. My Scum deck lost horribly to Alex's Smuggler. ****.So we tried Alex's Smuggler deck (with my as the brave and handsome pilot) against Alex's Scummy Sith deck. The Sith won. Hooray! We realised however, that Boba was about as useful in this deck as Anakin Skywalker's attempt to jump over Obi-Wan to take the high ground. So, I suggested that Boba be fired and replaced by the less cool but much more useful Admiral Motti.Here we will realise that I am not a persistent man. I threw my Scum deck out and built... a Sith deck with Motti! My version differed in 2 objective sets, I only took 1 copy each of The Emperor's Web and Counsel of the Sith and took two The Executor Arrives as I feel the power of the holocrons is too good to pass up. We tested it against the mean and nasty Smuggler deck and it won! Tournament victory was basically in my sight now!Then I remembered, there are two decks I need to take a Star Wars tournament. I should test that Jedi Deck I built. So I played against the updated Sith Deck of Alex (with which he was happy with the changes) and lost. However, I managed to annoy him with my wolfmen and do some damage to at least one objective. Close enough.I had two decks, each of which had been tested against exactly one deck, and one of which that had lost.So, my final decklists for the tournament became as follows.2x A Hero's Journey2x In You Must Go2x Preparation for Battle2x The Secret of Yavin 41x Watchers in the Wasteland1x Self PreservationThe idea here was to use the force taking powers of Yoda and Self Presevation to extend the time before Preparation for Battle deactivated. In this time, it was incredibly difficult for my board to be cleared and I could use the force struggle to bring my wolfmen into play from discard. Then I would try and smash things with wolfmen, Luke, super-Yoda. If the game got late enough, Preparation for Battle would give me a nice boost again to help me finish off those pesky objectives.2x Fall of the Jedi2x Agent of the Emperor2x The Executor Arrives2x Imperial Command1x Counsel of the Sith1x The Emperor's WebSuper-simple-sith. Play big units. Smash the little light side with big units. Use events to kill what's left. Have Motti shout at people who get too tired. Make big units rage to kill more things. Repeat.It's a well-known fact of tournaments, where if you go to a 24-person tournament where you don't know 21 people there. You will without doubt get paired against someone you know for the first round. So, me and Dave sat down to play the first game of the day. To be fair to the gods of matchmaking, me and Dave had only played SWLCG once before, being mostly GoT players. So I asked him if he was playing Martell, as he was that type of sadist.Turns out he wasn't playing Martell so we got down to our first game with me playing DS against Dave's Character Smuggler build. It was like a yellow super friends deck, where Luke had been thrown out to be replaced by Lando and Dash. This game left me starving for Force Chokes, as he very often had one or two characters on the board who are the classic squishy targets for them, first Han Solo and then Lando Calrissian. With my early Vader on the board, one force choke could've seen the end of either of them (though with a Trust Me on the board, he could've cancelled). I did find myself realising that I had been underestimating Trust Me, having a Rage and an Aggression Cancelled (both of which would've resulted in the end for some poor Smuggler). In the end, a last ditch attack to win the game came across the board from Dave, and he used a few holding all the cards. This is where I found 2 Heat of Battles and all 3 of my Force Chokes. This allowed me to blow up Chewbacca before he could close out the game. Then the counterttack came from the Sith, which took me the game.The only things I really remember from my LS game against Dave is that it was very close and went to time. I think if it had gone to the finish, Dave would've taken it.Result DS 1-0 LS 0.5-0I must apologize for not being able to remember either Tom's second name or any of the games rather well. I remember we both had reasonably one-sided wins as DS and that he double swindled two units in my DS game. I also recall one turn in my LS game where I had no units on board and the only one I drew was C-3PO. I played him and went in for an attack for unopposed damage. He blocked with a damaged Emperor's Royal Guard and I was able to finish it off with a Heat of Battle and a Lightsaber Deflection, good job 3PO!Result DS 2-0 LS 0.5-1I had spoken to Anton a few times on the Facebook group previously but this was my first time either playing him or meeting him in person. He was playing a Navy deck and a Rebel affiliated Smuggler deck. I can't remember which order our games went in, so I will speak about my LS game first.In the LS game, I was surprised to be facing the Dark Time for the Rebellion objective. An objective which I think is reasonably underrated (though admittedly hard to find a deck to fit it in). Unfortunately for Anton, after a couple of damage placements onto my objectives, I was able to get out some lovely free wolfmen. These would tank up the damage nicely for the rest of the game, coming back whenever they died. I believe that my Preparation for Battle made it difficult for Anton to utilize the power of his Defense Protocol and TIE Attack Squadron and I was able to push through for the win. I was particularly impressed with Anton's use of The Tatooine Crash out of Navy with most of the cards in the set being playable without having a single Scum resource available.The DS game saw Anton playing another nearly super-friends deck, with this time Luke being replaced by the handsome and reasonably new General Crix Madine. In this game, my most notable memory was attacking a Commando Operations to get damage on it so that my fate cards would work and throwing a Twist into the edge thinking it wouldn't be useful as it wouldn't go off, completely forgetting I was literally seconds away from getting damage on the thing. I think I was able to control Anton's board enough to the point I was able to push for a Rage-induced win with 3 objectives killed for the Sith.Result DS 3-0 LS 1.5-1Prepare yourselves, as the following tale is that of what was one of the slowest games of Star Wars I have ever played.I prepared my Jedi deck to face against James' Scum deck. I knew this would be a slog from the start. He started off by looking at my hand and I was terrified of seeing a Get Me Solo! to capture something and lower his Weequays down as my deck has little answer to the amount of Focus that they pump out. Luckily for me, it didn't come and the game turned into me holding the force to stop the Dial increasing while managing to sometimes look at some objectives with the hope of damage. However, in a deck such as mine, where Blast damage is sparse, having it cancelled by Corrupt Officials hurts even more. Eventually he managed to overwhelm my board and take 2 objectives bringing him in the win.After my LS game, I remember little about the DS game. I think Sleuths came and blew stuff up, I may have cried, maybe...Result DS 3-1, LS 1.5-2As me and Gary sat opposite each other, we realised that the only way that either of us could guarantee making the cut was to win both games. So we exchanged some light-hearted "bad lucks" before wishing each other good luck.In the first game, I played Dark Side. My opening hand gave me Motti, a Holocron and Vader. So I played Motti with the intention of playing the Holocron into Vader. Boom, out came a Rebel Assault. Motti hadn't lasted long. I now couldn't afford Vader. So out came a Kuati Security Team. In the next turn Vader did come out with Mara Jade following the next turn. Both of them also picked up their trusty lightsabers and it became difficult for Gary to keep both focussed especially with Mara Jade's shields. I was able to targeted strike his board out and keep him from killing many objectives, bringing me the win with 2 objectives killed to 1.Now we knew that for the tie-break point, Gary would have to win with 2 more objectives destroyed than me. However, I opened well with plenty of speeder tanks to focus his stuff out and to keep me immune to damage with my Preparation for Battle. I was also able to use Hoth Scouts and Shelter from the Storm to keep him safe while unfocussed holding the force for me. With him, wolfmen and I think Luke, I was able to take a convincing DS Dial 4 win.Result DS 4-1, LS 2.5-26th of 24 in swissMy 6th place in swiss meant I would face Anton, the 3rd seed in swiss again. He sat down terrified of the decks that had both beaten him earlier in the day.I played Dark Side first and got a first turn Mara Jade and Motti, with Mara Jade wielding her lightsaber. (This interesting led to the question of whether I could commit Mara using a force card to trigger her objective when she already had her saber, which is unresolved.) However, I managed to get Mara Jade killed by a rampaging Chewbacca and walked Motti into a suicide mission attempting to find unopposed damage. This mean that Anton was able to take a DS Dial 5 victory.I had to at least take victory by DS Dial 5. This was gonna be tough.I took A Hero's Resolve and an In You Must Go, knowing that this would mean I could afford a first turn Luke-Trust, it was all or nothing here. I got a reasonable starting hand, but not one that would win me the game qucikly. I mulled, hoping for a god hand. I got Luke, but no trust. I ditched a card. I got... another Luke. So, I did what was reasonable, I played Luke. I managed to take out an objective by DS Dial 3 and then, going into his turn and the dial going to 4 I knew (as he had already killed one objective), if he killed an objective this turn, I was going home. I also knew, that with my board position, it was likely that I could win next turn taking me to the top 4. Unfortunately, I could not stop the onslaught even with a Guardian of Peace shielding my objective. Anton took the match.Please let me know if you enjoyed this report and whether you'd be interested in seeing more, as I am going to Sheffield and Huddersfield in the upcoming weeks.