Returning readers know that I was doing a lot of deep sea fishing when it came to testing decks for this format. All the decks I tested had some issue but there was a big issue that kept them from being viable. Most of them ended up being soft to Easy Pickings so I wanted a deck that would be good against that card. I’ll write about Easy Pickings next week but this Article is about Aphra, why I decided to play it and the tournament result.

Deck Options

Ewoks, Aphra and Droids were the three decks I was considering. Of the three metagame decks I decided to play Aphra for a few reasons. The first reason is comfort, It was a viable deck and I knew it pretty well. Secondly, I had some spice I thought would take people by surprise and would be good in the mirror. Lastly, I felt like I had good match ups vs “The Sea” and reasonable match ups vs Satine Droids and Ewoks – I think I got Easy Picked once in the whole event. The biggest thing that kept me from locking it in was the fear of having to have to play mirror matches but I thought my tech would push it in my favor. Did I think it was the best deck? No, but I didn’t think any of our decks were the clear best deck. Its cool that Ewoks won for BobbySaphire but once the battlefield swap power is known the deck loses some of its power. I was concerned that in top cut people would know what was up and that it would be difficult to win once they knew the entire list – I thought it was a great deck to get into top 16 with but once we knew they were going to be sharing decklists it made me less attracted to it. I’m glad I was wrong-ish and Mike ended up winning with Reflex and Outrun making top 16 and top 8 respectively. Both Biggie and Shane didn’t make day two which I think goes to show that the deck isn’t busted by any means.

The Decklist

The big spice here is Deja Vu. In the mirror you can copy Desperate Measures and kill two supports which will generally win you that match-up. Against Ewoks its actually the stone cold nuts – being able to copy Probe or Act of Cruelty is game breaking. Against Satine you can occasionally copy DM or just get an extra piece of removal which makes it unnecessary there but it can be a target for any support removal. In general having a powerful play that cost two resources was part of the allure of the card.

Not sure how instrumental Deja Vu was to me making top 16 but it wasn’t bad. Act of Cruelty wasn’t great on the day and I could see cutting it to 1 if we don’t expect people to play a ton of Ewoks at Nova. In testing it was very good so it could be a product of me not drawing it at the right time or not being patient enough with the Acts – I discarded them from my hand a lot. They are situationally powerful and can automatically win you the Ewok match up which which is why I decided to run two figuring I could ditch the first one if I drew it too early(except against Ewoks). Having two would make it so my opponent would have to play around it for the whole game and perhaps it had more value that I’m not able to perceive. The card makes your opponent have to place indirect damage in ways they wouldn’t want to so there is that effect.

Fickle Mercenaries might seem weird but its just that good. It didn’t really backfire on me and sometimes I just discarded it when I knew it would be bad. Just make it the first thing you do unless you have a really good reason. Going forward I consider this card uncuttable.

Probe over Counterintelligence was there because Probe is better VS Ewoks and Aphra. Copying Probe with Deja also has higher upside.

The one Automated Defense was there for having hard removal. The deck doesn’t have a ton of money so I aired on the side of the cheaper A Sinister Peace. At times I think I would have wanted one over the other and I’m unclear which one is truly better but I think I air with Peace.

The Deck Exclusions

Crash Landing was a tough one but it’s not really great in the meta I was expecting – its pretty bad in the mirror and Ewoks. It’s pretty good vs Reylo and Chopper Droids and reasonable vs Satine. In hindsight I would of liked to have had it but I was on the Deja Vu plan and Deja Vu’ing Crash isn’t going to happen that often. On the weekend I did end up playing against more decks where it would have been mediocre but my two loses were to decks where crash would have been solid.

Hailfire Droid Tank was removed because I was trying to go as cheap as possible. This is sort of in the Deja Vu card slot camp. I don’t feel like it would have helped that much had I had it. Maybe against something like Reylo?

Climate Disruption Array is sadly unplayable due to mirror matches, Ewok and all the other 3 wide decks out there. We had our time in the sun, sorry buddy!

By Any Means Necessary is a card I dislike but the only thing that makes it even remotely playable is the need to find 000. The deck is so much more powerful with 000 and cards that cycle to get to it are under consideration. I would certainly be playing crash landing first so this is pretty low on the totem pole for me. This card is really good when you have 000 but your whole deck is good when you have 000. I don’t want to put a card that requires me to draw my best card just for it to be good.

The Tournament

Overall on the weekend I had 1 win and 1 loss vs Aphra with both being really weird games. If the Deja Vu tech helps it only helps a little since you really can’t afford to sandbag DMs for too long in order to copy them. Having both Acts is also pretty good in that match up.

I didn’t play against Ewoks although if it wasn’t for a re-pair would have in the first round. Its a nerve racking match up and if they draw hot you can just lose. My opening draw was actually the stone cold nuts vs them so I think I was in a good spot to win.

I was 3-0 vs Satine Droids. Everything went according to plan and I felt heavily favored in most of my games. I tested the match up VS HonestlySarcastc and that prepared me for those games. He probably played 50+ games with the deck and knew his match ups really well and as a result was crushing everyone. It actually became a testing mantra for everyone to not count the matches with HS since every other player in our testing group’s record with Satine Droids weren’t nearly as good. He would ghost our games and point out all the mistakes when playing it, it was actually pretty comical. Part of the reason why we decided not to play droids was that none of us felt comfortable playing HS in a mirror. He personally felt the Aphra match up was about 50/50 which I think it means its favored for Aphra when normal people are playing the match up.

My second loss was losing the tie breaker against Reylo. I didn’t play fast enough so that’s on me. My opponent played well, not running into forsaken when he didn’t need to and sequencing his actions properly. The match up is worse for Aphra if they are playing Aqua Breathers and it’s very determined by whether you draw 000 early. He didn’t play Aquata Breathers but I didn’t draw 000 early which made my damage output less robust.

The top 16 match-up was really unfortunate since I think Aphra is a dog to Chopper droids. My deck didn’t want to cooperate either as I mulliganed 9 cards in two games. I didn’t play great either as I was slightly tilted by how awful my draws were. I found the heavy upgrade draws from Satine droids to be harder to deal with than the support draws and Chopper droids just does that every time. Chopper is a huge problem and the nature of Aphra deck is to deal indirect which lets them have Chopper for most of the game. Since they pressure faster they are able to kill a guy pretty reliably in round 2 and sometimes even before you can activate or power action. Deja Vu isn’t the best in that match up so I think I will experiment with different things going into Nova. I still like Aphra but man I do hate playing mirror matches. I’ll definitely try to bring some spice to Nova, wish me luck!

I want to thank everyone who came up to me and said they like our content. I think there were multiple people who came up to me and asked if I was the shirtless guy…I guess so. GenCon was a blast and we have a lot great stories from the event. I you have never been you should definitely do it at least once.

Take care and as always,

-NJCuenca