At the Risk of getting too Destiny-Existential, I often wonder if I’m very good at Star Wars Destiny or not. I think I am, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. I test with very good players; Joe and Nick are two of the best players in the country, if not the world, and it’s so beneficial to be able to lose to them on a regular basis. I think my resume is pretty dece: I came in fourth at swiss of Gen Con, losing in the finals to Joe after 2-0ing all of my top cut rounds. I won my only Store Championship, as well as Season 3 of the TTS League, and I final tabled both my regionals, getting in on breakers and continuing my strong run in top cut matches. Going into the Connecticut Regional I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that is dumb luck vs. how much of it is skill and fortune. I wanted to feel great about what I was doing, playing a “brew” that I was familiar with but people hadn’t seen and would question.

If I scrub out, is it my deck or is it me?

Am I my deck?

Who am I?

Following the Connecticut Regional I think I’m “good enough.” A few of my opponents made critical mistakes that cost them games. In a Best of One format, you need to avoid these kinds of mistakes. I make plenty of mistakes, but none are detrimental to my winning the match. I’d like to say none of my mistakes cost me wins, and while both my losses could have been avoided with *elite* level plays, I don’t feel like I was there this weekend, yet I was good enough to make the final table and scoop to my teammate and friend NJCuenca. You can read about those below in the section about Ancient Lightsabers. Joe tried to console me by saying nobody could see a Frighten into All In play to put me at lethal of a Backup Muscle, but if I want to win worlds I need to be able to see that play. I didn’t, I lost, and I need to get better. Luckily I have 250 people in my discord channel that also want to get better, who get coached by me and my team, and I have a lot of ways to learn and figure out how to improve my game. Right now I’m good enough to take down a regional, or scoop in the finals of one, but am I good enough to top 8 worlds? I’m not sure. I’d like to think so, but I know I have lots of room for improvement.

Putting my money where my mouth is.

I like to think I have some Boston-Style thick skin, but I have to admit I was bothered when another podcaster told a friend that we at TheHyperloops would never give our followers the tools to beat us. Not only do Joe, Nick, and I give out our decklists to our followers for events (people had Joe’s brOTK before the Jersey regional, and anyone who hit me up for my Aayla/Rey deck got the list PMd to them for the weekend), but I gave everyone my honest thoughts and what I was going to be playing for free on the main site over the last two weeks. In my article two weeks ago pressing for people to play middle-middle decks, I ended the article with Rey, saying she is the hero we need. Last week in talking about reach I outlined why I thought Force Misdirection and CQA were must plays, I also talked about Mother Talzin and Witch Magick (FN/Talzin was my backup deck for the regional if I didn’t think R2P2 or Aayla/Rey could cut it).

I obviously knew my regional was on the horizon, and I wanted to do well. I also wanted to prove that when I pour my mindgrapes out in these articles, it is from a place of honesty in an effort to be a true positive contributor for the competitive community. Chronologically, this is the last section of the article I’m writing, and it’s approaching 3300 words. Why would I blow that much smoke up your asses? I know I shouldn’t really focus on the criticism of one random Jabroni, but if one person is thinking it, others likely are too. I’ve gotten a lot of weird criticism about some of my strongly held feelings (hating three dice decks, hating Force Speed), but all I can bring is my honest opinion, and I hope this regional finish with Rey2 and the things I’ve been writing about lately help prove that. If not, that’s all I got for the haters.

A quick aside about the name. I might’ve mentioned this in the past, but “These are your first steps…” said by Ewan McGregor in The Force Awakens at the end of Rey’s force vision are one of my favorite things ever, let alone in the Star Wars Universe. In my head Aayla + Rey = Ray. There is only one Ray; Ray Stanz. Ray Stanz asks where these stairs go. Therefore, I call the deck Stairs. But, you call it what you want. I don’t care.

R2P2 vs. Stairs

When I wrote the middle-middle article two weeks ago I was 95% convinced I would play R2P2 at the Connecticut Regional. I was always sad that there were no reasonable regionals for me to attend in the EAW meta, and following R2P2s coming out party at PAX Unplugged I played it to great success in the TTS League Season 4 Ladder. I gave my list out to several people, many of whom crushed their regionals; my list came in first and second at the Panama City Regional, and Danny from TMM used it to top 4 one of his early regionals. I felt that if I had been able to attend one, I would’ve been able to take one down.

With the meta getting aggressive, it felt like the perfect time to bust R2P2 back out – it’s tanky, it can hit for a lot of damage, and obviously Rey is amazing. After seeing the rise of Boba 7th and the return of Blue Glue, I realized that Force Misdirection and CQA is where I wanted to be. Those cards aren’t amazing in R2P2, especially CQA, but what if there was a character I could pair with Rey that would let me capitalize on these cards?

I’ve been working with Profitable Connections a LOT. Heartwarmers, FN/Talzin, Poe/Aayla; you name it, I’m trying to jam Profitable Connections in it. I woke up last Sunday morning with the idea of Aayla/Rey Profitable Connections in my mind, and something compelled me to put it on the table. I ported my R2P2 version into a mono blue variant, cutting all the red and adding Hidden Motives and Overconfidence, and adding another Heirloom and Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber, along with CQA obviously. My very first opponent on TTS loaded up brOTK, and I thought it was the perfect matchup to test. If I can’t beat brOTK can I even consider the deck decent? We ran it through two or three games and none were close, I crushed each. I had a good feeling the deck was legit. I ran it in my TTS league matches for the week and won them all. Finally I called in the big guns, testing against HonestlySarcastc.

Having such a talented teammate is a godsend, and I’ll often spend a lot of time working on a deck, but rarely deem it playable until I run it vs. Joe. We set up a room and gave the PW to our discord; it filled up within minutes and Joe and I had an epic playtesting session where I won a best of 3 vs. Thrawn. Then Joe loaded up brOTK and I won that one too. I was sold.

I think R2P2 would’ve been an equally good choice this weekend. I think it’s slightly stronger vs. Vehicles, as Aayla/Rey needs to rely heavily on CQA in that matchup where cards like Suppression Field and Honor Guard, especially recurring those with Docking Bay (note: choose your battlefield vs. vehicles) can really break the game open. Those cards are also really strong vs. Sabine. The Sabine and Vehicles Matchups are a little tougher for Aayla/Rey, but also are winnable. I was 1-0 vs. each in Swiss, and against Sabine especially, my middle middle strategy was instrumental. My Sabine opponent sold out their entire hand to kill Rey in round 2 before her dice resolved. He used all his dice and essentially his entire hand (I got the read that he had no mitigation), and my Heirloom redeployed, I stuck a Light Bow on Aayla, and she was able to easily finish off Sabine. Aayla vs. Yoda, even once Yoda had two guns, wasn’t an issue. My tanking and mitigation can handle two dice, and he was stuck unable to Easy Pickings.

Beyond that, the Profitable Connections is gross. Being able to always start with a 3-cost upgrade, and sometimes two, 2-cost upgrades, makes the deck fairly insane. With Reaping the Crystal and a single Resource resolve I can have some explosive starts, getting a weapon on each of my characters, making target priority impossible. I’m never sad to take resources early, because my tankiness can take me into the mid-game easily, and going into that mid game way ahead on board state makes my deck crush. Any round that I can roll three dice out with my first action allowing me to Guard or Force Misdirect, while I take time to put upgrades on my other character, I feel amazing. Profitable, It Binds All Things, and Reaping The Crystal, in combination, allow me to break the board state that way and were clutch in a tournament whose swiss rounds were dominated by Yoda/Hondo. Combine that with the aforementioned benefit of having CQA and more blue dice for Force Misidrection (with special sides!) and that explains my choice to run Aayla over Poe2.

Rey 2 vs. Padawans

Joe and I went over this a bit in our Ride Home Vlog, but a bunch of people asked me at the tournament and afterwards why I chose Rey over two Padawans. Padawans offer a bit more health to start, at 24, and essentially get you two extra resources with Padawan abilities over the one resource from Profitable. Rey 2, with all of her shielding, and your strategic efforts to shield her up, make her health much higher than 11, basically equaling or surpassing the 3 health buffer Padawans give you. Also, Padawans are not difficult to kill. Obviously a well-timed Caution can do a ton of work, but it’s much easier to pick off a 7 health character than it is an 11 health one. Once one of those characters die, the potency of the deck drops off considerably, whereas Rey is a pain in the ass to kill, and only gets stronger once she’s fully loaded. It’s dangerous to fully load up a Padawan, there are only so many redeploy weapons to go around.

Rey can go one-on-one vs. almost any character in the game once she’s fully loaded, and that’s the other thing that brought me to her, is the Shoto package. The Shotos on Rey are absolutely insane, and no other character can take advantage so well as Rey can. I love that mechanic and being able to wipe out opponent’s shields and hit them for a damage is just so strong.

In the same vein, several people asked me why not Poe2 with Aayla, which has been done before with more regularity (when I had the idea for Aayla/Rey2, there was exactly one copy posted on SWDestinydb.com), but I didn’t want to run Aayla because she’s busted, I wanted to run Rey2, and the only question was who to best pair with her. Sadly there aren’t a ton of great options for her, but the two we have, Poe2 and Aayla are both really strong. As I wrote in my Size Matters article, I thought Rey was the answer, and I think I was, in a lot of ways, correct.

Tournament Recap

The Wins

Obviously my 28 blue card deck just needed to dodge Kylo, right?

My first round was against Kylo/Mother, it was a pretty interesting brew with Nightsister Coven, which hit me for two damage in two straight rounds. My opponent was a young kid, and he could’ve made my life a bit more difficult had he dropped a Force Illusion, but regardless I’ve had little trouble killing Kylo Round 2 with the deck, even through Force Illusion, and the deck has enough shielding and tankiness and solid removal that I don’t have a lot of trouble surviving into round 3.

My second round was against a blue hero 3 variant with one die Aayla, elite Yoda and a Padawan, he put a Heirloom on Padawan round one so I just ignored her and killed Yoda and Aayla. He didn’t have a lot of important cards like Force Misdirection and CQA so he just wasn’t well positioned for the mirror. I think two dice Aayla would be better than two on Yoda in this case, as he struggled to do damage.

I already talked about my Sabine/Yoda matchup earlier, so I’ll dive right into my two Boba 7th matchups. In both I was able to aggressively burn down Seventh Sister, but also in both controlling the battlefield was key. In my second matchup my opponent was able to roll first, I rolled next, he CQA’d me for FOUR, luckily the one card he didn’t hit was guard, and I was able to Guard three of his melee sides, 7 damage (two from Boba, one from Vibrocutlass). Obviously that was very fortunate, and the deck is obviously very good, but if I can keep control of the battlefield so that I can Force Misdirection or Guard those dice before they can CQA, or even CQA myself, then I’m going to win those games. Also, Hidden Motive is amazing vs. Vibrocutlass and Maul’s Lightsaber. I won both of these matchups.

I played vehicles vs. Cuenca, and shut down his Easy Pickings early by killing Ezra quickly. I had an awful misplay where I didn’t Force Misdirection three of his specials off the board, but was able to use it later on indirect damage for solid effect. In the end I was able to finally draw into one of my Guards while focusing on ramping so that the two Garbage Chutes he cast didn’t completely blow me out. I also got blown out by a first action Scruffy Looking Nerf Herder in round 1 to take my Lightsaber and I was stuck with just robes for the first round. Not terrible but not Ideal. The game was close and I would’ve won on time, but I was able to close it out in the last round regardless.

The Losses, and Why You Should Always Heal Immediately

My two losses in swiss were a result of bad Ancient Lightsaber play, and I think are more interesting than the matches in general. Against Rainbow 5, I got Bala into Synchronicity range, and two rounds in a row after killing my Aayla my opponent was able to mitigate all four of my dice. So I did literally nothing for two rounds. Miraculously I was still in a position to win with Rey vs. Mother. Rey had 7 damage and 2 shields. My opponent rolled trash, blank, 1R, Resource, and Focus. He’s out of Bait and Switches, so I decided to roll out to see if I can get lethal damage repped by Synchro plus damage and force him to play on the back foot. I should have played the Ancient first, because I should know that if anything goes wrong I need to heal immediately. What happens next makes me think that I’m not in Worlds Winning Game Shape – He proceeded to Frighten to strip my shields, All In to focus the blank to a 2R and put three damage into Rey, putting her to ten, unable to do anything before he killed me with Backup Muscle, had I played Ancient Immediately I could’ve healed, he would’ve used all his dice, and I would’ve been able to locate the damage enough to kill (I had rolled 5, one short of killing mother).

In the Yoda Hondo matchup, it took my wayyyy too long to kill anyone, and we were both decked. I had two cards in hand vs. his 3; both my cards were Ancients. I played one on Rey to loop it, and maybe should’ve played the other over an Heirloom, because the one in my hand got discarded. I did some damage and looped the Ancient to go into the next round, played the Ancient, but didn’t think he had a vandalize left. He vandalized the Ancient and I was milled. I was Greedy by rolling out with the Ancient, where the safe play is to put it on the top of my deck immediately so I don’t lose. There was no way he could damage me out, and I was in a good position to either Mill him myself or kill him with damage depending on my rolls. Instead, I lost the game from what I considered an unlosable position, especially since there was only a minute left and I would’ve won on time.

Top 8 Recap

For top 8, it was a rematch of my round 8 loss to Brian Jones, a local buddy, and Joe and I gathered a plan of just nuking Yoda as soon as possible. This worked perfectly and I 2-0’d Brian. The first game was close, the second was not. I don’t remember exactly what, but Brian made a pretty crucial mistake and a well timed Caution kept Aayla alive way longer than she should have been.

My top 4 match was against brOTK and it went pretty much as I expected. I probably should’ve lost game one after I failed to CQA for two. I rerolled an Aayla 1X instead of playing the CQA, and despite rerolling several dice, none came up on sticks. My opponent had the perfect hand of leadership, price of failure, boundless ambition, and despite a buttload of rerolls and untaps he rolled like absolute trash and couldn’t kill me. In game 2 I locked up my game play and won handily, but my opponent was a bit on tilt from the first game, exhausted from playing 11 games of Destiny in a row, and I was able to get 1 on 1 vs. Ciena and an Heirloom and closed it out no problem. I got to make a pretty nice play where his Seventh had 3 damage, and he played a second ancient on her, I had a nice reroll and Aayla focus to represent 9 damage so even one Ancient heal wouldn’t save him. Luckily he didn’t have one of his two Sound the Alarms which I kind of forgot he was running. It would’ve bene an elite play to hold the STA when I was already showing 6 damage, and I would’ve shit my pants had he done it.

Finals, Victory Formation

That’s it for today; 3,302 words is enough. There are lots of takeaways from my regional, running a deck that I came up with on my own, and capitalized on the things I’d wanted to do and have been writing about for the last few weeks. A few other people caught on at the same time, as Destiny Council mentioned it on their podcast, and XeroHour from Artificery said he had been running it too, but just know that if you know your deck well enough and understand the meta, as well as minimize crucial mistakes, you too can make final table of your regional and scoop to your friend and teammate.

Hyperscoops out.

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