The old tier list was prior to the rules changes, so I didn’t bother finishing up and decided to start over now that the meta has shaken out a bit more. Some decks have died, some decks are believed to have died, and a few busted out of the chains that held them back to rise to the top. You can think of this as a tier list or as a list for things you should have in your Gauntlet.

I have a firm belief that one deck in particular is in it’s own God Tier, but I talk too much about that and will omit it for today.

For anyone that is wondering, just rotate the “6” in the above picture 180 degrees and it should make sense. Points are had for anyone that understood the whole tier and deck inference just based on picture.

Tier 1 – Leading the Pack

These are the decks that I’d expect to see a lot of at events and they can wreak havoc when you aren’t prepared.

Poe / Maz – The Pilot + Grandma combo only lost fast hands, but between that and people learning how to play against it, it was pulled down from the heavens. The deck is still very strong and it will rear it’s ugly head at most events. The deck is relying on Wookie abuse (Planetary Uprising) to cover for it’s short comings and that still leaves a sour taste in the casual players mouth. You probably won’t stop hearing complaints about the opponent “claiming” two rounds in a row to kill them for 8 damage.

ePhasma / Trooper / X – There are a couple of different character combinations and when X is yellow, I think the deck is well suited for the meta. Playing this deck is similar to making each opponent a pseudo Palpatine. Huh??? What??? I’m referring to the deck splitting the damage between multiple characters and not letting you focus one down easily, which is what the damage always looks like when it’s Palp vs a multi-character deck. I believe that this is the best “fair” deck by a mile due to it not having any sort of cheat / free resource potential. It has some issues with Imperial Inspection, but someone will figure out how to best combat that match or just hope they don’t play against it / can squeak out a win.

Emo Kids – I’ve been playing it a lot this week for the Patreon subscriber videos and it has a great thing going for it. It operates similarly to the big guy / little guy 3 die decks, but it has 4 actual dice and since it is mono blue, if you miss Holocron, you can actually cast the upgrades on Kylo. Kylo special can be equivalent to a blank in some matchups, but with “Nines”, mono blue villain decks, and Poe Maz in the format he gets some decent big hits in, but just assume that the ability will net you 0 – 1 damage. Anakin has a lot of firepower and if he gets controlled multiple rounds in a row, it often gives you enough time to get a big upgrade on Kylo.

FuNKar – I’m separating this from the other Nines decks because it plays inherently different from the others due to the control supports being a major nuisance. I firmly believe this deck has the highest skill cap due to the decision tree being pretty insane. Once things get rolling, the decisions aren’t often that bad, but mulligans and Round 1 decisions will separate the “Pro’s” from the “Average Joe’s”. If Poe is the upsetting aggro deck that crushed casuals, then this is the table flip causing control deck that can seemingly lock people out of games. There will be a lot of meta hate being decked for fighting against this with “Sabotage” being solid vs this and Planetary decks. Slow the opponent down and get resources, then have Nine’s explode with damage.

Tier 1.5 – Nipping at the heels

These decks are missing just a little something from being Tier 1, but they can beat any deck and still have broken aspects to them.

Rey / X – This might seem like I’m taking the easy way out, but it seems like every Rey combination with a “Big Character” is made viable by 1.) Her action cheating doing harmful damage 2.) The “Big” being a strong character regardless of Rey. The combo’s include that of Luke, Obi, Han, Qui-gon, Poe, and the new addition Baze! Rey seems likely to be the premiere Cargo Hold battlefield user and I’ve seen it slow down Nines to great effect in testing. Each of those decks is inherently different from a core perspective, but the decks tend to be about protecting the big guy and cheat actions with Rey / Force speed. Expect broken plays to happen few and fair between.

Big Vader / X – This comes in the form of Royal or Tuskan Raider and is still a great deck, but losing fast hands made Vader damage very susceptible to removal and if that happens and you didn’t Holocron into a big upgrade, you can just lose the game. Force Strikes, Lightsaber Throws, Bait and Switch / No Mercy go a long way towards bursting a character out when you think you are safe. Royal plays a better protection roll, but Tuskan is one of the premiere Force Power ability holders and when he has a Mind Probe you just pray he misses.

FN-2199 – 2 Character Lists and/or 3 Dice Lists– Nines is amazing and does silly stuff, so he can pretty much “carry” any lineup as long as you have the appropriate Weapons. 3 character 4 dice versions tend to be better situated for the redeploy and resource gain aspects that the deck wants and has, so those would be tier 1 or better for me whilst a Round 2 dead Nine’s can be game over for these decks. 2 Character versions tend to have a partner who is high in damage (Aurra / Anakin / IG88), sustain (Dooku), or utility (Asaaj, Jango, Grievous) and all of them are considered dangerous.

Palpatine – I’m leaning towards him being Tier 2, but if you aren’t doing damage to him or mitigating his character dice, then he will win. He can beat any deck so it is why he is still in Tier 1.5 instead of being dropped down. You really have to resolve whatever sides you get with him or you can lose entire rounds of damage. The Best defense sets him back a lot and it can be seen from both Funkar and Phasma lists. At top levels, he seems very weak, but at locals, he tends to be a force to be reckoned with.

Tier 2 – On the next episode of ….

I don’t believe I missed anything else that belongs in the current Tier 1 or 1.5. Hero Mill pretty much died with the ammo belt chance, Villain Vader / Jabba (or Plutt) got hurt with the Fast Hands change since Vader can’t carry Blackmail + Fast hands any more, and I genuinely don’t like mill decks in the current meta so they won’t have a ranking. Rainbow Hero is omitted due to lack of testing. Feel free to beat me up in the comments for anything you don’t agree with. I don’t get to see most of the Facebook comments, so if you’d comment here, I’d love to hear from you and be able to respond!

GenCon prep continues for us here at TheHyperloops, and we release a lot of our testing for our Patreon subscribers. We’re posting bonus decklists, articles, and videos every single week for our $10 Tournament Prep subscribers, and we release a little bit of that to our $3 tier subscribers as well. The $10 tier also gets you our playmat after 2 months of support. You can click on the mat below to get taken straight to our Patreon page.

Thanks for reading and as always…

May the rolls be with you.

TheHyperloops Staff

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Instagram

Patreon