August 19, 2019

“Deck Teching” is a term that is thrown around a lot in card games, but the term may be unfamiliar to novice players. And, while many experienced players probably know what it is, that doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to do it.



Just to make sure we’re all speaking the same language, let’s get a working definition going here. You insert a “tech” card into your deck to target a particular meta or match-up. “Tech” is slang for technology. In other words, you are adding technology to your deck to help it against particular archetypes. Tech cards are not part of the core of your deck; the core of the deck is what makes your own deck work and gives it its identity. Tech cards are additional cards slotted around your core to shore up weak match ups or to boost your win rate against decks you expect to face a lot of.

The Tale of Darth Vader





I’m going to give a brief anecdote before moving into the nuts and bolts of teching a deck to help further illustrate what I mean. Flashback to the Across the Galaxy Meta, post-Snoke nerf. In the wake of Thrawn-Snoke’s dominance, a void suddenly existed in the meta. Vader/Greedo quickly established itself as a solid deck, and possibly the new public enemy number one. It had a favorable match upagainst most of the field; with Thrawn/Snoke no longer at full power and able to dismantle Vader’s game plan by pulling out key power cards like Rise Again, Friends in High Places, or the Price of Failure, Vader was free to run rampant. However, it wasn’t all fun and games; Mill still posed a threat to Vader. After all, a deck like Vader/Greedo often lives or dies by its rolls, and that’s the kind of deck that mill loves to punish.



Not to rehash ancient history, but I ultimately took Vader/Greedo to win a 58 person regional in Birmingham Alabama, and I believe a large reason for my success was teching properly for the meta. Specifically, I went in looking to skew two match-ups in my favor: mill and the mirror. Though I only played against one mill deck and didn’t face any mirrors until the top 4 and the finals, my tech choices helped in those matches and ultimately carried the day. Of course, in hindsight I realized I missed one big piece of anti-Vader technology (Prized Possession, anyone?), but the point is that outfitting your your deck with technology for the meta it will face is a very important part of deck construction.



“No matter what technical data they’ve obtained, this station is now the ultimate power in the universe.”



Admiral Motti was extremely confident in the Death Star. He believed it to be unstoppable, no matter how prepared the rebels were for it. Of course, we all know how that turned out for him!

So how do you tech a deck? Step one is to make a read of the meta. After all, the Rebel Alliance couldn’t have devised a way to destroy the Death Star without first studying the plans.

What kind of decks do you expect to face? Keep in mind that while part of that is knowing popular builds, it doesn’t just mean specific decks, such as “Jabba/Wat/Sentinel” or “Ewoks.” Being able to see the forest as well as the trees is just as important. Are you in a meta that is made up of mostly aggro? Middle/Middles? Rampy support decks? What about mill?

“The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force.”



For the purposes of this article, I am going to stick with the theme and go with a Darth Vader deck, and how I would tech it for the current post-Gencon meta. Full disclosure: I am NOT endorsing Darth Vader for NOVA. In fact, though I think that Darth Vader is a solid gatekeeper and can win games, I do not think he is in a position right now to take home a major event. However, because current red Vader decks have so many options in how to build them, I think the deck illustrates the teching process quite well.





Above is what I’d currently consider “core” for a Red Vader Build. These are the cards that the deck is built around, either due to their their power level or their strong synergy with Vader and what the deck wants to do. As I mentioned Red Vader is actually a VERY flexible deck, and you may disagree on the core, and that’s ok – but, I am going to be working from the above list for this explanation.



Now, there are a PLETHORA of cards that you may think belong in this deck. Whether its the “other” zero cost removal option of A Sinister Peace, a strong upgrade in Maul’s Lightsaber, or something like Reach the Stars to supplement the burst potential of Seize the Day, they are all valid options. However, at the end of the day a deck is 30 cards, and there’s a lot of tech we want to jam in.

“Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!”



When the Rebel Alliance attacked the second Death Star above Endor, the Death Star was able to fire its Superlaser despite not being complete. That is the core of any deck. But now, we add the extra features.

What are the heavy hitters in the current meta? Well, there are Ewoks for sure. There are also the three main variants of Hero Droids, and Rainbow Villain (eJabba/Wat/Sentinel). Reylo is also floating around, but for the most part I believe it to be a step behind the first three archetypes I mentioned.

Going Wide

In deciding how to target the meta, I’m going to look at what the first three of those decks have in common. The first thing I notice is that they are all wide; none of them are middle/middles or big/little. So, the first step of developing the technology for the current meta should be viewed through that lens.



Vader already does well against “vertical” decks in that he can smack down a character harder than anyone. His core also contains a built-in tool for wide decks, that being Fear and Dead Men. However, with wide decks being most of our targets, two cards out of thirty doesn’t seem like its enough. So, one of the first things we should do is add Sudden Impact.







Sudden Impact is sort of like a baby Fear and Dead Men. Essentially, it costs half as much to do half as much damage. You can use it On Vader’s 3 melee side to deal 2 across the board just as well as you can on the 4 melee side. While maybe it doesn’t always feel good to turn 4 into 2 across the board (and it certainly is situational where you’d want to do that), at least you’re removing and not resolving, meaning you’re not also going to be paying for the 4 side. The card also lets you turn your First Order Stormtrooper 1 or 2 ranged side into an “area of effect” 1 damage, or, if Battle Droid fits your fancy, lets you make his indirect far more effective. After all, if it hits everyone, you can even snipe a kill with it unexpectedly!

Strengthening our Defenses

The next thing we have to consider is how our opponent’s decks hurt us. One thing that stands out as it pertains to Ewoks and Droids is they like to do damage that we can’t interact with. Ewoks simply activate or play cards like Ewok Ambush and rain down indirect damage on us without giving us a chance to mitigate any of the damage through removal. The droids attack in a different manner, but to similar effect – they action cheat out and smack us before we can remove their dice.





Unfortunately, villains are much more limited than their hero counterparts in dealing with incoming damage outside of direct removal. Heroes sport many more ways to gain shields, heal, or otherwise remove damage without removing dice. However, one tool that is available to villains is Riot Shield. Under normal circumstances, I am not a huge fan of this card outside of a trooper-centric deck. However, in this meta, eating 2 of the 3 damage R2D2 does when he rolls out in conjunction with C3PO, or blocking 2 out of the 3 damage Ewoks deal you with Glider Attack or a claim on Arena of Death can be quite good.



Another option available to villains for non-removal damage blocking is Bubble Shield, and that card is certainly a consideration against Ewoks. However, because it is not as effective against many other match ups, I don’t know that it makes the cut. Along the same lines, if we were targeting and teching for just ewoks, a card like Conflicted could be interesting – it either does half an Ewoks HP for one resource, or gives us 2 sweet, life-saving shields. However, I do not think that card is overall worth the investment of a card slot and a resource, but your mileage may vary.



Bypassing Their Defenses

Now that we now what we’re going to do to make their lives harder, how are we going to get around what they are doing to make our lives more difficult? In other words, what do we know about the removal packages of our enemies?



The first thing that strikes me is the current meta is all about hyper-efficient removal. Tacster’s Jabba deck that made the finals of Gencon, for example, ran only zero cost removal cards (you can’t get much better value than a return for no resource investment). Ewoks and Hero Droids both run Easy Pickings, which is extremely efficient, and some of the greedier builds of Satine droids run blow out removal such as Entangle or Beguile. Ewoks also run their own blowout removal in the form of Our Situation is Desperate.



Darth Vader has some of the strongest built in defense-bypassing there is with his Power Action. However, once you are facing the kind of hyper efficient and blowout removal we expect to face, even his power action is not always enough – especially when you consider that with all of the resource denial that the droids can do, you may often be relying on not much more than your character dice. So what do we do?





The first decision I made was to choose Battle Droid to be Vader’s partner instead of a First Order Stormtrooper, which allows me to run Retribution. Retribution strongly discourages your opponent from removing your character dice as it allows you to not only roll them back in with Vader’s power action, but also deal damage to them when they remove your dice. And, if they do happen to have stacked removal to remove your dice multiple times, they are taking even more damage! While dealing 1 damage may not be as satisfying as smacking them for 4, something is definitely better than nothing!







As mentioned previously, action cheating cards that let you burst damage unexpectedly also do well to bypass defenses. We already run two Seize the Days as part of our core package, and adding one or two Reach the Stars can benefit in a different yet similar way. You could also consider a card like Tactical Mastery, but the spot red requirement is kind of dicey when our red character sports 6 health and we are going to use him to soak damage with The Best Defense… as well as assign indirect damage to him.

Disrupting their Game Plan

Something the droid decks in particular like to do is disrupt our game plan – literally! Chopper Droids in particular love to make you play the game with no resources by using their first action to take away your resources via action cheating combo plays with R2D2 and C3PO. So, in order to play the game on fair footing, we need ways to make our money back. Vader naturally is pretty strong at this due to his 2 resource side, but depending on the game state resolving one of his massive dice for money and not damage can feel pretty bad at times. Luckily, there are a few cards we can add to help get around our opponent’s plan of denying us resources, namely Respite and Fresh Supplies. There are other options out there too of course, but Respite works great with the low value die of the Battle Droid, and Vader’s speed and high percentage chance to win the battlefield roll off makes Fresh Supplies a good choice.



Another thing to consider is what we are spending resources on. Not counting defensive options like Riot Shield, we currently have have two 5-cost supports in Vader’s Fist, Two 3-cost upgrades in Darth Vader’s Lightsaber, and two 2-cost upgrades in Niman Mastery. Knowing we may be operating at a resource deficit should discourage us from going too heavy and encourage us to run cheaper upgrades as well. As such, a card like Count Dooku’s Lightsaber is likely a better choice in this meta than a heavier card like Maul’s Lightsaber.





As to our other targets, Ewoks in particular rely in large part on events to boost their damage output. That’s why a card like Probe is a powerful weapon against them – the fact that it’s a strong card generally that can ferret out removal from others too certainly doesn’t hurt.

The Secret Weapon

Also known by some as “spice,” any well-teched deck should also have something that is a bit unusual but that works with its core – something that your opponent may not expect that can help you edge out a win. In this case, I’ve chosen Draw Closer.

Draw Closer is a card that can catch an opponent off guard. When coupled with Niman Mastery, it serves to give you extra burst damage, and regardless of whether you have Niman Mastery or not, it allows you to get extra value out of your dice. This kind of spike damage can be especially useful against Jabba/Wat/Sentinel, where killing Jabba or Wat early on (Depending on the board state) can strongly detour their path to victory.

The Finished Product – a “Technological Terror”

And there you have it: a deck that that has expanded on its own core in order to better adapt to a hostile meta. While Vader may not cut it right now, building him – or any other deck – in such a way to account for what it will be facing will put you in a better position than charging in blindly.

WRITTEN BY:

MOOPHSTIO

