As you can tell by the title I came in 2nd place at the Atlanta Regionals with Rey Aayla (which I will be referring to as Raayla). Although I am a native Atlantan, I reside in Birmingham, Alabama. I started playing during Empire at War, and this was the 2nd regional I had attended, the first being the one in Birmingham which I Top-8’d with Jango Phasma.

Finding the Rey

I am a big fan of villains, and was actually planning on taking Boba 7th Sister to this event. However, two things put me off this. The first is that while play testing on TTS I got absolutely crushed by a variant Raayla, which made me realize that Bobby Sapphire’s Raayla was a hard counter to this deck. Generally I do not like playing decks that have polarized matchup’s that occur frequently. The second reason was for meta reasons. I had done some scouting and asked some Atlanta natives what their meta looked like and they all had said “Boba 7th everywhere”.

I figured the meta should either shape out to be field of Boba 7th’s (the unchanged meta) or a field of Raayla’s (a counter meta). This lead me to play Raayla at the the event. At worst it would give me several 50-50 mirror matches (I’ll get back to how I hedged this percent towards me in my deck write up) and at best I would face several favored matches vs Boba 7th. It ended up definitely being the latter, half of the top 8 ended up being on Raayla.

I had around six days to prep so I did some playtesting with a good buddy of mine, and some online with strangers. [As a side note, if any of you reading this don’t have well developed meta’s, TTS is a great place to do playtesting.] After playing vs a wide range of meta decks I discovered that Raayla was not a complete dog to any meta deck with the exception of Obi Maz, which I decided would not be popular enough to put me off the deck.

The Deck

Deck Breakdown

The x2 of: Ancient Lightsaber, Force Illusion, Guard, Heirloom Lightsaber, Caution, and Hidden Motive are auto includes in hero blue, and not really worth talking about. If you own them, run them. I’ll talk about some of the other pieces though.

x2 Handcrafted Light Bow – Some Raayla’s seemed to have cut one. I think the card is too good vs the currently popular shield heavy decks to do that.

x1 Rey ‘s Lightsaber – In my opinion the second best weapon in the list behind Shoto. 2 shields on Rey in addition to redeploy made several opponents audibly sigh turn 1 and 2.

x2 Shoto Lightsaber – Already a strong weapon, but Rey’s passive that makes it ping pushes it over the edge.

x2 Close Quarters Assault – This card is just brutal, if you can hit 3 or more cards do it. It is particularly strong vs OTK 7th and Vehicles. Hitting a Sabine’s hand late past turn 2 is also strong as they tend to hoard the unholy trinity of Second Chance, Hyperspace Jump, and Never Tell me the Odds.

x1 Decisive Blow – Definitely a flex slot but definitely worth trying. Incredible at breaking decks with a single loaded up character. This was the card I ran to push a Raayla mirror from being 50-50 to slightly in my favor. Past turn 3 and 4 you tend to have resources piled up and characters are having 5 die slugfests. This card makes usage of those extra resources and can negate nearly the other player’s entire turn. If you are not in a situation where this will or even can happen (e.g. I discarded it in a mirror match to get better value out of my dice) pitch it to reroll and don’t sweat it. This is the only card that is dead in some matchups and I can live with a 1/30 being extremely powerful in some games, and having no text box in others.

x2 Force Misdirection – Mass removing melee sides for 1 resource is part of why you counter Boba 7th. Very strong vs the majority of the field in general, the primary exceptions being Hondo and Sabine decks. Still functional vs them but subpar.

x1 Lightsaber Pull – Technically a flex spot, but I would not recommend cutting it.

x2 Overconfidence – Some people split this with mislead but I think the power of messing with an additional die in addition to removing one is too good not to run both.

x2 Reaping The Crystal – This decks win condition is killing people with upgrades. Aayla’s and Rey’s die sides can’t get there alone. You might think this card is cuttable, but I assure you it is not, the ramp is too important. Reaping a turn 1 Rey’s Lightsaber while having a resource to for the pay side or to threaten use for removal is the dream.

x2 It Binds All Things – Crucial for any blue deck with a ramp into weapons win condition.

x1 Synchronicity – This is the card I was the least sure about, but the burst from hand was welcomed.

I took the opposing battlefield from each opponent when possible, with the exception of the Hero Vehicle players. Rey always got both shields, except in two situations both of which I split shields (Rey is always getting a shield to threaten a turn 1 ping). One was vs villain blue to make it harder for a turn 1 Maul’s Lightsaber power action. The second, was when I was going to have a reaping into Rey’s Saber. The reason for Rey getting both shields instead of a default split or Aayla getting 2 is generally speaking she is my primary threat, and Aayla is my support/ finisher.

In most situations Rey is equipped with the Shoto due its synergy with her and usually gets to wear the redeploys as she will usually be focused first. If not she will be getting value from her ping so the diversion is welcomed. There are situations were my opponents go after Aayla first instead of Rey, and in those situations Aayla is handed the redeploy weapons over Rey, but that didn’t happen as often. I did frequently give Aayla the Lightbow for two reasons: 1) She can chain into it with her special vs the two required if it is Rey who has it (tempo is important in Destiny). 2) The non redeployable Lightbow on the lower health (and frequently less shielded) Aayla makes for a juicy target and it can serves as a diversionary damage trap away from Rey. If they start focusing Aayla I would just start laying down those force Illusions, caution, mitigate, etc. while Rey is pinging away at their life total.

The Tournament

(This is all to the best of my memory, so if you played me and I missed something I apologize). If you need a reference for the archetypes check out The Gauntlet.

Round 1 Boba 7th Sister

This game was pretty textbook. I put shields on, I ramped 3 drop weapons, and I mitigated dice. It didn’t help that he struggled to find damage sides late either.

1-0

Round 2 Raayla

I had actually not played the mirror yet, but I had a good idea on how to handle it. I took a slow controlling approach, and aggressively attacked his hand early which caused him to discard all of his weapons. Having the weapon advantage that created kept me ahead throughout the game for the most part. There were a few swings here and there but in the end I believe the fact that I started several weapons ahead was responsible for the favorable game state when time was called, which resulted in a win. My Aayla was undamaged while his had 4 damage on it (he conceded to me before we had to actually use tiebreakers).

2-0

Round 3 Hero Vehicles



I remembered this opponent from my last regional, as he had given me my only loss in the swiss via villain vehicles. I have a fairly strict kill order against hero vehicles: Rose first, then Ezra, and Aayla last. I shielded away his indirect damage, was able to keep Rey’s damage on activation live due to being able to put indirect on Aayla, ramped into weapon damage and aggro’d him down before he could hit critical mass. He wouldn’t admit it but some of his rolls were sub par, although I did have a healthy amount of mitigation to answer some of his better rolls (Hidden motive on Rose naming specials is a great play vs that deck). I had a dirty synchronicity play vs him, where it appeared that if he resolved Republic’s Cruiser on Rose it appeared she would live through damage on board. I resolved 2 ranged damage (Lightbow’s second side) putting her to 2 health remaining, while 2 single melee sides were showing. He used the cruiser special to give her two shields and then I synchro’d her removing Rose, and effectively the cruiser die. In my opinion the average game vs a vehicles will have me reaching critical mass for lethal about a turn earlier than the vehicle player, and this matchup seems overall favored.

3-0

Round 4 Obi-Maz

This is my worst match up in my opinion. He won the roll off, and took my battlefield, giving Maz both shields. For reasons I can’t fully explain, after looking at 10 health Maz and 12 health Obi and my live copy of synchronicity I decided that I would try to kill Obi first. I ended up getting there, but the cost was too high, Aayla was gone and Rey was dead to Maz rolling out any focus or 2+ damage on her weapon (I think it was Heirloom?). I was in a situation where I could have ancient healed to safety if she missed on the roll out, but as expected she didn’t and I lost a close game. It is worth mentioning that it would not have been even slightly close if I had not used decisive blow on Obi-Wan late in the game. That card is a house versus this deck and it nearly gave me the chance to run away with the game by ancient looping and Shoto shielding.

3-1

Round 5 R2P2

This was vs Jay from The Double Blanks. I had not really anticipated having to play against this deck, but I was familiar with the general style of the deck due to its presence in Empire at War. I burned through Poe’s defenses too quickly for him and Rey ended up falling to a series of very hot rolls. This was a surprisingly fast game time wise, I don’t actually remember much else. [Fun fact: I am now responsible for eliminating both members of the podcast now from regionals top 8 contention. Chris lost to me in the final round in Birmingham and ended up just outside top 8. Just childish if you ask me.]

4-1

Round 6 Hero Vehicles

This poor guy had one of the worst draws I have ever seen. It didn’t help that I CQA’d him for 4 and then 3 cards turns 2 and 3 either. His first vehicle was a turn 3 Eta-2 at which point I had a fully equipped Rey and at least one other weapon if not two on Aayla. The game ended with only the Eta-2 and a Resistance Bomber, in addition to an R2D2 that was never able to salvage the board state with the card draw from his special. He also never really had removal, or pressure in general to be honest. I basically just pitched for damage the whole time and systematically killed his guys while really facing no threat. He seemed pretty demoralized after that loss, which I understand, as those were some really bad beats. He top 8’d anyways which was great to see.

5-1

Round 7 Sabine/Ezra

This guy was very nice but unfortunately for him I just pounded the daylights out of Sabine with damage before he could really do anything. After that it was just a naked Ezra vs a Rey and Aayla firing on all cylinders. At one point he played a Scramble to try to pseudo Sound the Alarm my damage in an attempt to save Sabine, but actually ended up rolling me into even more damage.

6-1

My record combined with strength of schedule (my only loss also top 8’d) placed me in 3rd. There was some drama around the 8th and 9th place but as 3rd seed it had no effect on me and honestly I didn’t want to be around for it so I left until pairings were ready.

Top 8

Quarter Finals vs Raayla



Game 1

I won the roll and took his battlefield, and ended up having 6 shields going into turn 2 with a good weapon load as well. My memory is fairly spotty on this game, but I remember it was a pretty clean win for me. 1 – 0

Game 2

The second game was memorable. My opponent took my battlefield and opened on Jedi Robes, and this time he had 6 shields by turn 2. We battled back and forth, and at one point I rolled Rey and 2 upgrades in, all sides showing melee. My opponent Misdirected all of them away and I felt like I was done for, but I slugged on regardless. Two turns after that I drew into my Decisive Blow and returned his Rey the favor. Few turns later I got a four die misdirection off on him and now the game was no longer completely hopeless. Both our Rey’s were loaded up, but his had redeploy weapons, and mine did not. Eventually his Rey finished of mine off with an Obi’s Lightsaber special, and my Aayla returned the favor. Now my Aayla had a single weapon on her compared to his fully equipped Aayla. At this point I was ready to concede just to save time for the next round, but I figured while my chance for winning was low, it wasn’t low enough to pack it in. My Aayla became fully equipped during next turn, thanks to the 7+ resources I had sitting around, and eventually started pumping out damage. We got to the point where we each had 4-5 cards between deck and hand. I looked and saw his Aayla had enough damage on it (I think 5) that if I claimed immediately he wouldn’t be able to finish off my Aayla, and if I rolled well I could kill her and finish the match, so I abandoned the two die I still had in the pool and claimed. It wasn’t the best odds but when you are down like that you need to take a risk to spike it back your way. We untapped, drew, and I rolled in exactly enough damage to kill his Aayla even if he used his Ancient Lightsaber to heal. You can call that luck, but I gave myself the chance to be lucky instead of just losing. 2 – 0

Semi-Finals vs Sabine/Ezra

Game 1

This game I focused on Sabine and went full aggro, pitching most removal spells and ramp cards to find damage. He was able to kill Rey with a parting blow, but it took nearly all of his dice to do it, and Aayla was able to kill Sabine off without threat from Ezra. The unequipped Ezra stood no chance vs Ayla and we were on to the next game. 1 – 0

Game 2

Ezra took just enough indirect damage early to make him my first target. I p refer to kill Sabine first but in cases like these where I only need to do 3-4 damage to kill Ezra, I will go ahead and kill him to remove his two die along with the ability for my opponent to use cards like Impersonate, Into the Garbage Chute, and Vandalize. I chewed through a Second Chance, but the other one (as well as a Never Tell Me the Odds) had fallen to two Rey discard sides. His Impersonate had no target to move damage to and so Sabine had nowhere to run. The last turn of the game I hit Sabine with my Decisive Blow and crippled my opponent’s ability to do anything dangerous. At this point I took a good minute to think and was able to determine that he was unable to Second Chance, Hyperspace Jump, or use any removal. I pitched my entire hand to find the last 5 points of damage I needed while Sabine was vulnerable, and got there. 2 – 0

Finals vs Boba/7th

Game 1

This Boba 7th Sister was about 4-6 cards off of the stock list, and was VERY good at punishing hands light on removal. It also ran the (in my opinion) superior Ewok Village over B’Omarr Monastery, which can be bad news for my deck. I put up a decent fight, but I drew maybe a single removal spell in the form of Hidden Motive and had to face tank a Boba 7th deck. I managed to kill 7th sister but Boba finished me off easily. 0 – 1

Game 2

Turn one Boba picked up a Vibroknife, which made him my priority target. There is a chance you are still supposed to go after 7th Sister there, but I felt comfortable going after Boba in that situation unless something terrible happens. Unfortunately, something terrible did happen and my opponent played a turn 2 Maul’s Lightsaber, which caused me to switch targets. I was able to present lethal damage for 7th several times in the next few turns, but my opponent had just the right amount of removal to stop me from ever getting her down, and a newly equipped Shoto was making her effective health pool grow. Aayla soon quickly fell to my opponent’s onslaught and I was left with only a modestly equipped Rey. A few turns later my opponent finished me off with a nasty play that involved focusing a Maul’s Lightsaber to the +4 side and matching it with a 1 off of Vibroknife in order to bypass my Force Illusion and do exact Lethal to Rey. I still think this deck is a solid counter to Boba 7th, but, hey, things happen. 0 – 2

My finals opponent Dominic Patton was very skilled and a great guy. Very deserving of the spot at World’s and I wish him the best!

I’d like to give a shout out to all my friends who hyped me up and play tested with me for this event. In closing I will say that Rey2 Aayla is a VERY strong deck and if you put in some reps, it can do well vs any field you might face. Hope you didn’t mind the long read!

-Lake Quitt aka Crawwurm

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