Today we bring you a Nationals event top cut deck breakdown, but this time it’s a bit of a shocker in comparison to other lists. Thanks go to Loke D. Andersen for writing this for us (and you) and to those who had an active part in making this all possible. Let’s follow Loke on his methodology / reasoning on the deck.



(“D” Tax!)

Greetings good reader, and welcome to a different take on building Star Wars: Destiny decks.

An attempt to break the meta – how to build when the meta is all out aggro

I’ve played this game a fair amount, from the pre-release, up to and including my local national championship – a championship I sadly did not win, but did manage a top 4 finish.

To the best of my knowledge, I’ve managed to construct a deck with a decent 65/35 matchup against Kylo/FN, 60/40 against Cad/Phasma and BabyVader/Phasma, with a few distinct weaknesses – namely experience requirement and really bad matchups against Poe/Maz and mill. So, how did I get there?

Since the very early parts of Awakenings, the competitive side of Destiny has been dominated by aggro decks – sometimes with a bit of combo building on the side. This has resulted in a meta where going under the current aggro rewards players, while decks doing less than 8-10 damage per round gets the ‘fun, but not competitive’ label. The most common reaction to this, seems to be one out of three – adapting to it and playing it, not playing competitive, or relentlessly asking about nerfs to the current flavor of aggro. I took a different approach – to boldly go where no man… Wait, wrong Sci-Fi setting.

When we build decks for the current competitive meta, accept that the opponent will be able to dish out 8-10 damage/turn, slowing down slightly when the first character dies. Most opponents will also be able to use spot removal, countering some combo pieces – so build with this in mind. Furthermore, you will usually only have 4-5 actions before your opponent claims, so if you need the battlefield to function, you have to build as fast – or faster – than the meta.

Instead of doing the usual character pairing as the basis for a deck, I started the Spirit of Rebellion deckbuilding looking for combo pieces, wanting to build something a tad different. Aftermath and Attrition looked like the start of a deck, so I hastily built a Tie Pilot/Tie Pilot/Trooper/Trooper list, using squad tactics, redeploy weapons and the like. This deck is very decent, especially when it goes off, but suffers from inconsistency. It was terrible when the ‘engine’ wasn’t running, really slow when squad tactics didn’t appear, but had some potential. Aftermath being good is common knowledge now, but Attrition was surprisingly good in a four character list with two times Endless Ranks. Furthermore, aggro decks had a hard time chewing through the health.

This is where the fun started – what if I didn’t care about the speed of the deck? If I cut Squad Tactics and focused on high value cards, ignoring action speed? Supports all of a sudden becomes viable. Backup Muscle, Vehicles, Underworld connection were all fairly decent cards, just too slow for an aggro meta. This, in a shell featuring Bala-Tik/Guarvian/Trooper/Trooper gave me 31 HP, with 14 more available from endless ranks. That deck won me the two store championships I participated in, giving me high hopes for an expansion with a focus on supports.

The deck currently consists of three parts – engine, payoffs and control – each consisting of a few interchangeable parts.

So, the deck – 4 char Ramp:

Characters

Ciena Ree / Guarvian Enforcer / First Order Stormtrooper / First Order Stormtrooper

32 HP, Cienas ability is decent with the deck, but her selling point is 9 HP and two ressource sides on an 8 point character. Guarvian is durable with a good die, while Stormtroopers does what they do best – dish out a surprising amount of damage while enabling Endless Ranks and equivalent cards.

Battlefield

Weapons Factory Alpha – largely useless to most of the top decks, can ramp you turn one, enabling a 1 cost Hounds Tooth or a two cost Quadjumper

The Engine

2 x Aftermath – excellent cards for this deck, ‘punishing’ the opponent for killing your characters, enabling ramp.

2 x Hounds Tooth – even though it is unique, it is an excellent ramp card, with decent shield sides on top.

2 x Tech Team – my current version runs 18 supports, making Tech Team a very efficient ramp card. If you run more weapons instead of supports, this can be cut to include other ramp cards.

2 x Quadjumper – a very efficient card, especially when you do not care about action speed.

The Payoffs

2 x Endless Ranks – only useable on the Troopers, but killing your own Troopers with The Best Defence makes it very hard to play around this card.

1 x LR1K Sonic Cannon – an allstar throughout the tournament (aside from rolling four blanks in the semi final matchup – the traitor!), good ramp target, can exhaust troopers to pay for sides, should’ve brought two.

1 x Slave 1 – really good vehicle, should be rolled out early in case of special, does exactly what you expect it to

2 x First Order TIE Fighter – expecting Dug In as a card featured in quite a few of the top decks, I decided to bring two TIEs. Three damage sides and the special makes them fairly reliable.

1 x AT-DP – not as good as expected, included to destroy pesky supports, while doing decent damage.

1 x Z-95 Headhunter – nice little vehicle. Three damage sides, ressource side, cheap – was in doubt about this, but very much worth it.

2 x Attrition – does 3-5 damage for 1 cost when played early, very good card.

2 x Backup Muscle – still a good card, 3 unblockable damage for 1 ressource, with the added benefit of shutting down a certain combodeck.

The Control

2 x Doubt – allstar villain card, no need to explain this one

2 x Electroshock – spot a yellow character can make this a dead card, but removing the worst die sides for this deck, such as a Thermal Special, makes it worth it.

2 x Flank – the setup makes this unconditional remove a die for 1, very nice card.

2 x The Best Defence – has a lot of utility in this deck, removes important die sides, kills your troopers enabling Aftermath and Attrition triggers, makes this deck hard to play around.

2 x Drop Your Weapon – very specific tech against FN, easy to meet requirements here, and removing the first FN weapon feels so very good.

Possible changes to the deck includes adding redeploy weapons and Supply Line instead of Tech Team and some vehicles. Drop Your Weapon is only this relevant against FN decks specificly, if Cad/Phasma replaces Kylo/FN as the top deck, disarm is probably worth including. Cutting a TIE and the AT-DP for one more Headhunter and one more Sonic Cannon is quite possibly an improvement as well.

Mulligan strategy – you must get your engine into play as fast as possible. Mulligan hard for engine pieces, and play them as soon as possible. Discard sides or Close Quarter Assault ruins your day if you get greedy – don’t repeat my mistakes, just play your engine when you can.

I’ve had around 80 games with four character vehicle heavy lists, and even though I did practice Kylo/FN quite a bit before the Nordic Nationals, I stayed with this one, as I do believe the current meta favors it. All my testing shows an advantage against aggro, while being disadvantaged against Poe/Maz and milldecks hitting the hand. Thrawnkar mill has issues getting the last 5 card hand if Unkar dies, and Crime Lord is not the best card against this deck – I’d give this the edge against Thrawnkar. Currently, the best aggro decks smashes Poe/Maz (killing Maz turn one hurts that deck so much), leaving a spot for this deck in the meta.

Do give it a try, it’s a cheap deck to build, gives the player a lot of decisions throughout the game, creating very entertaining games. Do note, it takes a fair few games to learn, as it plays quite differently from anything you’re used to.

I hope the deck will be as fun for you as it have been for me.

Best regards,

Loke D. Andersen

Once again, we (TheHyperloops) want to thank everyone who helps make it possible to get you (the readers) information like this so that we can all learn and grow as a community. We love that people are so friendly and helpful all across the globe, so let’s continue making this game great!

~ HonestlySarcastc