While we’re only scratching the surface of Convergence Standard – that part of the meta where nobody is playing much mitigation, and even when they have it their not even casting it so that they can see how their deck “runs.” Another thing I’ve seen in the games I’ve been playing is that people have been very aggressive with their battlefield choice. By aggressive I mean that people are choosing battlefields that have a major impact on the game, either because their strategies are built around them and/or effects that are so powerful that they can actually hurt the person who brought that battlefield to the game. Today I want to take a look at some of the issues I’m seeing with the aggressive battlefield choices of my opponents, and remind people as to why I think taking a low-risk battlefield is more advantageous.

How we make our choices

The first thing we take a look at when making a battlefield choice is how often we’re even going to be able to claim and/or use the battlefield ability. Right now there aren’t many fast decks expected to be really fast, so playing a deck that is quick to claim can be a huge advantage. I think two-wide mill is a great example of a deck that is able to claim very consistently. That’s why I’m surprised that the Leia/Lando decks I saw on stream at the UK GQs and posted on SWDestinyDB use Occupied City as the battlefield when Command Center can hit so much harder when games go to three rounds. Command Center is scarier for our opponents as well and might lead to us getting the shields more often, which is also probably fine.

The second decision point we have is whether or not we win the roll-off. A good example of this is taking a look at L-Mag’s Leia/Boushh list that he posted on YourDestiny.DK. As DestinyCouncil Members are wont to do, L-Mag posted yet another list built around SPEEED and their favorite card Impulsive (they must be struggling with Swiftness rotating out). I really liked where Luke’s head was at using Mean Streets to set up these crazy end of round plays where you can Flee From Justice or Snuff Out to remove a bunch of dice or First Aid to clear four health off of Padme on a claim in round 1. This whole strategy piqued my interest quite a bit, and then I loaded up a tweaked version of the deck and went to roll for the battlefield and realized I had absolutely no shot at winning the battlefield roll. Once my opponent realized that Leia was a scoundrel he quickly gave me the shields. RIP.

The Double-Edged Battlefields

Mean Streets from our above example is a great double-edged battlefield to talk about right now. For one, there are a ton of scoundrels out there right now, so even if we take Mean Streets in a deck with a scoundrel there’s a good chance we’ll be facing one as well. That means that our opponent’s will be able to tick up the token on Mean Streets possibly making a blowout play if they can steal a claim away.

While there aren’t a ton of blowout events, being able to cast a big removal play like Into the Crosshairs could really shut down a round. Sometimes it’s a much safer play to protect ourselves by claiming if it means we don’t lose if there’s something we can draw to bail us out. Force Illusion may be gone but Bacta Therapy could be that card in several decks, as could First Aid, Mend, and Field Medic.

Salt Flats is another Tribal Based battlefield that a lot of people are leaning on that I think is a huge double-edged sword right now. There are a lot of leaders out there, and that means if we bring Salt Flats to the game we could end up getting our own dice blanked a fair amount, and otherwise we are hooking up our opponents with a free focus if they claim. Salt Flats is a great way to deal with Watto, but it can be used against our own Watto as well. People keep plopping Salt Flats across from me and I’m never sad to see it.

While I haven’t seen anyone run it yet, Fighting Pit is crazy!

I dunno what to say about this thing. If you take this battlefield you have giant stones and I love you. It’s always scary rerolling a big die of an opponent’s but if you can get a kill shot more power to you!

The Safer Battlefield Choices

I think Convergence gave us some really safe battlefield choices. Watto’s Shop changes all of our supports and upgrades into Quadjumpers. That’s not an effect many people are looking for, but it could help us if we’re trying to draw into a Fist or something really expensive. There’s so little redeploy now that I could see ditching an upgrade on a character that we know is about to die to hopefully use those resources the following turn. This is a pretty niche use, but that’s the kind of thing we want to see in a battlefield that can’t blow us out.

I really like Military Camp right now if you are running multiple characters with the same subtype. There are a few ways to do this but Troopers seems to be the strongest, and not just because you get the free reroll off military camp. The cards that work with Trooper subtype are just so strong. Measure for Measure, Riot Shield, and even Imperial Officer are such amazing plays for a Trooper deck. But, as a bonus there aren’t a lot of decks that can blow you out on the other side of the table. Enfys/Watto is a little scary, and there are a few double Jedi decks, but blue hero isn’t very scary at all.

While Deathwatch Hideout is more of the same in terms of what we’ve had access to between Moisture Farm and Outer Rim Outpost, General Grievous’s Lair is actually kind of fire if we’re running a Grievous deck. While Grievous decks might take a bunch of actions if paired with Aphra, we are probably pretty happy with either choice our opponent makes when we claim. Conversely, we probably have a lot of health in a Grievous deck if we aren’t getting early claims (it’s possible we want to set this up to claim late and get the direct damage), and don’t much mind taking an indirect either on our Bubble Shield or on a droid with Modular Frame.

A Word About Theed

This card is still really good, especially in Snoke/Watto/Fost. For one thing, Snoking Watto’s die gets us to Five Resources, exactly enough to play Vader’s Fist. But how many times have we seen people aggressively drop a Fist without a resource to pay for the costed sides. Theed takes care of that by giving us an extra resource if needed, even if we have to use a Fist die on the first or second roll to do it. Ideally we don’t, but that extra resource is clutch. We can often find a die we don’t need to resolve, or wish had just rolled a resource. Having this battlefield that many people are downplaying right now because of a deserved nerf plays right into our hands in a way that we can abuse it.

That’s all for today, good luck choosing your battlefields!

Thanks for reading,

BobbySapphire

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