The current standard Star Wars Destiny format is far from solved but I have a good idea of what the most important cards of the format are. When building decks there are a few cards I look to build around plus taking the results from this past weekend I have devised this top 10 list. I’m going to cheat a little and have a list of honorable mentions so I don’t get roasted in the comments. I used our own BobbySapphire’s article and I Rebel’s weekly results page as a reference for many of the points I am discussing, if you haven’t read them check them out.

Honorable Mentions:

Mother Talzin – I worked on so many Mother Talzin decks this past week and to be honest I didn’t work on Spooky Dooky which may be the best Talzin deck still since it seemed to have performed pretty well. That’s slightly exciting but with resources producing so much more damage now with cards like Vader’s Fist and readying loaded vehicles mother’s restriction feels more impactful. On top of that since we are living in a 2 character world Rift Valley isn’t nearly as good – this is exemplified by Charloe’s New Hampshire top 4 list where they chose to play Theed, shout out to them for keeping the dream alive.

Lando Calrissian – Lando made appearances in all of the regional top 8s beside the one in Hawaii. Unfortunately, he didn’t make any finals so he might just disappear from the metagame. When paired with Wedge the chance to win the roll off is very high which is certainly worth noting. That pairing was played by HonestlySarcastc at his regional and was brought by others independent of his influence. I think he’s unclear of how good it is and if EMP Grenades become a standard way to deal with vehicles then it will keep Lando from being highly influential. Lando’s price is at 13 on ebay and Game Haven which seems like an ok buy but nothing exceptional.

Tobias Beckett – He only appeared in one deck but that deck did win a regional and he does guarantee that you will hit the 3rd resources needed for Firespray. I had tested Tobias Mom with Vader’s Fist and his gun and it was good when it hit those things but lacked power when it didn’t. I think my list could have been better and I think Tobias could break out in other archetypes. He is currently only around 8 dollars on ebay and on Game Haven but could certainly be more if any of his decks become standard.

10. Snoke, Supreme Burrito

Snoke still managed to put up some numbers but I feel he was partially underrepresented because people were into trying new things. Leai Yoda being an expected player made playing three wide Snoke decks somewhat of a gambit although if Hawaii is any real representation of how match ups go you could see a resurgence of SAD to combat Vader decks. I can’t say that for sure since the deck that played SAD in the finals was Vader/Mom! but I can see SAD being good vs TTB if they don’t draw Fear and Dead Men.

#9. Leia Organa – Boushh

Leia was on everyone’s mind going into this weekend and it showed by the lack of 3 character decks. She didn’t perform that well since she was an expected threat which brings me to my point – she won’t be good if everyone is expecting her but since there were few new “stock” decks to test against a lot of things were thrown at her, namely, Vader and AR decks. Vader not care about baby thermal, Vader laugh at baby thermals. Baby Thermals are insignificant to the power of The Force.

Once people start focusing on Vader and AR decks then Leia will spike a regional but disguises don’t work if they know you are coming.

#8. Han Solo,Indipendent Hotshot

Han had a mini breakout this past weekend and even though he didn’t win anything he certainly made his presence felt. Last week during our testing it became apparent how good Han was as he was appearing in our villain, hero and Qi’Ra decks. Once things get settled one of those decks will probably be “the” Han deck and maybe there will be multiple Han decks that are viable. One of the things that makes Han so good is that he can play Theed and use its extra action clause to get around pesky disrupts. if you didn’t pick up your Hans already you missed out since he spiked from an average of 10 last week to his current of 25 on Ebay. Our sponsor has them for 23 which is something to consider if you are in the market.

#7. Hyperspace Jump

With Qi’ra villains now have access to Hyperspace Jump. On top of that Han paired with a hero has also become somewhat standard. Jumps are also very important to both Leia and Cassian/Jyn decks and is a big reason to be very fast in this format. I also wonder if its time for Obi-Maz to come out from the shadows. That’s certainly would be the fastest deck and capable of taking down a single character rather quickly.

#6. Yoda, WIzened Master

This is influenced by Leia and the Shadowcaster deck that won but it will also be a player from mill decks that were suspiciously absent from the metagame this week. I suspect Vader was the reason for the abscence of mill since you can’t really reliably remove his dice. Going 3 wide mill is hard in a world full of Leia.

#5. Force Speed

It comes from Yoda and Vader. It still, as HS puts its, “wrecks people”. Removal is so much worse when Force Speed is involved.

#4. Darth Vader, Terror to Behold

I’m glad to see big pappa doing his thing and terrorizing the format. We all knew this card was splashy and exciting but weren’t sure he could compete with Snoke. Now with Snoke nerfed its time for a new Dark Side force user to step into the lime light, one that is less subtle and just chops the #### out of everyone. Well… maybe a good punch will help.

#3. Vader’s Fist

We are currently seeing Fist come from the man himself but I think you’ll see other decks pop up once they get refined and people stop being unreasonably scared of Leia/Yoda and Fear and Dead Men. Many of the other decks that could play it are in fact 3 wide which made things slightly scary for many pilots. I was working on certain Mother Talzin builds with fist that showed some promise but weren’t quite there.

#2. Theed Royal Palace

If you thought that Weapon’s Facotory Alpha was a mistake then you should be pulling your hair out every time you play against this card. I like the idea of every deck, even slow ones, having reasonable battlefields but this one is just too universally applicable. The counter argument to my stance is that if you are slow deck you will only get the benefit once but the resource you get in round 1 has already payed a dividend compared to the one your opponent gets in round 2. If you count a resource as 2 damage that pays off at that rate every round your opponent will only get ahead of you in value by round 4. This assumes you are playing against someone who is definitely out claiming you. If you are playing a fast and/or a Neutral characters you can punish people who just use it as a 1 time value play but it still did something excellent for them.

#1. Armored Reinforcements

The style of load up a vehicle and untap it a bunch won a couple of Regionals this past weekend and I think you’ll keep seeing these decks out there due to their high power and insane consistency. There are a few ways to handle these decks but with Vader, Boushh and other non vehicle decks running around many of the cards that would be good answers to the format boogeyman are laughable in other match ups that you will have to face. In the tiniest text allowable by Wordepress I will go on a small rant about how I hate this card. Please skip to the decklist portion of the article if you would like to maintain your holiday cheer.

I don’t understand how this was a card that was designed. I feel someone lost a bet or it was based on a dare. One of the things we see in other games that designers should know is that when you create such diverging startegies you are basically playing a guessing game for deck choice when it comes to metagaming. The whole Vader/Boussh/AR paradigm is hard to break although maybe the Destiny Council’s Vader deck did it by just being the best Vader deck. Anyway, I don’t want this to be an aside inside of an aside. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals!

I unfortunately missed the regional due to having a migraine and ennui but would have sleeved up the following spicy Armored Reinforcement deck that showed some promise but probably wasn’t ready to win the tournament. You’d be surprised to know that I don’t like going to tournaments if I don’t feel like I can win and actually will skip them if I can’t “get my mind right”. I kind of need to see a path to winning the tournament and I wasn’t feeling great. It also didn’t hurt that I’m already qualified although I did do a lot of testing. All of the decks I tested had some issue or another. To be honest, out of all the decks I had been working on I thought this one presented the best chance for me to win based on theory and experience.

The concept is that you had your general gameplan of readying Firespray with the back-up plan of Bala-Tik readying with powerful upgrades like Handheld Canon and DH-17 if things went horribly. You could say that this has some untapped potential. Playing both Bala-Tik and Ciena makes it much harder for your opponents to decide who to attack. Other two wide decks with 2 die Ciena make it really obvious that you wanted to got for Ciena. At 1 die Ciena is less valuable but still important to your plan. When you don’t have Ciena then instead of untaps you can spend your money on powerful upgrades. This is probably the 3rd or 4th version of the deck and can probably use some more refining.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a great holiday and as always…

-NJCuenca

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