Last week I went over the pairing of Qui-Gon and Yoda, check it out here if you missed it. This week the analyses will be slightly different because Hero Vehicles, Aayla Secura, Rose and Ezra Bridger, is a known quantity with a pretty stock list but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to innovate the concept a little. Maybe there’s something we can do to make it better vs mill and in the mirror? Perhaps deviating from the standard list will give us that rogue advantage? Maybe you aren’t going to worlds and want to keep things fresh? This article will explore all of those questions and talking points.

First off I’m going to start off with the list I have been playing.

Classic Hero Vehicles

This is the list I won my regional with and the one I’m currently playing in the TTS tournament- currently in top 8. I didn’t really dislike any card from one event to another and since I did well I figured I’d run it back. Nothing too revolutionary here expect for the omission of Resistance Bomber and Flank. Both cards are solid but just felt worse than every other card.

The decision of Bomber vs Fang Fighter is a close one. I liked Fang Fighter because once you’ve gotten a character down to low health you want to be able to finish them off with targeted damage. The bomber 6 indirect damage side is pretty gross but only really relevant late game and I felt that if I was getting to that point I was generally comfortable. There are plenty of moments when you can’t reroll off of the last vehicle you would be playing and don’t have 2 extra resources. In those spots Fighter has more sides that effect the game.

Flank is a great card but I was concerned about using it effectively vs other 3 character decks and I feel its worst than any of the die removal cards I am currently playing. The other three either have higher upside(Easy Pickings and Into the Garbage Chute) or are plain better(Pinned Down). I could see a world where I cut Caution for Flank but I like that Caution doesn’t cost any resources in a deck where resources are tight early. The other events serve a different role and thus aren’t analogous swaps. Whether I think I will need those role players going into worlds is a different question and one testing will hopefully answer. I could go on about the specifics of how I build decks but I’ve already done that. Feel free to check out that article that discusses my deck building philosophy.

This deck is certainly a deck to beat and is a reason you might see more players bring mill at the top tables of worlds. If you can’t beat this deck you should reconsider your approach because this deck is solid, cheap to build and has even to favorable match-ups all across the board.

This deck is punishing to bad decisions because you are generally playing from behind. Many players “don’t get” how I can be so successful with this deck. I know the deck didn’t perform great at the end of the season so maybe I’ve just been lucky? I’d say that the deck doesn’t do anything too unfair except for the occasional gross Rally Aid draws. In addition, all of its events are above rate and one of its characters is under costed.

Since this is such a known quantity at this point competitors will have a bunch of reps against this deck. I’d have to be pretty convinced that this is the best deck for me to play at the event. I’m having deja vu from a game I used to play called VS. In that game I had been crushing with a deck and when the pro tour rolled around I switched because I feared mirror matches. That went poorly for me so perhaps I won’t repeat the same mistake twice. I might not play this deck if I expect a lot of mill, rainbow 5 and other vehicle decks.

Since I like the shell I’ve been exploring other options in the vehicle realm to try to get more of an advantage.

Rose, Wedge and Partisan

Dustin13862 posted this list on SWDB and I was immediately intrigued. I don’t love all of the choices here but its definitely a great starting point. The addition of Wedge helps the times when you play your last card and can’t discard to reroll. You’ll get the best side for one vehicle a turn which makes Wedge feel like he has 2 dice. Not having to discard is immensely helpful vs mill and the added health is in theory good in the mirror.

Partisan can punish people who want to use Force Illusion with reckless abandon. I’ve milled people with regular vehicles and I can imagine that with Partisan on the squad that is more likely to happen. It is worth considering Hired Gun as a yellow character, plus 1 health and two money sides is no joke and the 3 for 1 is a very good side in the late game.

I feel Wedge hasn’t been investigated enough and I’m currently working on some other options that are a bit more off the wall but that do powerful things.

Hera/Wedge/Ezra

Here we are giving up consistency for power. This might be too much in the middle ground and perhaps I should be going harder on big vehicles but I figure three cost Vehicles are good enough to cheat in and can be played naturally. Airspeeder might not belong but the card is so good with Rally Aid that it’s hard for me to get away from it. Part of the problem of playing decks like these is that they are susceptible to mitigation but I’m hoping to either be robust enough to fight through it or use well timed disrupts and discard to resolve my impactful dice. It’s important to note that Rose could be swapped in for Wedge. Having resources to cast possible boom booms and mitigation is certainly something to look into but putting in things with Hera and guaranteeing the best side is very appealing. I’m excited to try Sudden Impact and flinging Bomber 6s and Spider Speeder Tank 5s, that’s the dream.

Consistency is the biggest concern with this deck. The following is a Hera deck that can be more consistent with her ability.

Yoda/Hera/Maz

Rmohler top 8’d the NJ Regionals about 2 months ago with this list. This deck does the same thing as the other Hera deck but it really leans hard on the one Hera die to run smoothly. I suspect your opponent can just mulligan for mitigation to slow you down. You have no way of protecting the Hera die which can lead to some awkward starts. I’d probably play the discard cards to protect the dice. Still, this deck is pretty interesting in approach and as I look at it I can think of a bunch of cards I would like to try (Force Speed and Cunning come to mind specifically). This deck does need a bunch of synergy cards to operate smoothly which can be taxing on how many times you can reroll. Yoda and Maz help there but when you wiff it stinks. Even when you get to focus to what you want you’ll be canabalizing your dice just to get to it and the question really becomes “is it worth it?” This deck can also swap Maz for Hired Gun if you want a damage dealing die.

Now I’m going to get into the “only for those who want to do cool things” portion of the article. Perhaps it could be good but probably not.

Money Motivated

Cool points: Starting with 4 resources, Planned Explosion off of Lando’s big numbers and vehicles, and getting to Entangle on turn 1 and still have 2 resources left. Very Cool.

I played a few games with this while I was having a drink on a Friday night and had a little fun. While it is an interesting concept I don’t think its real. This list is my latest update that I haven’t played and I’ve changed up the numbers considerably. I was originally trying to play very large vehicles like U-Wing but this one goes the play small vehicles route with mitigation back-up. I fear I won’t get a chance to get to this one again but maybe it will be good?

I hope this was helpful for everyone, from the Worlds to the casual crowd I hope you gleamed a tiny nugget of gold. If you end up giving any of these unusual takes on vehicles a try let me know how it went and what cards you changed. Thanks for reading, have an awesome day and as always…

May the Planned Explosion go your way.

@NJCuenca

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