I’ve never been a big fan of very swingy battlefields. I don’t often play slow, methodical, three and four wide decks that take as many actions as they can, so having exactly the right battlefield for the tempo of my decks has been super important. As such, I’ve always tried to have safe battlefields that didn’t hurt me too badly if my opponent claimed ahead of me. But, to win in this meta with decks ramping out crazy vehicles and damage we need all the help we can get, and that starts with making our battlefields a more important part of our deckbuilding and play strategy.

Today I’m going to take a look at some battlefield play that I think is especially powerful in the current meta, and suggest some other directions to go in if we want to try and get the most out of our battlefield choices.

Battlefields Removing Dice

I had the bittersweet experience of watching my two teammates and business partners NJCuenca and HonestlySarcastc square off in a top 8 match of the US Nationals at NOVA on stream last weekend. I’m always happy to see my friends on stream playing for the top 4, but after so many of our top cut losses at Gen Con were against teammates, it stunk to have to see one of us get knocked out by another of us once again. I was paying close attention because I was shout-casting over TheChanceCube stream for our Patreon subscribers, and the number one thing that swung the match was Cuenca’s battlefield, Rift Valley.

Because of the Best-of-Three nature of the Nationals Top Cut, Cuenca got to play on his battlefield twice, and won both of those games. His deck boasted 26/30 odd-costed cards to help proc Rift Valley (and Talzin’s ability, and Witch Magick, and Spell of Removal) as often as he could, using only Ancient Lightsabers and Force Speeds for his even-costed cards, both of which are must-haves in this deck. Over and over in the first and third game of this match against a Snoke vehicles deck that takes at least two or three times more actions as a two-wide deck with two characters with auto-focus abilities does, Cuenca got into situations where he would pass until he could advantageously remove a die with Rift Valley’s ability. He won a game where Joe put out 8 resources worth of supports in round 1, and there were multiple situations where Joe played a vehicle once all his other dice were removed (something he loves doing), only to have to claim with his next action because if he activates the support he loses the die to a Rift Valley claim before getting to resolve it.

Rift Valley only really works in a Mother Talzin deck, but as the best 12 point character in the game, she fits in a lot of places. I was pretty shocked when Rift Valley got spoiled because Talzin was already so great that giving her a baller battlefield seemed insane. I think we finally saw the true power of Rift Valley on stream at NOVA watching two of the world’s best players facing off. Rift Valley pays off having to build around Talzin’s ability, and when you add in how crazy good Witch Magick is, it’s totally worth it.

The other “remove a die” battlefield that might be poised to get some love is the Frozen Wastes. While Frozen Wastes can only remove a character die, it has no other stipulations. This can be a little weaker against a Snoke Vehicle deck in terms of it not necessarily removing a big support die it can still take a die off the table that can be Snoked for big damage or resources, as well as a focus die from Snoke himself. One concern about Frozen Wastes is that you either have to have a good read on the meta, not expecting many two character decks (and no matter how bad we think two character decks are in a given meta, there are always a ton of two-character decks at any event), or you have to be really, really fast.

Frozen Wastes used to be a staple in aggro decks, but when the meta got really, really fast, it kind of went away for the most part. One deck that still makes great use of this card is Obi-Maz. Despite being the only 8-0 deck at Gen Con last month, Obi-Maz isn’t getting much love; though one did make the top cut at US Nationals. My teammate Blake Moody recently won a large Store Championship with the deck, as did North American Champion Andrew Cox; both used Frozen Wastes and said that the speed combined with the battlefield was one of the stronger inherent qualities of the deck.

I think this card could start making a comeback in the international Nationals meta. Beyond Obi/Maz we could see this card played in other fast decks like Poe or Rex Hit and Run decks, Yoda/Hondo, Leia/Yoda Mill and even Sabine. I firmly believe these battlefields giving a player with a high tempo deck free mitigation every round is exactly what that style of deck needs to compete with the big, ramping vehicle decks anchored by Snoke.

Build Your Entire Deck Around a Battlefield

Battlefields can be so powerful that they can be the central focus of a deck. These examples are few and far between, but there are a few amazing battlefields, and when we can also play cards that synergize heavily with those battlefields, we’ve got a stew!

There’s no battlefield that has been more used in more metas than Emperor’s Throne Room. This is the battlefield that just won’t die, and one deck that has successfully built around it recently is KRAP. Kylo/Ren and Arihnda Pryce love this battlefield because they facilitate action stacking excellently between Force Speed and Tactical Mastery. KRAP also boasts Crossguard Lightsaber, which, if left floating in the dice pool guarantees an eventual 2 or 3 damage.

This is another potential battlefield for a Yoda/Hondo or Yoda/Poe style deck that already relies on special chains and thus plays cards with powerful Specials like Obi-Wan’s Lightsaber, Poe Dameron’s Blaster Rifle, and Hand Crafted Lightbow. It could also be a nice include for the Holocron decks that have started popping back up lately, at worst the card can help us cheat in a high-cost upgrade with a claim, and at best gives our Force Waves inevitability. Force Wave is a card that a lot of people are jamming into their decks right now regardless of whether or not their packing holocron, and bringing Throne Room in a deck that can’t reliably focus that die to Special makes for big time damage – so much so that we could find our opponents claiming way early to prevent kills as often as we claim super early to merc a character.

One card I’ve always liked with Throne Room is New Orders, but what if we had New Orders on a stick?…

Originally shit on by many, myself included (as it was a TheHyperloops.com exclusive preview), Grand Moff is a card that’s been turning some heads lately.

This deck was piloted by the Flaccid Baron from ARTIFICERY.COM (hi, Sean!) and is pretty freaking scary. The deck does the same thing all Snoke Thrawn decks do, gets a million resources, only then it plays Grand Moff, uses its power action to switch the battlefield to Jedi Temple (if it’s not used already), and once it’s in play begins every round by using that Power Action to “Look at opponent’s hand and discard up to 2 events of your choice from it” while also seeing the entire hand allowing for you to make the perfect call with Thrawn’s ability to discard a third card, making it extremely difficult to have its dice mitigated. So as to not get burned too badly by its own battlefield the deck doesn’t run many events, and what events it does run are all mitigation, cards that will get played before the claim anyway, and if the opponent claiming takes a mitigation card late in the round it doesn’t hurt too badly; for one the deck has a ton of focus making rerolls less necessary, and vehicle decks don’t often want to carry mitigation over in to the next round anyway.

This combo doesn’t work in too many spots, but it can certainly work in a few (maybe with the actual Grand Moff, Tarkin?), either way look for an article on ARTIFICERY.COM in the coming weeks (they keep all of their articles behind a paywall of two weeks, if you’re a patreon of theirs you may be able to see it already).

Battlefield Sleepers

While I think these four battlefields are some of the strongest in the current meta, I think there could be some others lurking, ready to make a big splash in the international Nationals meta. The first of which is a battlefield I’ve always hated, but one that could do some work if you’re in the faster part of the meta.

Pain Lands

The first thing people could start looking at are the battlefields that deal damage. We’ve already seen a couple of decks take advantage of Arena of Death in four and five wide decks, but there are a bunch of battlefields that do damage. Main Plaza is one that could do a buttload of damage under the shields, but games are lasting so few rounds that it may be tough to make a really swingy play with the battlefield (though cards like Grand Moff and New Orders could combo well with it). A trio of battlefields do unblockable damage: Separatist Base, Sith Temple, and Petranaki Arena could all be a consideration. Even Comm Tower, which has done some work in Yoda/Cassion aggro counts as extra damage with the right die and a plot.

Ramp

While cards like Moisture Farm and Outer Rim Outpost have always been a part of the meta (even though the second almost completely obsoleted the first) one card that we haven’t seen much of ever is Imperial Armory.

I’ve always hated this battlefield because it can be such a double edged sword if we weren’t perfectly efficient and our opponent could outramp us. However, with the vehicle meta upon us this could be the perfect card to facilitate our ramp. For one, many vehicle decks don’t play very many upgrades even if they do try and claim early, and on the other hand these vehicle decks are already consistently getting a resource from Weapons Factory Alpha already so it isn’t really hurting us any more than taking their battlefield would. But, if we’re taking this battlefield we’re building to be fast and spam upgrades, so I don’t think we need to worry about the vehicle decks slamming a free Force Illusion.

I also like this against mill decks. The way to beat mill has always been to ramp and this could be the answer for two character decks to ramp out well enough to beat three wide mill. We’ve all been in that position where we know mill is going to discard our last card, what if we could play it for -1 instead!? We should be out-tempoing mill anyway, especially once we make them start mitigating all of our damage dice.

Feeling Blue

Only one “meta” deck has ever run B’Omarr Monastery, Boba/7th, and that was strange in itself. Not everybody ran it, and rightfully so, as there weren’t too many blue sides to use it with, just Maul’s Saber really. But, there are a few reasons I think this battlefield could do some work.

For one, many players have eschewed blue, modified dice-sides completely, so having this battlefield in play won’t hurt us too badly, but also, those blue sides skew high. Cards like Maul’s Saber, Fifth Brother’s Lightsaber, and Auto Cannon have some powerful modified sides that crank with the Monastery. Add in staples like Shoto Lightsaber, Ancient Lightsaber, and Vibroknife and we have some real reasons to use this field. Opponents will always mitigate black, base sides and leave blue dice sides out there, but this battlefield makes that kind of play irrelevant.

This one is a slight stretch, but it’s been on my mind lately as a battlefield that can help kill a character while allowing for some different and interesting deckbuilding choices.

That’s it for today. I’m interested in seeing how the meta evolves over the next couple months even if I don’t have anything to play for myself. In any event, I think our battlefields have to do a lot more for us than we’ve settled for over the past year. It’s no longer enough o take a battlefield that won’t hurt us, we need our battlefields to actively help destroy our opponents.

Good luck, and thanks for reading

BobbySapphire

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