The following is a tournament report by thejumpingflea. He played an updated Thrawn Talzin decklist to a Top 4 finish in the Seattle Regional. Due to the popularity and success of this deck archetype we have added it to our playtesting Gauntlet. If you won or went deep in a big tournament we’d love to host your tournament report. Please submit to thehyperloops@gmail.com. We had 57 people attend the regional for Seattle held at Uncle’s Games at Crossroads Mall. I played Thrawn and Talzin and felt really good about my choice. In my dozen or so games play testing I got a good feel for the deck, but learned that I needed many more reps. It’s a deck that really rewards knowing what your opponent is playing, and with Talzin’s partly 9 hit points, you’re walking a fine line between squeaking out a win and getting totally blown out. Here is the list I played:

Witch Magick and DH-17 are absolutely bonkers cards and, in my opinion, the two cards that make this deck competitive. If your average expectation is 2 damage for 1 resource and a card and you get a heal 3 guaranteed from Magick, and you get to resolve the DH for 4-6 damage, you are well above that curve! The dream hand has a DH-17 in it, and it was my favorite upgrade to see throughout the day. At the last minute I pulled out a Rise Again for the Law and Order. I found that Rise Again was rarely played in games, and although it’s a blowout when it happens, I was pitching them all too often. Law and Order can destroy a Maul’s Lightsaber, Vibrocutlass, or Force Illusion / Second Chance in a pinch. My good friends Anthony and Chris talked me into making the switch despite not having play tested with it. I had my list set and could not wait to start rolling some dice.

Round 1: eZeb / eKanan: – This first game was against a good player who I’ve played against at the ECCC GQ. His list was a Quick Draw variant, running blasters and Vibroknife to try and cheat out big damage. On the opening activation with Thrawn, I rolled 2 shield sides and, since he still had money up, I named 1 in fear of Easy Pickings. I whiffed, he had 2 0s and 2 2s, but this was the only time I whiffed on a Thrawn activation for the rest of the tournament. I got out an early DH-17 and used Three Steps Ahead to defeat Kanan on turn 2. From there it was difficult for him to do any damage with my mitigation suite and I pulled it out on turn 4. W: 1-0

R2: eBoba / ePhasma: – This was the deck I’ve been playing most prior to taking up Thrawn and Talzin. I’m terrified of this matchup. Talzin only having 9 HP makes their Quick Draw and Tactical Mastery package incredibly deadly, so I know I have to play very aggressively in keeping Talzin upright. Turn 1 went well for me, I managed to Feel Your Anger away 2 dice, and Witch Magick to heal the 3 he did manage to push. Turn 2 was a different story. He rolled into 7 damage naturally and my only mitigation in hand was my second Feel Your Anger. Talzin took it all and dropped to 2 health left to start round 3. I defeated Phasma with Tactical Mastery to start the round, but he had redeployed his Captain Phasma’s Blaster and Holdout Blaster to Boba Fett (already with a Holdout Blaster of his own). I managed to utilize my Feel Your Anger this turn and he was only able to push a few damage that round – just enough to defeat Talzin and chip away at Thrawn. (Who at this point had a Riot Control Baton and 2 DH-17 Blasters). To start the next round Boba had taken 6 points of damage to this point, and Thrawn had taken 4. My hand had a Three Steps Ahead, so I know if I roll out Thrawn and hit a single focus + 1 point of damage, I can burst him down for the kill on a 2 with the Baton, 1 and +2 on the two Pistols. I activate Thrawn, knowing he had an Electroshock from the previous round, and see Scorched Earth. He controlled the battlefield, so I knew what was coming. I, unfortunately, rolled disrupt sides on Thrawn, so my cheat kill was not going to be enough. He played Scorched Earth, hitting me for 5. I rerolled, and hit a 2 Focus. He had a Doubt in his hand, but instead elected to do 2 damage that was showing, putting Thrawn to 1 HP left. I utilized Three Steps Ahead to seal the victory in a way that I thought Mitth’raw’nuruodo would have approved of himself. W: 2-0

R3: eTalzin / Veteran Stormtrooper / Veteran Stormtrooper: – Well, for a moment I thought I was playing Trilogy. This deck was fascinating, running Aftermath and Chance Cubes as it’s only 0s, Endless Ranks to win those attrition matches, and Z6 Riot Control Batons and Heirloom Lightsabers for strong redeploys. There was one card I added to my deck for three character lists – Force Wave. I managed to mulligan for it and played it round one. I resolved each of the first three rounds of the game for a total of 18 damage. He managed to Witch Magik twice, and get off both of his Force Illusions, but I was pumping out too much damage for him to recover. He almost was able to Endless Ranks, but flipped it off of his Force Illusion. Crazy game and really cool deck. At this point my brain was already getting a bit tired. Keeping track of all these hands, top cards of decks, and trying to do the exact math for damage potential was making me wonder how many rounds I could go before I’d be a bowl of mush. W: 3-0

R4: eKylo / eTalzin: – This is a matchup I felt really good about. I was playing against a very good local player and drew my opening hand. 0 upgrades. I mulligan all 5 cards and my hand is the following: Imperial Discipline, Crystal Ball, Law and Order, Rise Again, and Feel Your Anger. Uh-oh. I’m sweating a bit with this start, but thought if I could get into the next turn with a Rise Again I might have a shot. He hits on his Kylo activation, putting 2 on Mother Talzin. He rolls his Sith Holocron and hits a special, with no blanks for my Feel Your Anger to hit. I roll out Talzin, and hit a 2 ranged. He proceeds to special chain his Holocron into Force Throw and throw my 2 ranged back at Talzin. He now has all 4 of his character dice in the pool, 4 damage on my Talzin, and I have no upgrades that push damage. I manage to survive the round with 2 HP left on Talzin and have to play my Rise Again with no upgrade in the discard pile. At this point it’s over, and we go get lunch. L: 3-1

R5: Jar Jar / eRose / eAayla: – Hero Vehicles. This list had Boomas and Planned Explosion! I didn’t draw into my Force Wave this game, but I was able to defeat Rose and Jar Jar both pretty early on turn 2. Rocket Launcher and action cheating is gross! He piles up the indirect damage through my mitigation and it comes down to Aayla vs. Talzin. I did some quick calculations and discovered I could force Aayla down to 1 HP remaining with him still having a HWK with 1 damage on it unactivated. If he doesn’t activate it, I for sure can survive the turn and feel confident I can take him out at the beginning of the next round – or – at least I thought that is what would happen. I planned on the shield from his Republic Cruiser, but not having played the card myself I did not realize it had an *or* effect. He gained 2 shields moving my math off by 1 and I thought it would cost me the game. (I extended my resources to make this play, negating my mitigation opportunities) It literally came down to a 50/50 re-roll on Aayla to hit 1 damage and he whiffed. To start the next turn, I rolled out Talzin and rolled 1 damage naturally and I fixed another die to 2 damage. I was pretty tilted at this point and playing very sloppy, forgetting to re roll my Baton. He then played Into the Garbage Shoot to remove my 2 dice. I had to discard to reroll 2 times before hitting damage, and he missed on 2 Booma activations. I consider myself very lucky for winning this game and it taught me to more carefully read the cards. RTFC, man. W: 4-1

R6: Yoda / Reeikan / Jedha Partisan: – Mill is a great matchup. I get to take his mitigation with Thrawn, then fix my dice without discarding. As long as I can hit my upgrades early, I feel as though I can win this matchup. Round 1 I called 1 with Thrawn and took his C-3P0. Round 2 I called 1 and hit his 2nd C-3P0. A round 2 Force Wave came out and hit twice before I overwrote with an Heirloom after Yoda and the Partisan were defeated. This game took a long time, with him playing 2 Fall Backs (Hitting 3 of my upgrades each time!) and him generating shields like a madman. At the end I had gotten lethal and he only had 1 card in his deck to my 7. W: 5-1

R7: eSeventh Sister / Nightsister / Cienna: – BrOTK piloted by one of the best players I know, Johnson. He had beaten me with FN in the semi-finals of our last store championship to the tune of dishing 14 damage turn 1. My opening hand has my Law and Order and I’m absolutely elated. I hit his Maul’s Saber off the board the beginning of turn 2 and the game was mostly under my control from that point. I Thrawn activated calling 5 at one point to strip his Rise Again, but he drew a second one the following turn. At that point though, it was too late and I was able to Three Steps ahead to defeat Seventh Sister. Johnson was 6-0 to this point, and actually won the entire regional. (Go Johnson!) I was his only loss on the day thanks to the card I tech’d in the night before. (Thanks Anthony and Chris!) W: 6-1

Top 8: I finished 3rd in Swiss and was absolutely elated to have the chance to earn a Thrawn promo, but totally exhausted at the thought of playing three 90 minute rounds. My best friend, who I do most of my play testing with, as well as who I drove down with, was the 6th seed. That meant we were going to play against each other.

R1 of Top 8: eObi-Wan Kenobi / eMaz Kanata: – Probably half the games I played with Thrawn and Talzin have been against this. He runs a unique list; no Running Interference and Force Speeds. My Ally is the Force hits like a truck, and I’ve seen him wipe a full health Kylo right off the board with 2 of them in a single turn. Crazy stuff. I feel great about the matchup as long as he doesn’t roll absolutely fire. My mitigation suite is reasonable against Obi-Wan.

Game 1: Whelp. He rolled fire. Hot fire. I was defeated at the start of turn 3 and managed to do about 4 damage to Maz. It was ugly. On to game 2.

Game 2: This was a much better game for me. I was able to get an early DH-17 and Rocket Launcher off and controlled his dice with 2 The Best Defense plays. He ends up going for Thrawn, but I’m able to defeat Obi-Wan before he can get there.

Game 3: At this point we decided something. We were both exhausted, wanted to get home, and whoever won the game would immediately drop to allow someone else the chance to go to worlds. I already had my ticket, and I just wanted a Thrawn promo. 🙂 I got 2 Witch Magicks and 2 DH-17s in the first 2 rounds and, combined with all of my mitigation, it was enough to pull out the win. I grabbed my Thrawn and immediately signed the win over to a ePoe / eHondo player so that he can have the chance to make worlds. Johnson ended up winning the whole thing with BrOTK, with my win against him in round 7 being his only loss on the day.

I went 8-2 in games overall with a Top 4 finish and drop. What a great experience! The Seattle community is full of wonderful people and each and every one of my opponents was a joy to play destiny with. I’m elated at the potential of this deck and will very likely be testing it non-stop until Worlds. If I were to make any changes to the deck, I’d try Overconfidence in place of the Snare. I have only played Snare once in the entire time I’ve been using this deck. Most of the time it’s a totally dead card. You can never have enough mitigation, either. The all stars for the day were Witch Magick and DH-17 (the best cards in the deck), Three Steps Ahead (the next best card in the deck), Force Wave (it did 30! Damage between the 2 games I used it in), and Law and Order (Maul’s Saber!).

Now that I’ve got my acrylic Thrawn that I won with a Thrawn deck, my Destiny life is complete.

Thanks for reading!

– thejumpingflea

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