Our Star Wars Destiny Gauntlet is a great resource for playtesting and I hope everyone is taking advantage of it. I updated the lists there to reflect the latest regional results that we received and even added the most popular versions of the other flavors of Kylo2 decks. While I do think there is plenty of room for innovation the metagame has being explored enough where I think its safe to say there is an established metagame…of about 9 or so viable decks! That’s the number that our Gauntlet page has and they are all rather reasonable choices. Brewing up new decks is a great way to attack an established metagame but first you need to be familiar with the established archtypes. When I brew I have a question or goal in mind, something abstract. Currently my mind is Plagueis with one question and one question only…

What’s the best Kylo2 Deck?

Since the metagame has a variety of solid mono colored options I think its important to find the best Kylo2 deck. Maybe that’s a fools errand and all the flavors of Kylo2 will end up having their strengths and weaknesses but by God I have to try! Let’s start off looking at Neo Emo.

This list won the Michigan Regional. It tries to Rise Again, Holocron in powerful blue abilities and No Mercy a character like the Death Star zapped Alderaan (Too Soon?) In addition it has a really powerful battlefield making the fact a it loses the roll most of the time less of an issue. Those are all powerful things that are worth doing in this format but it has some problems. The three die start is a huge liability when you want to win the roll. When you don’t draw Holocron with a powerful force ability it makes that less impactful. Sure you can use Vader’s Special but its not as powerful, as say, putting in a Mind Probe for free. Without the upside play of Holocron into something big I’d prefer the shields to start.

This deck is forced to play all of the 0 cost die mitigation cards because it needs to save up for Rise Again. This makes me wonder how the heck it ever beats Sabine/Ezra. Sure you have Kylo2 to have a consistent 2 damage but making Ezra’s disrution and Sabines 3 for 1 disrupt side insanely powerful seems like a poor startegy when that’s one of the best decks. Still, the metagame is wide open enough that having a bad match up like that could be fine. And yes, I think a good Sabine player could beat this deck if they know what the match up is like.

I think No Mercy is really great right now since there are a lot of 2 character decks and usually the first character to die will decide the match. Killing Rey2 or Poe2 quickly is very important since the longer the game goes the more value they will accrue. In that match Kylo isn’t as great and the game can drag on which sometimes is fine if you Rise Again in a timely way but other times C3PO will turn a symbol into discard or disrupt and you’re going to be a sad panda.

I think this deck gained a lot of percentage points from its surprise factor but with people knowing what its going to do its not going to be as good.

It Ain’t Easy Being Griezy

This and the previous deck are weak to mitigation due to their 3 die start. You can read a very detailed tournament report by the person who came in second by clicking on the link. There they recount how they lost twice to R2P2 which confirmed my suspicion that this is soft to that archtype. This deck has some serious resource issues but with powerful characters its definitely scary to play against. I think this deck needs to be a bit more aggressive and use cards like Lightsaber Throw in order to kill quick, otherwise you’ll get outclassed in the late game. This probably performs better vs Sabine but is worse vs R2P2. Maybe a version of it can be better vs R2P2 but Kylo’s ability isn’t great there and if that’s not working you’re playing a fair 3 die deck. This is probably one of the best deck’s vs 5 die villain since you can kill an upgraded character quickly enough. Still, their mitigation might cause you headaches.

FN You!

It may sound weird but of the top Kylo2 decks this is the one I’d want to play. While Grievous gives you a nice ability its contingent on you killing a character. Here the power comes from FNs ability which will always be live and makes you way better vs mitigation. While he may not be oppressive anymore his ability is still very scary. This list is happy to play the Shoto game and while that might not be the best thing to FN into play you can resolve it with Kylo’s dice and in the late game you can start tanking up FN, he has 11 health and adding to that will drag the game on long enough for his ability to snowball into a win. I think this list is a good starting point and I’ll be working on various versions of this deck in the next few days.

Brew Time!

I have been working on Kylo/Ciena for a week and right now I don’t have a list that is worthy of sharing. I liked the idea of using Ciena as a money maker for Kylo to power out blue upgrades and to use Rise Again but that hasn’t been working as intended. The idea of having a 4 die Kylo deck is appealing but the big issue is that Kylo isn’t so powerful in this format that you can just go all in on him. Right now Ciena seems a little bit too weak but hopefully I’ll have something for you with those two characters.

My friend Josh has been working on various builds of Blue Villain Weapons and I wanted to try my hand at doing something robust and powerful with that. For those who love mono blue villain this deck should be up your alley.

Kylo’s Hoods is a 3 die deck like the ones mentioned above so why not get a bunch more HP? Here Crossguard Lightsaber is at its best since it has redeploy due to the Hood ability. Loading up a guy and then untapping it with Price of Failure is going to be great in the mid to late game. And with big hitting weapons like Kylo’s Saber and Grand Inquisitor’s Lightsaber you can do some serious damage- there’s a good chance I’ll end up playing the 2nd lightsaber pull just so I can assemble that Voltron more reliably. Investing in those weapons and then getting the desired side with Lightsaber Training is some pure gasoline. This might be too slow but such a ramp up style of deck might be just the kind of thing this format needs. There is a big issue with all the pay sides and wanting to be a tap out style will make for some awkward decisions. I have included Enrage since you have a bunch of HP and the resource will equate to 3 damage which is a great rate. Regardless, the Hoods die is very good going long and early on you can play around it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tactical analyses of Kylo2 decks and the metagame as a whole. Let me know if you have any sweet Kylo2 brews, I’d love to see them. Good luck at your Regional and as always,

May The Hood be with You.

-NJCuenca

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