FINAL

eTalzin/2Mandalorean WIN 2-1 vs eSnoke/Aphra/battle droid And for quick refference the other National results looked like this (thanks again to YOUR Destiny Podcast for having a place for this old chunk coal to see the results): UK Nationals: eSnoke/eBazine/FO

US Nationals: eSnoke/Aphra/BattleDroid

German Nationals: Snoke/Aphra/Ciena

Belgian Nationals: eYoda/eHondo Italian Nationals: eSnoke/Aphra/Battle Droid Greek Nationals: eDooku/eTalzin I’ve mildly been championing Tacos as a tier one deck for some time now and with this result it’s indeed something you can’t ignore. It does what it does very efficiently and capitalizes on mistakes from opponents while simultaneously being rewarding to good play. There are few decks that feel under powered at times but are also are completely reasonable, this is one of those decks. Its great draws feel above curve but it does have the occasionally stinker. The thing is that even those draws have a fighting chance but your medium to poor draw aren’t beating anyone’s best draw. I know people have been on the Holocron/ Force Powers train but the thing is that I’m not 100% sold on it being the best option for Tacos. When you don’t draw the cards in the right order this makes the deck work inefficiently which leads to polarized deck piloting experience. For reference here is a non Holocron version that tries to capitalize on its ability to run Ambush range weapons and be faster to claim than other TaCo decks in order to use Rift Valley more effectively. The Holocron versions have more symbols to run and occasionally an expensive card like Force Wave will choke your resources so much that it ends up being bad.

This gets me to my first truth.

1) Any tier 1 or tier 1.5 deck can win.

This isn’t surprising for tier 1 decks but more so for the 1.5 decks. This is actually a good thing since it gives deck builders flexibility and an incentive to work hard before a tournament. There is still innovation to be had, it really comes down to how much time you want to spend testing other ideas vs practicing the sure thing. The concept of 1.5 deck is misleading. It might be a metagame deck that for a particular time and place might be in a God tier.

This doesn’t apply to most people but there are still a few countries that haven’t played their Nationals. Time is running out for you and if you are happy with where you are at then just keep doing your thing but if you want to fall off the deep end it might be time to check out an article like the one where I discuss my choices for decks I would play at a Nationals.

As an example: while Yoda/Hondo might not be a bad deck I wouldn’t call it tier one. Its certainly something you’d have to take seriously but that’s the sort of deck that can win a Nationals that isn’t necessarily tier 1.

2) You better beat Aphra or else…

It is a rare exception where the tournament hasn’t been warped by the presence of Aphra. Russia’s TaCos had to beat Aphra to win the crown and that’s the sort of deck that can do that. We’ve had two mirror match finals of Snoke/Aphra/BD (USA and Italy). I’m pretty sure this is more of a Snoke issue than an Aphra issue but it will be very interesting to see what happens if and when they decide to nerf Snoke. In order to beat Dr. Snoke you better have a large HP pool and a plan to leverage that into damage. You can try the dodge method which is generally acceptable but with the amount of heat Aphra has – let’s not forget Dr Aphra CIena versions – it will be hard to justify. If the metagame changes you might be able to get away with a dodging plan but right now it would be tough.

3) Don’t forget about Mill

The Russian top 8 consisted of 2 mill decks and it’s the sort of deck that can easily be forgotten and underestimated. The millpocalypse has been canceled due to rain but don’t turn your back to it since it can sneak up on you quickly. Many changes that have been made to deal with high damage character decks might then bite you in the ass later. You might remember that you had a good match up vs mill but since you’ve changed three cards now its bad again. And lets not forget about possible mill innovations either. I’m sure some sicko is going to be coming with something spicy. I won’t be surprised if any of the Nationals that are left are won by mill .

4) It’s hard to get out of the holy trinity of Snoke, Mother Talzin and Yoda.

When I build competitive decks I wonder why I would not play any of the above three characters. The amount of consistency and power we get from these characters is just above par. Maz Kanata might be an exception to this but I haven’t seen Obi/Maz win a tournament in a while. Some characters like Rex do really interesting and unique things but then you realize that they are expensive AF compared to Snoke or even Yoda. I think this a problem with creating such consistency in a dice game. Competitive players are going to gravitate towards consistency and when the most consistent things are blue and cheap then there’s no wonder the metagame is like 80 or so percent of those decks. There is diversity in the format but it feels like its a kind of a false diversity. Even though I have nothing to play for I haven’t completely dried out my creative well but its hard for me to get out of this holy trinity. I suppose the fact that I’m not bored is a good thing and speaks to something positive regarding the metagame and the game itself but if the next set is just building with these three characters and whatever they give us its going to get stale really quick. The answer? I suppose you either have to give other color consistency enablers or make pure damage dealing characters more consistent and beefier.