This is a guest article by Bowie Sessions and Micheal Spaulding about the deck they have been working on for some time now – Aurra Sing and Mother Talzin aka White Chicks. We broke their article into two parts. Tune in next week for part two which will feature a full deck breakdown. This article will focus on the deck’s development, Adeptacon and World Championship tournament reports.

In late February, we (Bowie Sessions and Michael Spaulding of The Twin Suns Cup) independently decided on a pairing we wanted to put through testing. We were gearing up for the Adepticon GQ and Worlds would be little after. We both wanted to try Aurra Sing/Mother Talzin and felt it was an omen that we had both played with the pairing before approaching the other.

The deck started off pretty rough. Michael wanted to try a Holocron suite of blue upgrades, thinking Aurra was likely to be the first target in most matchups, and Bowie focused less on upgrades and more on damage mitigation and die control with a couple guns. The first week of testing made it clear that guns were decidedly the way to go. Aurra and Talzin together make a brutally consistent list, Aurra rolling 50% damage sides and Talzin serving to correct her when Aurra misses using her ability to turn a die to any side by revealing an odd cost card of your deck. The Holocron suite took away from that consistency putting a reliance on card draw that ultimately dragged the deck down. We quickly abandoned blue ability upgrades and focused on guns.

This led us, over the next few weeks, to the following decklist, after some practice against the Destiny Council and suggestions from The Hyperloops indicated to us the need for Fast Hands. We also decided on the number/kind of upgrades and decided to include a game-winning situational card in It Will All Be Mine. This proved to be a smart choice.

White Chicks: Adepticon Galactic Qualifier 2018

This is the decklist that took 6-0 at the Adepticon Galactic Qualifier piloted by Bowie. While Michael didn’t perform quite as well, the matches he lost were close and the surprise factor of the pair was a huge positive. There were a lot of requests and complaints for not sharing the deck, but we knew we could take it to Worlds and its surprise factor would be an important part of its success.

Bowie: Up until this tournament, we’d done some internal testing, and we’d played this in a local ‘champions’ tournament against some of the Destiny Council (as well as some other great Minnesotan players) and hit a few Tabletop Simulations. It had not faced a gauntlet like Adepticon.

Win. I faced a vehicles deck (Ezra, Rose and Aayla). While I handle this pairing differently now, I closed out Rose on the first turn, had Aayla two away on the second turn, and finished off Aayla and closed Ezra on turn three. My opponent was rather shocked, but it was straightforward. Win. Then came a Kylo2/Talzin deck. Fortunately, I’d played against several Thrawn/Talzin decks previously, and realized my deck has insane consistency even without Talzin, so I decided to use their deck to turn them off of damage while I continued to push through my own, most of it by Fast Hands. I closed their Kylo, and neutered their Talzin ability, and got an easy second win. Win. This deck would intermittently be our white whale: Rey2 / Aayla. Fortunately, they did exactly what I wanted, and began working down Talzin, as I had shielded up Aurra off winning the battlefield and choosing theirs, the first time I had chosen another battlefield in any match up so far. They spent three rounds trying to kill Talzin through Witch Magicks, Force Illusions and Armor Platings, while Aurra and Talzin ate Rey alive (through two of their own Force Illusions). Both of us ended with cards in hand, but I was able to barely sneak out the kill against this amazing tank deck. Win. Boba Fett and Seventh Sister showed up next. This was my third ‘middle middle’ deck, out of four, which is not ideal, but I felt our aggro was better. Intentionally choosing not to play any big dice, I just focused down Seventh Sister and got her down by activation on round two. Boba Fett put up a fight, but could not hold his own against both of my characters firing hot. I ended this game with only Fast Hands as upgrades. Win. This was a fun fight: I faced a Yoda Hondo deck that had taken out Michael earlier. Up until now, every person asked to see Aurra for her ability, and then looked dubiously at our 19 hit points, and went into the game overconfident. He was the first opponent to know exactly the power we had in our deck. Choosing my battlefield, I focused down Yoda, closing him out before he could utilize any Force Speed or Force Wave shenanigans. Having saved resources, I then proceeded to fund Hondo’s retirement plan while just working through him. With only a Cunning on to make him effectively max out at gaining 2 resources and doing 3 damage per turn, even his Second Chance couldn’t stop me from taking this win. Win. In a fitting conclusion, I ended up at the final table facing off against the deck and player who shut me out of our local championship tournament: Jonathan Magnuson piloting Thrawn/Talzin. He had shown devastating multi-die control, and incredible speed, and illustrated I needed some dramatic answers if I wanted a chance against him. My Fast Hands evaded his control, devastating his characters, and a well-timed It Will All Be Mine took him by surprise and transformed four of his blanks into game-defining dice for me (money refund, dice focuses, and damage). While he lived for another round, it was pretty definitively mine after that swing.

Adepticon was very revealing for us, and while we were happy with the deck there was room for improvement. It had a sneaky survivability. 21 of the cards in this list were either die control, hand control, damage block, or healing. Since every card in the deck says “discard this card to have Aurra deal one extra damage” we had a lot of room to include silver bullets and situational cards that would otherwise not have made the cut. Every turn you have a hand full of control and you play the ones you need and discard the ones you don’t.



The real struggle for the deck was once Aurra was down and you often had a Talzin with no upgrades (or most likely just an On the Hunt) and a max of four damage a round. She can consistently do damage by herself, but she had a really low ceiling. This lead us to re-evaluate and give up some consistency for burst and mid to long-game options.



In a really interesting twist, because we fought to hide our list for so long to keep it a secret for worlds, others like Paul Depre and Gil Nevils (both of whom ultimately made it to Day 2 at Worlds 2018 with their versions) designed their decks in a vacuum from ours. We played Day 1C on Saturday, which let us watch their games and inform our own deck. Stealing a few ideas from other White Chicks, we added more even cost cards that could increase our burst and Talzin’s lasting power, bringing us to the following list for the 2018 World Championships.

White Chicks: Worlds 2018



Notable changes:

+1 Snare (interestingly, we had replaced 2 Snares with 2 It Will All Be Mine before we got to Adepticon)

+1 Frighten

+4 Ambush 2-cost guns (Holdout Blaster and LL-30)

+2 Quick Draw

-2 Hunting Rifles (ultimately a terrible card, we determined)

-3 3-cost guns (losing 1 Relby-V10 Mortar Gun and both Canto Bight Pistols)

-2 Hidden Motive (likely our most-agonized cut)

These changes drastically helped with the damage output mid game, and made Talzin a real threat throughout. She often had 2-3 guns on her, and the Quick Draw into an ambush allowed her to turn a die with her ability, and then ambush to resolve (sometimes with bait and switch) reliably 6-10 damage. This could clinch a game turn two, remove a threatening middle-middle character as early as round one, or if not, at least put your opponent on the defensive incredibly early. The downside is that Talzin now has a 1 in 3 chance of missing her ability, and Witch Magick reliably heals for two, and healing for zero is a very real possibility.



The burst potential helped a lot with some of the harder match-ups for this deck, which is other middle-middle decks. Taking Rey/Aayla or Yoda/Hondo can be rough when you’re dealing a lot of instances of small (1-3) damage. They can shield, play defensive with Force Illusion or Second Chance, and heal forever, and redeploys were the death of White Chicks as we could lose dice advantage quickly before. Being able to roll Aurra, and Quick Draw/Ambush into roughly 10 damage takes the opportunity for healing, shielding, and overwriting with redeploys away from your opponent and can make a shaky game decisive with a surprise kill.

Michael: The month we had between Adepticon and Worlds saw both a lot of testing of this deck, and a lot of changes. Bowie and I were arguing about changes to the deck all the way up until the night before we played on day 1C. Ultimately the changes helped the deck a lot in facing down middle/middle decks. Bowie faced a tough gauntlet at Worlds and did not make it to day 2, but I was a bit more lucky with my matchups and my opponents’ rolls.

Day 1C

Loss. Kylo2/Talzin – I felt good about this matchup. The deck has almost an even split on colors with a healthy showing of grey. Kylo hit every round, and I didn’t see any of my Illusions, Armor Plating, or Witch Magick. I took Kylo before losing Aurra, and it became a Talzin fight. Fortunately, I know my deck has a lower hit rate than most Talzin decks (10 even cards) so I just let him activate first each round and used his deck against him. He just got the rolls and I missed them in the late game. I was no longer feeling good after that drawn out loss. Win. Obi/Maz – This is what we built the deck for. I was really looking forward to this match and went in with high hopes. Round one, I rolled Aurra into 2x two ranged and then used Quick Draw into a holdout blaster and rolled Talzin into 1 base, blank and a resource. Die fixed the blank into a 2 base and ambush action to deal 9 damage to Obi. It did not get better for my opponent from there. Win. Kylo2/Anakin – I had a dream opening hand for this match. I played fast hands on Aurra, activated dealing 3 (discarding Frighten), then Quick Draw into an LL-30, and playing Bait and Switch to run through my entire hand on my third turn, before Kylo activated. Fortune smiled and Kylo missed the next round as well, right before he died. Anakin did not last much longer. Win. Yoda/Hondo – This was our hardest meta matchup behind Rey/Aayla. I got milled by this deck back to back at Adepticon and was worried sitting down across from it. I don’t have much to say about the match except to say that I killed Yoda turn two, and Hondo turn three. He never got to use the force speed or lone operative he played. It went swiftly. Win. Thrawn/Talzin – I sat down across from this deck concerned. This match has been pretty even for us, but can get away from us when piloted by an expert. Unfortunately my opponent was the 2017 European Champion and he proved to be the opponent I feared he was. Fortunately for me, between the weather, the environment, the noise, and the crowd, he seemed to be off his game and had a really tough time focusing on the game and what he was trying to accomplish. The game was over quickly, with him not getting a valuable card out of my hand with Thrawn once. I’m really glad he rallied in the sixth round and earned a spot on Day 2 Loss. Four wide vehicles – Vehicles isn’t an automatic victory for us, but testing against 3 wide vehicles showed that White Chicks could reliably take it. The game relies on vehicles rolling blanks for a choice It Will All Be Mine play. Unfortunately for me, my opponent put R2D2 down early and resolved as he went, as if he knew I had it in hand! Never once giving me the opportunity to turn the tide of the game. I didn’t stand a chance against that deck. I had earned my day 2 spot by then, so I didn’t take the loss too hard.



Day 2

Win. Rey/Aayla – I have tested against no deck more than this one. We built specifically for this matchup. I knew every trick it had and which cards would help. We had a solid plan. I took my opponent’s battlefield, because we’ve found denying the shields and extending our own life a bit was vital in the match. My opponent targeted Talzin, which is a dream. I took Rey out with Quick Draw while she still had an ancient on and Aayla fell after that. Loss. Obi/Maz – I faced Brian Lindberg of the Destiny Council. I beat him with the deck at Adepticon, which was a point of pride for me, and Obi/Maz was a favorable matchup for me. I knew Brian was a world class player, however, and I went in with mixed feelings. Through Quick Draw, I dealt an impressive 11 damage round one, and felt particularly good going into round two. Round two I drew into Quick Draw and that would ultimately spell my doom. See, I had four resources at this point and had It Will All Be Mine, Quick Draw, and a Holdout Blaster in hand. I needed 6 damage (Brian had used ancient and now had 2 shields on Obi), so I did Quick Draw i nto Holdout (plus the LL-30 on Talzin already), and landed 5 damage. He rolls out Obi and comes up two blanks, while I was one resource short of playing it. I rolled Aurra, into a resource, and he knew what was in my hand. He plays Concentrate to turn the blanks to six, and I lost Aurra on the next action. Two rounds of Maz activation into Hyperspace Jump kept me from resolving anything or using It Will All Be Mine, and the third Maz activation got Talzin. It was an amazing game, and Brian deserves his top 32 mat. Win. Rey/Aayla. Back to the white whale. I stopped it short once and I wasn’t sure I could do it a second time, but he targeted Talzin and couldn’t stop my damage. He did manage to get a redeploy out on Rey before she went down, but in round 3 I played Snare on Aayla and round four I played It Will All Be Mine for the win. He won the roll-off and took his own battlefield, and clearly didn’t expect It Will All Be Mine.



Bowie: For my pairings, I think it’s best I just don’t go into the crushing 3-3 record that kept me from Day 2. But as a short summary: misfortune befalls even the most reliable decks. Of particular entertainment was (on the bad side) a three-blank roll out from Aurra with two Fast Hands on her to walk into a Feel Your Anger, and (on the good side) killing a Sabine with 1 shield and full health from orbit with the world’s most devastating one-in-a-million roll out from a Quick Draw. The deck performed fine, the lines of play were clear and potent, but dice played a part larger than I wish they did, and a few plays might have been subpar in retrospect. Clearly, Michael proved it could go a distance, as did variants piloted by Gil and Paul.

Thanks for reading and make sure to check back on Wednesday for the White Chicks decktech. -NJCuenca

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