[Author’s note: As always, I’m only writing about the competitive scene, specifically leading into NOVA. Don’t freak out if you love two character decks and don’t understand the history of “The King is Dead! Long live the King!! I promise everything will be okay.]

First off I want to express how appreciative of the response to my last article has been. Love the idea or hate it (and there was a lot of both), making decks 40 cards is an interesting proposition. The article resulted in thousands of hits, hundreds of comments between reddit, facebook, and elsewhere, and was the topic of conversation between several other content creators. I was feeling pretty down on Destiny last week, but I must say the last week has invigorated me. I even played in a store championship going 3-1 with Plo/Padawans, losing only to HonestlySarcastc’s NOVA deck.

Where Have All The Kylo’s Gone?

(Please go re-read that to the tune of this song. kthx.)

Even though three Kylo decks made the top cut at Gen Con, Kylo/Snoke and Kylo/Pryce (KRAP) have all been deleted from the meta over the past two weeks. Even though Snoke and Arihnda both have abilities that serve as a “fifth die” in that they increase damage output, the resulting dice pools of a big hitter like Kylo paired with support characters who only have one damage side on each of their dice are too easily mitigated, thus neutralizing those “fifth die abilities.” As a three-wide mill player at Gen Con I had little fear of Kylo Ren; Kylo players only had about a 50/50 shot to hit me with his ability (16 yellow, 13 blue, 1 grey), but my mitigation was excellent against his dice as Easy Pickings or Entangle would almost assuredly blow out my opponent and cards like Into the Garbage Chute, Hidden Motive, and Beguile also did tons of work. Vehicle players also likely salivated to see Kylo across from them at Gen Con, especially rainbow vehicles decks like DBS who can both afford to lose a character early and trade it for Kylo by the end of round two, all but deleting any pressure of losing anyone else.

The ubiquity of Kylo had been pushing plenty of decks out of the meta. I tried my ass off to make Steps (Luke3/Rey2), and Plo/Padawans work in the Kylo meta and even with 8 Grey cards I couldn’t make it happen. His damage output was just way, way too high to match. Kylo’s damage is what ultimately pushed two character decks out of the top of the meta as no amount of tanking was taking two character decks into the mid game with their entire squad. This is the reason why Vehicles and Three Wide Mill rose to the top of the standings and cut at Gen Con. Of course there are always a few outliers as some people didn’t see any Kylo at all in their 8 swiss rounds, and very few matchups are auto-losses, especially where dice are involved, but speaking from a meta-evaluation standpoint, this is what I saw.

Because of Kylo the meta is rampant with mill decks and vehicle decks. And, all week I’ve been trying to figure out what I should write about leading up to NOVA. I’d basically settled on three-character decks being a must and two character decks being obsolete (hence, “Two Character Decks are Dead!”), but then something happened…

Paul Mattos, all around good guy and great local player was playing Steps (He calls it The Last Jedi and Luk3 R2Y) and doing well. It was a small SC, only 16 people, so when Joe was 3-0 there was one more 3-0 match going on to play for the title, Paul vs. Three Wide Mill.

Yes, that’s Luke’s Protection for the Anti-Mill technology! Then, Paul beat Joe in the finals; the game went to time and the shielding tankiness of Steps swung the tiebreaker!

Look how stressed Joe looks! Steps Wins!! “Long Live Two Character Decks!!”

(For those who don’t know, the phrase “The King is dead! Long live the King!” is said to announce when the king had died and they were welcoming in a new king. Super apropos to this topic).

Here’s the Store Champ winning list:

Credit where credit is due, Paul took down the SC while I went 3-1 and got fifth, but there are some cards I would question in here leading into NOVA. For example, I think The Power of the Force is pretty weak here and needs Force Speed to really be strong, so I’d either cut the TPOTF or add Force Speeds (which you can power action over to Rey to use twice in a round if needed). I also don’t love Heroism, but I understand that it keeps Rey alive longer if you find it early enough, so I get it and can get behind it a bit. There’s no It Binds All Things, which I like, but Mattos went light on three cost upgrades to make Binds matter less and make Destiny stronger (I too have struggled with the 2 Ezra’s vs 1 Ezra’s 1 Dagger conundrum).

I also think you could entertain Luke/Aayla as I’ve really missed how defensive Aayla’s dice can be since her nerf. I actually made a video for our Patreon subscribers six weeks ago about Luke, his best pairing, and how I think you could do some insane ramping in an Aayla version. I’ve decided to include it, it’s only 10 minutes, and I think would really help illustrate what kind of openings we can have:

I think Kylo has been pushed out of the meta enough to create a tipping point for Luke Rey to come back, and as such it is one of a few two character decks I could recommend taking to NOVA.

Two Character Options for NOVA

In addition to the aforementioned Luk3R2y deck, I think I like three other two character decks leading into NOVA. Now, I’m not going to NOVA, and if I were I’d be hard pressed not to play the mill deck we took to great success at Gen Con (albeit with updates), but there is something to be said about pivoting away from the deck with the biggest target on its back. I still expect Vehicle decks to be huge, but with enough tanking I think we can get there.

That’s where my focus lies, Tanking. The following four decks, I think, can tank pretty well for two characters. One deck I chose not to write about, but is a solid consideration for a two character list is Yoda/Cassian aggro. My main reason for exclusion is because The Destiny Council already did a big write up on the deck, which is super popular in the Minnesota meta, and I’d rather link you to their fine work instead: So check it out here!

Obi-Maz

Obi-Maz was the lone undefeated at Gen Con day 1, and two of my teammates (Blake and Reflex) have both won Store Championships with it in the past week. Blake wrote about his win last week, and his list is both in that article and our gauntlet page, but I’ll include it here also.

Of all the two character decks I’m the most suspect about this deck taking out Vehicles because of how easy it is for them to kill Maz, and how easily mitigatable that makes Obi’s dice, but blowout cards like Hyperspace Jump and My Ally is the Force can really swing matchups. What I like most about this choice is that it’s amazing vs. Rey2 decks and other two character decks in general. In my opinion there’s no faster damage deck, and in the Legacies meta could even routinely outclaim Sabine/Ezra. I wouldn’t sleep on this deck.

R2P2

Here’s a deck nobody is talking about, the original Tank deck. I don’t know if Poe is a better pairing damage wise than Luk3, but this deck offers some interesting cards that are strong against vehicles. Being able to recur Honor Guard through Docking Bay is great, and it can even pack Retreat/Hit and Run to improve the vehicle matchup a bit. Suppressive Fire and Dex’s Diner are great additions from Way of the Force, and the deck can even pack Luke’s Protection for the mill technology if it needs that too. To mirror Obi-Maz, adding speed like Hit and Run/All in could be a matchup swinger vs. Mill even though Aayla is a better partner for that strategy. I reached out to Drew from ArrowBrookGaming because I knew he’s been on it, and he did make a video a couple weeks ago using the deck, so I’ve included it here for you to check out (If you don’t routinely check out ABG you should, they are solid players with great finishes in the Northeast, and have recently added World Champ Edwin Chen to their squad).

There’s some nice technology in here and we see Drew going with Riposte and Synchro like Paul did in his deck above, but one card I’d want is Deflect. I think it’s time for Deflect to make a huge comeback. It was excellent for me in my Store Championship Sunday as I faced four decks with Range, and even killed a Talzin with it before she could resolve any of her dice. I would include it in Steps as well, and possibly Obi-Maz.

Thrawn Snoke

Speaking of Destiny in the Northeast, Cody Williams (Manten on Discord/TTS) has been terrorizing Store Championships with his podracer Thrawn/Snoke deck. This list is an older list, but it checks out:

This list might be before the Beguile revolution, but there’s no way I’d play Mind Trick over it, especially in a money making deck like this. I think it needs two, and I also really like Doubt in the vehicle/Mill meta, so I’d be including those somewhere if I were running this at NOVA, but Manten swears by the little Podracer, using it to do damage when it comes into play via Hailfire Droid Tanks so that you actually want it to bounce itself, and then focusing it to 2 indirect for 1 resource (potentially free with Weapons Factory Alpha) makes it an oppressive little damage dealer. Dark Ritual gives this deck some tankiness, but I think it could use more shield sides, but I’m not sure where you find them. I also think that Fang Fighter needs to become an AT-DP to take out opposing vehicles, especially Anakin’s Podracer in three-wide mill.

Are two character decks dead? A few days ago I thought yes, but these four decks give me hope that the meta isn’t a 3v3 slog. I won’t be at NOVA, but I’ll be following closely and I’ll be rooting for two character decks to take it down!

Thanks for reading,

BobbySapphire

Yippee-o, yipee-ay