You may remember me writing back on the 21st June about a Discord group that hosts games played over webcams. At that point in time around 500 games had been played through the discord with a couple of tournaments completed. If you missed it then you can find it here along with a link to the discord if it is something you are interested in.
As I write this the discord now has a record of 1120 games played with the last game seeing Elrik Vonreg and Ciena Ree beat Nute Gunray, Bala Tik and Ciena Ree. Those 1120 games are all casual but the weekend of the 15th and 16th saw the first attempt at a live event whereas past events have been a more “play your game when you can” set-up. The event was sponsored by Laser Gaming’s Sarah Evans providing some of their custom tokens as the event prize. They are some of the best tokens in the business and if you want to pimp up your Destiny play head over to their Etsy site here.
The event format was standard legal including the print and play set of Transformations. 12 players from various time zones managed to synchronise their watches for a 5 round event with a cut to a top four. Here are the runners and riders and how they finished.
Jeff (Weije Pabut) – 4-1 – Anakin Skywalker(TFR), eTarfful, Valorous Tribe
The 86 – 4-1 – eJango Fett, eBoba Fett, Any Means Necessary
Wesc02 – 4-1 – eSatine Kryze, R2-D2, C-3PO, eRescue Han
Jeff Oliva – 4-1 – eMaul, Mandalorian Super Commando, Retribution
—————————————————————————————-THE CUT
Uncle Rico – 3-2 – eVader, Pyke Sentinel, Retribution
Cashew – 3-2 – eKylo Ren, eRey, Temporary Truce
Super DK – 2-3 – eDr Aphra, eGeneral Grievous, Sweeper Droid
DarthPaul12 – 2-3 – eHera Syndulla, eChopper, Kanan Jarrus, Spectre Cell
Ozzy – 2-3 – eRex, Cody, Clone Trooper
Majobasil – 1-4 – General Grievous and 4 Battle Droids
Val – 1-4 – General Grievous, eKylo Ren
Polyfly – 0-5 – eDr Aphra, eGeneral Grievous, Sweeper Droid
It’s not a huge field of players or data sample but it’s interesting to see the prevalence of plots in the decklists used. 75% of decks boasted a plot and all the decks making the cut had 1. We also have 4 decks using cards from the Transformations set with two of them making it into the cut. This set truly has some great cards that have without a doubt caused a stir in the meta but would one of the Transformations decks come out on top? The Cut panned out like this: –
Semi-Finals
Wesc02 with Rescue Han Droids beat Jeff (Weije Pabut) with Anakin Tarfful – 2-0
Jeff Oliva with Maul/Mando beat The 86s Boba/Jango – 2-0
Final
Wesc02 with Rescue Han Droids beat Jeff Oliva with Maul/Mando – 2-0
Congratulations to Wes on his victory with what I think is one of the top decks out there right now. I managed to catch up with him and ask him his thoughts on the event and the deck. Here’s what he said
“I was able to go 4-1 through the Swiss rounds. There were quite a few aggro lineups in this tournament, which I initially thought would be problematic with the droids having such low health and would leave them vulnerable to going down before I could build a good board state, but the rolls went in my favor and I was usually able to keep all of my initial characters alive through two rounds. My loss came in the only game that I was unable to rescue Han, but it still didn’t feel out of reach and was a very good game. Through all of the Swiss matches, the games played out very similarly. I was able to ramp and build a solid board state throughout the first two rounds, which set up for powerful third and fourth rounds to close out the game.
Wes
Next was the top cut. My first match-up in the top cut came against the deck that handed me my only loss in the Swiss rounds. My opponent was playing eTarrful/Anakin(Tr)/Valorous Tribe. He was easily able to flip Anakin to Darth Vader due to the low health on each of my characters. Valorous Tribe also made it difficult to focus someone down unless it was all in one shot. Luckily, I was able to rescue Han in both of our games, which made the difference. He played his deck flawlessly, but once again, the extra 12 health can just be too much to overcome for most decks. The final match-up came against eMaul/Mando Commando/Retribution. This was a scary match-up and was piloted by a great player. Our first game went fairly quickly as he fell prey to the main problem with Maul and aggro decks in general, where everything comes down to the rolls with no easy way to fix dice. The second game was very close, and he was almost able to take it down despite me rescuing Han in the second round. In this game, he was able to hit his rolls and also used both of his Desperate Measures to good effect. In the end though, the board state on my side just became too overwhelming, and I was able to pull it out.
Deck Thoughts/Play Theory
The overall idea of the deck is to ramp as hard as you can in the first two rounds and position yourself to rescue Han either at the end of the second round if the draws line up, or in the third round at the very latest. Once the board is built, it’s very easy to set yourself up for one blowout round to close out the game. I’m running Salt Flats to guarantee a resource side on Satine in the first round if I get my battlefield, which gets the ramp off to a good start. This was my first time playing this deck, although I have seen several others run it during the Entourage Gaming Weekly tournaments and in the Artificery League. Now that I’ve played it myself, there were definitely some stand out cards. Covert Mission is definitely an MVP of the deck. Getting a shield and being able to pull any card that you need is essential to the deck. Another card that I found useful was Starviper. There’s a debate about whether Hailfire Droid Tanks are better to run in this deck, but I personally prefer the Starviper. It has three 3 damage sides, and the 2 shields and 2 discard can come in clutch as well. The cards that didn’t feel as impactful were Loth-Cat and Mouse, and Han Solo’s Blaster. Both felt a bit too situational, and threw off the sequencing in order to maximize their value. I would consider replacing them with Well Connected, or Flee the Scene to add a little more mitigation. Overall the deck was super consistent, and felt unbeatable once Han was rescued. The decks that could pose a threat to this one would be decks that can efficiently disrupt your resources, and also play Desperate Measures to blow up the early ramp supports. I still think there are some aggro decks out there as well that could blitz down a character before you’re able to build a good enough board and rescue Han, but it didn’t play out that way in this particular tournament.”
If you’d like to try this deck out – here is the list that took down the event, but I think Wes gives some useful insight into changes he would make going forward so you might want to amend it slightly.
A very solid list there. I don’t have Entourage in my collection so I tried this and used Canto Bight Pistol in place of the Entourages which doesn’t see much play but is a very nice 3 drop that will redeploy to the rescued Han later in the game. I also had an Instigate and two copies of Nullify. Rescue Han is such a fun way to play the game and experiment with pairings. I also agree with the Starviper being the 4 drop of choice. Solid card all round. I’ve found Vibrocutlass to be quite decent to drop on Satine for the redeploy to Han late game as well so you might want to try that.
In second place was Jeff from Brazil with the now classic(?) Maul/Mando/Retribution combination. Straight up in your face aggro which I’m sure will make the Dice Commando Team happy to see the deck still doing well. I personally never played the deck on Bendu’s Lair but I like the potential extra die to start the game with and had never thought to use that battlefield before. I always had Theed to try and get me one of the bigger sabres down on round one or force them to use some early removal on the Mandalorian die to stop me theeding the die, and if they do then you get a damage from Retribution anyway. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. This deck however has plenty of ramp cards to use for that very purpose so the extra Bendu die is very nice here. Well played Jeff – maybe next time you can be the bride and not the bridesmaid.
The deck lists are going to keep coming as the semifinalists have also kindly sent me their lists as well. First we have Jeff with a elite Tarfful and single die Transformations Anakin with the amazing Valorous Tribe. A deck I am very familiar with as a local player Erik also took this deck to a win in a UK TTS Online event recently. Loads of healing in this deck. There are definitely some differences between the two decks. I would have expected to also see Dex’s Diner and Admiral in the list and if you own any then also the amazing Shien Mastery as the deck boasts the Fluid Ripostes already. Needless to say this is a very solid deck and will make many plenty of cuts as it is so hard to break down.
And last but no means least we have Andrew with Boba/Jango/Any Means Necessary. Look at this list. Pure Aggro, very low amount of removal cards in the deck, 6 including the Armor Plating although there is the Bacta Healing as well. This deck is simply the epitome of the phrase, “go big or go home” – Big removal with Reversal and Entangle, boosted big damage with Hunt Them Down and Armed to the Teeth. I imagine this hits very hard and very fast. I’m not a fan of the Jetpack so I might have run the good ol’ Donderbus in that slot for a little bit of redeploy [echo7: though of course the Jetpack gets a discount with Jango] but other than that this deck looks like it will really have your opponent feeling under pressure from the get go. If only I had this Boba in my collection, I’d definitely give this a try.
I’d just like to finish by congratulating the organisers on their first live event and for building something up that has become a fantastic Destiny community. I know it all started in the coronavirus lockdown as a way to play destiny with our precious collections of cards and dice but it has grown into more than that. I now see it as a third way to play some Star Wars Destiny as opposed to a substitute for the real thing. I think the community that it has generated will be playing through the server for a long time to come and that is a fantastic thought to currently have. Well done Matt and Elliot and the many others that are now also chipping in with events and weekly games nights in different time zones. Really looking forward to the 2v2 tournament coming up. That’s going to be bonkers fun.
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