Over the weekend we hosted a ARH standard Star Wars Destiny charity tournament through our echobase discord on TTS. We had a total of 22 participants with players joining us from England, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Canada, America & the Netherlands.

All proceeds from this tournament have been donated to CLIC Sargent. CLIC Sargent is the UK’s leading Cancer charity for children, young people and their families. CLIC Sargent supports people from diagnosis onwards, and aims to help the whole family deal with the impact of cancer and its treatment, life after treatment and, in some cases, bereavement.

In total, collectively we were able to raise an amazing £250. Thank you all to those who donated to the cause.

This is the first big tournament since the ARH-Stand-Holocron update issued on the 13th of April; so today on echobase we will be giving the facts and figures and breakdowns on the tournament – let’s take a look and see how the new Holocron has shaped the meta.

Most popular decks:
4 x Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Savage Oppress – Loyal Sibling / Rule of Two
2 x Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Trandoshan Hunter
2 x Dash Rendar – Outer Rim Hotshot / Han Solo Cool & Confident
2 x Kylo Ren – Driven by Fear / Count Dooku – Corrupted Politician / Rule of Two

Unsurprisingly the most represented character throughout the field was Darth Vader – Driven by Anger making an appearance in 7 of the 22 decks. We see him in three different line-ups: Savage Opress four times, the Trandoshan Hunter twice and also paired with FN-2199 with the plot Lightsaber Mastery.

Rule of Two also lined up on the table 7 times seeing Sith & Apprentice pairings of Vader / Savage, Kylo / Dooku & Kylo / Maul.

Han Solo – Cool and Confident was the most popular Hero character to hit the table in a total of 4 teams. Twice teamed with Dash Rendar, once with Chewbacca – The Beast allowing the line-up to run the plot Valorous Tribe, and finally we see Han paired with Chewbacca – Commanding Force.

Transformation characters are still the pick of the bunch…

TOP 8

After 6 rounds of Swiss, the tournament cut to a top 8. Let’s take a look at a few lists from the top 8. (9th place also finished 4 – 2 playing Vader / Savage but due to strength of schedule did not make the cut) That’s 5 Vaders in the top 9….

Rank	Deck	Player	Score
1.	Dash Rendar – Outer Rim Hotshot / Han Solo – Cool & Confident	Whoopsteroids	5 -1
2.	Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Trandoshan Hunter	Vulkar	5 -1
3.	Chewbacca – Commanding Force / Han Solo – Cool & Confident	echo3ofclubs	4 – 2
4.	Kylo Ren – Driven by Fear / Maul – Consumed by Revenge / Rule of Two	Oeklampadius	4 – 2
5.	Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Savage Oppress / Rule of Two	TheBastMaster	4 – 2
6.	Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Savage Oppress / Rule of Two	Dombeaux	4 – 2
7.	Kylo Ren – Driven by Fear / Count Dooku – Corrupt Politician / Rule of Two	Rockntroll	4 – 2
8.	Darth Vader – Driven by Anger / Trandoshan Hunter	Byrus	4 – 2

Spoiler alert – the Hero deck lists are up first as unfortunately neither of the Hero decks made the top 4.

All top 8 games were played as a best of three.

Han / Dash has always threatened to take the top spot on a good day for the pesky, fast rolling, get in / get out pairing, and Saturday was obviously a good day (I can testify to taking 15 damage to the face after a gross Controlled Chaos play – Dash/ Controlled chaos on the restricted list please). Whoopsteroids has been playing Han / Dash as his competitive ‘go to‘ deck since the Redemption release tournament. He has the experience and reps to go with the deck. So if anyone’s going to pilot that deck to the top, it’s going to be Sebastian. Congratulations on topping Swiss.

The only other hero deck to make the top cut (And the only deck in the top cut representing Command Red) was Chewbacca – Commanding Force / Han Solo – Cool & Confident. I piloted the deck to take 3rd place in swiss; my decision to run the deck was influenced by our awesome exclusive Top 8 Han & Chewie Spot glosses and 9th to 24th card stock promos, created by Aegis Creative. Again, we extend our thanks to Aegis for these fantastic cards.

For this build I stepped away from the Entourage support package and went for tempo, choosing to run an upgrade suite alongside a heavy mitigation event package. I was able to beat a few Vaders in the Swiss rounds but ultimately fell to him in the quarters.

Before we move onto the top 4 results – I’ve broken down each of the top performing Villain Force decks and assessed the cards in common. Villain Force decks seem to builds themselves as there is a pretty definitive ‘go to‘ package; I’ve created an image that features cards that appeared 5 or more times in the top 6 villain Force decks. Let’s call it the Force Villain Starter pack;

TOP 4

Moving onto the top 4 – interestingly the top 4 seeds from Swiss all fell in the quarter finals. The resulting top 4 we’re the following:

I think the above graphic paints a clear message: that Vader is too pushed at 19 points. This is a topic and discussion for another day, at another time. He is where he is now, but we at echobase are advocates for an increase to 20 points in the near future (echo7: we appreciate that 1 point isn’t objectively very much, but the fact that there are 11 point villain beasts in the game in the form of Savage Opress and Trandoshan Hunter makes all the difference).

Vader making it into the top 4 is not too surprising given a third of the field ran the Sith Lord. The fact that three made it into the top 4 is; but given his points cost he really is amazing value now at his newly balanced point cost of 19.

It’s worth noting that the top 4 games, played as a best of three, were done and dusted in under 40 minutes… Vader games are fast. Maybe too fast..

Could Kylo / Dooku put its claim on the tournament by becoming the best Rule of Two deck?

Before we move onto the final, see below for Vulkar and Byrus‘ Vader / Trandoshan list

Byrus’ Vader / Trandoshan Fell to TheBastMaster’s Vader / Savage, and Rockntroll’s Kylo / Dooku dispatched Dombeaux’s Vader / Savage in the other semi finals. This resulted in a Kylo / Dooku vs Vader / Savage final.

The Final

The final resulted in Rockntroll defeating TheBastMaster 2- 1. It’s worth noting at this point that Rockntroll defeated Vader / Trandoshan in the quarter finals, Vader / Savage in the Semi Finals and finally scalped another Vader / Savage in the final. I’d be pretty confident in saying that Dooku / Kylo is the superior Rule of Two deck given how many Vader scalps it’s claimed (echo7: or at least has a decent matchup into Vader decks. It did lose in Swiss against Dombeaux’ Vader/Savage, which it beat in the semis). I’m guessing Rockntroll doesn’t want to face another Vader any time soon…

Also worth noting that Rockntroll took a loss in the swiss to AceJon’s Hondo / Pirate Loyalist / Pirate Loyalist deck – the two indirect damage on activation from Kylo is obviously less effective into a three wide deck with a higher health pool. In an aggro match-up Kylo has the advantage it seems, but maybe this loss was due to the fact that the pirates high health and sustainability to extend the game past 3 rounds clinched it for the pirates. Kylo / Dooku absolutely works on a clock – It needs to get in, and push damage fast. Maybe Kylo’s weakness is a high health deck that’s looking to extend the game past round 3.

Please see below for Rockntrolls Battle of Hoth Championship deck,

As for those of you who are looking to get eye’s on TheBastMaster’s Vader / Savage list – We will have a deck review article later in the week written by the man himself.

In closing, we’d like to extend our thanks to all of our participants and to those who donated to the cause who could not make the event. An extended thank you goes out to Aegis Creative for contributing to our prize pool with the exclusive spot gloss and card promos. These helped raised the numbers for the event as they are absolutely fantastic.

Just roll 3’s,
Echo3.

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