Today, on echobase, I’d like to bring to you a deck I have been enjoying playing in the echobase league and on my kitchen table throughout the month of August. I think it still has quite a bit of game going into the Echoes of Destiny (Reprint) Meta.
The story of this deck all begins back when Parker Simpson announced his, let’s call it retirement from creating alternative art for Star Wars Destiny and started a Destiny Celebration with many offers on his current stock of cards. I had to get my order in and was nicely surprised when my order arrived (and I can’t even remember what I ordered due to this) with a signed Rebel Pilot card. It was not many days later that I received a second signed Rebel Pilot with a lovely thank you card for the support we’ve given Parker from time to time, here at echobase. Well, that was it. A deck had to be built with both of these cards in it and hence we end up with the below pairing.
Plot
As you can see the pairing of two elite Rebel Pilots and a single dice Wedge Antilles is one point short of the full thirty point character pairing that we are allowed. So the first thing to add into the deck was a plot. There are only two choices that fit here but they are both fairly good options. There is United or Fortified Position. I went for the latter and haven’t tried United although I really should have. I don’t know why but I liked the psychology of Fortified Position. Let me explain, with Wedge‘s ability you have a pretty good chance of gaining shields when your pilots roll in and an extra shield even if you are on your own battlefield makes your opponent feel like you have an advantage, one might say the high ground and they are on an uphill battle from the start.
Characters
Although the deck was inspired by the Rebel Pilots, it is Wedge Antilles Flight Instructor that is the glue that brings the whole deck together. His ability turns the Rebel Pilots into complete monsters. It’s a great feeling when you can just roll in 5 starting character dice that essentially don’t have any blanks when Wedge is still standing. The free shields from Wedge’s passive ability can be quite oppressive and have saved me on more than one occasion. There are no tricks or frills on any of these dice they are hugely consistent with only resource, shield or ranged damage sides. I really would have liked there to have been a focus side on Wedge. He is a leader after all but maybe that would be too good for his points cost.
Battlefield
I went for Military Camp but there are others that could be considered. Military Camp lets us get both of our Rebel Pilots and potentially two vehicles, thanks to piloting, into the pool. That can be a lot of dice for your opponent to deal with and will give you plenty of options for your next turn.
Upgrades
This isn’t going to be a very big section as you can imagine sporting three piloting abilities you probably want vehicle supports that are going to stay around all game. The vehicles with piloting essentially are the equivalent of a character with an upgrade anyway. However, the deck does have a pair of Veteran of War cards in the deck. They can only be played on Wedge as we don’t have You Are In Command in the deck. Veteran of War is just too good a card to miss out on in a mono red hero deck. The additional on play bonus of healing two damage for an extra resource to keep Wedge’s ability on the table is extra icing on the cake really.
Vehicles and Supports
2 x Tech Team – It’s an obvious choice, with only two of the dice cards being upgrades there are plenty of targets for the discount.
2 x Merchant Freighter – We can’t eject this anymore but it’s still a hugely significant card. Extra resources each turn is always welcome.
2 x Padme Amidala’s Starship – For me this is the most important vehicle in the deck. While Wedge means we don’t mind rolling blanks so much with our pilot dice, we still want to be able to resolve those dice. The focus sides on this vehicle help massively with that. It also provides a free shield to a leader each time it activates. This directly lines up with our key goal to keep Wedge alive and is a very welcome bonus.
2 x V-Wing – This is a very rarely played vehicle these days but I’ve been hugely impressed with this in the deck. The passive ability of your opponent not being able to remove this dice if you have a another Hero Vehicle die in the pool has proven invaluable. I always feel like when this vehicle hits the table it’s like the cavalry has arrived to finish the battle off. The 2 for 1 discard side has proven a great option to resolve just before you re-roll your dice searching for damage.
1 x Wedge’s X-Wing – Apart from Padme’s ship, as I do see it as massively important, all other unique ships I only include 1 of so there are fewer dead card draws in the deck. For those that aren’t aware a dead card draw is when you draw a card that you immediately can’t play at all. A duplicate of a unique vehicle you have already played is exactly that. Wedge’s X-Wing is a great vehicle. 4 damage sides and a shield for Wedge if he is piloting it and why wouldn’t he be. Wedge’s X-Wing has a very neat additionally ability should you roll a blank with it. You get to put a damage on a support or upgrade and use the power action to remove that card if the damage equals its cost. Really good for hitting strong 1 cost cards like Jar’kai.
1 x Rogue Two – Fabulously designed vehicle which makes it into most Red Hero decks whether they are focused on vehicles or not. The on activation ability can be used offensively or defensively. All you have to do is spot a unique red character. This is great for this deck with our cheap pilot dice with 2 blanks. We should have plenty of targets for that re-roll. Even if Wedge has fallen and been defeated the dice is still very good, both damage sides are a 2 value side and it has a focus which can be very useful in this deck.
1 x Ghost – I wanted more hero vehicles for the deck but was struggling to choose vehicles that I felt fit. I didn’t like the look of the A-Wing or B-Wing. Rogue One is great but in the end I went for the Ghost for the additional shields on resolution of it’s dice and it has no blanks so unless they remove the dice you should be getting a free shield.
1 x Phantom – I couldn’t have the Ghost without the Phantom. Potential for two resolutions each turn using the actions on the Phantom. It’s also a prime target for one of our pilots to Eject out of.
Events – Removal Suite
2 x Rebel Assault – Nice piece of zero cost removal. There are plenty of ranged sides to consistently make this very useful and I love the fact that this whole deck is a Rebel Assault of sorts.
2 x Near Miss – Pilots aplenty should keep this removal piece live for the entire game. Really useful as can hit any dice regardless of side.
2 x Assail – Same as above but swap Pilots for Piloting aplenty. Additional bonus of Ambush here which can come in really handy at times to maintain tempo.
2 x Rout – Routs an interesting one. On the Military Camp battlefield it’s quite easy to get 6 dice in the pool very quickly but you can get stuck where you then want to resolve the dice before your opponent has got to the point of activating and putting dice in the pool so can be a little awkward but 1 resource for potentially multiple dice is worth the risk.
2 x Power of the Tribe – All pilot subtypes here so it would be a huge oversight not to have this fabulous red heavy duty removal card in the deck.
1 x Roll in the Mud – This is a neat little removal piece that nicely messes with on activation abilities of characters and then let’s you remove their best dice just rolled in. You run the risk of giving your opponent some tempo and the ability to resolve whatever was rolled in that you didn’t remove. This always let’s you get the opponents best dice and I think you’ll be hard pressed to see a Hero Red deck without it. It should possibly be a two of.
Events – Other
Now some of these cards could also be lumped in with removal to some extent.
2 x Medic! – Better than Field Medic in this deck as we could earlier in the game be healing 3 damage for the same cost. That possibility makes it well worth it. Ambush as always is a nice little extra too. Watch your opponent’s face when you Medic! into a Medic! into a Roll out or resolve.
2 x Flanked by Wingmen – Zero cost for 2 extra life. Yes, please. If the Wedge ability has already maxed out your shields then I guess you have a card to discard for a re-roll.
1 x Eject – It’s still a great card even with the errata (that you have to discard a piloted vehicle with a dice now)and has saved me in a couple of games. I’ve only ever used it on the Phantom or Wedge’s X-Wing though.
Strategy and Opening Hand
I really wanted to share this deck as I think it is a very straight forward deck to play and would be ideal for someone starting to play. It features a bundle of keywords like Ambush and Piloting, and also has a decent amount of game triggers to remember to get you used to the Destiny mechanics. At the same time the dice sides of the characters are very basic with only damage, shields or resources featuring. The strategy also feels simple. Get your characters into the pool as soon as possible, exactly as you would expect from a bunch of Rebel Pilots, and pretty much resolve whatever sides you get. Build up your fleet of extra supports and you’ll hopefully muster enough firepower to defeat your opponent. Don’t be fooled though. I may say it is a simple deck to play but that doesn’t mean it’s isn’t effective at what it does. You can watch it in action in a not so long ago Dice Commando video here. To start the game in your opening hand you should be looking to get 1 or 2 ramp cards, Non-Eject zero cost events and a ship or two.
Honourable Mentions and the Echoes of Destiny Reprint List
To be honest there there isn’t much I would change with this deck. I think I would have added Focused Fire to be a bit more aggressive if I continued to play this deck. Similarly, Co-ordinated Strike could have been added to turn those free shields into damage. Great when used in tandem with the V-Wing where the dice cannot be removed. I did at one point consider including Proton Grenades as you could boost the value and take the indirect on the shields but in the end I went for minimising indirect sides instead.
The Echoes of Destiny reprint list gives us some very useful options.
A couple of useful Battlefield options in Weapons Factory Alpha and Comm Tower considering we are mainly vehicles and have a plot. Both could be very useful.
In the Support category we have the very dependable Resistance Crait Speeder, a great 2 cost vehicle we could pilot. For additional focus sides we could go for the Senate Chamber although not a vehicle so I’m not sure on this one. I would probably more likely swap the Phantom for BB8 for that little bit of extra focus.
From the Upgrades we could plump for the Dorsal Turret and a case could be made for Rex’s Blaster Pistol but I don’t think either of these really fit with the deck as it currently is.
Even though the Event section of the reprint list holds the most cards I think the only one to consider would be Pinned Down.
Of all these I think I would replace Ghost and Phantom with two Resistance Crait Speeders and possibly replace the Eject with BB8. I’d definitely try the Weapons Factory Alpha but we would lose speed. If I made the battlefield swap I think I would also swap the Routs to Pinned Downs. I’d always have Focused Fire at the back of mind as an option as well.
Here’s the original deck list in all it’s glory. I hope you enjoy giving this a try whether it be on your kitchen table, your local store or in one of this weekend’s Galactic Opens played online over Tabletop Simulator. More information on the 3 Heats can be found by clicking here.
Until next time. Watch your Six and may the Dice be with you.
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