Fearless and Inventive - Farewell Current Meta

It's finally here gang, Heroes & Legends. It's no longer a myth, like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the Cleveland Browns Super Bowl chances. In celebration of the end of this meta, I'm going to go over a couple of light side decks that I ran at some of these last couple of Store Championships.

With the SC's this year I wanted to do two things, first win, second, have some fun with offbeat decks. I wanted to limit myself to playing Sith control and Scouts/Super Friends, to a one time thing. I was also hoping to have H&L for at least 2 of the SCs I planned on attending during March. Sadly, that didn't come to pass(I'm hoping for its legality this weekend). Because of the delays, I ended up doing a lot of playtesting on 2 different LS decks that I thought fared well against the current Sith dominated meta. It turned out that both of these decks used Jedi objective sets, but not the ones numbered 1, 2, or 5.

Deck No. 1 - Training the Rebel Fleet

When putting these decks together, I knew that vehicles were going to have to be a part of the build, they tend to pack a better punch against Sith. Hitting fast is one of the best ways to get ahead of the control. So the first two objective sets I think of for vehicles, other than AtAS and RtS, are The Rebel Fleet and The Defense of Yavin. These are a great backbone to any kind of deck, because of the resources, direct damage, and blast damage. Blue Squadron Support is also a fantastic set for getting good blast damage at a great cost. But these sets are very commonly used in decks right now. I wanted to use some combinations of objective sets that my opponent may not see coming or have problems dealing with.

One of my favorite objectives has always been Jedi Training. The ability to possibly keep the force on turn 1, or make your opponent commit two units to the force, is just a great way to start the game. This also helps vehicles do something that they are pretty weak at. Instead of not attacking with your y-wing and taking the force back with it, you force your opponent to block one more attack, and possibly have to defend with his committed unit. This will normally mean that they are tapped out for two turns if it is a weenie or they decide to keep the force and let an unopposed attack go through.

Another huge threat to vehicles is Palpatine. When this guy comes down, it usually means a flood of focus tokens, and the entire rebel fleet just chilling doing nothing. Jedi Mind Trick, in my opinion, is the best possible counter to him. It always seems like the DS player has a Royal Guard out, so shooting him down is usually not a possiblity. Letting him defend, waste some cards in an edge battle, and then just saying, "These aren't the droids your looking for", gives you the chance to actually strike with your Home One. What other fun tricks can you do with JMT? If your opponent plays a turn 1 Motti, JMT is almost just as good as a Rebel Assault. He gets locked down with 2 force tokens and most likely cant play another unit. Also, if you have never seen the power of a JMT/It Binds All Things Loop, try to set it up once, its brutal. Speaking of It Binds All Things, Rebel Assault and Rapid Fire are rather nice targets for it as well. Because I think JMT is such a strong card, I'm going to throw in one copy of Forgotten Heroes. You get a third JMT, a good force holder in Obi-Wan, and the Heat of Battle is always welcome.

For the last two spots in the deck, I ended up using Hoodie Han. The main reason for this was to get another elite unit, fate card, and a resource. After playing a lot of games on octgn, and live, I really thought that this was the best rebel objective to finish out the deck. Han can get you that RA or Home One when you need it, Bright Hope is a sold vehicle for 3, and is really annoying for all the removal that sith as. When the SC was over I really had a change of heart and think that Hoth Ops is a much better choice for the deck. You lose out on the resource, but Rogue Three and Wedge are so freaking good.

So here is the first decklist-
Affiliation: Jedi

2x Jedi Training (Core 7-1)
1x Forgotten Heroes (Core 3-1)
2x The Rebel Fleet (Core 11-1)
2x The Defense of Yavin 4 (Core 8-1)
2x Hoth Operations (The Desolation of Hoth 38-1)
1x Blue Squadron Support (Balance of the Force 92-1)

Deck No. 2 - A Hero's Journey to Dagobah

So we used Rebel vehicles in the first deck, now its time to use the Smuggler's and Jedi's arsenal. The one caveat is that there will be no Scouts. I'm going to allow Blockade Runner because the objective can be shut-off. I just really don't understand how Across the Anoat is not "while undamaged", but that's another discussion.

For Jedi ships, you have to start with Red 5. Elite with 3 black blast, what's not to love? We also get R2-D2, a free resource and a sneaky attacker. How many people forget about little R2 sitting there and leave no defenders? Even better with Raise the Stakes out. Double Strike seems like the odd card here, but there will actually turn out to be quite a few valid targets that make it into the deck, even being a vehicle deck at heart. How can you run Red 5 without Pilot Luke? It just screams Nedly.(That's another thing, we need a term for Star Wars Nedliness, throw some ideas in the comments) Luke comes with 2 more fate cards, another resource, and a ship he can jump onto for cheap. Don't underestimate the objective's ability either. So many times your opponent will forget its active and lose an edge battle because of it. Luke is also your best candidate for Double Strike once he jumps ship.

So now we move onto the Smuggler portion of the deck. We get three very beefy, well traveled objective sets here. First we start with Asteroid Sanctuary. It's quite possibly the most versatile objective set in the game, being able to fit into a vehicle or character driven deck. The Falcon still has a really great target with Luke, or your Cloud City Operative, which is right up there with Emperor's Royal Guard for best 2 drop in the game. The operative is almost always going to be able to trigger its reaction because of our resource cards. Use an objective resource and R2 or the tauntaun, then move the focus from R2 to your opponent. An operative for 1! Asteroid Sanctuary will be able to trigger a little more often because of Hero's Resolves bonus.

Next up is Raise the Stakes. Another great, well rounded objective set. You get more operatives, a Swindled, and oh yeah, the Blockade Runner. The Bothan Spy is always useful if you want to know when your opponent has that twist. The last piece of the puzzle is going to be Prepare for Evacuation. Protectors are just fantastic with pilot Luke. You can choose when you want him to come down and wreck face. The bulk transport is so powerful with 4 CC operatives in the deck. It won a game for me getting one of those guys out, when I was resource locked. Ion Cannon Burst is clutch for those always present Tie Attack Squadrons. A Hero's Resolve is also Hoth, so its another objective your opponent won't want to blow up.

Decklist 2

Affiliation: Jedi

2x A Journey to Dagobah (Core 4-1)
2x A Hero's Resolve (Escape from Hoth 64-1)
2x Asteroid Sanctuary (Edge of Darkness 72-1)
2x Raise the Stakes (Edge of Darkness 70-1)
2x Prepare for Evacuation (A Dark Time 49-1)

Well there they are, the last two experiments in a really long meta slump. Hope you guys get your Force packs as soon as possible, a new cycle is upon us!

If you can read this, you don't need glasses