Good Against Remotes - Forgotten Threats

Welcome back to Good Against Remotes. This week we are going to look a few conundrums faced by LS decks:

• How to overcome diluted objective sets?
• Protect vs. Blast damage. Which is better?
• Vehicles or Characters?

Sith Control isn’t going anywhere. The deck, in several forms, is a classic control build: card draw advantage, lots of Twist of Fate, the long game win by default, spot removal, resource generation.

• Most LS objectives (and DS) have a star card that actually wins games. Unfortunately the other 3-4 cards are useless in the battle to destroy objectives. The extra cards in each pod are useful, only if you have the star unit out. Love or leave it, this is how the game is designed.

• Many LS lists that have been popular at tournament levels include the Protect mechanic. I don’t have a problem with Protect, just the pods that they come in. Protect units don’t destroy objectives. By running Secret of Yavin 4, you give up 2 power cards. A typical deck has 10 power cards. Reducing your major win cards to 8 or 6 dramatically changes your chances of destroying objectives.

• The Sith Control metagame does an excellent job at stopping character based attacks. Vehicles are better, not invincible, at surviving DS counter events. As good as vehicles are, they lack a reliable resource base. Defense of Yavin 4 is easily the best objective set for vehicle decks. If there was a LS version of Deploy the Fleet, vehicle decks would be incredible. Having 4 out of 10 objectives that cheat vehicles in for cheaper costs would break open LS deck design. We don’t.

If LS decks are going increase their win percentages, they need to do several things well:

• Redundant defenses (protect, shielding, regen effects like Old Ben’s Spirit)
• Blast damage
• Twist of Fate
• Reliable resource base
• *Threat density (see #2)

My experience in the SWLCG has led me to trace a fine balance between blast damage heavy objectives (Chewbacca, Luke, Red 5) and objectives that assist them, but don’t actually win games (Secret of Yavin 4, A Message from Beyond). Building LS decks is fun, but often frustrating. Thrown into the mix is also resource production. How often can a LS deck actually play its five and six cost units on turn one? This is a critical point that many LS lists miss. DS decks will punish any hiccup on turn one. If you want to find powerful objectives, just look for sets that are forced to play certain affiliations (Eg: Trust Me).

I am going to propose a few lists that may seem off the wall or bad. That’s OK. Think of them as shells or ideas towards new deck types.

First: Benception

Smugglers and Spies

x2 Trust Me
x2 Forgotten Heroes
x2 A Hero’s Journey
x2 A Message from Beyond
x2 In You Must Go

This deck is a twist on the original LS powerhouse, last fall’s Smuggler’s Den. Lando’s pod replaces Han Solo, not because Questionable Contacts lacks power, but for its two resource generation. Trust Me has impressed me more and more in testing. LS players need to have an answer for pesky DS event cards: Dark Precognition, Force Lightning, Force Choke. Lando and Obi-Wan provide great cover for Luke and Yoda. Jedi Mind Trick can wreck DS decks which rely on a couple of powerful units to protect objectives turn two and three. The deck does lack Twist of Fate, but makes up with it with four Heat of Battles and two Target of Opportunities. If nothing else, dust off Forgotten Heroes and give it a spin: the objective draws cards most games as you have eight force users. Any card advantage can help with the uphill battle for LS edge battles (Obi-Wan forces edge stacks towards you advantage as well).

Second Deck: Seeing Red
Jedi

x2 A Hero’s Journey
x2 A Journey to Dagobah
x2 Prepare for Evacuation
x2 Raise the Stakes
x2 Wookie Life Debt

This deck has tons of non-edge dependent blast damage. I have always had a soft spot for Red 5; it’s fragile, but packs a guaranteed punch. Combine the Renegade Squadron Escorts with protect and Red 5 gets a little better. This list also has has a decent resource base with four out of ten objectives producing two resources. The core of the deck seeks to abuse the ever popular Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, Blockade Runner, and Red 5. Edge cards include: Heat of Battle, Target of Opportunity, and Battle of Hoth. Mostly, I just miss R2-D2 snarky free resource.

Weaknesses: No Twist of Fate. Too many useless units.

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As always, I want to have my cake and eat it too in deck building on the LS: do you want good resources or really good strike cards? Swap out the two resources objectives and you get Millennium Falcon/Twist of Fate or Secret of Yavin 4 with Guardian of Peace/Twist of Fate. Point is: you get resources or you get Twist of Fate. I am never sure which is better. The Philosopher’s Stone here is a deck that combines consistent resources (hits 5/6 on turn one) and wins edge battles. I don’t know if LS ever gets this, and maybe by design: DS has the tactical edge in this game, which is fair because you always get to play both sides of the game each round.

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There are only four objective sets on LS that have Twist of Fate:

Secret of Yavin 4 (Jedi)
Asteroid Santuary (Smugglers/Spies)
Fleeing the Empire (Rebel)
Hit and Run (Neutral)

Hit and Run is not going to use the awful unit; we want to maximize Twist of Fate to help LS to overcome the edge battle blues.
All four objectives will not work in a deck, so which core options do we explore?

x2 Secret of Yavin 4 (Jedi)
x2 Asteroid Santuary (Smugglers/Spies)
Hit and Run (Neutral)

The above list is similar to the current “Falcon and Friends” list that abuses Millennium Falcon + heavy hitting blast units.

x2 Asteroid Santuary (Smugglers/Spies)
x2 Fleeing the Empire (Rebel)
Hit and Run (Neutral)

I am not a Leia fan, but her objective has a few nice tricks. With the new Han Solo (See Hoth spoilers on the mother site) to dig up other Rebel units, maybe a new Rebel list with Alderaan’s Promise (EoD) to dig up unique units.

x2 Secret of Yavin 4 (Jedi)
x2 Fleeing the Empire (Rebel)
Hit and Run (Neutral)

This core seems the weakest of the possible combinations, but could lead to new builds.

A possible list: Angry Falcon

Jedi

x2 Secret of Yavin 4
x2 Asteroid Santuary
x2 Wookie LIfe Debt
x1 Questionable Contacts
x2 A Hero’s Journey
x1 Hit and Run

This takes the Falcon and Friends and adds one more Twist of Fate. I don’t know if dropping one Han Solo is right, but I want to push edge battle cards as much as possible.

A vehicle version of maximized Twist of Fate could look like:

Fish and Ships
Smugglers and Spies

x2 Blockade Runner
x2 M Falcon
x2 Def of Yav 4
x1 Hit and Run
x2 Fleeing the Empire
x1 The Rebel Fleet

Thanks for reading. Good luck against the living.