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No Disintegrations - Top Tier Navy

Star Wars No Disintegrations Ketricel

Welcome back one and all to another week of No Disintegrations, this week I am going to dive head first into dissecting what is quickly becoming one of my favorite decks in the current game environment; Top Tier Navy. First I have to give a shout out to my good friend TGO for turning me onto this deck a few weeks ago. I was a bit skeptical switching from my Sith Control to this deck but after playing a few games with and against it I have absolutely fallen in love with how this deck plays and have been devoting all my dark side play time in learning the ins and outs of this particular deck. I have been able to play this deck in a regional event (to a 5th place finish) and in a local weekly tournament to an undefeated finish with the deck. I have had multiple people ask for the decklist so without further ado here it is in all its glory:


Afflilation:
Sith (Core Sith)

Total Objective Sets: 10

2x Black Squadron Assault (21-1)

Vader's TIE Advanced (21-2)
TIE Advanced (21-3)
Black Squadron Pilot (21-4)
I'm On the Leader (21-5)
Target of Opportunity (21-6)

2x Kuat Reinforcements (27-1)

"Backstabber" (27-2)
TIE Fighter (27-3)
TIE Bomber (27-4)
Tallon Roll (27-5)
Death from Above (27-6)

2x Death and Despayre (29-1)

Devastator (29-2)
Imperial Officer (29-3)
Control Room (29-4)
Defense Upgrade (29-5)
Heat of Battle (29-6)

1x Defense Protocol (30-1)

TIE Attack Squadron (30-2)
TIE Fighter (30-3)
Tallon Roll (30-4)
Death from Above (30-5)
Twist of Fate (30-6)

2x The Endor Gambit (31-1)

AT-ST Commander (31-2)
AT-ST (31-3)
AT-ST (31-4)
Aft Armor Plating (31-5)
Target of Opportunity (31-6)

1x Deploy the Fleet (46-1)

Death Squadron Star Destroyer (46-2)
Death Squadron Star Destroyer (46-3)
Fleet Navigator (46-4)
Death Squadron Command (46-5)
Admiral's Orders (46-6)



As you can see the deck is very centralized around vehicles and getting them out quickly and in great number; especially Fighters. You have some of the best pure aggro units in the game at your disposal in Devastator, Vader’s TIE, and TIE Advanced as well as pretty much everything else in the deck. As the dark side player running this deck you are able to consistently destroy 3+ objectives per game which not only helps with match tie breakers, but also means you are winning very quickly ratcheting up that Death Star dial even if you don’t control the force struggle. Surprisingly for an aggro deck you have some decent ways of gaining and potentially keeping the Force because many of your units have a decent amount of force icons.

Deck Strengths:
This is pure and simple an aggro deck and it makes no efforts in hiding that from anyone. You are going to want to put the pressure on early and keep it on the entire match. With how fast this deck is you are able to race ahead of most Jedi/Smuggler decks before they can stabilize their board presence. On the other hand the deck doesn't do too shabby sitting back on defense if the situation calls for it especially if you have a TIE Attack Squadron in play and are able to give it Targeted Strike. As you will notice many of the units in this deck have two or more health capacity which means that your opponent is going to have to really work to clear the board of all your units once you are able to get them out. The deck is very resilient and able to handle a variety of situations so don’t feel like if you play this deck there is no strategy involved, knowing when and what to attack takes practice but with this deck the payoff can be quite destructive.

Deck Weaknesses:
As the very observant players have already surmised this deck is by no means perfect and has a few shortcomings, the main one being an utter lack of Tactics icons or for that matter any way to reliably interact with your opponents board state. Your best way of dealing with your opponent is through attacking and defending so if your opponent is able to force you into unwise or unprofitable situations the deck starts to falter. Be careful on your early turns; especially if you have Kuat Reinforcements out, because you will generally be able to play a few cards a turn which will leave your hand on the slim to empty side of things which leaves you vulnerable to losing Edge battles. By no means does the deck get shut down from losing an edge battle, but it makes things a bit more difficult and forces you to use potential combat tricks such as Talon Roll to strike back instead of being able to strike multiple times. Additionally while Kuat Reinforcements means you can afford your big units early there really aren’t a plethora of resources in this deck so you have to manage what you do have wisely and not overextend.

Play Tips:

- You generally want to keep your objectives in the following priority order:

Kuat Reinforcements -> The Endor Gambit -> Death and Despayre or Black Squadron Assault -> Defense Protocol -> Deploy the Fleet

You don’t want to generally double up on Kuat Reinforcements as two provide no extra bonus. Double The Endor Gambit and one Kuat Reinforcements is overall one of the strongest opening objective sets against Tactics heavy Jedi/Smuggler decks. On the other hand Defense Protocol is a star when facing Rebels and you need that last tick of damage.

- Talon Roll is an amazing card on offense, but that is not the only use it has. Don’t forget you can use it to refresh a unit on defense or right before the Force Struggle in order to maintain or gain control of the force. Most opponent’s won’t see this coming and I have caught many opponent unawares with a well timed Talon Roll.

- Don’t forget that Death From Above targets all Vehicles, not just Starfighters. For the longest time when I started playing this deck I read the card wrong and wasn’t using it to the full effect. Plus there is nothing quite as funny as watching AT-ST’s rain Death From Above on a helpless objective.

- Forgetting the ability on Devastator can be... well.... devastating. That extra tick of the dial can mean the difference between winning and losing a game, especially if you have open resources early and are forgetting to activate it.

- A first turn Devastator can be a huge shock to your opponent and something that is hard to overcome, but sometimes it is not always the right play. Your opponent will have one turn to prepare for the Devastator’s attack and this could leave you vulnerable to losing the big guy early. More often the better play is to roll out some smaller TIE’s or an AT-ST on your first turn allowing you to build a board presence and then play the Devastator on turn two when you are able to attack with it as soon as it comes into play.

This deck has become one of my favorite decks to play not only because it is competitive, but also because it is down right fun to play. Being able to make huge swings against your opponent has the feel of wielding the power of the Imperial Naval machines full might and wiping out those pesky Rebel scum one objective at a time. If anyone has any questions or comments about the above deck please feel free to comment or PM me here on the forums.

Next time though I will go over a deck that can take the hits from the Imperial war machine and come back with a knockout punch of its own. If you have a particular deck you would like to see discussed in the coming weeks please leave a comment. As always without each and every one of the valued members here at CardgameDB.com I would be writing to no one so I thank you for your time and may the top deck always be with you!
  • Zaidkw and admiralacf like this


17 Comments

I have been playing with this deck too alot recently and i do like it, but i feel like it has a tough time with a speeder deck, or prep for battle deck the LS zerg can build up very fast and you dont have to many ways to control the board at all. Vrs rebel i feel like it comes down to who gets the best 1st hand and who wins the 1st edge battle.
LS Zerg, lol. Love that name. I need to build a deck for that now.

I agree with you Magni in regards to the opening. In one game I got out Devastator and Death Star Squadron on the first turn and proceeded to destroy two objectives a turn after that.

In another game I only got one big ship out and then had AT-ST and AT-ST commander out trying to slow down the opponent and ended up only needing two more objectives short to have the dial to 12 but opponent destroyed their third.

Now my deck is different in that it is pure Navy with no Black Squadron, instead I have two Deploy and two Defense Protocol.
I actually played this same deck to a 1st place finish at the Springfield MO Regional. I added in Black Squadron Assault at the last minute after seeing those other decks and absolutely HATED it. Vader's TIE Advanced is overcostsed for what you can count on (his two hard icons since you can't count on getting anything else) although I admit his 3 health is nice. The TIE Advanced are fine chumps but their ability is largely irrelevant (in the tourney I only triggered it once all day). The Black Squadron Pilot is fine but I never found myself in a place where I would want to play him. I'm On The Leader is a nice trick although it's dead against Jedi decks. Target of Opportunity is the one card in the pod that I'm always happy to see.

Originally I had Imperial Command in that slot and wanted to try something else since I wasn't completely pleased with them...but I think I'll be going back. Maybe 1x Imperial Command and an the second Deploy the Fleet to get some more big bodies in the deck. All I know is Black Squadron Assault is coming out without a doubt.

The rest of the deck is very solid. Incredibly explosive and a bunch of fun to play. In most rounds my Light Side opponent wasn't able to destroy a single objective. I'd highly recommend it, just without the Black Squadron Assault :P
Ya I have considered removing BSA; then I win a game with Vader's TIE by flipping over a Devastator and decide to keep it in. I would replace it with another Defense Protocol and probably Tarkin's pod with the sole purpose of getting him into play and making destroying objectives even easier. I think going with 2x Deploy the Fleet at this time is a bit too much as the rest of the deck has more synergy around Fighters and to truly make it worth running you would need to tweak the deck a bit.

Glad we have been able to get some discussion going around this deck, it is always really good to see what other people have in mind!!
We can agree to disagree, but I found BSA invaluable. If you pull the objective, your tempo goes drastically up when you hit a Black Squadron unit. Vader's Tie is good at spreading damage and not actually destroying objectives - his 3 health is good against the Prepare for Battle decks when you have to defend to win the edge to ensure they are not doing heavy objective damage.
Maybe I'd feel differently about Vader's TIE Advanced if it ever did anything in the games I played it in. Through the entire tournament I only NEEDED it to hit a unit with a blast icon (hard or soft) once to win the game. I hit a random dude with a blaster icon and the objective survived. I still won the game, but at that point Vader's TIE Advanced was no better than any unit in the entire game with a blast icon.

Those Star Destroyers are just SO HUGE and with shielding and the immune to events they are impossible to deal with. Honestly most of the time I'd rather have them than a Devastator; they are just so much more survivable. The extra copy of Admiral's Orders would be nice too, but it's far less important than the Death Squadron Star Destroyer.

I could see another Defense Protocol for the unit control, but I don't think Tarkin's pod is needed. The -1 damage capacity isn't terribly important when I don't have issue blowing stuff up already. Just my opinion though; I think Imperial Command (at least 1 copy) will be going back into my version for the resource acceleration + orbital bombardment to buff the objective damage.
What's your opinion on the Motti block? I'm running something similar to this with motti and the extra defense protocol, mainly as I don't have the new force pack yet. I've found getting an early orbital bombardment can really close the game fast, he himself is pretty damn useful, although what with rebel assault or luke/han his survivability drops, while the extra resource chud and two defensive troopers really helps.
I have played around with this deck in a handful of games, and played against it a few times with my smugglers/Jedi deck and I haven't found it to be particularly good.

the issues I have had with the deck is that it has real problems winning edge battles. while that shouldn't be a huge issue for the deck with all the black blast icons, it gets real hairy when the Jedi/smuggler deck has so many tactics. the new smuggler objective set adds even more tactics icons, and when your capital ships keep getting locked down and your little ships get picked off, you can't do much. once han and/or Luke come out it gets relatively easy to pick off the capital ships while locking whatever you need to.

this issue isn't necessarily contained to this deck but all imperial decks I find issues with winning edge battles.

I also ran into some resource shortages here and there, and with 3po and counter stroke you can negate some of the big play events that this deck needs to win.
The Motti pod seems pretty bad in this deck because it only has one card that you really care about.

The Motti pod seems pretty bad in this deck because it only has one card that you really care about.

It's not perfect (heck, I took it out!) but I'm always interested in resources. That's part of why I'm considering the second Deploy the Fleet since the Fleet Navigator gives more resources AND isn't instantly killed by Han just by participating in an engagement.
    • Kennon likes this

The Motti pod seems pretty bad in this deck because it only has one card that you really care about.


100% agree. He doesnt synergize well with the navy style.
Why? Resources are always good, because paying for SDs is better then ditching to Kuat for them. The Stormtroopers are strong cheap defenders. Orbital is right in the wheelhouse, and Motti's ability is always good.

Though I would if subbing out the BSA's go with another Defense Protocol and an Ultimate Power. Tarkin and Superlaser gives you the ability to snipe objectives even if the offensive push has come to a halt. Playing Tarkin for the win to steal an objective that is damaged is just amazing.
I don't see Tarkin as really necessary when you can one shot an objective but Superlaser on the other hand might help push through the win.
Photo
Ironswimsuit
May 08 2013 09:35 PM
Tarkin makes it easier to one shot an objective. :D. Mottipod has become a 1x in my Navy. I learned some things from this build to help my deck(even though it isn't a TIE deck). Thanks for the article!
The only thing I wish this deck had is more resource cards. I have felt a little choked in games where I don't see the Kuat objective. I would like to have Motti, mostly for the resources his pod brings. Orbital is nice bonus if you get it out. The only cards I don't think synergize are the stormtroopers. But adding Motti would probably require removing something else, and I don't think I want to do that.
I am strongly against Vader's pod for the general possibility that the cards will drastically underperform.

I think the pilot is garbage because most ties will die from a deflection or shi-cho strike....not to mention the abundance of targeted strike for LS. I'd like him a lot more if he only cost 1 resource or gave shielding to himself as some sort of evade maneuver.

Vader's tie seems too volatile to me. I'm sure it can win games but I'd rather go for a sure bet.

Finally, I don't want to run "I'm on the leader" when it can be absolutely useless against certain decks.

I do agree that I would not run more than one Deploy the fleet pod. I think this concept isn't quite ready yet and the destroyers are good, but all it takes is a tactic on them and they are a sluggish 6 build points. I also don't like that I have to either damage my own objective or use another card to make it cheap. They are only strong with multiple other cards at their behest, which is a no-no in my book.
Nice reading, thank you Ketricel.

I' considering building this deck too. But I'm thinking about removing 2x BSA too and replace it with:

+1 Defense Protocol
+1 Reconnaissance Mission

Looks to me like Recon Mission would suit this deck nicely with more burst damage onto objectives from replicas and ToO (and the neutral resources can be managed without Sith objectives). It also grants multiple fate cards to the TIE Attack Squadron from Defense Protocol. And the increased reserve value seems very nice with Kuat Reinforcements and DP abilities?