NY Regional Winner Boba/7 1.0

• Versiones
• 1.0

This is the first place deck from the 66-person NY Regionals in Rochester. It was a fun tournament with great players and a lot of interesting decks, so I was fortunate to take home the win. When I saw the character combination that won the Fargo Regionals, I knew I wanted to try my hand with something similar -- I'd been dying to try Boba Fett, and I love the efficiency of Seventh Sister's 3 dice for fourteen points.

The deck is meant to be played aggressively and squeeze the most damage you can out of each turn. A key of this deck is getting rid of your opponent's removal with cards like Friends in Low Places, Abandon All Hope, and Close Quarters Assault. The five cards in my deck that weren't in the Fargo Regional version were 2x Force Speed, 2x Intimidate, and 1x As You Command.

The Force Speeds were very strong performers for me. Of course, nearly every opponent targets Seventh Sister early, but playing a Force Speed (or two!) for 0 isn't much of an investment, and it can pay off big. Having the action cheating to push damage or a Close Quarters Assault through was huge at times, and even the shield and focus sides can easily swing a close damage race in your favor. If you do manage to get a Maul's Lightsaber down before she's on death's doorstep, your opponent will be in a world of hurt. But that's usually too much to ask for, so loading up Boba with cheap weapons is the typical play.

Intimidate goes very well with Maul's Lightsaber, and with so many decks that can generate lots of shields, it's quite common to see it do 2-3 damage for a cost of 0, even if you don't have a Maul's Saber out.

As You Command was an occasional solid contributer for salvaging bad turns when I'm flat broke, rolled poorly repeatedly on a big weapon or two, but at least have an expendable die showing on a character. After you steal your opponents removal and roll poorly, it can be a solid way to guarantee a few extra damage if it's enough to kill a character, or if you feel comfortable with where you're at in the damage race and have no need to leave it to chance. It wasn't the strongest card, but it took people by surprise and guaranteed a kill at times.

I took a narrow loss to a Boba Phasma deck in the early rounds. It was a straightforward damage race where I was doing more damage each turn, but my opponent was doing the damage earlier in the turn. I ended up one damage short, and quick draw/ambush into a pile of ranged damage spelled my doom at the start of the next turn.

My other loss came in later rounds to one of the Thrawn/Talzin decks that made the top 8. My opponent played well and used Thrawn's ability to devastating effect each turn. I came up short trying to kill Talzin first, and after Rise Again was played I lost badly. I was lucky to play that match, since I ended up against the other Thrawn/Talzin player in the finals, so I had a better idea of what I was up against.

Despite my two losses, I was very fortunate that my stellar strength of opposition tiebreaker seeded me comfortably in the top 8 at #5.

In the quarter and semifinals I played Poe/Hondo decks. The semifinal match in particular was a competitive race against the #1 seed that went to 3 games. Having powerful 0-cost events and ways to discard my opponent's hand meant I could fork over some money to prevent Hondo's 3 damage special at key points, and still stay ahead in the damage race and get the first character kill. Trying to get Intimidate in my opening hand allowed me to typically target Poe first even when choosing my battlefield, and take his weapons with him, leaving Hondo a bit outstripped in his damage potential.

In the finals I faced off against another Thrawn/Talzin deck. They were tough, back-and-forth games. This time I usually targeted Thrawn first to shut down the big money, double focus, and removal of the best card in my hand each turn (typically an important removal event, or a hand-discard event). It's tough to win a damage race against big money plays like Tactical Mastery into Snare on my only character. Of course, the one time I did see a chance to kill Talzin early when I knew my opponent couldn't play Rise Again, I took it. The deck falls short on damage with Talzin gone.