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A Champion’s Perspective: Star Wars (TM) LCG

A Tournament Report by 2014 North American Champion Jonathan Herr

As 2014 World Championship Weekend looms on the horizon, we continue our series of Gen Con wrap-up articles with 2014 Star Wars™: The Card Game North American Champion Jonathan Herr’s explanation of his group’s detailed preparation and how it led the way to him becoming Champion. If you plan on attending a major tournament, such as Nationals or Worlds, Jonathan’s experience provides valuable advice and can help you improve your results.

Preparation is Key

Approaching a big tournament like the North American Championships at Gen Con or the World Championships at the FFG Event Center can be a daunting task. While many focus on the playing aspect, that’s really only a small fraction of what is needed to place well. The main key to success is in deck development, metagame analysis, and practice. So much goes into planning and preparation that rather than provide a play-by-play tournament report, I wanted to discuss my approach to major tournament prep and how it contributed to my win at Gen Con.

Testing Decks

As the final Force Packs prior to the tournament were released, it became clear even in our fun decks that the balance of power had shifted from last year’s tournaments. My playgroup had successfully run the Targeted Sith deck, featuring Darth Vader (Core Set, 35) and Emperor Palpatine (Core Set, 51) with TIE Attack Squadron (Core Set, 147), to good showings the previous Gen Con. (First place at the end of Swiss rounds for me, and Champion for my friend Matt Kohls.) However, with the release of Along the Gamor Run (Knowledge and Defense, 552), as well as May the Force Be With You (Join Us or Die, 567) and Ties of Blood (It Binds All Things, 589), the light side now had the edge over the dark side.

We quickly found three dominant light side decks:

Deck 1

  • 2x A Hero’s Journey (Core Set, 2)
  • 2x The Secret of Yavin 4 (Core Set, 144)
  • 2x Along the Gamor Run (Knowledge and Defense, 552)
  • 2x May the Force Be With You (Join Us or Die, 567)
  • 2x Ties of Blood (It Binds All Things, 589)

Deck 2

Deck 3

  • 2x A Hero’s Journey (Core Set, 2)
  • 2x Questionable Contacts (Core Set, 69)
  • 2x Asteroid Sanctuary (Edge of Darkness, 331)
  • 2x Along the Gamor Run (Knowledge and Defense, 552)
  • 2x May the Force Be With You (Join Us or Die, 567)

These three decks won approximately 70-80% of the time against any dark side deck we threw at them. It quickly became clear that Along the Gamor Run (and likely May the Force Be With You) were going to be present in large numbers at the tournament.

We then made a testing matrix that we call The Gauntlet, which took those three decks and tested them against countless dark side variations to get an idea of which dark side deck had the best shot at winning. If a dark side deck was not at least competitive against two of the three light side decks, we would eliminate it from consideration and move on. Of particular difficulty for the dark side was dealing with the swarm of small units that the light side decks could generate. Between Twi’lek Loyalist (Core Set, 15), Hired Hands (Knowledge and Defense, 554), Dagobah Nudj (Join Us or Die, 569), Ewok Companion (It Binds All Things, 591), and cost-reduced vehicles, it was not uncommon for the light side player to play three or more units the first turn. Our traditional dark side deck simply couldn’t keep up, so we had to go back to the drawing board.

Final Decks

Although I don’t like to play Scum decks at tournaments due to the lack of consistent blast damage, the faction does offer a multitude of powerful, low-cost units. My playgroup began experimenting with The Tatooine Crash (Edge of Darkness, 380) and The Slave Trade (Knowledge and Defense, 562) to provide cheap units to match the light side player’s ability to drop multiple units first turn. Eventually, I settled on combining these two Scum objective sets with a traditional Sith base to provide the small units to help address the tempo of the current metagame and the unit control that fits my play style.

Dark Side

Affiliation: Scum & Villainy

Objective Sets:

Generally, this deck was winning approximately 40-50% of the time in our testing, which was enough to feel comfortable playing it at the tournament against a field of dominant light side decks.

This deck was all about board presence. By including the maximum number of Jawa Scavengers (Edge of Darkness, 381) and Galactic Scum (Knowledge and Defense, 564), I could keep up with or even outpace the light side player’s steady stream of cheap units. The Fall of the Jedi and The Emperor’s Web are standard Sith staples and provide both strong units and strong control events including a full complement of Force Chokes (Core Set, 59) and Force Lightnings (Core Set, 60). With eight of the ten objective sets determined, I had only four additional resources, so I wanted to include Counsel of the Sith for the Twist of Fate (Core Set, 171) and the resources, but also wanted The Plan of the Prophetess for the Seeds of Decay (Lure of the Dark Side, 523) and Deadly Sight (Knowledge and Defense, 561). I settled on one copy of each.

Given the balance of power in the current metagame, my strategy with the dark side was to simply hang on for as long as possible and slowly win via board presence with my cheap units and strong actions. Surprisingly, Zygerrian Slaver (Knowledge and Defense, 563) proved to be very important. Whenever he hit the board, I was able to clog my opponent’s hand with sub-optimal cards, both during my turn and my opponent’s turn, that I had captured at The Tatooine Crash while simultaneously strengthening my own hand. This also ensured that I won almost all subsequent edge battles and made Galactic Scum into an incredibly effective blocker.

Light Side

Affiliation: Smugglers & Spies

Objective Sets:

  • 2x A Hero’s Journey (Core Set, 2)
  • 2x The Secret of Yavin 4 (Core Set, 144)
  • 2x Along the Gamor Run (Knowledge and Defense, 552)
  • 2x May the Force Be With You (Join Us or Die, 567)
  • 2x Ties of Blood (It Binds All Things, 589)

This deck revolves around playing cost efficient, strong units and controlling the Force struggle. The objectives Along the Gamor Run and May the Force Be With You in particular allow the light side player to control the Force struggle while simultaneously allowing a more aggressive approach to attacking. Having four ways to play Yoda (Join Us or Die, 568) gives consistent access to one of the light side’s strongest units, and the Hired Hands, with their black blast and white tactics, function as both aggressive objective attackers and strong decoys to distract and lock down stronger units.

By adding Ties of Blood to the deck, Leia Organa (It Binds All Things, 590) and Leia’s Command (It Binds All Things, 593) force your opponent to play differently. Often, the threat of Leia’s Command will tempt the dark side player to commit to an attack when they would have been better suited to building board presence or controlling the Force.

If you can force the dark side player to attack on his turn, you can deplete his hand in edge battles and strip them of blockers by using the tactics icons on Leia, Yoda, and Hired Hands to lock down defending units. By adding Luke Skywalker (Core Set, 92) to the deck, you provide consistent objective damage as well as targeted strike and a perpetual defender. Rounding out the deck, The Secret of Yavin 4 provides great survivability with Guardian of Peace (Core Set, 109), Lightsaber Deflection (Core Set, 89), and C-3PO (Core Set, 21) to cancel any problematic actions. C-3PO can even be recurred with Hyperspace Marauder (Knowledge and Defense, 553) for extra use.

North American Championship

At the tournament, our testing really paid off. During Swiss rounds, my light side deck was undefeated and my dark side deck went 5-2, giving me a record good enough to be Swiss champion.

During the double-elimination rounds, I knew that seeding would be very important due to the balance of power between light side and dark side. I definitely wanted to play light side as often as possible, and being the top seed, I figured I would be able to have my pick throughout the bracket. Unfortunately, one of my opponents was able to win with his dark side in an earlier round and forced me to play my dark side deck. I lost to him in a tough battle and dropped to the lower bracket. In the lower bracket, I ended up having to play the dark side often, but I was able to win multiple battles in a row to advance to the final match.

Final Match

Coming from the lower bracket, I had played the dark side more often, so I had to play the light side for the first game. This game was all about establishing board presence and protecting my units. The first turn, my opponent played Darth Vader, signaling I would have a hard time keeping units on the board with his reaction. I responded with a strong first turn with a Hired Hands, Yoda, and Dagobah Nudj. However, he was able to play Force Choke on subsequent turns to clear my board. We then spent several turns trying to establish board presence. He was able to wipe my board several times with Deadly Sight, Force Choke, and Vader’s reaction, but I was able to eventually stabilize with my flurry of low-cost units.

The turning point in the game came when I was able to pull off a timely Leia’s Command to destroy one objective and several of his units. I was then able to perform an alpha strike with all my units at one objective over subsequent turns to pull out the victory. Because I had Guardian of Peace and an Ewok Companion, I was able to shield my units that had black blast damage, ensuring my opponent couldn’t kill or focus down enough of them to prevent the objective from being destroyed even if he won the edge.

In the second game, we switched sides and I was able to get a fast start playing Galactic Scum, Jawa Scavenger, and Sandcrawler (Edge of Darkness, 382). While not a great aggressive turn, it provided great defensive units to slow the game down. Matt was able to play a Kyle Katarn (Heroes and Legends, 497) first turn and Luke Skywalker second turn, putting some pressure on me, but a well-timed Force Choke with Darth Vader on the board was able to destroy Kyle before he could loop him with Heroes and Legends (Heroes and Legends, 496). I was then able to clear out his board and continue building defensive units to take control of the game.

Zygerrian Slaver played an important role in this game, providing ample cards in hand for edge battles while clogging my opponent’s hand with sub-optimal cards to play. The combination of controlling his board while also messing with his hand proved to be too difficult a combination to overcome.

Overall, I had a great time at the tournament, and even though the balance of power favored the light side, with extensive planning and testing, I was able to mitigate that advantage and maximize my chances for success. I look forward to seeing all of you at the World Championship!

Tune In to Worlds Coverage

Thanks, Jonathan!

We hope to see you this weekend at the 2014 World Championship Weekend. It is shaping up to be the biggest event Fantasy Flight Games has ever hosted! If you can’t make it to the event, be sure to tune in to our coverage all weekend long on our Twitch stream or on Twitter.

© and ™ Lucasfilm Ltd.

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