Ket's Deck Clinic #5
By Nathanael Tripp

This week we are going to change things up a little bit. I have wanted to redo my Creature, Tusken, and Jawa decks since I first saw some of the cool new cards in Fall of the Republic and also in Scum and Villainy. So that is what we are going to do this week, providing three deck lists with a little explanation of how each works and why certain units were selected for it. So this week is more of a "what's new in the jank department" article, than an actual 'new and innovative idea's' or deck-fixing article. First up is a personal favorite of mine… JAWAS!!!

Character: (18)
4x Jawa Trader
4x Jawa Leader
3x RIC-920
3x Het Nkik (A)
1x IG-100 Mangaguard
1x IG-101 Mangaguard
1x General Grievous (A)
1x General Grievous (C)

Ground: (14)
3x Jawa Hunters
3x Jawa Squad
3x Tatooine Sandcrawler
3x Patrol Mode Vulture Droid
2x Jawa Sandcrawler

Space: (12)
4x Droid Starfighter DFS-1VR
4x Droid Missiles
4x Endor Imperial Fleet

Battle: (9)
3x Dismiss
3x Trap Door!
3x Discuss it in Committee

Mission: (4)
4x Jawa Supply Trip

Location: (3)
2x Forest of Endor
1x Carbon Freezing Chamber

If you have seen any of my previous articles about the strength of Jawa's, you will see right away that this deck received a HUGE advantage in character. With the addition of Grievous, Mangaguards, and Jawa Trader your Jawas will be doing a jig. Before FotR, you had to basically use IG-88 and Guri in character to gain the benefit from Het's bounty ability. Now you have the option of a plethora of new droid units in the character arena. The Jawa Trader is one Lucky little bugger, and he makes all your other Jawas just as Lucky. Get these out in multiples and you are sure to have a very effective Evade network setup. In ground, the addition of the Jawa Hunters gives you a backup unit in case you miss your RIC's, with Stealth, this unit's 40 speed should be a null point. The rest of the deck is almost identical to previous builds. This deck has some great potential and, if tweaked right, could really be a wrecking ball. Next up are our little buddies' archenemies*, the Tuskens.

Character: (18)
4x Tusken Sharpshooter
3x Tusken Warrior
3x Tusken Raider
3x RIC-920
2x Grk'Urr'Akk (A)
2x C-3P0 (C)
1x A'Sharad Hett (A)

Ground: (14)
4x Tusken Camp
4x Tusken Bantha
4x Tusken Squad
2x Jawa Sandcrawler

Space: (12)
2x Modified YV-330 (A)
2x Millennium Falcon (E)
1x Millennium Falcon (D)
1x Luke's X-Wing (B)
1x Luke's X-Wing (C)
1x Luke's X-Wing (E)
1x Obi-Wan's Starfighter (A)
1x Obi-Wan's Starfighter (B)
1x Slave 1 (G)
1x Anakin's Starfighter (A)

Battle: (9)
3x Dismiss
3x Trap Door!
3x Discuss it in Committee

Mission: (5)
3x Homing Missiles
2x Meditate

Location: (2)
2x Lar's Homestead

This deck has always been a pet deck of mine. I actually built a copy of it for a friend to take to the Charlotte Qualifiers in 2004. He ended up going 2-4 for the day, but he never lost a match with his Light Side Tusken deck. If you have ever played Tuskens, you know they have the strength to be competitive. What their problem was, though, is that they were never fast enough and didn't have enough prevention to be effective. However, that has all changed with the new additions to Character and Ground. Giving ALL Tuskens Parry with Grk'Urr'Akk (A) is very effective. If only he weren't unique, then Tuskens would probably be the number one deck to be playing. Also, the speed barrier is overcome with the new Tusken Bantha that lets you tap to give one of your other Tusken units an additional 30 speed. The rest of the deck is pretty much just swarm oriented and relies on Lars Homestead to make all your units affordable. Lastly, we come to a deck that was notorious for swarming every arena**, Creatures.

Character: (16)
4x Kouhun
4x Scurrier
3x Nexu
3x Massiff
2x Malakili (A)

Ground: (16)
4x Orray
3x Shaak
3x Kaadu Scout
3x Reek
3x Geonosian Picador

Space: (12)
4x Mynock
3x Droid Missiles
3x Kessel Runner
2x Endor Imperial Fleet

Battle: (4)
4x Discuss it in Committee

Mission: (5)
4x Departure Time
1x Lando System?

Location: (3)
3x Wampa Cave

Equipment: (4)
4x Thermal Detonator

Another friend of mine took a copy of the pre-Kessel Banning version of this deck to the Charlotte Qualifiers in 2004. He actually had a decent record of 3-3 with a bad loss to me in the first round keeping him out of the top 8. While this deck lacks the explosiveness of that deck, it still has its own bag of tricks that it can employ. What really hurts this deck is that you can no longer gain one build by tapping one of your characters. However, with a few build gain tricks this deck could see new life. What really makes this deck shine are two new additions: Malakili and Thermal Detonator. Malakili gives all your creatures some extra punch, staying power, and Intercept. Thermal Detonator basically gives creatures an "I win" condition again in Character. Being able to abuse Thermal Detonator will be a very powerful strategy, but it comes at a steep cost. Kessel Runners and Departure Time should be a start at reducing this cost, and Wampa Cave helps by reducing all Creatures costs. Additionally, you could run Vizam (A) in the Character arena to offset the equip cost even more. This deck got the least number of new cards from Scum and Villainy, but in my opinion it got the most use from the most aggressive card in the set.

So there we have it. Three decks that, while not previously considered tournament-worthy, sure do have the looks to be surprise stars if played correctly. With that I will bid you all farewell for this week's installment of the Deck Clinic. Be sure to e-mail or PM me any decks you would like to see reviewed in this article. And until next time "May the dice be with you".

* - Even though its funny that the Jawa's are Dark Side and Tuskens are Light Side… go figure.
** - At least they could until Kessel System was banned.

Download these decks and other deck articles for LackeyCCG here.

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About the Author
Nathanael has been a player since May 2002 and is currently the Playtesting Chairperson and a member of the IDC Board. He has written a number of articles for Wizards of the Coast and has been very active with the SWTCG Hope of the Jedi tournament. Nathanael Tripp has been a member of both the Wizards and Rebelbasers forums since January of 2002, posting under the name Ketricel.