Ket’s Deck Clinic #6
By Nathanael Tripp

This week, I will be doing a two-deck review, updating an old deck type, to help everyone see the flip side of how a deck can be designed as either Light Side or Dark Side. The theme that I have chosen for the decks is Clones. Both decks have huge potential, but play completely different from one another. Let’s pry open the hermetic seals on a Clone Trooper and see how they are put together… starting with Dark Side!!

Dark Side Cloning
In my experience, Dark Side Clones have fallen short and do not inspire much fear. This could be because the movies portray them as bumbling fools who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if their gun was touching it. Though it could be because, up until now, there really hasn’t been a cost-effective way to work around the limitations of their cost for Dark Side.

With the release of Scum and Villainy, the cost issue has been addressed with the introduction of Imperial City. While costly Imperial City gives a far-reaching effect that can be played not just once, but twice to reduce the cost of all Imperials by two build points. This is huge when you consider the average cost of a Dark Side Imperial Clone is in the neighborhood of 3-5. By lowering this cost you take that average down to 1-3 which is perfect for a swarm-oriented deck. Enough about the number crunching for the deck, let’s take a look at how everything falls together.

Character: (14)
3x Assault Trooper
3x Stormtrooper Sentry
2x Vizam (A)
2x Darth Vader (C)
1x Darth Vader (O)
1x Darth Vader (R)
1x Darth Vader (U)
1x Mas Amedda (A)

You will notice straight away that the Character arena is not set up in the typical Clone style. Instead of being solely about Clones, it utilizes their ultimate commander, Darth Vader, in an effort to strengthen them. You have Stormtrooper Sentries who are brought back to hand if you deploy a Dark Jedi, perfect discard fodder for Jawa Sandcrawler as you can quickly get them back and in play. Also. they do not suffer from being killed by a Clone Grenade.

The Assault Trooper is a superstar in this deck. Since his damage is unpreventable, just throw a Clone Grenade or two on him and you will be scoring some HUGE hits on your opponents units.

Lastly, we have Vizam (A). By making your Equipment cost less, you are greatly reducing the overall cost of the deck, thus making it cheaper to transfer and equip your Clone Grenades and Thermal Detonators.

Ground: (13)
4x Snowtrooper Elite Squad
4x Stormtrooper Assault Team
3x Jawa Sandcrawler
2x 501st Legion (A)

Ground is where you start to see the master plan for running Vader. The Stormtrooper Elite Squad has perfect synergy with the man in black. It can never be killed as long as Vader is in the Character arena, it just keeps coming back again and again and again. So throw a Clone Grenade or four at your opponent and never worry about killing your own unit. The Stormtrooper Assault Team unit, while weak, has a powerful ability; unpreventable damage. This is another perfect unit to equip a Clone Grenade to.

Our last combat unit is the 501st Legion. This card is stellar in all aspects… there is only one card that I could think of that matches this for sheer power in ground and that is the Patrol Mode Vulture Droid… too bad it doesn’t have the Imperial subtype. Lastly, we have the best utility unit of all time: the Jawa Sandcrawler. Need I say more?

Space: (12)
4x TIE Interceptor
4x Star Destroyer (RAS)
3x Endor Imperial Fleet
1x Vader’s Imperial Shuttle (A)

Space starts to seem ridiculous when you look at the interaction it has with Vader as well. The Star Destroyer is not only highly affordable, but it gains Retaliate 3 when Vader is manning his post in the Character arena. Even the Upkeep isn’t too much of a problem for this beauty; just pitch a Stormtrooper Sentry and get it right back for deploying Vader.

Speaking of Vader, his shuttle makes an appearance in this deck, mainly as one more way to make sure you have him when you need him. The last two Space units, TIE Interceptor and Endor Imperial Fleet, are Dark Side staples and have seen play in nearly every deck since their creation. So surprise, surprise they are in this deck as well.

Battle: (8)
4x Discuss it in Committee
2x Dismiss
1x Lull in the Fighting
1x Peace on Naboo

Looky there! Four copies of Discuss it in Committee and two of Dismiss. But what you may not realize is just how important Discuss is to this deck. There are units in both Ground and Character that have unpreventable damage. This means that nothing can stop them, not even Discuss it in Committee. However playing Discuss will stop your opponent from being able to attack back, thus creating a win/win situation for you. Also included are a single copy of Lull and Peace. These are more of an added protection then a must run in the deck and could easily be switched out for something else if so desired.

Mission: (2)
2x Probe the Galaxy

Location: (4)
3x Imperial City
1x Coruscant System

The two copies of Lando System are mainly used in case you do not draw Imperial City during setup. Speaking of Imperial City this is probably the most important card in this entire deck. You can have two copies of Imperial City in play at once, this will cost you 8 build, but the return from it could be huge. You will now be able to play ALL Imperial units for two less build. This means you can swarm all three arenas quickly and cheaply.

Coruscant System is a good way to pull out your Clone Grenades. I debated about putting this Location in at all, but since the only draw I have in the deck is from the Jawa Sandcrawler, I thought it a good idea to have one additional way to get to certain cards.

Equipment: (7)
3x Clone Grenade
3x Thermal Detonator
1x Sidious's Communicator (A)

If Imperial City is the most important card in the deck, Clone Grenade and Thermal Detonator are the second and third most crucial pieces to this deck. These two cards allow you to throw more unpreventable damage around than you ever thought possible. Also, with the amount of redeployment this deck has, you won’t have to worry too much about your units being discarded by Thermal Detonator, because, more often then not, they will be returning to hand in no time at all. The Holographic Communicator is really good for getting multiple attacks from Vader, or letting him use multiple Thermal Detonators each turn.

As you can see, this deck is VERY aggressive and takes advantage of combat trickery to accomplish its deadly goals. What makes this deck so strong is the amount of recursion (being able to get cards back or use effects multiple times). Also, the deck plays off of some of the Dark Sides strongest units so well that it’s no wonder the Imperials were such a feared force across the entire galaxy.

Clones Spawning Everywhere
While the Dark Side version of the Clone deck hasn’t seen much play, the Light Side version has had many incantations over the years. Everyone at one time or another has attempted to build a LS Clone Deck. Some were good, some were bad, but none of them ever reached the level of competitiveness that the strength of the Republic Army should have boosted them to.

Even now they lack one major advantage that could put them in the top tier of play: card drawing. While they lack card drawing, they do make up for it by having great cost reduction, damage prevention, and power and speed boosts. In fact, with the addition of Clone Space units, this could possibly be enough to give Light Side Clones that little extra something. Let’s take a look at how the deck shapes up to see if that’s the case.

Character: (14)
4x Clone Officer
3x Parjai Trooper
2x Lama Su (A)
1x Commander Bly (A)
1x Commander Gree (A)
1x Yoda (E)
1x R2-D2 (K)
1x Vizam (A)

Power, power, and more power. That is what the Clone Officer provides to this deck. Giving all Clone units +1 power is huge. While you have to invest six build into the Officer, it is well worth it in the long run, especially when you can get out multiple Officers. The Parjai Trooper is a tricky little bugger that can utilize this, sporting both Accuracy and Stun. With 50 Speed he is sure to get the Stun in before most Dark Side Characters can attack.

In the Character arena are the Commanders who can take charge of your Clones and lead them to victory. Bly provides your Clone Characters with extra defense by way of Armor and Gree makes sure you don’t lose a key Character at an inopportune time by giving Intercept to all your Clone Characters. Three separate units and three amazing abilities, the Commanders and Clone Officers really are the backbone of the Character arena.

Lasty, Lama Su (A), Yoda (E), R2-D2 (K), and Vizam (A) all provide different aspects of support for this deck. And while they are all important, the deck can run smoothly without them.

Ground: (14)
4x Clone Fire Team
3x Tipoca Training Ground
3x Jawa Sandcrawler
2x Delta Squad (A)
2x Clone Trooper Legion

Ground gets really tricky. There are two units that are must haves in Light Side Clone decks, Clone Fire Team and Tipoca Training Ground. First up is the Clone Fire Team. This beauty gives ALL your other Clones +10 Speed. An effect this powerful is usually only a costly unit, but this little guy only costs 5 build, which is easily mitigated by Lama Su, Lar’s Homestead, and Felucia Battlegrounds.

Second up is the Tipoca Training Ground, which has two wonderful reserves abilities. The first allows you to prevent two damage to any Clone unit and the second gives one of your Clone units Accuracy 1. Having two abilities of such a magnitude makes this one of the most versatile Clone support cards as it is never without its uses. Let’s not forget Clones driving Sandcrawlers…okay, maybe not driving, but they sure do know how to put them to good use in the card-drawing department. The last two units are your beat-down units; these big guys can dish out a major hurting on even the biggest Dark Side units.

Space: (12)
4x ARC Fighter
4x Clone Starfighter Squadron
4x Marauder-Class Corvette

Space gets a little tricky. There are two setups you could conceivably run; the first being swarm and the second being more of a strength-through-diversity type arena. I decided to go with the swarm arena, mainly because there are now Clone Space units, so they benefit from Clone power, speed boosts, and cost reduction.

Though there are no Clone Pilots in this deck, in a theme deck, ARC Fighters could be just the right addition. The ARC Fighter still fits into the deck perfectly with its low cost and high speed, making it a more than welcome addition. The same can be said of the Clone Starfighter Squadron, which is also a very powerful unit in combination with the bonuses that are being thrown around for Clone units.

Lastly, we have the Marauder-Class Corvette, which, next to the Modified YV-330 (A), is one of my favorite Space units. Not overly powerful and rather slow, what makes the Marauder-Class Corvette’s so powerful is the Intercept/Retaliate chain they can start when you have more than one deployed.

Battle: (11)
3x Discuss it in Committee
3x Trap Door!
3x High-Speed Dodge
2x Dismiss

Mission: (2)
2x Explore the Swamps

Location: (4)
2x Lars Homestead
2x Felucia Battlegrounds

I won’t go into another long spiel about how good the Battle card selection is when you choose the top 3 (in my opinion) all around useful cards for your deck. However, High-Speed Dodge is really important to this deck. By deploying a Clone Fire Team or two, all your Clone units should have 50+ Speed and thus be eligible to have this card played on them.

The Mission selection is also very obvious, who can overlook the power of draw- and build-gain in a single card… just too good not to be used. The Locations are just as obvious: cost reduction, cost reduction, and more cost reduction. Felucia Battlegrounds, while good, only affects the arena it is in, so you will need to get two of these in play to really start feeling their effects.

Equipment: (6)
3x Clone Grenade
3x Clone Blaster

The Clones sure do come fully equipped. (Pun intended.) Not only do they have some exceptionally powerful blasters, but they also have one of the most powerful Equipment in the game in Clone Grenade. What makes these pieces of Equipment so good is that they are transferable; you can keep switching them around. If you need help in Ground, equip all your Ground units, if you need help in Character, then transfer all your Equipment where they need to go. It is the Equipment available to Clone’s that make them such a deadly force.

Hopefully, my foray into the life and times of Clones was worth taking a look at. While these decks may not be tier 1 material, they certainly are powerful and should merit some consideration when planning how to run your deck. Play around with these decks though. They could contain some little twist that you could run with and create the next “big thing”. As always, if you have an interesting or quirky deck, one that utilizes a forgotten subtype or an overlooked strategy or interaction, or if you just want to make your deck better, please e-mail it to me at ketricel@msn.com.

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About the Author
Nathanael has been a player since May 2002 and is currently taking time off from the IDC and Playtesting for personal reasons. 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 also been a member of both the Wizards and Rebelbasers forums since January of 2002, posting under the name Ketricel.