Dark Side –
Tax Their Defenses!
By C.
J. Williams
A couple of weeks ago, in the article
Light
Side – Shore Up Your Defenses!, we discussed the difference
in use of offense and defense with DS and LS decks and showed
that LS works best in a defensive capacity, because DS works best
in an offensive capacity. In that article, my LS deck was featured
to demonstrate the effectiveness of LS defenses. This week we
discuss the importance of resources and how they can affect these
strengths and manipulate their weaknesses.
As I mentioned in the above article, If
you are DS, you want to take advantage of winning ties, including
ties for speed, and having power available for when you strike
first. Conversely, if you are LS, you should seek to survive multiple
onslaughts so that you can come back and whittle away at the DS’s
units. What I didn’t mention in that article is that there is
an alternative.
The Economy of a Deck
There
are 2 primary things that a deck needs to survive: resource economics
and damage control. Take away the former and you emaciate the
latter. There are 4 types of resources: cards, units, build, and
Force (I include units, because once played, the cards turn into
a new type of resource that you may tap to pay costs, and are
the usual means by which you win the game). Damage control refers
both to player’s offensive and defensive capabilities. Take away
one or more of your opponent’s resources and you emaciate their
ability to attack and defend. What I mentioned last time was damage
control. What we will focus on here is resource manipulation.
Attack and defense work on a curve. The
lower your ability to attack hard and fast, the better your defenses
should be. The player with the better attack and defense curve
is more likely to win the game. By manipulating that curve, you
increase the size of your attack and defense curve in relation
to your opponent’s curve in order to gain the advantage. You can
do this through either boosting your own curve or reducing your
opponent’s curve. Last time we covered boosting your curve, now
we will go over reducing your opponent’s curve through resource
denial. Raiding your opponent’s resources is the most effective
way to diminish their defenses and essentially neutralize their
attack efficiency. We’ll start by discussing how each resource
works and how to deny it and then wrap it up with an example of
a denial deck.
Card: in order to build a
card, it has to be available. To have more cards available, you
need to have something to help you draw more cards. This is known
as your draw engine. However, general card denial is hard. To
date, there has never been a successful card denial deck. It’s
just not possible in the current environment. However, there are
two kinds of card denial that can prove very effective: searching
for a specific card to discard, or disrupting the play of cards.
By denying specific cards, you are able to put a kink in the effectiveness
of your opponent’s deck. Cards like
Search
for the Rebels,
Ephant
Mon (A), and
Take
a Prisoner have all proven to be effective search and discard
cards. Disruption, however, has proven to be even more effective,
not only denying the play of the card at a crucial point, but
wasting your opponent’s resources at the same time. Both the card
and the Force and/or build required for the card have been wasted.
Some good cards for this are
Lando’s
Trickery and
Foil,
which affect Battle cards and Mission cards respectively. You
can also tap or destroy your opponent’s card drawing units.
Units: a unit can be used
in many ways, including providing abilities of all types, paying
costs, and depleting your opponent’s units. Getting rid of your
opponent’s units is the primary goal of the game, but there are
many ways to do this besides the straight attack method. As mentioned
in the previous paragraph, cards like Take a Prisoner allow you
to search for a card and discard it, versions of a unit in this
instance, keeping a particular unit out of your opponent’s reach.
Another strategy is taking control of your opponent’s units. The
most notorious way of doing this is
Lando’s
Influence, which takes control of one of your opponent’s neutral
units for 1 round at no cost. Just grab a neutral unit with Lando’s
Influence and then use
Dark
Sacrifice to turn the unit into cannon fodder. Along similar
lines,
Down
in Flames can allow you to discard a speeder that your opponent
paid good build for. Then there is tapping, which allows you to
effectively take your opponent’s units out of play for the duration
of the effect. They can’t activate abilities, pay costs, or attack.
Orn Free Taa (A) and Skiff are favorites for tapping Characters.
Disrupting activated abilities can also help in this endeavor,
as many activated abilities have a tap cost to pay for the activation.
Disrupt the ability with a card like
Mind
Trick and the unit is virtually useless.
Build: build is the life
of the game. Without build, you can’t construct units, play missions,
or pay certain other costs. Denying build can be super effective,
which is probably why we haven’t seen too much of it. After all,
if a little build gain goes such a long way toward the success
of a deck, then a little build denial must go a long way in the
opposite direction. Denying build can be done by reducing the
amount of build your opponent gains during the Ready Phase through
such cards as
Theed
Power Generator or
Wat
Tambor (A).It can also be done by searching for and discarding
cards (as mentioned in the card paragraph), particularly Locations,
that gain build. You can tap or destroy units that gain Force,
or you can remove build counters from cards in your opponent’s
build zone with
Blockade
from BOY and then cause them not to be able to spend them by dumping
their hand. Finally, you can make them pay a hefty Upkeep through
Falcon’s
Needs.
Force: this is the means
by which players most frequently boost their power and their defenses.
LS benefits from denying Force that can boost the DS units through
Battle cards and activated abilities, and thus serves as a protection
to LS units. DS benefits by denying Force that the LS could use
for surviving longer. Disrupt cards are often great Force denial
vehicles, with
Disrupting
Strike as the pivotal expression of this. It gives your opponent
the choice to either accept that they wasted force on the Battle
card, or they must pay more to make the card work. Normal disrupts,
like Dismiss affect your opponent’s Force by causing it to be
wasted. You can leach your opponent’s Force through such cards
as
Meditation
Chamber,
Maul’s
Strategy, and
Quicker,
Easier, More Seductive. You can zap your opponent’s Force
with
Cloud
City Prison. Finally, you can make your opponent pay to perform
mundane tasks such as activating abilities or making attacks with
units like
Nexu
and
Cloud
City Wing Guard.
You now have the basics for dominating
your opponent by robbing them blind. I’ve put these things into
action with the following deck.
A Dark Embargo
The following deck affects all of your opponent’s resources, but
I haven’t abandoned the idea of a primary theme here. The primary
theme is Force denial, currently the most effective denial strategy,
as there are more cards for it than any other.
The greatest triumph of the Fall of the
Republic set, in my opinion, was the establishment of DS Diplomat
Force Denial. Creating a new deck type isn’t easy, but the advent
of
Sly
Moore (A) made it a reality.
Character
.jpg)
Unlike
last time, I began this deck in the Character arena, and it has
undergone many changes until I figured out what I was going for
and what was bad. Besides Sly for Force denial, I also have Poggle
the Lesser (A) for the choice of tapping or Force denial. Giving
your opponent a choice between two evils is always a win-win proposition.
What I decided to do for my damage producer was go with 3 low-cost
Force denial fighters:
Anakin
Skywalker (P),
Aurra
Sing (B), and
Lando
Calrissian (D). I think of them as an almost inseparable trio.
The reason being that I think it is better to have 3 different
fighters who accomplish the same function than to have 3 copies
or even 3 versions of the same fighter, as you may have the chance
to play 3 separate fighters, massing them on the opposition. They
also serve as a back door for the Character arena (In case the
arena fails to go off properly). Of course, Lando is better all
around for low cost and protection by Sly, the other two should
still do quite well. I also included
San
Hill (A) for a little build,
Senator
Tikkes (A), to maximize my drawing power, and
Wat
Tambor (A) for a little late game build zapping.
Ground
The Ground arena seems standard with Bespin units and
Jabba’s
Sail Barge (A). I played around with some various arenas but
felt that a fully packed high-Force-cost arena was the best way
to go. This includes a full complement of
Bespin
Cloud Car Squad,
Cloud
City Wing Guard, and
Bespin
Twin-Pod Cloud Car. Classic, perhaps overused, but effective.
If you want to zap your opponent’s Force, this is the way to go.
With pilot decks on the rise due to
Luke’s
X-wing (E), it will give an edge to spoiling their Ground
arena focus.
Space
I also did a lot of work on the Space arena. My primary concern
was Luke’s X-wing. After seeing how much Luke’s X-wing has been
used lately, it is key to overcome it if there’s any chance of
acquiring the space arena. Thus auto-damage is the best chance,
especially since the x-wing’s evasion will be weakened through
Force denial. However, in a way, that itself acts as Force denial,
so this is good, and the more damage done and the more sources
of damage, the harder it is for Luke’s X-wing to defend itself.
Thus, I’ve included four
Droid
Missiles and a
Buzz
Droid Swarm for good measure. One thing for sure, is the LS
Space arena is afraid to attack
Vader's
TIE Fighter (C), because its Deflect goes a long way, but
then again, so does its Overkill. This will leave it around long
enough to do some real damage. For protection against
Slave
I (G), I included
IG-2000
(A). I also included a couple copies of
Endor
Imperial Fleet for the free 8 power hit and Overkill (More
auto-damage). Finally, TIE Interceptor will keep the arena alive.
While this looks like a lot of units and appears unfocused, it
is actually just 4 primary units with 2 units ready for backup.
I try to keep a back door in my Space arena.
Location
My next concern was the Locations. Really, I knew from the beginning
what I wanted in the deck. However, making it a reality is a different
story. My two favorite Force denial cards are
Forests
of Endor (FoE) in the Ground arena and
Carbon-Freezing
Chamber (CFC) for control of the Character arena (protecting
the deck from LS Diplomat Force denial and Jedi super stacks).
However, these are expensive. Well, from past experience, I know
FoE is more essential to a Force denial strategy, so I included
2 copies. However, to have both of those cards in play at the
same time is nearly impossible at the beginning of the game, so
I’ve provided a surrogate with
Meditation
Chamber, which both protects against LS Diplomats and leaches
Force. It is a great arena starter until I can afford to put CFC
out. Finally, I included one copy of
Utapau
Landing Platform (ULP) to get rid of that pesky Asteroid Field.
CFC and FoE are expensive, but a must have in my opinion.
Mission
Probe
the Galaxy is vital for making sure you get the right Location
at the right time. FoE is the primary card to search with this
if needed, and Meditation Chamber is the second. CFC and ULP will
often show up at some point.
Capture
Obi-Wan is great for Force leaching as both Force denial and
once again protecting against LS Diplomats. While there aren’t
a lot of copies here, when it hits, it hurts. When you have units
like Luke’s X-wing around, you can never carry too many
Homing
Missiles.
Battle
You’ll probably note that the Battle cards are light in relation
to the Mission cards. In fact, there are very few Force Requirements
in this deck. The reason is that the LS Diplomat deck often affects
more traditional DS decks because of their reliance on Force for
many things. However, I have sought to keep Force usage low. I’ve
opted for the free
Disrupting
Strike also because it is great Force denial. I included
Foil
to protect myself against the increasingly popular Homing Missile,
which I am also using. Finally, I included one copy of
Down
in Flames to take out that troublesome
Anakin’s
Podracer (A) with
Wedge
Antilles (B).
Once again, I’m packing no Equipment. I
hope one day to have Equipment that will make a deck competitive,
while keeping it fun to play. Below the deck you will find a few
tips on operating this deck.
Download this deck and other deck articles
for LackeyCCG here.
Tips for Maximum Effectiveness
Mulligan all utility cards in setup, except Locations. You’re
likely familiar with the units in Space so play them how you are
familiar with them and however you think is best. Use auto-damage
liberally on Luke’s X-wing and the Millennium Falcon; there’s
Homing Missile and Droid Missiles for that. Just be sure to fight
off your opponent’s Homing Missiles with Foil, and intercept where
possible with the TIE’s. Ground is traditional. Just put them
out there where you can. Use Down in Flames on the Anakin’s Podracer+Wedge
Antilles combo as soon as you can. Remember that the most important
Location is Forests of Endor. If you don’t already have it or
Meditation Chamber, use Probe the Galaxy to get one of them out.
Put out Meditation Chamber as soon as you can after FoE. Use Utapau
Landing Platform only after an Asteroid Field goes out. While
it’s nice to have, it won’t do you any good if it gets replaced
by Asteroid Field. Carbon-Freezing Chamber is only for pesky Characters
and only if the game is dragging on.
Sly Moore is the key to this deck. Get
Sly out and you’ll fair well. If, for any reason, Sly slips through
your fingers, stick to the fighters and San Hill (A). San Hill
is usually the last to die, because the other player wants the
build he provides. Bring out Poggle the lesser to help protect
your Character arena. When you have a chance and things are carrying
on, bring out Wat Tambor.
I hope you have gleaned something
out of this article to help you in deck building. If you try out
this deck, let me know how it goes.
Thoughts
or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.
About
the Author
C. J. has been
a player of the game since 2003 and was the Text Finalization
Leader of the IDC Rules Sub-committee during FOTR and SAV. He
is currently the Public Affairs Editor. C. J. has written many
other articles for the IDC and Rebelbasers.com and has been a
member of both the Wizards and Rebelbasers forums since January
of 2004, posting under the name Corjay.
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
