Ket's Deck Clinic #11
by Nathanael Tripp

With the success my play group had last week by playing our tournament on Lackey we decided to play our last week of Sealed Draft using it again. Last week we drafted cards from my favorite movie, but this week we will draft from my favorite set, Sith Rising. True, this set lacks the overall greatness that other sets such as AotC and RotS. But what it lacks in raw power it makes up for in neat combat tricks. I had a great pool of cards to make a deck from, so here are those cards:

** Before reading on after the card pool try your hand at building a deck and see how close you get to what I ended up running for my deck**

Battle:
2x Aggressive Negotiations
Brutal Assault
Careful Targeting
2x Impossible Victory
Out of His Misery
Padawan and Senator
2x Shoot Her or Something

Character:
Anakin Skywalker (F)
Darth Maul (A)
Darth Maul (B)
Darth Maul (C)
Darth Maul (D)
Destroyer Droid, W Series
2x Female Tusken Raider
Infantry Battle Droid
Mace Windu (A)
2x Mace Windu (B)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (D)
2x R2-D2 (B)

Ground:
2x AT-TE Troop Transport
2x Battle Droid Assault Squad
2x Commerce Guild Spider Droid
Coruscant Speeder
2x Geonosian Artillery
Hailfire Droid
Jedi Heroes

Mission:
Concentrated Fire
3x Maul's Strategy
Reassemble C-3P0
Recognition of Valor
3x Run the Gauntlet

Space:
2x Acclamator-Class Assault Ship
2x Commerce Guild Cruiser
2x Droid Starfighter DFS-1VR
Naboo Starfighter Wing
Nubian Yacht
Senatorial Cruiser
Trade Federation Warship

This deck was rather fun to build. I was amazed that I pulled every version of Darth Maul along with three Maul's Strategy. This combo in and of itself in draft is enough to win games. But to help me out, I had a very solid Ground and Space arena and combined with the power of my Battle and Missions this deck was a beast. Instead of breaking down the deck I am just going to post what I played and go over a few of the matches I played. Here is the deck that I ended up playing:

Character: (8)
Darth Maul (A)
Darth Maul (B)
Darth Maul (C)
Darth Maul (D)
Mace Windu (A)
Obi-Wan Kenobi (D)
2x R2-D2 (B)

Ground: (8)
2x AT-TE Troop Transport
2x Battle Droid Assault Squad
2x Commerce Guild Spider Droid
Geonosian Artillery
Jedi Heroes

Space: (6)
2x Acclamator-Class Assault Ship
2x Commerce Guild Cruiser
2x Droid Starfighter DFS-1VR

Battle: (5)
2x Aggressive Negotiations
Impossible Victory
Careful Targeting
Out of His Misery

Mission: (3)
3x Maul's Strategy

Round 1:
My first opponent was my best friend. He has been playing the game since day one with me and we have gone to every Qualifier in Charlotte. We know each others play style inside and out, which is what makes Sealed Draft so much fun for us. I knew that he would be playing every copy of Shoot Her or Something that he got his hands on, and that he would be using the biggest units he could find to try and stamp out smaller swarms. So it was no surprise when he matches my Acclamator with one of his own and then drops a Trade Federation Control Core in the Ground arena. However after using so much build in two arenas he had little left for Character where my double stacked Darth Maul (C) held sway. A first turn Maul's Strategy took out most of his Battle card options, however it was still a close fight. But in the end, being able to play Out of His Misery and Aggressive Negotiations to attack first in Space, pretty much sealed the deal for me. (1-0)

Round 2:
This time I was matched against the most unfamiliar player in our group to me. It was either his first or second time playing with us and I really had no clue what angle he would take on his draft. Setup went as planned for me with Darth Maul (A) and R2-D2 (B) in Character, an Acclamator with two Droid Starfighter escorts in Space, and a lone Jedi Heroes in the Ground arena. My opponent seemed to be going for a swarm based strategy with smaller droid units. Ground was undeniably his and Character was mine, Space though posed a problem. I was playing my deck as Light side and my Droid Starfighters were not going to be able to attack first and were taken out before causing any damage. My lone Acclamator was facing off against a Nubian Yacht, two Naboo Starfighter Squads, and a Jedi Starfighter Scout. Four turns later I was finally able to take out his last Space unit and after the game I asked why he never strengthened Space and his reply was that I took out all four Space units he had in the deck… good for me cause the build rolls were horrible and I was having a hard time building reinforcements of my own. (2-0)

Round 3:
Quad stacked Darth Maul (C) and two Acclamator's make short work of my opponent. I was able to drain force first turn with two Maul's Strategy, which allowed me to play Aggressive Negotiations on my Acclamator's. This allowed me to take out my opponents two Commerce Guild Cruisers in a single turn. Then Darth Maul was able to take out my opponents lone Tusken Raider, in an Anakin like Tusken massacre. (3-0)

Round 4:
Sitting at 3-0 was really good, my deck was clicking perfectly and everything was falling into place for a clean sweep of this weeks Sealed Tourney. However I was facing my toughest opponent in the fourth round… my dad. Seriously, he somehow beats me every time we play. The funny thing is he has no idea what the cards do, so he has to sit there and read them. This game, as I expected, was tough. Character was a battle for the first time and I just narrowly won out by top decking my Darth Maul (C) and cancelling out his Mace Windu (A)'s evade for the killing blow. Ground was my dad's hands down, but Space was giving me problems because he had two Mobile Assault Cannons out harassing me the entire time. In the end the game came down to the roll of the dice. My dad needed two hits on four dice and only ended up getting one. This allowed me to make my killing blow with my Commerce Guild Cruiser. Hard game, and really intense battle but I come out on top remaining undefeated. (4-0)

Round 5:
Finally!!! I got to play my Impossible Victory for the first time this round. I had two Acclamator's in Space against two Trade Federation Warships. I attacked and played Impossible Victory to untap and attack again securing me a swift two turn victory. I think this may have been the first time an Impossible Victory has been played in tournament play… ever. I really just wanted to try it out and it finally worked out for me. (5-0)

Round 6:
My worst fears were realized why my opponent played Yoda (C) during setup. Darth Maul is good, but he always has trouble with Yoda because of his tap zap ability and efficient evade. I was really struggling to pull something out because I did not have Darth Maul (C) so I couldn't shut down Yoda's evade. Luckily I was able to play Maul's Strategy on my second and third turns thus draining my opponents force enough to make him decide between Evade and tap zap. In the end Maul went down fighting but I was able to stall long enough to build my Mace Windu (A) who made quick work of the wounded Yoda. Ground was a clean sweep for me and I gave up Space after only being able to build a Droid Starfighter DFS-1VR. My winning streak continues. (6-0)

Round 7:
I would like to dedicate this round to R2-D2 (B), if it weren't for him, I would have lost miserably. His damage removal came into play every turn, keeping my Commerce Guild Cruiser just barely alive giving my time to stall and build my Trade Federation Warship. Ground was a tight battle that saw two AT-TE Troop Transports fall to some great rolling by my opponent. My Jedi Heroes were great too, being able to evade lethal damage on more than one occasion. Character was touch and go, I needed to protect R2-D2, but I also had to rebuild my Space arena and I was having a hard time doing both. In the end I used R2-D2's ability then used the rest of my build to finish my Trade Federation Warship which allowed me to sacrifice Character to win in Space. I was so amazed that I was undefeated by this time that I really didn't care how my last round went because I had locked myself into first place for the second time in four weeks. (7-0)

Round 8:
Even though I didn't need to win (and honestly I didn't mind if I lost) I still wanted to say I went undefeated. But my opponent wasn't going to let that be easy. I was playing my deck as Dark Side and that really saved me because it seemed like I was playing a mirror match of my draft deck. My opponent seemed to match me card for card. I played an Acclamator, so did my opponent, my AT-TE Troop Transport was facing off against itself. Character was crazy because my opponent played out Darth Maul (C) who I had in my hand. I also had two copies of Maul's Strategy, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to try and contest. So instead I played Mace Windu (A), which turned out to be a great play, because my opponent never had the force to use Maul's ability. Thus Mace took him out easily. In Ground it was almost dead even until I was able to play a Careful Targeting, which took out the Shields on an AT-TE Troop Transport. I easily dispatched his AT-TE after pumping my own AT-TE with an Aggressive Negotiations. So after eight rounds I pulled eight wins out and was able to go undefeated. (8-0)

This ends my journey into the world of drafting. I hope I was able to inform and entertain everyone with my articles but I am looking forward to getting back to writing about constructed decks. Speaking of which, next week, I will be working on a deck that has evolved since the release of Scum and Villainy. 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.