Sabine/Ezra Combo Loop (Writeup/Guide)

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ArchitectGaming 2466

I didn’t want to break things.

Running Interference is busted, and this deck aims to prove it. If you haven’t found out yet, Sabine Wren is at the center of an infinite damage combo in Star Wars: Destiny, and its scary good.

Here’s what you need to pull it off:

---1)Both Running Interference and an Infamous on the field. ---2)Thermal Paint in hand or discard pile.

The combo works like this:

---1)Start the round, going first.

---2)Use Infamous to play any card from hand with ambush.

---a.Tap Running Interference to prevent our opponent from playing a card.

---3)Activate Sabine Wren, playing Thermal Paint from our discard pile for 1 (if we didn’t play from hand).

---a.Tap Running Interference to prevent our opponent from activating.

---4)Trigger Thermal Paint to deal a damage, and then discard it to deal an extra damage.

See it yet? With our first action, we trigger Running Interference twice, and our opponent can’t play a card from hand or activate a character or support. On most boards, this means they have to pass, at which point we pass and the loop starts over. Binning Thermal Paint nets us do two damage a turn, and lets us play it again from the discard pile repeatedly until we kill our opponent.

Disclaimer

Now, the combo isn’t airtight. Our opponent can claim the battlefield, which would give them priority on the next round and the ability to play out a turn unless they do something crazy (like not activating for their first action). This isn’t advised, as we get a full free turn and next round we can just play as normal, making sure to claim before them, which puts us back at step 1.

Also, our opponent can activate a card action if he/she has one available. So, a Hunker Down or Ancient Lightsaber on the field breaks the combo, as it gives our opponent three potential actions they can take. As of right now, by my count there’s around 10 ‘playable’ action cards that can give you trouble, things like Luke's Protection, Backup Muscle, and the aforementioned upgrades. Expand our search beyond what we currently consider ‘playable’ to things like Hidden In Shadow and Honor Guard, and that number doubles. In addition, Jango Fett - Lethal Mercenary and Nightsister shut us down hard, making these characters kill on sight.

Finally, Rend is a card, and the combo only works once we get both Running Interference on the table. It can be interacted with, unlike the Awakenings Hyperspace Jump combo special, or chaining Second Chance triggers with Ammo Belt. By all accounts, it seems like the odds are stacked against us, and our “fun” combo will never make it out of Magical Christmasland, right?

Wrong.

The Deck

Unlike other combos pieces in Destiny that are useless by themselves (looking at you, Ammo Belt), our deck is full of powerful cards and interactions. Running Interference is quickly becoming the best Hero card you can play, and possibly the best card to play in Destiny, period. The combo is the core of our deck, but each combo piece can stand alone and work to further our gameplan whether we pull off the combo or not. Sabine doesn’t have to grab a Thermal Paint from the graveyard. Instead, she can choose one of six ambush upgrades, netting an action to let us immediately resolve dice after we activate. Even one Running Interference can give us powerful plays, like Never Tell Me The Odds to focus all of our dice to damage while also preventing our opponent from playing cards from hand.

If things don’t go well, or we get a hand without Running Interference, at the end of the day we’re still a fast, powerful aggro deck. Check out this play:

---Smuggling, discarding Thermal Paint to gain a resource and put us to 3.

---Play X-8 Night Sniper for two, activate Sabine, playing that just discarded Thermal Paint for 1.

By my count, that’s four resources worth of upgrades on the first turn, two guaranteed damage from Paint, and we’re set up to do two more every turn for just one resource.

Oh, and everything in this deck scales. Tack a Running Interference or Infamous onto any play and see what happens. Truce can set up some really powerful sequences. Replace the Thermal Paint with a Holdout Blaster, and add a Truce in to the mix, and we’re rolling in with X-8 Night Sniper and Holdout Blaster on our Sabine, on the second action of the first round of the game, with an action to spare! For clarity:

---Smuggling, discarding Holdout Blaster, gain a resource.

---Truce, gain a resource, play X-8 Night Sniper, activate Sabine, play Holdout from discard pile.

Resolve damage dice with our extra action.

Add in Running Interference or Infamous to that mix and things get crazy. In the previous situation, a Running Interference on any of the three cards we played from hand means our opponent cant interact with our dice. An Infamous on the field for our Smuggling means that sequence only takes one turn.

Plays

Sometimes we go wide and load Sabine up with weapons, or we replace upgrades she already has to get the bonus action, and use that action to Never Tell Me The Odds to focus her character dice and a lowly DL-44 die to 9 ranged damage. Again, with an Interference out, we can use it on the Odds to prevent our opponent from messing with our dice.

Since our core is so powerful, the majority of our deck is devoted to staying alive and supporting our combo. We’ve got Don't Get Cocky to burn through our deck to find that second Interference or anything else we’re missing, Scavenge to set up Sabine’s ability and dig even further, Smuggling and Truce to ramp out our cards, and Hyperspace Jump to buy time and cheat our opponent out of their turn. Oh, and actual Cheat, but more on that soon.

It’s almost fitting that we abuse Hyperspace Jump, the original ‘broken Hero card’. Most turns involve playing our ambush cards, gaining some value, activating Sabine and resolving some damage, and then playing Jump before our opponent can do anything. Decks like Thrawnkar, Blue Hero, Hera Vehicles, and the FN elephant in the room take tons of actions, and we can rob them of all that value.

Most cards in our hand either get played out or discarded at end of round, as we can always Cheat them back and our primary goal is quickly finding that second Interference. Maz's Castle - Takodana helps dig us even deeper, and lets us dodge those times when the card we need is on the bottom of our deck. For turns where we can’t afford to Jump, Trickery often removes around 3 dice for 1 resource, and the drawback doesn’t bother us, as we prefer most of our cards in our discard pile anyways so we can draw a fresh five.

Ok, so what about Rend? Without going into a rock-paper-scissors theory discussion on whether people will actually make room for it in decks (decklists are tight, if you haven’t noticed), I’ll just discuss how we fare against it assuming they are actually playing it. Luckily, Cheat and Scavengeensure that even if they Rend our Running Interference, we have four ways to get it right back in hand. So, smile and nod as your opponent exclaims “if only I had just drawn my Rend earlier”. As Funkar decks eventually learned that Imperial Inspection wasn’t a solution against FN decks, people will eventually learn that Rend isn’t enough to stop dedicated Interference strategies.

Variations

There are plenty of ways to build this deck, and you don’t have to go heavy on the combo as I have here. Tybrid is going the Hidden Agenda/Reversal/Jump/Double-Cross/Odds route, which I like, and a local guy, Nathan Miracle, is playing eNew Poe/1 die Sabine and a less consistent version of the Thermal Paint combo. Both of these versions are strong, but I’m of the opinion that the damage loop is the strongest thing I can be doing with Running Interference, so that’s where I’m at.

I’m still tweaking the numbers, and have been trying out a ton of cards, including the above “Agenda package” and things like Bolt Hole, Draw Attention, Long Con and more. This early in the format it’s hard to tell what to build against, but currently I’m seeing a lot of Thrawn/Unkar, other Interference decks and Seventh Sister - Agile Inquisitor strategies. I will eventually need to trim and add more mitigation once players get less greedy with their deckbuilding, but even still, we’re playing four and a Second Chance, which is a lot considering everything we have to fit in. Add in the fact that we are drawing so many cards and can Cheat things back means we have more than enough mitigation to survive.

There are tons more tricky plays and interactions than the ones I mentioned above, but I don’t want to spoil all the surprises for you. This deck is a blast to play, and learning all of the cool things you can do with Infamous and Running Interference is incredibly fun and rewarding.

Real Talk

...All that being said, while this deck is fun to play, I truly think what I’ve made is unfair and a negative experience for my opponent, so keep that in mind if you pick this up. Playing this on TTS feels dirty, and while tools exist to fight this strategy, I’m of the opinion that they aren’t enough. We can fight through Rend easily, and the combo isn’t integral for us to win. I believe 100% that Running Interference is too easily exploited and needs to be nerfed to unique, or errata’d to where you can’t stack two triggers.

So, why am I writing a guide for the deck? First, I'm of the opinion that we need to test against something first to see if it really is broken, and there's no way to do that until its out in the open. At the risk of people getting angry at me, I remember the early days of Hyperspace Jump and Second Chance, and how annoying it was to lose to the ‘rogue’ unfair deck. Jump was never popular enough to warrant deckbuilding against it, which made it all the worse when you lost to the random player running it. Second Chance was allowed to live for weeks, and lets not get started on FN. It’s my hope that FFG sees the capabilities with Running Interference and makes a change quickly, and the only way for that to happen is if we get the monster under the light and show what it can do. And yes, I’ll admit, it is pretty fun to do unfair things.

Thanks for reading,

Trevor Holmes

ArchitectGaming on Discord (and Etsy!)

Trevorholmes91 on TTS

61 komentarzy

AirFluff 1

Excellent deck, great guide. I like it. Gonna try it for sure, but gonna need practice to master all the side of this.

lefthighkick 19

Cad Bane / 2PG Phasma can break the combo as well using Cad's card action.

Nice write-up, as usual.

Papatwika 1

In my humble opinion, since its written "that you just took" on running interference, if you use an ambush ability and play a second action, the second action would override the first one and then only prevent the second action from being took.

I cannot back it with any proof, I just think it makes sense worded like this.

Foz 1024

It's two different instances of the power from two different copies of the card, so there is no reason to believe they should in any way interfere with or cancel each other. Your opponent ends up with two abilities that set restrictions on his next action.

Taz2 70

why Ezra?

ArchitectGaming 2466

@AirFluffThanks! It definitely requires some practice to get the hang of all the lines, I've been playing games nonstop and I'm just scratching the surface!

ArchitectGaming 2466

@lefthighkick Yep, I meant to include Cad in along with Jango and Nightsister but forgot. Luckily, the deck runs just fine when we can't combo!

ArchitectGaming 2466

@PapatwikaI get what you're saying, but you are confusing the Running Interference activation trigger with the static effect it places on the opponent. "That you just took" is referencing the action and timing needed to trigger Interference's ability, and doesn't have any impact on the opponent. That 'half' of the card deals with our action.

ArchitectGaming 2466

@Taz2I like Ezra as he provides potentially 4 damage for only 10 character points, and the 'double' resource sides are nice too. I could see a one die option, but there isn't really a 10 point character I'd rather play at single die than Ezra at double, and 4 dice pairings just feel better.

Makes our Never Tell Me the Odds good too!

P11grim 15

@ArchitectGaming thanks for this amazing stuff and gives me great ideas for my Sabine Ezra. Any thoughts on Fast Hads which I think I will drop for Infamous. Also for plebs like me who haven't drawn a X-8 sniper what's the best way around this. I have a Bowcaster although prinarily for redeploy.

How do you feel about the lack of removal in your deck? Would you consider running electroshock and/or threaten?

I have felt like Ezra is particularly awesome for his money generation. In all my games he provides a ton of cash and I love truce into his special.

Anyway thanks again def gonna change up my deck a bit.

SickaSickaCMac 1

Incredible write-up & deck idea! Agree with your thoughts at the end. Thanks!

ArchitectGaming 2466

@P11grim you are planning on dropping Infamous for Fast Hands? I would advise against that, but if you do, you should move away from the combo and more towards traditional damage.

As for removal, I'm fine with what I have. Two loth cat and mouse, Hyperspace Jump is mega removal, and Trickery acts as two or more often. Add in Cheat to get more if I need it and Second Chance for the lategame and I like my survivability.

ArchitectGaming 2466

@SickaSickaCMac thanks! Hopefully either the format finds a solution or FFG makes one!

Manzanita9 112

If you single die Ackbar....and your opponent claims in response to your infinite combo first thing....then you have the whole turn...plus access to leadership to bag their key character. Also you can Salvo...but it's expensive.

Scactha 888

Cool writeup. There are a dozen variants on the Infamous/Running Interference deck. This is nice, but takes setup on the selling point. In a nutshell, RI is more of a tempo tool than a combo piece. My current favourite deck is Jyn / ePoe with all the new burn cards, which doesn´t require prepping.

hansalad 1

Can someone please explain how this is anything that can be described as infinite? Running Interference only stops the opponent's actions for one turn. A round is made up of multiple turns. With the play described, they can't activate or play a card, but they can pass their action without claiming. Then you go back to normal back-and-forth turns.

Running interference causes stalling for one turn, not lockouts. You need to exhaust RI to use it, so after that one turn of inaction, opponent is right back to normal play. Yes, the Paints will be dealing damage and getting essentially an extra turn, which is really good. But in no way is this "infinite damage" or anything of the kind. At most, you're going through all this setup to get 2 turns before your opponent gets 1, provided that they don't have any support Actions to take for the turn they're getting interfered with.

I think RI is good and skill-testing, but all I can conclude about this deck is that many people are apparently misreading the word "turn" as if it says "round," which is an incredibly significant error.

hansalad 1

Disregard the above comment. I totally glossed over the "at which point we pass." This is indeed pretty busted :(

hansalad 1

Paint should be errataed to say "After you take your first action in a turn..." That way it doesn't need to be unique. Or if you wanted to make it read easier and be super on-the-nose, you could just state, "After you take an action, if it wasn't an Ambush action..."

cjfm 35

I don't want to be the one to burst your bubble, but playing Thermal Paint off Sabine's ability is not the same as taking an action, and therefore will not trigger Running Interference. To get this "lock" to work every turn, you'd have to play a card from hand each turn, use infamous, then activate Sabine. Don't let someone fool you into thinking using her ability triggers RI.

Jedrzej 1

What do you think of running Rey instead of Ezra in order to get access to cards like caution and force illusion?

BlaackSanta 3

@cjfm you activate Infamous play a card from hand and activate Running Interference then activate Sabine Wren - Explosives Expert pulling a Thermal Paint and activate second Running Interference off of the Sabine Wren - Explosives Expert activation. It works just requires a lot of set up and they can claim to kill the combo but then you get a free turn to do what you want.

dday0606 15

So I'm pretty sure I was one of his opponents the other night on TTS playing Thrawnkar and yes the combo got me. I almost had him milled out and then all of the required pieces came in to play and I was locked out. He was able to get a free turn in essence after I claimed and it was enough to kill me. To Architect's credit he was very vocal about how stupid the combo was and tried to help me come up with ways out of it.

Ergonomic Cat 1

@cjfm

"The combo works like this:

---1)Start the round, going first.

---2)Use Infamous to play any card from hand with ambush.

---a.Tap Running Interference to prevent our opponent from playing a card."

It's in the combo description that you don't use Sabine to do it. ;)

ArchitectGaming 2466

@Jedrzej Rey is an excellent pair for the combo too, her action cheating lets us trigger than claim, ensuring the loop. I do like that Force Illusion can act as a mini-Scavenge for us. Bring Balance especially to refill our hand after unloading...all of the tricks!

ArchitectGaming 2466

@dday0606 Yep, that was probably me. Thanks for being a good sport about it, most players have (understandably) not been very happy with me on TTS this past week. For my part I've tried to be apologetic about the beatings.

Let me know if you find some tech!

ArchitectGaming 2466

@Ergonomic Cat Reading comments between the Facebook group and the Discord has shown me that for the most part, reading is hard.

cjfm 35

@BlaackSanta Yes, you can do it that way, but you can't get a trigger off "playing a card" with her ability from the discard pile, is all I'm saying.

cjfm 35

@Ergonomic Cat I get that, but some people have been suggesting here, and elsewhere, that you can trigger it off the ability. In any case, I understand how it works.

Jorgyn Ryys 190

Does FFG test anything. Besides that there also needs to be delineation between Characters and Supports. Activating a character and Activating a support are two entirely different things and need to be ruled as such. The actions cars says "activate a character OR a support" so one would think if you activate a character and RI it. Now your opponent can't activate a character. This is not the same as activating a support. At least in my opinion it isn't. This is the second set they have clearly not tested properly.

ruce 91

I assumed that playing an event from hand is different from playing an upgrade from hand

ruce 91

I looked it up. You are correct. The only thing they can do is use a card action (such as sabine or cadbaine). So if they dont have one, which is more than likely they will have to claim

ruce 91

I guarantee ffg will release an errata this or next week like they did with outer rim smuggler saying that running interference can only be used once per action

stranglebat 832

@ruce and even then it is still awesome and worth 2 slots in a lot of decks

stranglebat 832

For anyone who is interested here are some cards you can play that can break the lock if you already have them in play (note some only break for 1 turn or just have the potential to break based on what the opponent rolls etc).

Characters Jango - Nightsister - Ciena - Cad

Upgrades Hidden In Shadow - Hunker Down - Ancient Lightsaber

Supports Jedi Council - The Force Is Strong - Drudge Work - Resistance HQ - Back up Muscle - Underworld Connections - Resolve - Air Superiority - Quad Jumper - Insidious - Detention Centre - Drop Zone - Rally Aid - Hutt Ties - Stolen Cache - Honour Guard - Luke's Protection

There are a few more i am unsure about like Power of the Dark side, Play the odds, Armoured Support. They direct you to re roll a die and i don't know if you can when you don't have one in the pool.

stranglebat 832

Forgot Street Informants but thats there too :)

StaticCat 40

I was wondering if someone had a deck that seemed "broken" and this seems to be it, great write up and glad you're putting it out there - I would hate to play against something like this, but it looks a like a possible meta, if you can't get your "infinite combo" off because of cards like Rend or just not drawing into them, although you have a lot of ways asides from just the drawing ability, it's a pretty solid Aggro deck as well as you stated - well done my friend, I like what you've done here.

Aorakis 4

Nice job on this one. Even if loops combos are boring to play with or against i salute the job to pull this out.

Few things i.m.o. this deck is still hardly dependant on draw, starting hand and on who goes first.

For those reason i dont feel like he need that much of a fat nerf.

What amazed me is that the only decks working on light side at high lvl are kind of "buggy"

Its just a proof to me on how bad the designers are on this game and especially on the light side..

Atm, i'm more affraid about a Thrawn-kar that is as stupid as a combo loop..

As Milling 10-15 cards at once is another proof of poor design and playtesting.

FFG got less into healthy and balanced game and more than ever into fast money making...

Wich creates those sort of decks i.m.o..

Sweet job anyway.

Cheers.

Legal Counsel 11

I played the deck last night but was running Threaten and Defiance instead of Truce and Hyperspace Jump. Even without the Running Interference, this deck packs a whollop. Twice I got off 13 damage in a round and once I got off 15 damage in a round. Playing amubush weapons from the discard pile is key. I think I'm going to cut Threaten for Truce. I still like the heal ability that #defiance has. The deck is pretty squishy, Ezra Bridger - Force-sensitive Thief tends to die quickly. While that slows the deck down from a resource generation perspective, Sabine can still consistently pump out damage if you can use her ability to get ambush weapons on the table before you activate her. I didn't play Thrawnkar, but beat a few of the new Hera decks and a real nasty Mon Mothma - Skilled Politician - Lando Calrissian - Galactic Entrepreneur designed to get off planned explosions. I really like this one.

BergerFett 1

i am new to destiny. I don't see the use in 2x hyperspace jumps? could you explain it a bit more? thank you. I played this deck or a version tonight. it is stupid fun.

BergerFett 1

also is it worth dropping ezra for a blue character to get force speed in the deck?

Scactha 888

I´ve tried it against a suite of aggro decks and found it to squishy. The selling point is the combo, which takes to much deck space to become reliable, and Sabines free Ambushes. Yet the ambushes forces you to have RI out or else you´ll eat all those big through Deflects, Double-Crosses and Threats. It´s a dangerous time to wield beefy dice and be light on control.

sparkyeks 27

Still can't figure out how you are getting 2 uses out of 1 Running Interference.The card says "After you take an action...exhaust" which means in your example you exhaust Infamous, Play a card (with ambush), then the Ambush rules state that you may immediately perform another action (Otherwise you lose it), then you activate Running Interference on the action you just performed with Ambush, because After effects must wait their turn and resolve last. I can see it happening with 2 instances of Running Interference, but not 1.

Plymouthdean86 66

The most important comment on this deck is @stranglebats it's not broken and will rarely become a loop due to how long it will take to set up and your counting on your opponent not having a card with action on it in there play area, I like to think of this as a quirk not a game breaking loop

Harifarkas 1

What about discarding to re-roll, isn't it possible to do that without any dice which would break through the running interference? @ArchitectGaming

stranglebat 832

@Harifarkas no. Discard to reroll specifies 1 or more dice in the rules reference

GenghisDon 100

why can't your opponent just pass on the turn you lock them up on and on their next turn start as normal? is there something I'm not getting. You can't loop hyperspace jump anymore so I don't understand how you are locking them down. You can pass without ending your round.

stranglebat 832

@GenghisDon Add thermal paints into the mix or just use the sabine ambush to deal say 5 damage. You pass, i pass, turn is over. the exact same thing happens next round until you are dead.

if they chose to resolve you can claim and the get to go first and roll in next turn but they get a full turn to sculpt rolls etc. if they have infamous and at least 1 paint they can combo you and just claim every turn so you cant even do that

inquistorsz 10

@GenghisDon If the opponent passes because they are locked down, then you can also pass. Two passes in a row ends the round , battlefield stays with current controller and you do the whole thing again.

The point is that Sabine gets do to do free damage with Thermal Paint and/or whatever ambush actions she likes, lock out the opponent, opponent passes, you pass, restart. Unlike hyperloop you can break this cycle, but it's not easy and it's going to hurt when you do.

GenghisDon 100

I got you now.

Meeple 1

If your opponent claim the battlefield! it breack your loop because he can activate one of his characters first

then yes he cant activate again or play a card, but cant he discard a card to reroll and breack again your loop?

codialy Meeple

Psyker501 1

Both Running Interference and Jango Fett - Lethal Mercenary are both after abilities, if I control the battlefield could I not say Jango's after ability enters the queue last, preventing him from activating?

Plymouthdean86 66

No I don't believe so because running interference say on your opponents next turn, technically he's activated in your turn

stranglebat 832

it also prevents the opponent from selecting actions. it doesnt prevent triggers etc. like if they block you from activating hit and run will still work for you

Schattenriss 1

@ArchitectGaming very good thoughts in this. I would like to read and experience you made with this Deck (e.g. against Thrawn/Unkar). Thank you for writing the Guide and the potential options!

XxGRYPHONxX 73

"Replace the Thermal Paint with a Holdout Blaster, and add a Truce in to the mix, and we’re rolling in with X-8 Night Sniper and Holdout Blaster on our Sabine, on the second action of the first round of the game, with an action to spare! For clarity:

---Smuggling, discarding Holdout Blaster, gain a resource.

---Truce, gain a resource, play X-8 Night Sniper, activate Sabine, play Holdout from discard pile."

...How are you playing Holdout from the discard pile?????????

Ergonomic Cat 1

@XxGRYPHONxX That's Sabine's ability....

TheForceAirbender 7

Just wondering if anyone can confirm this mechanic for me:

Activate Sabine, Infamous a Thermal Paint from the discard pile, get ambush...?

Is that doable??

Reflecto 1

Couldn't the enemy just claim then roll out a character immediately, then if you do the combo they can resolve dice as one of their actions ruining your combo? Am I missing something here?

Reflecto 1

Rather, they would claim and let you have your free turn then the next turn you coulnt do it. You would still get a free full turn though.

Ergonomic Cat 1

@Reflecto Right - I think the ideal game for this deck has a turn where you are first player, and you put the lock in place. Your opponent claims, and you get a full turn of play with no reactions, using a deck that has a lot of ability to do stuff.

Then next turn, you're still playing a fast Sabine deck with the ability to give a card Ambush and pull Ambush weapons from the discard. So you're either going to get to claim fast, before your opponent, while still playing out your turn, or your opponent is going to rush and claim early, giving you, again, a stronger turn. Realistically, you're going to get the lock once, and then your opponent is going to do everything they can to be sure they claim every turn after that. So you're limiting their options, rather than just locking them out.

Schattenriss 1

@ArchitectGaming how would you change the ezra/Sabine deck after the recent rule update?