7-1 1st Geek Fortress SC: Drive-By Salting 1.0

• Wersje
• 2.0
• 1.0

Thanks to Kris and Geek Fortress for running a seriously kickass tournament. We had a modest 14 players on the day with 4 rounds of swiss and a very player-friendly cut to top 8. The tournament structure was there to help more players play longer and have fun, though there was a lot of competition across the board. This was the last tournament in which you could play Aayla at 12 points before the Balance of the Force kicked in and the first in which you could play WotF. In short, everyone was on Snoke.

90% of players were on Snoke. I faced 3 versions of Snoke/Thrawn in swiss (won 2, lost 1) and one more in the cut. I also played against a Kylo/Snoke twice (the same player). There was at least one other Snoke/Thrawn out there, but probably two. Other decks I saw: Snoke/Cad Bane, 4-wide vehicles, Poe2/YoungLuke (more on this later).

I can't really take credit for this deck. It's just a modified version of HonestlySarcastic's Drive-By Shooting list. I haven't talked to him about these changes--I'm blasphemously not in the Patreon--but I wanted something that could weather 1) Kylo2, and 2) lots of vehicle indirect damage. This is also the first time I've played Drive-By at a tournament, but I was confident I could pilot it well. It was a good choice overall, and besides that it's a very strong deck that people are still not that accustomed to playing against.

Oh, and Salt Speeder is nuts.

Going forward, given the amount of Hailfire Droid Tanks and Planetary Bombardments I saw, I would probably find room for one or two Scruffy Looking Nerf-Herder. I believe Joe had one in his post-worlds list, but I cut it for an extra vehicle. I also would like a way to deal with Dark Ritual besides just killing the character again (which happened).

I also want to note that I have selective player name memory, which is not intentional, and I will fill-in the names of the players when I can. Sorry!

Swiss:

R1: Kylo2/Snoke (???)

This was the first round of swiss and it's also the one I remember the least. I remember my opponent started off with Torment on Kylo and was generating some great resources. I manage to kill Snoke round 2 and then all my Crait Speeder 3 indirect sides were turned on. A few discards from Yoda took his It Will All Be Mine and then a Control, which he otherwise had the money to play (by the way, cool combo with speed or Swiftness). Kylo got an illusion at some point, but he wasn't hitting on his activations, so I took him out shortly after.

R2: Snoke/Thrawn (TheJumpingFlea - Matt D) Matt and I roomed at Worlds and we play together frequently. He's a very strong Thrawn player (he took Thrawn/Mom to worlds going 5-2 but missing top cut due to SoS). He also sent me his decklist to look over ahead of time, so I tried to remember what was in it. Basically, just a ton of indirect damage: Hailfires, Planetary Bombardments, Fang Fighters, ARCs. If you haven't faced a Planetary Bombardment, you're in for a treat. This game was insanely close, and it is honestly the only game this day that I would have lost if TJF made a few different plays during the game. Long-story short, he played two vehicles out of order, which cost him 1 indirect damage in the long run and that damage would have done me in when he had lethal -1 in the final turn. I will remember this game for a long time, and it made me feel that this character combination is a SERIOUS competitor. Snoke is the real deal folks.

R3: Snoke/Thrawn (Cody) Cody's a very strong player from Tacoma. I was feeling okay but a little nervous going into this match, given how close my previous game against TJF was. By the way, all these Snoke/Thrawn lists are on the same battlefield I am (Weapons Factory Alpha), so the roll-off seemed very important each round. He chooses his for the bonus and I get the shields. He Snokes for tons of resources and I get a few vehicles out and a DH. Hailfire hits round 2 I think, but I keep stealing and zapping his resources with Ezra, keeping him honest. This game was very close, and came down to me rolling exactsies after he spent his last removal.

R4: Snoke/Thrawn (???) Three Snoke/Thrawns in a row? Yep. We knew that we were both in top 8 no matter what we did, so there was some pressure off. Good thing, too, because a R1 Hailfire dropped, followed by a R2: double Fang Fighter, and I was against the ropes. My draw was not stellar, and I didn't pressure Snoke early enough. By R3 his guys were hardly hurt and both had Force Illusion on them. I fought hard using my T-47 Airspeeders to exhaust his Hailfire a few times, but it was too much for my trio.

Top 8: R1: Kylo/Snoke (???) Same opponent as R1 of Swiss. I knew his deck better, and focused on cutting off his resources while mitigating Kylo's dice. He seemed to have no upgrades for a while and Snoke fell R2 again, with Kylo getting nuked soon after.

R2: Snoke/Thrawn (Cody) Again! Deja Vu. Same opponent as R3 of swiss. I had a feeling this was going to be close, and it was, but not as close as in swiss. Double Salt Speeder R1 is sort of unfair, as he gave me the battlefield and I was able to steal a resource with Ezra. Soon, Snoke dies after I FILP his only removal then go for max damage. Thrawn gets illusion and I keep dropping vehicles, and things are getting out of his control. I manage to spike 8 damage and put Kylo to 2, but Rookie dies and Yoda is sitting with a DH-1 and a Holdout. I roll out and get 3 damage, he mitigates my black side, I roll another vehicle, hit damage, he mitigates my black side, and once again I roll a black ranged and he's spent. GGs!

Finals: YoungLuke/Poe2 (Henry) Game 1: I have some advantage here: I've played against Henry's deck at Zulus a few times and know the tricks: Hit and Run, Partnership with C3P0, Speed into every kind of conceivable action cheating known. The deck can put out some SERIOUS hurt...if he can get upgrades down. Lucky for me, The Resource Thief is on my side. I think I stole about 3 resources in the first game, keeping his upgrades to one Rex Blaster. Then I disrupted a bunch when I could spare it. Oh, I also had a god draw. Rally Aidx2 and Y-Wingx2. He focuses poor Rookie Pilot, who manages to get in some helpful +2s before dying. I FILP seeing double Defensive Position and a Pacify so I take one DP and roll one die in at a time until he is forced to DP to remove it. Luke dies R2 or 3 and Poe fights hard but goes down soon after, as the Y-Wing damage piles up. Game 2: Sort of the opposite draw: I get DH-17 Blaster Pistol and 2x Salt Speeder and the salt speeders + DH + Ezra do 8 damage to Luke round 1. I still focus on zapping resources and by the time Young Luke dies, I have about 4 supports, ezra on 1 hp with a force illusion and a lot of removal on my side. Ezra dies, but Yoda rolls in the special the disrupt and a +2 on DH-17. He Pacifies Yoda's special (good card by the way), but I reroll into special. Poe is sitting at 5 or so hp before I even roll in my ARCs, Y-Wing, and Salts, and Henry extends his hand and concedes. GGs!

MVP: Resistance Crait Speeder. Doing +1 damage once is bonkers and it doesn't have a resource cost. But you knew that. R2D2 showed up in R2 of the cut and won me the game, but I think it was in hand anyway.