Jeskai Combo 11th place finish in 28 man Store championships 1.0

• Wersje
• 1.0

Inspired from this writeup here along with comments section http://swdestinydb.com/decklist/view/21980/hotcakesherootk-3rdplaceat14playerscwwriteup-1.0

After having incredibly poor rolls with Hero Vehicles on a smaller store championship on Friday, I wanted to play a deck that removed as much luck as possible, and best way to do that is to just draw your whole deck! Anyone who's looking at this most likely knows what this deck does by now, but to give a short explanation before moving on, the goal of the deck is to draw your entire deck by using multiple draw 3-4 events (using Rebel to rebuy them), then once your deck is in your hand, play Launch bay for free, loop some events with Fond Memories, and Salvo them with Launch Bay.

Round 1 vs Aphra supports - 1-0

First round my opponent knew what as I sat down what I was playing, since his little brother was the other player in the room trying this deck. The two of them are locals that are pretty young, but with how well he does, I consider him a child prodigy in our group (he in fact ended up making top 8 over me, more on that later). However, knowing what I was playing vs being able to actually stop it are two different things. After I drew some cards, he was able to hit me with some discard sides, and between that and having to play Friends in Low places a few times, my Salvo only killed his Battle Droid and other character (I honestly forget who). With Aphra at 3 HP left, I played out a C-3PO, rerolled into some indirect, then turned my discard into damage to finish Aphra. Its a shame, because Aphra supports is a deck I wanted to see more of, with Hailfire droid being my favorite card of the new set.

Round 2 vs Rex/trooper/Maz 2-0

My 2nd round opponent had zero clue what was going on. I had made a joke earlier on in the day my lineup could bluff me playing 4 wide vehicles, and I think this guy thought that at first. I felt bad towards the end, because he was intrigued and amused at me drawing a ton of cards, but once he saw the Launch bay come in, and asked which of his 8 hp guys were going to die, and I showed him Salvo, he was no longer entertained. He even didn't bother thinking to interact with me and claimed in the middle of me drawing my deck.

Round 3 vs Snoke/Cienna/Bala Tik 3-0

Round 3 was against another local I've known for awhile. I couldn't tell if he really didn't know what my deck was at the start, or was just bluffing. He played an AT-DP turn 1 and rolled out a special. Now, the issue was it was an Aurabesh promo one, and thought when I asked he just said it destroyed supports, and he just let it sit on the special for a few minutes of me drawing cards. I spent an extra 7 minutes figuring out a way to play Launch Bay twice and have enough for Salvo, and was going to just accept I'd have my first 2nd turn of the day, then he rerolled it and I double checked with him what it did. After that It was then a simple, mop out his removal and Salvo into ready into hit Snoke again.

Round 4 Yoda/Cassian/Anakin Mill 3-1 Decklist is even here for this one http://swdestinydb.com/decklist/view/22474/illtrymillingthatsagoodtrick-sc2nd286-0swiss-1.0

This is where things started to go south for the day. I had literally picked up this deck the night before and goldfished it for a few hours then made some personal tweaks, so I had no clue how to handle having my hand stripped away from me turn one. I'm pretty sure the answer is just lose. This was my straight up loss of the day with no chance of winning, congrats to Jason for his 2nd place.

Round 5. Kylo 2.0/Pryce 3-2

This was an incredibly close game and my favorite of the day, even losing. After drawing a ton of cards, didn't quite get anywhere due to some lucky discards turn 1 and a disrupt, though he didn't do much damage. We had a very long back and forth game, with me hard casting Launch Bay and using C-3P0 for just consistent damage. The discards turn 1 and more on the 2nd turn just put me into territory I was unfamiliar with due to never playing the deck until that morning. I feel with more practice I could have won this match, but my opponent pulled off a great win against a nerve wracking deck.

Round 6 Rex/Trooper/Maz 3-3

This was another long game that went for many turns that I feel would have been over right away if he didn't get his battlefield. He was playing Jedi Temple - Coruscant, which he initially had in the deck to strip away Dark Rituals from Cad/Snoke decks. It also was key to absolutely making my life a nightmare. I struggled to do anything each turn, but had started to come up with a strategy (note, started) earlier in case I came across a deck that could rip out my hand again. The upside was once he claimed, I could do whatever I wanted with the rest of my stuff, so I was able to start chunking down his team and eventually resolve a Launch Bay. The big screw up of the day though was we went to time and on the last turn, he claimed right away and stripped my hand of Rebel and some other really valuable card. It came down to me thinking that I needed to roll out everything and hope to find 3 damage across my 3 remaining characters and launch bay. After rolling zero damage after initial roll and 2 rerolls, I had put myself on tilt and wasn't even thinking to just hold onto the last card and win on breakers in time (I had done 24 to his 15). If I hadn't been frustrated at my bad luck rearing its head at the end of the day, I'd have been in top 8.

Key changes I made:

Character Lineup: Changed my lineup so I had more overall health, especially in red characters. Still gives me 3 characters with a side

Investigate I cut 2x Ancient Wisdom for one of these and C-3P0. Allows me to dig farther for when selection matters to keep the train going.

C-3PO Gives me consistency for if I go past turn 1, and if I need to do an extra push for damage against 1 character, Instead of discarding to reroll, or concentrate, etc, can just guarantee the damage.

Fierce Resolve Gave me a little bit of extra damage along with a reroll. Just another damage boost if I go beyond turn 1.

I went into the day thinking this deck was absolutely absurd and needed to be answered by FFG. In the end, Mill that hits the hand (and Jedi Temple) keeps the deck in check, though I plan to do some experimenting with two more store championships in August to see if I can get over that hurdle.

Thanks to all my opponents that put up with my deck!

Edit: Reason for name "Jeskai Combo" name is it comes from a joke of trying to get a local Magic player who loves playing combo to play this deck in our regional.