Luke Aayla (14 player SC winner 4-0) 1.0

• Wersje

Store Championship (August 4, 2018) at Game Grid in North Ogden, Utah. 14 players showed up.

I am pretty new to Destiny. I started just a month or two ago, playing Rey Aayla w/Profitable Connections. With the errata and release of WotF, I swapped out Aayla and PC for Luke, thinking that he and Rey were a great pair. Mostly because I was unsure how to maximize Rey's value, I dropped her for Aayla. For the plot, I was torn between Fortify, which is clearly good value, and Stolen Intel, which seemed good for ramp and security against hand disruption. One of the Knights of Ren used Stolen Intel (list), but an experienced local player who was planning on taking a similar list to the tournament convinced me of the merits of Fortify and Comm Tower - Scarif (instead of fan-favorite Obi-Wan's Hut - Tatooine).

I was worried about three-wide decks, as well as mill, so I originally included two copies of Force Wave as a way to generate tons of damage. It rarely worked out quite as well as I hoped--and with some input from Seth T.--an awesome local player and member of the Chance Cube crew, I dropped it. My deck is definitely suboptimal in a few respects (only one Ancient because I only have one Ancient), but the idea is to special-chain and get maximum value out of shield shenanigans. The combination of Caution and Riposte, Pacify to remove and opponent's dice followed up with a Handcrafted Light Bow, and other similar shield manipulation cards were amazing. In particular, against mill, the ability to extract value out of shields that would otherwise be wasted was awesome.

Tournament Recap

Match 1 vs. eSnoke Grievous 2. I won the roll-off and let him choose one of his two battlefields (he had Home Turf Advantage). Awesome opponent, but his Grievous did not roll well and I was able to mitigate his dice with Aayla's special on my way to killing him with a combination of Caution, Riposte, and Synchronicity early on in round two, and Snoke was worked down quickly thereafter. I'm off to a great start.

Match 2 vs. eLuke3 eYoda with Fortify and Comm Tower. My opponent was Seth T., the guy who has taught me 98% of what I know about Destiny. He won a store champs a few weeks ago with this list, and he is an absolutely awesome guy. He built the Luke Yoda list in order to get maximum force ability shenanigans. He won the roll-off and let me go first. Again, using Caution, Riposte, and Obi-Wan's Lightsaber (and a bonkers roll of 3 dice showing 6) I was able to kill Yoda round two before he had too much of an effect, and he was not able to recover.

March 3 vs. Solo Sabine Wren - Explosives Expert w/Calling in Favors. The matchup that I was dreading. My opponent was the guy who helped me with the deck and who I thought was going to run something similar. Instead, he ran solo Sabine, which terrified me. We played three games before the tournament as a warmup, and he absolutely worked me the first and third game (I screwed up a Riposte on the second which could have won me the game, but he also rolled sub-optimally so...). I knew that in order to win I needed to ensure that I had a Force Illusion in hand round one and not to drop any weapon without redeploy unless I could ensure that he couldn't chain a kill with Ambush, Hyperspace Jump, etc. I mulliganed pretty hard for a Force Illusion and got it, as well as an Ezra Bridger's Lightsaber.

I won the roll-off and let him have the battlefield--Outer Rim Outpost - Nal Hutta--because I figured I needed the health. Fortunately, he had some great mid-game cards in hand at the start of the game (Hyperspace Jump, Tenacity, and a X-8 Night Sniper, but no other ramp. With that, I was able to work him down to where a high-roll won me the game. I had Pacify and Riposte for some extra damage if necessary, but he wasn't able to get off a Hyperspace Jump or Second Chance, which sealed it for me. A great opponent.

Match 4 vs. eCassian Jedha Jedha with War-Torn Streets - Jedha. I think that my deck, like most two-wide aggro decks, is going to really struggle against mill. The control that Hero Mill can assert is bonkers and--without Force Wave--I was unsure if I could win the damage vs. mill/control race. He used Scruffy Looking Nerf-Herder round one to pitch my only weapon, Obi-Wan's Lightsaber, but I was able to control his dice as well to minimize his mill in the first round with Aayla and a Hidden Motive so that I was not too poorly off first round. In addition, having won the battlefield, I was able to resolve Luke's 2 for three damage against one of his Jedha's that brought him to one health.

Round 2 gave me a Handcrafted Light Bow and my Ancient which, along with my Caution and Riposte, enabled me to get Cassian either at the end of round 2 or at the start of round 3. At this point, he was really working my deck down and had also got his Bespin Wing Guard out in order to control my hand, so I knew that I had to be careful with my Ancient and Hyperspace Jump in order to avert a catastrophe. Fortunately, consistent damage enabled me to get his Jedha to 3 health left, and I claimed with a 2 on Ezra Bridger's Lightsaber in order to win the game.

This was my first organized play tournament with Destiny, so the amount of things I learned is too voluminous to write out. While I'm new to the game, Seth and some other local players have really helped me get a handle on some important things to always bear in mind, especially potential mitigation from your opponent, and that really helped me.

For cards, I think that Ancient Lightsaber remains clearly an auto-include and I'll definitely be picking another one up, even with the limited shelf life on the card. The Dagger of Mortis didn't do a ton for me, but that was mostly due to a lack of shield shenanigans from my opponents. Handcrafted Light Bow is amazing, especially with Aayla, and the ability to remove an opponent's dice with Pacify and then special chain to remove them and deal two damage is so good. It was shield shenanigans that won me my games almost without fail.

For economy, I included two copies of It Binds All Things and one copy of Reaping The Crystal, as opposed to any copies of Destiny, because I have five three-cost upgrades and I roll tons of specials. I'm not certain if that's optimal, but Reaping is so great for getting a three-cost drop at the start of round one.

I definitely missed Close Quarters Assault. I'm not rolling as many , which is why I held off on it, but I think something needs to be figured out for bringing it in. It would have been amazing against Sabine and Mill, and I think that the ability to get rid of control from a yellow deck is just too good to pass up.

I know it has the potential to be a blowout card, but I remain unimpressed with Force Misdirection. Good players just know how to manage their dice so that they're rarely exposed to massive removal, and being required to get dice out and then hope for the right symbols can be a real #feelzbadman. I don't know what's optimal, but it's something I'm going to be thinking about for a while.

An amazing tournament a great learning experience!