note: this is a repost of a deck I originally wrote for the Outer Rim Smugglers in May 2019. It doesn’t seem to have made the transition to Entourage Gaming, so I’m putting it up here.
Let me paint a picture for you. You’ve got yourself a traditional deal-damage-with-characters-and-upgrades deck, and you’re facing off against a Palpatine deck that has managed to stack a wall o’ abilities on him. You’ve only managed to put 7 damage onto the 14 health he’s grown to, and you can feel that this is your last shot to knock him off the board. If your opponent makes it to the next round with a living Palp, all hell is about to break loose in the form of Force Storm or Bacta Therapy or something, you just know it. After rolling out, your dice are on a bunch of garbage. Your opponent, however, landed this.
For the record, that’s three dice, all resolvable in one action, that are ready to annihilate any damage you might be able to roll. Oh, and two of those dice (Force Throw) come back into the pool with a solid chance at more removal while the third special (Soresu Mastery) adds a shield in addition to eating a damage die.
It’s hopeless. It’s misery. This is a stupid dice game. If only you could have rolled better. Pack it in, bub.
Nope.
Not this time.
This time I won. This time I didn’t care what the dice were showing because I’m playing THIS deck. THIS deck didn’t give two farts in a windstorm what his dice were showing, because THIS deck doesn’t really need its dice.
Not once in that sequence of plays did I care AT ALL what was on my dice. I just used cards that did damage to poke his damn eyes out for him. My opponent, meanwhile, watched his whole life dissolve in front of his face. His wife left him and took the dog. He lost his job. His kids turned out to be someone else’s. It was glorious. I made a graph of his soul for you.
This is my favorite deck of the current metagame. It doesn’t care about its dice (much). It’s the kid that plays Red Rover, but instead of trying to break through the arms on the other team it just runs up, rears back, and slaps the snot out the biggest kid on the other team. Everyone I’ve seen play with Dengar wants to make a bounty hunter deck. I don’t care about that. I want to make them take damage without rolling dice. Take a gander.
Dice Cards
All the dice cards cheat in some way.
- Crossguard Lightsaber and Dengar’s Fireblade are obvious. They deal damage when they hit the table. There’s only one Fireblade because it costs 3 and you can’t overwrite the first with the second.
- If you’ve played Dagger of Mortis, they’re playing blue, so it steals a shield when it hits.
- Grappling Boa removes dice (although, honestly, I don’t play this one much)
- Mandalorian Jetpack picks up their biggest die and throws it across the table at them.
- Skilled Tracker removes many dice (over time) for 1 resource.
- Vibrocutlass resolves big dice for free.
- Punishing One is Bala-Tik on a support (with better die sides)
Downgrades
- These are all the bounties we have right now. I’d rather another zero than having to pay one for Enticing Reward, but it’s pretty nice to get something shiny for free.
Stay Alive Juice
Only the tastiest for me, please.
- Entangle removes two dice
- Forsaken removes a die for free. If you’re holding this, start your round with a Punishing One rollout.
- Hidden Motive. Lol, more zero cost blue removal for teh VILLAINS!
- Paid Off is because we can’t run Conveyex Robbery or any of the rotated hero ones.
- Risky Move is the most generic removal you have. One-for-one that rarely comes back to bite you.
- Shakedown is the one people will have to pick up and read, but, man, is it fun to pull off. You start the game with four dice showing disrupt, and most of the cards you want to play in Round One add more.
Battlefield
Comm Tower is an excellent battlefield that will often leave you with the shields to replace the damage they do to Kylo with Bitter Rivalry (I promise, they’re trying to kill Kylo first). Having a plot means this is only beneficial to you most of the time, so even if they win the roll-off, they’re probably taking theirs.
How to Play It
Mulligan
You’re hard mulliganning for a bounty. That means you’re tossing everything in your hand if you don’t get one. If you do have one, you’re next looking for a two drop die card, preferably Crossguard Lightsaber. You also want some zero-cost removal. After that, you’ve got one slot to play with because Bitter Rivalry is making you pitch a card into the grumper. Tailor that last spot for the deck you’re fighting. Is it aggressive? Maybe removal. Slow developing? Go for another die card.
Early Rounds
There’s a solid chance that you found a Crossguard and hit with Kylo in the first two rounds, so that means that, after you roll out the second time, you’ve poked one of their characters in the eye for seven damage without resolving a single die. That’s a lot of damage to drop in someone’s lap, so you should either be close to finishing off their best character or knocking down something small at that point. It’s pretty straightforward from here. Just roll damage and whack them with sticks.
Later Rounds
Rounds 3+ should see the game in your favor. From there it’s just ganging up on whatever dude they have left. The longer the game goes (and you have guys alive), the more literal direct damage you’re dealing, so stick and move with the removal and stay alive. If you get in a situation where they pass, give serious consideration to passing as well. That lets you untap your gentlemen so that they can come calling again.
Conclusion
In a metagame of massive haymakers, I’ve found this deck to be a breath of fresh air. Because it plays differently than any other deck, it jars your opponent’s line of thinking, making them evaluate the damage math differently. That gives you an edge. It’s also dead simple to play. Plop cards down, roll the dice, and do damage.
Oh, and don’t forget to overwrite with Crossguard or Fire Blade for that free damage.