I have been playing quite a bit and have built most of the "competitive decks" that I see do well and the Dark Side NEVER wins. EVER. If the light side is running either a control Jedi/Gamor Run deck, or the Freeholders and their Bounce all units objective deck the dark side is hopeless.

My friend and I who play magic competitively switch off and the Light always crushes the dark. The highest I have seen the Dial get to is 6.

Is this the recent meta-shift due to new releases? Either way I am getting increasing angry that there seems to be no balance in the game at all.

Is anyone else experiencing this or have answers?

While I have no experience with the tournament scene or the newer expansions, from everything I read on forums here and at Cardgamedb, TopTierGaming, FlipTheForce, there is no crisis. The LS certainly has some new tricks up their sleeves but nothing is broken and there is balance. You might try adjusting the way you build decks or the strategies you employ.

Also, you might not want to call the game "soooooo terrible" on a forum of people who love it.

Went to a tournament last weekend. Saw lots of Gamor/Jedi or Smuggler/Gamor decks... DS went 3-0-1. Technically better than my LS which only went 3-1.

Well I did call it terrible to get someone to respond and look at the post. I can't understand how anyone can "love" a game with complete imbalance. There is no strategy or deck building to change.

I am asking what the Dark Side can do to win. I ahve built decks that have won regionals or are purposely built to beat the meta-light side deck, but they just don't do anything.

Should the dark side attack? Stay back and defend? Their objectives are weak and don't provide the crazy boosts that the light side have and all it takes is tactics to exhaust dark Side blockers.

I will post my actual decklists below, but having run a mono-scrum deck, a sith control build, and a Navy Star destroyer ramp deck, none of the 3 had any chance. The big star destoyers would get tactic wrecked and they could never win edge battles. Even Sith control built to win force struggle couldn't even do that.

The light side deck I have been using is:

2x A Hero's Journey

2x The Secret of Yavin 4

2x Along the Gamor Run

2x May the Force be with you

1x Watchers in the Wasteland

1x Asteroid Sanctuary

Dark Side Decks getting crushed:

NAVY(Probably not the best build)

2x Kuat Reinforcements

2x Imperial Command

2x Deploy the Fleet

1x Imperial Blockade

1x Victory or Death

1x Repair and Refurbish

1x Endless Reserves

SCUM

2x Jabba's Reach

2x Lucrative Contract

2x The Findman's Intuition

2x The Bespin Exchange

1x Hive of Scum and Villany

1x Trandosian Terror

SITH (Running SCUM affiliation)

2x The Emperor's Web

2x The Executor Arrives

2x Agent of the Emperor

2x The Slave Trade

1x The Killing Cold

1x The Tatooine Crash

And bear in mind I straight built the Sith deck from someone who attested it was built to shut down the exact light side deck I am running. That is starting to feel like lunacy...

Any ideas or tips for Dark Side and logic behind it?

What was your Darkside deck @dbmeboy ? Did you actually beat the Lightside Gamor Run decks?

One possibility is that you might not be recognizing the difference in play styles between LS and DS. The DS is meant to be played more defensively. The LS is usually meant to be played more aggressively, putting units on the line to try to deal out all the blast damage you can as quickly as you can. (Of course, the game is not quite that formulaic.)

This game is not quite as asymmetrical as games like Android: Netrunner, but there is still a fair amount of difference between how the two sides typically operate. As the DS player, you don't necessarily want to just blow away LS objectives. Try using your DS decks to win the Force struggles and destroy one, maybe two objectives. You'll find that when you play defensively the LS player will not be able to destroy quite as many objectives as before, thus solidifying your win.

When you play your decks well, utilizing their strengths, they can really shine. The last tournament I played, both my LS and DS decks were undefeated.

DS:

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Star Wars Deck Builder

Affiliation:
Sith (Core)


Total Objective Sets: (10)

2x Fall of the Jedi (Core)
Darth Vader (Core)
Dark Side Apprentice (Core)
Vader's Lightsaber (Core)
Force Choke (Core)
Heat of Battle (Core)

2x Counsel of the Sith (Core)
Advisor to the Emperor (Core)
Kuati Security Team (Core)
Sith Library (Core)
Dark Precognition (Core)
Twist of Fate (Core)

2x The Heart of the Empire (Core)
Coruscant Defense Fleet (Core)
Kuati Security Team (Core)
Sith Library (Core)
Force Stasis (Core)
There Is No Escape (Core)

2x The Emperor's Web (Core)
Emperor Palpatine (Core)
Emperor's Royal Guard (Core)
Sith Library (Core)
Force Lightning (Core)
Force Choke (Core)

2x Serve the Emperor (A Dark Time)
Prophet of the Dark Side (A Dark Time)
Prophet of the Dark Side (A Dark Time)
Anzati Elite (A Dark Time)
Anger (A Dark Time)
Force Push (A Dark Time)

LS:

Deck Created with CardGameDB.com Star Wars Deck Builder

Affiliation:
Smugglers and Spies (Core)


Total Objective Sets: (10)

2x Questionable Contacts (Core)
Han Solo (Core)
Twi'lek Smuggler (Core)
Cloud City Casino (Core)
Swindled (Core)
Crossfire (Core)

2x Wookiee Life Debt (Edge of Darkness)
Chewbacca (Edge of Darkness)
Wookiee Warrior (Edge of Darkness)
Wookiee Warrior (Edge of Darkness)
Let the Wookiee Win (Edge of Darkness)
Heat of Battle (Edge of Darkness)

2x Trust Me (Edge of Darkness)
Lando Calrissian (Edge of Darkness)
Saboteur (Edge of Darkness)
Cloud City Casino (Edge of Darkness)
Sabotage (Edge of Darkness)
Target of Opportunity (Edge of Darkness)

2x Asteroid Sanctuary (Edge of Darkness)
Millennium Falcon (Edge of Darkness)
Cloud City Operative (Edge of Darkness)
Cloud City Guest Quarters (Edge of Darkness)
Bamboozle (Edge of Darkness)
Twist of Fate (Edge of Darkness)

2x To Arms! (Edge of Darkness)
Sullustan Weapon Tech (Edge of Darkness)
Sullustan Weapon Tech (Edge of Darkness)
Han's Heavy Blaster Pistol (Edge of Darkness)
Chewbacca's Bowcaster (Edge of Darkness)
Hidden Cache (Edge of Darkness)

I will put together the Sith as you have it built and see if I can make a dent. When playing we try to play slow and defnesivley with the Sith, but it just can't win Edge battles and then all my units get focus tokens from Tactics and can't defend anyway.

Any other Navy ideas? What is the best Tie Fighter swarm build? I heard there was a Tie Fighter deck from mostly core that would win by turn 3, but I haven't seem how that is possible...

Any other feedback? I really want to love this game, but it's just not fun to play due to the imbalance I am experiencing and it's hard to think I can be competitive when I will only be able to win as Light Side..

1. Well I did call it terrible to get someone to respond and look at the post.

2. I can't understand how anyone can "love" a game with complete imbalance. There is no strategy or deck building to change.

1. Those of us that check the forums regularly would have responded even if you did not call it terrible. No need to do that in the future here. You'll also find a larger community of us that post regularly on the cardgamedb forums.

2. I can't understand how anyone cannot love this game. It's not completely imbalanced despite your claims and I'm not sure that building the most popular meta deck will fix anything if you play the deck incorrectly. As far as deckbuilding, you are not required to build the most popular decks in the current meta. If you are a regular tournament player, this can actually throw your opponents off when they are expecting [LS META DECK] or [DS META DECK]. I heard of several people doing this during the Dash/Freeholders tournament era.

3. You've gotten some suggestions from some of us already on playing a little more defensively, at least until you have a nice board set up. You seem to keep referencing that you lose the edge battles every time as the DS. I really don't see how you can always lose every edge battle of every game. Could you elaborate on that?

4. Maybe try a shielding-based Imperial Navy deck if you are tired of all the tactics? Those are aggressive and provide lots of shielding. The trouble with them of course, is that Imperial Navy is not super great at Edge Battles or the Force Struggle.

Thanks Groggygolem, I totally missed that shielding can prevent a focus token. I have played with a bunch of people and this never came up, but defintley changes some of the games. Mara Jade was always shielded for example and so were some star destroyers. That fact alone could help with some of the aggravation we were facing regarding a tactics being too good.

Yes sorry about the post title, I was just frustrated.

As far as edge battles, it really felt like the dark side cards had less edge value and when it was an opponents turn they had more cards in hand since they just filled their hand. I think it has been due to us not playing quite defensively enough as dark side. Also as I look at the deck builds I had, I do question some of the card decisions.

I am going to try the sith deck suggested above as it seems to be much more synergistic than the deck I had built and I also switched my navy for a trooper/walker deck with shielding. I'll see how it goes!

I would love more dark side deck ideas from decks that have been actually play tested and proven. So many of the decklists are just theory and that's the trap I have been falling into as well.

Also does anyone know what the ideal build for the super fast tie fighter deck is? I was looking at objectives, but I can't quite get 10 that make sense for the speed that I have heard about...

Thanks everyone!

What was your Darkside deck @dbmeboy ? Did you actually beat the Lightside Gamor Run decks?

Sorry I was slow answering this. The deck I used last weekend was:

Fall of the Jedi x2

Counsel of the Sith x2

The Emperor's Web x2

Agent of the Emperor x2

Trandoshan Terror x1

The Findsman's Intuition x1

Pretty much everyone I played against that tournament was running some variation of the Gamor Run deck. It didn't do quite as well this weekend at the Wisconsin regional... but oddly enough it's only win was against the only Jedi/Gamor deck I played against (technically the game went to time, but I would have won on my turn had it happened).

Awesome, thanks for the update. I have had better success with me actually playing with shielding rules and the new navy trooper build, but the best I did was get the dial to 9 before I got beat. Some forward progress though.

This deck has had great success either beating Jedi/Gamor or running up the dial against them to win on tie breakers.

-2x Emperor's Web

-2x Fall of the Jedi

-2x Plan of the Prophetess

-2x Executor Arrives

-2x Deploy the Fleet

In some games I'll even blow up my own deploy the fleet to get some Star destroyers out, one of the keys to slowing them down is resources. If you can blow up an objective our two on their turn using executor's ability and some ISB's you'll be limiting what they can play alot. And if you blow up MTFBWY or Gamor it only gets better. The Death Squadrons are great at setting objectives up to die from this and can also help keep an objective alive with their shields.

Plan of the Prophetess seems to be a big key in even competing in the force struggle. It won't help against Gamor but hopefully you blow that one up soon enough that it doesn't matter. I'd say in testing against a skilled opponent this deck wins 40-50% of it's games, it's still vulnerable to amazing LS draw the key is knowing how to play based on their opening objectives.

Don't allow them to focus out your only defender with kyle... etc.

In some games I'll even blow up my own deploy the fleet to get some Star destroyers out,

That's pretty hard to set up though... only really helps you if you have Death Squadron Command out with only 1 focus token on it (or have already used DtF's resource to play a different card).

Hey I am a newer player to the game but seem to have some luck running a Sith control deck myself. It is all about sitting back and having the stronger board presence while controlling the force. This is what I run:

2x Fall of the Jedi

2x The Emperor's Web

2x Agent of the Emperor

2x The Plan of the Prophetess

2x Council of the Sith

Flipping the Plan of the Prophetess early on is key to holding the force since it lower's an opponents committed units force pips by 1 making it much easier to hold it or forcing him to commit a higher profile unit. Vader is great with all the events in the deck and his ability and Mara is also great. Her with her lightsaber is one of the most powerful characters I put out in the deck. Once my board presence is strong enough I shift from a defensive to an aggressive style and try to send the dial up by destroying objectives. Along the way, once I shift to the aggressive play, Mara's targeted strike and Palpatine's tactics or Vader with his lightsaber/targeted strike. This deck has decent success against most types of decks the LS runs. Hope this helps!

Just got my rebel behind handed to me by the dark side today. ******* wampas