Ground-up Strategy Chat

By vandalDX, in Star Wars: The Card Game - Strategy

We're continuing this from a "Rules" thread that really wasn't about game rules anymore...

Also, you do know that you can mix affilations in your decks, right? (So for instance: the core Sith objectives and Navy's Defense Protocol which was a typical objective to see in early Sith control.Mostly for its additional Twist of Fate and the one damage for one less card draw)

We tried that for a while with our Core Set + The Desolation of Hoth , but found that it didn't work as

  • Scum and Villainy + Smugglers and Spies pretty much require a deluxe expansion to play at all (they would tease you with a Boba Fett in that Core Set);
  • we started to throw rules out the window like Faction Match Requirements; and
  • it made the decks conform to no real strategy at all and the game was sort of chaotic.

I assume, like That Other Game (100% agree with you on cost with MtG --we gave that one up long ago, but that's another topic entirely), faction/color combos are super card-sensitive.

Right now we've found that the best, most competitive games for the two of us from our meager selection of cards come from a Jedi deck and an Imperial Navy deck, but I'm fascinated to see how Capture decks work, which can be a combination of any of the three DS factions.

Does this mean that a lot of the "Theme Decks" come from lots of cards that take a single action , or have a certain ability type?

We tried that for a while with our Core Set + The Desolation of Hoth , but found that it didn't work as

  • Scum and Villainy + Smugglers and Spies pretty much require a deluxe expansion to play at all (they would tease you with a Boba Fett in that Core Set);
  • we started to throw rules out the window like Faction Match Requirements; and
  • it made the decks conform to no real strategy at all and the game was sort of chaotic.

I agree that S&V and S&S only got under steam with the Edge of Darkness (which is often considered to be the Scum & Spies core set). But from the beginning, adding Han Solo to your deck could make for interesting play. His "shoot first" ability of dealing one damage and his Targeted Strike can really play havoc with the DS units, especially if they don't play Sith or just don't manage to draw Force Choke or Force Lightning .

I actually find that playing multi-color can really enhance a strategy. Early Tie Swarm decks for instance had two Black Squadron Assault alongside the Navy Fighter decks ( Defense Protocol , Kuat reinforcements , Imperial Command and the Endor Gambit e.g.)

And with the first Rogue Squadron Force Pack (Prepare for Take-Off) the Navy/Sith Tie Swarm has really gotten dangerous.

I assume, like That Other Game (100% agree with you on cost with MtG --we gave that one up long ago, but that's another topic entirely), faction/color combos are super card-sensitive.

Not necessarily if you choose the right balance of objective sets. In that case, you can be sure that you always have a resource match to play at least one card of each affilation.

The most often seen method is to "splash" one objective set (or two) of one affilation, and have the remaining objective sets be the other affilation. Say you want to splash the Han Solo objective set Questionable contacts (two units with black Tactics and the Swindled event are good reasons to splash it even if it wasn't for Han's "shoot first" ability.) then you play the Smuglers and Spies affilation and keep the remainder of your objective set Jedi or Rebel.

Granted, you will not be able to play your "X affilation only" objectives, but the more you expand your card-pool, the less often you will have absoluetly no powerful alternative to the "X affilation only" objective you were thinking of.

If you splash an Affilation and make sure you never include more than 3 objective sets of that affilation, you will be certain that you will always have at least one objective set of your other affilation in your opening objectives. Because you draw 4 objectives, of which you put one on the bottom of your deck, even if you have a very improbably draw of all 3 splashed affilation objectives, you will have at least one of the main affilation and two of the splashed affilation. Sure, this will reduce availability of resources at times, but thanks to Neutrals in most objective sets and the right resource generator at the right time, you'll normally be able to keep the game going.

And more realistically, you'll probably have 1 or at most 2 of the splashed affilation in your opening draw.

The other method (if you have a powerful X affilation only card in your main affilation that you absolutely want/need to keep) is to go for a 4 (side affilation) /6 (main affilation) split. I'm not sure about the exact numbers but in that case, the chance of you not drawing an objective of the side affilation is pretty low, and in case you draw all 4 of them, you'll always have the affilation card to play your main affilation cards.

Finally, a less common method (because there aren't much objective sets that fit the bill) is to play objective sets that are less affilation-dependent because they have useful 0-cost cards, or many Neutral cards. So if you splash that objective set but play the Main affilation, you can still use most of the cards in the splashed objective set even if you don't get the right affilation objectives on your opening draw.

And once again, the more cards you have, the more tricks there are to still get those cards in play anyway. e.g. In the Hoth Cyle, there's a Jedi objective set that has often been played in Rebel Fighter/speeder decks. A Hero's Resolve has a version of Luke Skywalker that can be used as a pilot enhancement on fighters and Speeders. This is the only Jedi card in that set. In the past, if you didn't have the right resource, that card was only useful in the Edge Battle. But now with the new Fate card Stay on Target , you can "put a pilot card into play" without ever having to worry about its affilation.

Right now we've found that the best, most competitive games for the two of us from our meager selection of cards come from a Jedi deck and an Imperial Navy deck, but I'm fascinated to see how Capture decks work, which can be a combination of any of the three DS factions.

After the Core set, most Capture effects are Scum and Villany. Off my head I think there's only one additional Sith objective that has capture effects.

So you won't need to match too much affilations if you want to play a Capture deck.

Also, as for playing three affilations, that's more difficult indeed. I don't think I've heard of many strategies to consistently play three affilations and not getting resource-screwed.

Does this mean that a lot of the "Theme Decks" come from lots of cards that take a single action , or have a certain ability type?

Not necessarily. In my experience, typical theme decks are based around:

- A power Combo (e.g. the Jedi/Gamor Run or the Trench Run/Asteroid Base combos)

- Units with the same key-word that will thus all benefit from specific power-boosts or related effects (Trooper deck; Tie Swarm; Speeder/Fighter; Wookiee Life Debt; Ewoks; creatures; Hoth decks; Shields)

- Comparable effects that will have a consistent results (Heavy Imperial Navy with cost reducers)

- Having the same effect (Capture decks; Sith Control; Jedi Control)

- Story-consistent combos (like Super-Friends: Falcon, Chewie, Han, Leia or Luke)

And one thing remains ... the more you expand your card base, the more themes you see that really "speak" to you.

The other method (if you have a powerful X affilation only card in your main affilation that you absolutely want/need to keep) is to go for a 4 (side affilation) /6 (main affilation) split. I'm not sure about the exact numbers but in that case, the chance of you not drawing an objective of the side affilation is pretty low, and in case you draw all 4 of them, you'll always have the affilation card to play your main affilation cards.

I've seen this 4/6 spread a lot in my reading. What should the four of one faction and six of another have in common, principally?

Some mechanical tie.

For example, let's take the TIE Fighter deck WookieRoar mentioned. In the core set, the card Tallon Roll rewards you for playing lots of units with the Fighter trait in your deck. The two objective sets that contain Tallon Roll also include Death from Above , rewarding you for playing Vehicle units. Now fortunately, all Fighter units are also Vehicle units, so if you focus on Fighter units, you also make Death from Above live.

You could try to stick to pure Imperial Navy and build around Vehicle units (especially since Kuat Reinforcements has an Interrupt that makes Vehicle units easier to play) but the Sith objective set Black Squadron Assault contains two powerful Fighter units, a Pilot unit that can be used to enhance your Fighters (literally!) and has a powerful recursion effect you can use on your own turn. Black Squadron Assault complements the theme of using Fighter units in your deck, so it's worth mixing affiliations for.

So outside of the Core Set, there are three other Dark Side objective sets with a focus on Fighter units.

- Superior Numbers

- Black Squadron Formation

- The Empire's Elite

Now the downside is that while Superior Numbers is an extremely powerful objective, it requires you to be playing with the Imperial Navy affiliation card. Even if you use the maximum alloted copies of Black Squadron Assault and Black Squadron Formation, that's 4 objectives, meaning you have a significant risk of not having a Sith resource when you begin games. Most people don't find that an acceptable risk, so they won't run Superior Numbers in a mixed-affiliation deck.

So a simple TIE deck would look like this.

Affiliation: Sith

2 Black Squadron Assault

2 Kuat Reinforcements

2 Defense Protocol

2 Black Squadron Formation

2 The Empire's Elite

Every objective is focused on making the most of your Fighter units. You can use a similar theory to build a deck based on Trooper units, or even one built around the Hoth or Capital Ship traits.

I've seen this 4/6 spread a lot in my reading. What should the four of one faction and six of another have in common, principally?

Usually same traits. Sometimes card effects that work well together.

For instance, my new Tie Swarm deck uses the following:

Sith:

2x Black Squadron Assault (Core)

2x Black Squadron Formation (Ready for Takeoff)

Navy:

2x Kuat Reinforcements (Core)

2x Superior Numbers (Darkness and Light)

2x The Empire's Elite (Ready for takeoff)

Now I'll admit that I usually don't use the 4/6 Split. Most often I splash 2/8 or 3/7 and play the affilation of the splashed objective set. But for this set I need to play Navy Affilation because Superior Numbers in Navy Affilation Only.

As you'll see, this set is mostly Fighters , has several effects that work specifically for Fighters ( Tallon Roll ; Superior Numbers ; Escort Frigate ) has the most Pilots you can currently get for two affilations ( Black Squadron Pilot ; " Mauler" Mithel ; Baron Fel ) and has several Black Squadron cards that get an extra boost from the two Sith objectives (including the Navy unit " Backstabber ")

For a limited card pool, creating a 4/6 split is harder because you do indeed not have that much co-operating cards yet.

A suggestion would be: Affilation: Navy

1x Fall of the Jedi

1x Counsel of the Sith

1x Black Squadron Assault

1x The Emperor's Web

1x Imperial Command

1x Kuat reinforcements

1x The Ultimate Power

1x Death and Despayre

1x Defense Protocol

1x The Endor Gambit

Black Squadron assault for Objective Damage

Fall of the Jedi / Counsel of the Sith / Emperor's Web for the Core Sith control tricks (Vader & Sith events, Tactics, 3 resources, Twist)

For LS it's less easy. However, there are already some useful "splashes" you could try.

Affilation: Jedi

1x A Journey to Dagobah

1x Jedi Training

1x The defense of Yavin 4

1x Mission Briefing

1x The Rebel Fleet

1x Draw their Fire

1x Decoy at Dantooine

1x Fleeing the Empire

2x Hoth Operations

This combination gives your the power of Rogue Five , on which you can play Wege Antilles for a double strike; second engagement or pulling back as defender and the free resource of R2-D2 .

The Jedi Training gives you two cards that can give you a free extra icon in the Force Struggle. Since LS (and especially Rebel) needs to concentrate on dealing damage and thus attack, there are less chances to keep a unit in defense to keep the Force and thus slow down the DS dial. These two cards do it for free and force the DS to commit a unit and keep it ready if they want to be able to take/keep the Balance of the Force.

It drops the Rebel Affilation only objective set Mobilize the Squadrons . Unless you get it early in your play, you won't get much use out of Trench Run . The effect of Mobilize is good, but only a 4/10 chance of you actually drawing it and you're still pretty secure with resources. And sure, Rebel Assault is nice, but often you'll find that you want to use your 2 resources to play anouther unit. Also, most cards aren't exactly very useful in the Edge battle.

Pro-tip ... play Astromech Droid Upgrade and Wedge Antilles on your Rogue Three and go for the kill.

Affilation: Smugglers and Spies

1x Questionable Contacts

1x A Hero's Journey

1x In you Must Go

1x Forgotten Heroes

1x The Secret of Yavin 4

1x last Minute rescue

1x Jedi training

2x A Message from Beyond

1x Tribal Support

You get two additional black Tactics in Questionable Contacts , and Crossfire can give you whatever you need at the right moment.

We skip A Journey to Dagobah (Jedi Only). This deck is has more Character units anyway.

with 4 Old Ben's Spirit , you will be able to keep your useful but vulnerable units in play much longer (especially Han ).

The Ewoks from Tribal Support can help you better than you'd think. Attack with Han Solo and the Ewok Scout to exclude a unit from attacking, then use Han to either focus that unit (so they can't block in the second attack either) or use Han 's targeted strike on the excluded unit. In combination with the "shoot first" 1 damage, Han can then do 3 damage without risk of the DS unit striking first if the defende wins the edge battle (3 damage is enough to take out the Emperor ). The same is true if the Ewok Scout accompanies Luke (targeted strike) or a unit with tactics.

But theoretically, with the Ewok scout by his side, Han can neutralise 3 units in one attack: a 1-HP when declaring the attack, a 2 HP unit through Targeted Strike and any other unshielded unit by focusing it.

Now the downside is that while Superior Numbers is an extremely powerful objective, it requires you to be playing with the Imperial Navy affiliation card. Even if you use the maximum alloted copies of Black Squadron Assault and Black Squadron Formation, that's 4 objectives, meaning you have a significant risk of not having a Sith resource when you begin games. Most people don't find that an acceptable risk, so they won't run Superior Numbers in a mixed-affiliation deck.

True ... But when I played 2 Sith/8 Navy, the only card for which I really needed Sith Resources was Vader's Tie Advanced . The Event card I'm on the Leader wasn't that useful since most people don't play Fighter units if they didn't have a Hoth Deck (this will change with the new cycle of course).

Black Squadron Pilot and Tie Advanced are neutral, and the Tie Advanced was until recently the best fighter to search for with Superior Numbers .

So even if I didn't have any Sith objectives on my opening draw, I could use Vader's Tie Advanced as a powerful Edge card which I usually would be able to call back soon through Escort Carrier .

Now with Black Squadron Formation , the chance of having at least one Sith in the opening draw is a lot larger (I have tested 20 random draws, only 1 didn't have any Sith) and even if the worst happens, I have 4 Stay on Targets to make optimal use of "Mauler" Mithel and Escort Carrier works just as well on Black Two. Only the Death Star Ready room would be a truly lost card if I don't have any Sith on my opening.

Those are acceptable odds IMO.

Edited by WookieeRoar

Sidebar: we played a good half dozen games today, and really are getting into the swing of things. We had a great, super-close showdown in our last game between a bunch of different units and a lot of plays with weenie cards for the "unopposed" damage bonus. Ultimately, I was done in with a well-played Fate card and a brutal attack with Red Five and Obi-Wan Kenobi while the dial sat at 11. It was a sign of good things to come, because we're playing better thanks to all the help here on the FFG forums! So thanks, everybody!

Now: back to business: sounds like most of these really great combos are going to require additional card sets. How common is it for players to buy a second core set to double up on some of the great objectives? I've found that having two Darth Vader cards from the Hoth Cycle is super advantageous as it doubles my chances for acquiring one and getting that extra Blast Damage on my attacking units--I can only assume that that would be doubly so for good core set cards like Red Five (my wife's favorite card, and an absolute game-wrecker for DS if the LS is winning the Edge Battles).

I think I'll try to splash some Sith objective sets into my current imperial navy deck for our games this week. I think I have a black squadron set with the Darth Vader Tie Fighter you talk about.

Those are acceptable odds IMO.

Which is fine. I would personally probably try a similar deck to yours, though I think I'd run Defense Protocol over Kuat Reinforcements, or maybe a 1/1 split. But most people aren't willing to risk a 4 Sith/6 Navy split with the Imperial Navy faction card.

Back on topic, it is extremely common for anyone who wants to play the game competitively to buy a second core set. The second core set was my first purchase into the game (I got the first as a gift), and I regret nothing.

Edited by D.Knight Sevus

Back on topic, it is extremely common for anyone who wants to play the game competitively to buy a second core set. The second core set was my first purchase into the game (I got the first as a gift), and I regret nothing.

We might have to do that sooner rather than later, even though there is, as far as we know, no real opportunity to play Star Wars LCG in our area in any organized capacity. I'd very much like to make it to some kind of organized event, just to see how other people play the game, get some ideas, and see what other play styles and strategies are out there, but that will require some planning and travel for us.

Our games this past week have been the best, closest, and most strategic that we've ever played, and with us getting to know the cards in our decks and using them in varying combinations, we're getting a strong sense of how to make the best play to win as the game goes on. The time to increase the number of cards we have, I think, is approaching rapidly.

I agree with D. Knight (and it's the commonly held opinion amongst most if not all people I know who have played the game for more than the occasional "scuffle") you can't go wrong with adding a second Core set to your cardpool sooner rather than later.

Not only will a second core set help your chance of drawing your unique units consistently, it's also a major boost for your "support" cards. You double your chances for resource enhancements; you can double your chance at the right fate card and you can start working on more consitent themes (like Vehicles for Imperial or rebel; control for Sith or Jedi)

And after that, though opionions might be devided on it, I'd advise you to fist go for the Edge of Darkness expansion as opposed to finishing the Hoth cycle. Edge of Darkness will give you a full complement of Smugglers and Spies and Scum and Villainy cards, which will make it possible for you to play any combination of affilations. It will also help you to feel the general flavour of both affilations, making their cards in the Hoth Cycle easier to work with as well.

The disadvantage though will be that Edge of Darkness comes with only one copy of each objective set (just like the Core set) making it possible that you'll want that second EoD set soon as well (depending on how much you like their cards). Of course, once you've bought that second EoD set ... there's the satisfaction of knowing that afterwards there'll be no more need to buy other packs/boxes double


We might have to do that sooner rather than later, even though there is, as far as we know, no real opportunity to play Star Wars LCG in our area in any organized capacity. I'd very much like to make it to some kind of organized event, just to see how other people play the game, get some ideas, and see what other play styles and strategies are out there, but that will require some planning and travel for us.

You can use boards like this or like-minded forums to search for other players. you could be happily surprised.

And if you don't find any active players yet, you could talk with your local game shop about setting up the occasional activity event (monthly game night e.g.) You have the luck that you already have a person with whom you can play ... playing where others can see the game in action ... see the fun you have and possibly have a talk with you to find out how accessible the game is for starters and how you have good cards from the beginning ... that's what can make people intrigued in the game. Once you have 2 to 4 additional players in your neigbourhood, you'll start establishing a good core for a gamer group that can meet regularly.

I quickly found two players near my work thanks to the forum (though Belgium isn't exactly very fertile ground for anything card game based that isn't Crack Is Cheaper) but since I don't work in the city I live in (and thus need to stop on time to catch the last train) I've been trying to get a group going in our local game shop. I needed to plan a few Star Wars game-nights where we played with the same old people every time ... but now it looks like we're growing to the kind of group where you can enjoy an evening of enough rotation in opponents. We might even reach the critical mass for a store-championship next cycle (Fall 2015)


Our games this past week have been the best, closest, and most strategic that we've ever played, and with us getting to know the cards in our decks and using them in varying combinations, we're getting a strong sense of how to make the best play to win as the game goes on. The time to increase the number of cards we have, I think, is approaching rapidly.

I'm glad to hear you enjoy the game as much.

What you might also want to look into, is to get the new Force Packs as they hit the wild for the new Force Cycle. Rogue Squadron just started with its first pack appearing two weeks ago.

The advantage of following the new packs is that you will be able to see a lot of strategy being discussed on the forums dedicated to these new packs. Plus, before Rogue Squadron, there hasn't been any significant change/addition to the rules in the previous cycles that would leave you wondering "what does X do?" It's now with Rogue Squadron that the first new concept to expand on the game rules has been introduced (the Pilot keyword)