Hey everybody! I’m coming to you with a Worlds report. I’ll start with the list that got me to 4-3 with the top tiebreakers of the 4 pointers, which finished me into 26th place. It was safe to say that I was one win away from top 16 because of those tiebreakers. I went 4-1 after day one and thought all I needed was to win one more game to have a good shot at top 16. Unfortunately, my day two opponents came down on me with the command card hammer, and I couldn’t pull off a win. List was as follows:
Units:
Terro
2x Dewback Rider
2x Ejets with targeting computer
2x officers
Zillo
Rule by Fear
Command cards:
Wild fury
Call the Vanguard
Inspiring speech
Squad Swarm
Strength in Numbers
Provoke
Focus
Negation
Fuel Upgrade
Ferocity
Change of Plans
Take Initiative
Element of Surprise
Celebration
Planning
Last year, I was one of the few merc list to make top 16, playing an under the radar build with two eNexu. It was a very command card oriented build that had very good blowout potential if I got at least decent value with my nexu. Problem was the Imperial spy build had enough command card control, with Blaise and counters, that it was a very uphill battle to beat them. I lost in the first round of top 16 to the spy build.
This year, I took that theme, and put into an imperial shell. This lists, had the same command card blowout potential. It is another list that wants to get up into your grill and press the issue. Now, problem was that our play group underestimated the merc potential. We tested a lot against rebels because we thought that the Erangers were the unit to beat this year. I had tested some against the merc list early on in testing and I wasn’t having a problem against it and dismissed it too early on. I underestimated how much of the field was going to be merc, as well.
You will notice my list is running 39 points. I think most people in the know; know that the top of round two is the most important time in the game. It’s where the game really starts and you get to pull of combos before your opponent can do anything. You get to dictate the game at that point. So because I was playing a lot against rebels and imperial list, in my testing, I decided to make sure I got to go second. This list doesn’t care as much about which side of the map it was on, because of its aggressive demeanor. I just didn’t think anything was worth one point, in my list, over going second against anyone but merc. This is true, if 60% of the field wasn’t merc lol.
I thought my command deck was pretty stout. The only decision I felt I had was the three points wrapped up in Inspiring Speech and Focus. I had a lot of options for the two points in speech. I was debating between Overrun, Size Advantage, and Speech. Overrun kept being too situational and somewhat hard to get more than one guy with because of how much range was in the game. I kept being one movement point short on a lot of attacks to even get 2 dmg from it. So to me Overrun was basically was a +2 dmg card. Size advantage only adds two points of dmg as well. The weaken effect is a nice addon but I wasn’t having trouble dealing with Obi or Luke even with the surge block. So, again it was just adding +2 dmg. I went with Speech because it had to potential to add +2 dmg to two different guys, if you perceive the focus die as adding an average of two dmg. I also have a decent chance of finding it early with Rule by Fear. The goal was trying to focus both dewbacks to have a chance to one shot certain figures. I went with Speech for its potential to add +4 dmg overall, over the other two that were only adding +2. Now, the focus card was last second decision over Tough luck. I just hate playing Tough Luck if I have no way of making them reroll. A lot of times it was stuck in my hand, in testing, because they would just roll well enough to not need to reroll and I wanted a more consistent card. It was just another card to add +2 dmg and try to give my dewbacks a chance to one shot units. It is real easy for dewbacks to use it with their free movement. Provoke was another off the wall choice but it shines in this list. All my units, but officers, can use it and my guys dig so deep into their lines that I can usually get next to a support piece and play it. It acts as mini multi activation card, like swarm and strength, in this list. I choose Celebration over a few other cards because everyone runs 1-2 unique figures and I felt I was going to need it in the merc matchup to keep up with Jabba’s ability to gain extra VPs. Now, in testing my command deck treated me well enough to feel confident I could make top 16. Throughout the tournament though, it let me down a bit. I only drew Call the Vanguard once and only got to Squad Swarm once. Provoke also hid from me most of the tournament. Three of my high value cards just didn’t wanna play, which was unfortunate.
My battle report is going to be short because it has been a awhile and my memory is bad lol.
Round one was against a merc list with a Bantha and no devious scheme. So, my 39 points came through! I hadn’t tested against the Bantha much but had played plenty against it during the last rotation, so I had a good idea of what to do. Now, my first attack of the tournament was my Terro against his Bantha. I rolled triple surge on my first roll of worlds and did two points of dmg to a Bantha. I was hoping it wasn’t some sign of things to come lol. I had to put a lot of effort into killing his Bantha before he got to go with it on the top of round two. This let his other units go off on me and really crippled me. This was the patron scenario on Obi’s map. The game came down to me having to get all four patrons to win, and I knew it after how many units his hunters were killing. I saw the out and my opponent underestimated it. He could have run all his remaining guys to the last patron to try and shut me out but he took another route and I got the win off the patrons.
Round two was against my buddy Allen, who I drove up with, playing a rebel list with two eRangers and one reg Rangers, list. Every tournament we go to together we seem to get paired up in the early rounds. This map was the new Jabba’s map, which plays into my advantage. There aren’t a lot of long sight ways for the Ranger to get their rerolls. I pushed into his guys and was able to get the win. He had played me a lot on that map because he felt it was his weakest map and I would beat him most of the time on that map. Hated to beat him but had to be done lol.
Round three is where I got my first loss. It was another merc player that was running Epigs on the control scenario on the ISB map. Any control point scenario is rough against Epigs, for the list. My guys don’t trade well 1v1 with pigs because I have to sit next to them on the points. This was also my first encounter with my nemesis, Vinto, all day. I knew he was a very important piece for that list. If Vinto can get a lot of value, it is hard to win. I remember distinctly every attack I had against a Vinto throughout the tournament. I attacked a Vinto 6 times during the event and 3 times he dodged, two times he was saved by “On the Lam,” one attack got through for 6 dmg. I spent a lot of resources trying to target that unit whenever I came across him but the dodges and Lam cost me a lot all event. It was very frustrating lol.
Round four was against another merc player on the reconnaissance map. I don’t remember much about this one other than during round 3 of the game I knew my only chance to win was to hit round four. Towards the end of round 3 the situation was this: I had two officers to activate and he had 2 units as well. They had just announced five minutes left in the round. My opponent has no cards in hand and I had just activated one of my officers, then it was his turn. At this point I felt that I had lost because all he really had to do was “stall” till time was called and let the round end there. He takes a pretty long time to figure out what to do with his Greedo, with no cards in hand, and me trying to egg him on that it was his turn. Now for people who have played this game a lot, they know there is a very fine line between stalling and taking time to make a decision. I could have called a judge at this point to watch my opponent for stalling because there were only so many decisions he could have done at this point with no cards in hand and only my officers able to activate. I didn’t call a judge because I knew that I would have auto lost waiting for the judge to even show up. My only hope was that he wouldn’t try to drag it out, which I would have totally understood if he did. People can’t be mad at you for taking your time with your decisions. This specific scenario I could have seen go both ways, in that the decisions he had shouldn’t have taken that long to make, and him using the full 5 mins to make them. It was a grey area that could have been argued both ways. Luckily for me he didn’t take the full time and we went to round four, where I pulled out the win.
Round five was against a rebel list with Jedi Luke, Obi, Lando, and Esabs on the control scenario on Jabba’s Palace. I knew what I had to do against Luke and Obi but the sabs through a little wrench into the plans. They are harder to hide from while dealing with the big guys because they want to push up and not just sit back like rangers. This was a close one. I know against Luke I have to put all I have into killing Luke and just hope I have enough left to win the game against the rest of the list. I took Luke out pretty early but his Obi and sabs got good value killing my guys in the process. The problem for his list was that I could play the scenario better. One of my jets sat in the pit all game and got me 12 points. I was also able to control the opposite control point from the pit most of the game, while doing some killing. In the end I pulled out the close win.
Day 2 Round 5: I went into this day feelings like one more win would give me a good chance at top 16 but I was unaware of what was about to hit me lol. This game was against another merc list without devious scheme. My opponent came all the way from Australia to play in worlds and was a very pleasant man to talk to. He had Epigs in his list which I knew would give me some trouble. I got to setup a nice Change of Plans play with my terro to get a flamethrower off on 4-5 dudes and try to take a shot at his Vinto, but again his the Vinto dodged the attack, which really saved the game for him. On the top of round 2, I got to hit the same dudes with another flamethrower and take out a pig with his shot, instead of being able to finish off Vinto, if he hadn’t have dodged the first attack. At this point I thought the game was in my favor but then it was his turn….He got to squad swarm his two groups of Equay by the time I got to go again in round 2 he had played 10 points worth of his command cards, which is outrageous lol, and took out a pretty significant part of my squad. One of my groups of Ejets were positioned too far back, from the first turn change of plans, that they couldn’t get decent shots off, which is sometimes the downfall of that change of plans play on round one. His Vinto still being alive, after my flurry, sealed the game for him. It was just one of those games, where command cards create a blowout that is very hard to come back from for this list.
Day 2 Round 6: I tried to put the last game behind me and still focus on trying to get one more win. Problem was I have to play against another very good player with a merc list on the reconnaissance scenario. This was an interesting game because it didn’t really start till round 3. He had devious scheme which gave him first action on the top of round 2. To combat this, I didn’t open my door till the last activation of round 2, to try and position my squad near his door to wait out his initiative advantage and to draw more cards and try to just combo him out with my multiple activations. Because of this, he wasn’t opening his door either. So, on the top of round 3 I opened his door with one of my dewbacks and took a shot at his Vinto, he On the Lams him away. I Strength in Numbers into an Ejets activation and go after Vinto again, he dodges. At this point I can’t chance trying to get Vinto anymore. So I put some dmg into a focused Equay with the second jet. I then Squad Swarm into the second set of Ejets and take out the one Equay and dmg another. Now, after my big flurry I had only killed 1 dude and used all of my threats other than Terro. I was pretty sure I had lost at this point. It became clear it wasn’t my day when he took out my Terro, which was holding back for a big charge forward during my next activation, with one set of Equays. This set of Equays were still close to his deployment zone and had to make a range 8 and a range 9 shot. He rolled hot and took out my Terro with the help of assassinate, before he got to activate. That’s when the game ended pretty much. After that it was just him picking my guys apart that were in his face. It was an unfortunate end to my run but at least I finished pretty high and got me a set of dice.
All in all it was a fun trip but somewhat frustrating because I felt I made a wrong choice on what to play. The event was eye opening to what the merc list can do against this list. I had been used to pushing into rangers and making their rerolls less relevant. But against this merc list I was just serving my units up on a platter, because of the way the list has to play. I felt like I was the British during the Revolutionary war, just walking in a line at my opponents, while they were “dodge, dip, dive, duck, and dodging” me, around the board. Right now the game is very range/focus/hunter card oriented and the Empire is last on having the effective units to play that type of game. Plus the only good access to extra cards is Rule by Fear which only makes you ahead on turn one. After that, the other two factions draw cards more effectively. Another problem with the list is that it’s hard for any of the units to trade 1 for 1 with Equays and rangers. It usually takes multiple guys to take out one figure and that’s a big downfall when fighting the hunter mercs with hunter cards. I should have played more against the merc build and figured this out but my own ego had written them off too early. That type of thinking can really cost you in this game. When you get to worlds you aren’t the top dog in your region anymore. You are facing the top dogs in all the regions and really need to prepare to succeed. I urge everyone to go back and watch the top 16 games with Daniel and watch how he abuses the maps and utilizes his figures. You can tell that Daniel had practiced those maps thoroughly and knew how to abuse them, with the squad he had.
As a side note, on those videos, I would like to urge FFG to get people that have played this game a lot, to help commentate with your FFG employees. No offense to the lady and gentlemen who were commentating. Their enthusiasm was great. They even asked a lot of the right questions but a lot of their opinions on what they thought people were doing, were just off. They also had a hard time conveying to the audience what was correctly happening, either because they didn’t know what was really going on, or whether it was them calling the wrong cards or calling the wrong abilities of the characters. Magic does an awesome job bringing in their pros to help with the streams because these pros are playing the game almost every day and can give in-depth insight to how the top level players think. If FFG wants their streams to become popular they need to do the same. You need people in the booth that can watch a game and be able to follow every move that’s happening. This will bring a lot people into your game because then you will get top level opinions on why things are happening in a game and the thought processes behind them. Last year I watched the world’s videos on mute because the announcers were more of a hindrance to the viewing experience because of their lack of knowledge. This year they definitely got better but it was still a problem in a lot of situations. I am not saying this to be mean, I am sorry if it does, but I would like to see this game grow and having high quality commentators on their streams would be great. Just having a top level player in their booth with the FFG employees, to help them in the situations that they don’t know about, would go a long way towards that. Thanks all for reading and good luck during the next season of events!
