Played many different games against this deck now trying to find a way to counter it. As long as the dark side is on a win timer, I don't think I can come up with anything to hinder it.

The deck is below:

28 x2
34
26 x2
31
35
36
32 x2

Basically, lots of cheap units to slow down the light side player; tons of resource generation; orbital bombardment to turn cheap units into objective killers; the whole deck is fodder with plenty of force icons, so edge wins more often than not, even on defense; card drawing; enhancement destruction; easy force balance achievement. Also, did I mention 2x superlaser, just in case they're having a hard time nabbing those objectives with their cheap blockers?

I've tried a mains deck for raw firepower, tried a starfighter deck to counter their swarm, tried a cheap jedi unit deck. Probably got the closest with han solo and some shielder units, but still got overwhelmed at turn 4.

Last thing I tried was a direct counter deck using A New Hope, princess leia, and admiral ackbar (more to it than that, but that's the gist of it).

Any thoughts/suggestions on countering this powerful dark side deck?

Mate, you mind putting the names of the objectives up.

Thanks

Vrs the swarm it can be tough at times, the edge is everything in my experience. People like old ben can take on 3 defenders Tactics 2 slash 1 down, luke with Shi-Cho Style with some Guardians in the background will also do a number.

In general its an intimidation build if your playing alot of cards from your hand each turn to swarm (at the begining) a Jedi/han deck should be able to do a number on you. Combos like Han with trust your feelings running with a Guardian of peace in the background is kinda insane, he shoots 1 guy, tactics another and targeted strikes a 3rd, refreshes and does it again.

Magni

My buddy and I tried building this type of thing last night. It worked fine for a game or two. Then I got Han into play, or het got Luke into play when he played the LS. Targeted Strike and Shi-Cho are bascially the death knell for this type of strategy. There was never a point at which you felt like you could really do much of anything. Bombardment is great in just a regular reliable non-gimmick version of Navy as is.

I definitely did best with the han strategy. Problem is not the espo and ds troopers, it's the st heavies, elites, and at-st's. The deck has insame resource generation, so getting down several of those is no problem. Also, this deck wins the edge most of the time, which shuts down Han or Luke pretty quickly. It doesn't evwn need orbital bombardment to win, it stalls s

o well..

Sorry for the spelling and whatnot, this site isn't very mobile friendly.

For reference, the deck posted:

Affiliation: Imperial Navy
Objective Sets (10)
2 Imperial Command
2 The Ultimate Power
1 The Endor Gambit
2 Take Them Prisoner
1 Looking For Droids
1 Corporate Exploitation
1 Reconnaissance Mission

…okay, first of all, the deckbuilder in me cries at using the nearly completely useless Looking for Droids over a second copy of The Endor Gambit. Seriously. There's no reason to use Looking for Droids in a one-affiliation deck. Ever.

That being said, how is your opponent dumping a bunch of units and resource generators onto the board and keeping enough cards in hand to win the edge battle on defense?

That being said, the deck seems to be mostly focused on taking out your units through attrition in conflict…so don't give them the chance. Rebel Assault outright destroys any unit that isn't an AT-ST, and it can even wreck one of those with Han's reaction or a Heat of Battle. Heavy Blaster Emplacement is a free 1 damage every turn, more if you can get a Battlefield Engineer out with it. A Jedi deck will find winning the edge (and the Force) much easier with cards like Ancient Monument, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Yoda, and death by attrition is much harder to do with Guardian of Peace on the board…not to mention Jedi Mind Trick locking down a unit before it can strike, and potentially putting it out of commission for an extra turn.

There are weaknesses in the deck. Exploit those to the fullest.

I just don't see how this deck beats Luke, Han, or Ackbar. We literally played a near identical list but without the useless droids for 4 hours last night and only won the first game because it was a nut draw and the LS player didn't get a Targeted Strike or Han. Another problem presented to the deck is the existence of Heavy Blaster encampment in literally EVERY Rebel deck. That match up is already terrible given that 90% of Rebel lists play Rebel Assault, Heavy Blasters, and Ackbar, not to mention Han is exceptionally suited to the aggressive strategy the Rebel deck uses. I want the deck to be good but I just don't think it has what it needs just yet. Maybe once there are some more cheap units printed, it'll have some legs but as it is right now, I just don't see it coming together.

You win edge with what? You have basically no high force value cards at all (there's a couple of 3s and 2s but not many, mostly 1s), and in order to acheive the overwhelming board position required to damage/kill your opponent, you need to be playing as many bodies as possible in most situations. You won't have a large hand at all to edge with, and you're going to have weaker force value per card than pretty much anything you play against.

I REALLY wanted this deck to work out. I've had it built for a bit and put in 20+ games with it. If the opponent sees an early Targeted Strike character (Luke/Han) you're just done for. If they slip up and walk face first into a Detained before they kill 4 guys then you're in with a shout, but other than that there's really no reliable or consistent way to kill the TS character. When there's a Luke/Han running around and Detained isn't an option, there's never really any point at which it feels like the deck can win. If there's no early Luke/Han or Akbar/Heavy Blaster then you can hit really hard and really fast (in fact it isn't that hard to kill them on turn 3 if they can't interact with your stuff via events).

The main thing to keep in mind about this deck is that it is a turtle deck. You only go on offense when you are going for the win. Always hold the cards for an edge win and there should be no issue getting a 4th turn objective wipe win.

Also, regarding looking for droids: I said the same thing to my friend when he put it in, but the effectiveness of those probes plus the high edge value ended up making a bigger difference than another endor gambit.

That said, I think my jedi han solo deck is close to getting a win..

The rebels can't get enough momentum to pull it off, even with Han..

…how are the Viper Probe Droids effective, again? They are totally useless on defense, have blast damage active only if they win edge, die to a stiff breeze, and are overcosted to compensate the ability to play them out of the discard pile.

That being said, if they're reserving cards in hand to play in edge battles, then they're not building up a trooper army. If they're not building up a trooper army, swarming them in return (X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing…) makes the edge battle almost irrelevant. (Sure, your one Stormtrooper Elite has 3 unit damage, but it can only kill one of my units.)

Also, you've mentioned the deck wins edge battles simply by having a lot of cards in hand. Twist of Fate massively punishes a deck relying on sheer numbers to win the edge, especially in a deck that has Jedi support. One good Twist of Fate, and you can cripple your opponent.

Jedi takes a bit longer to build up to a blow out, rebel is much better at sneaking a win in the last 2 turns (i feel). the problem is you need to start winning your edge battles the game is 100% edge battles, topdecking and 100% edge, if you got a crap hand and your oponent attacks trash your hand on the edge and start fresh new turn dont sit with bad cards ever you can always get a fresh hand.

With a rebel deck each fresh hand is pretty much a blank slate there are always lots of things to do, with jedi you want to trash cards to get to your guardians, hold the force and defend untill you have a big gun in play. Dont commit people like luke and han to the force thats another mistake you want them fresh and ready to the blow face off people.

in the end you need to win edge battles, its easyer to win as a jedi because you can always trash Ben or Yoda to win a battle and then bring them back for cheap with return of the jedi. Bluff people too everyone knows that if you put 1 card down on attack then pass there is a good chance if the fight is important that you are using a twist of fate.

also that imp deck only has 1 twist of fate you are almost always in the clear there.

this is getting to a ramble at t his point but i do believe LS has a longer learning curve then DS because there is no pressure to put dmg on objectives untill you know you dont have to fear any retaliation.

GL

magni

p.s. also know your opponent a sith deck is less likley to be agressive you can attack a little bit more freely than you can vrs navy if anything vrs sith be wary about exausting big chrs while they have alot of resources open because you know they have a lightning.

toodles

I would agree that the edge is the biggest thing in this game for sure. Definitely an interesting mechanic. Thanks for the posts guys, I think beating this deck is all about timing for the light side.

I really need to find some local players to meet with to help with deck testing:)

My friend and I played the DS deck you posted against the LS deck that FFG built for us:

2X The Defense of Yavin 4

2X Mission Briefing

2X Fleeing the Empire

2X The Rebel Fleet

2X Questionable Contacts

We played 5 games and the LS deck won 4 of them. Now it may be player skill but that DS wasn't really a problem.

It also can be bad luck……not good to have you opp DS start with 7card hands and resources enough to get Devastator by turn 2…..the same with other big guns in the LS…..Yoda/saber, Home one…….etc…..luck in the start can keep things interesting.

Besides most games are close…..1 edge battle may be the deciding factor…..i lost 2 games the other day. One as a LS and one as a DS. Both lost by one objective damage icon that i din't have.

Question…..with one coreset what are the best builds??? (in our tourney next week theere is that limitation)

Francisco G. said:

Well for starters, no one can really give you an answer to the best build question overall. Most people are still learning the game. Secondly with only a single Core Set, you only have copies of 1 of each objective, thus a very inconsistent deck, so I don't think there is even an eventual answer to that question.

Francisco G. said:

That's tough to answer. I've been focused on building decks from the 2 cores I have. I would play just a starter in that tourney because I never spend a whole lot of time building decks for events that are not standard rules.

Shaggs,

For better feedback re beating your DS rival you could always film a game and post it on Boardgamegeek or do a complete transcript of everything that happened including card left in players hands at the end of their turn.

At this stage people are giving advice on there experiences and something may be happening in your games that we would only see watching.

eg. The games could be purely coming down to hand management.

Roman

P.S. Anyone got answers to an opponent dropping the Devastator first or second turn. Using both RA and Jedi, it seems to be the only card in our player base which is a game ender. At most we seem to be able to tie it up with focus tokens at the expense or our big guns, but we want it GONE!!!

Roman_Sandal said:

X-Wing Escort and any of the half a dozen sacrafice effects the LS has.

Simple and very cost effective answer to the Devastator.

Ulairi said:

Unfortunately, he won't be able to play just a starter as he'll be 2 objective sets short of a legal deck that way. With 1 core set, I'd try something like this:

LS - Jedi:

A Hero's Journey

In You Must Go

A Journey to Dagobah

Forgotten Heroes

Draw Their Fire

Fleeing the Empire

The Rebel Fleet

Mission Briefing

The Defense of Yavin 4

Hit and Run

DS - Sith:

Fall of the Jedi

The Emperor's Web

Counsel of the Sith

Shadows of Dathomir

Death and Despayre

Defense Protocol

Kuat Reinforcements

The Endor Gambit

Imperial Command

Reconnaissance Mission

Not saying these will be the best decks, or even good decks, just what I would try first.

dbmeboy said:

Yeah….I imagined there woudn't be a best deck. I've construct the decks with all the affiliation decks plus 1 or 2 neutral and 1 of the other affiliation objectives based on number of neutral cards and edge power on their unplayable ones

With 1 core for LS I recommend Smugglers and Spies with 6 Rebel OSets and the 3 neutral.

Well, after MUCH testing (probably around 40 games now), I have to say that the jedi mains + Han deck is the best counter. It won about 85% of the time once I had it dialed in. Definitely a powerful deck. Actually, I'm now looking for the DS counter to it.

In an effort to keep this going (getting a lot of good discussion and feedback in this thread), does anyone have any thoughts on how to consistently counter the luke, han, obi-wan, shielders style of deck? It's really pretty solid. I threw in the OS that provides the free force icon for winning the force struggle, that seemed to really cover all the bases.

shaggscoob said:

The Emperor's Web is a great objective for this - Emperor Palpatine can lock down an entire Light Side offensive on his own, and Force Lightning doesn't care that you're shielded or that you've got Protect Character defending you, if you've got a Focus token, you're destroyed. Force Choke, of course, is always excellent, particularly if you're also running Fall of the Jedi and thus have 4 copies alongside 2 Darth Vader. And Emperor's Royal Guard is almost as good at keeping your important Character units alive as Guardian of Peace…better, honestly, seeing as LS lacks direct removal outside of Swindled.