I've tried many different iterations of the rebel builds. Tried tons of direct damage, tried the leia gambit, tried mixing in Han Solo. Heck, even tried mixing with Jedi at one point.

I'd say the closest I got was a Han Solo/Home One/Red 2 focused deck, but it still didn't pan out unless my draws were perfect.

I'd love to see what Rebel decks and strategies you guys are trying. Getting a little frustrated that the Jedi are the only viable light side, seemingly at this point.

A Rebel Vehicle deck is one of the most powerful decks you can currently build

Heaps of units

Heaps of resources

Plenty of ways to easily grab your 3 objectives

If you are having trouble with the following deck I would be very surprised

http://teamcovenant.com/kordos/2013/02/03/a-walk-on-the-light-side-rebel-alliance-vehicle-deck/

I'm still needing to play several games to get my deck pinned down, but I'm currently using the following

Rebel affiliation

Mission briefing X2

Fleeing The Empire X2

Mobilize the Squadrons X2

Decoy at Dantooine X2

The Defense of Yavin 4 X1

Draw Thier Fire X1

The goal was to attempt trench run, using the Leia's ability and Wookie Navigators, with the splashed red 2 or ackbar and some death star dial reducing options to buy that extra turn or two that you'll need since it's harder to keep the balance of the force - especially against sith.

This gives me 8 ways to trigger leia, - 2 leia's, navigators, battlefield ingineers, stolen plans, twist of fate, trench run and 3 rebel assaults.

Stolen plans are actually more amazing than I thought - because of the tendancy to splash an affiliation and or high producing resources. Between that and mission briefing, you get yourself up to about 8 cards a turn - and with the a-wings can get you a little more. (maxing out at 10 draws per turn, though the a-wings getting to focus to strike can't be counted upon)

The estute will note that there's a lack of extra resources - mobilize the squadrons helps, but there is one hidden outpost, and 2 mon mothma, and 1 field command center. - that's only 4 extra resources, but the cost curve is nice….

4 fate cards

12 cost 0 cards

12 cost 1 cards

15 cost 2 cards

7 cost 3 cards ( 3 of which provide 3 resources)

This also gives 70 force symbols over 50 cards, about 1.4 per card. - Compare this to about 74 force symbols in a sith deck (with 18 of those coming just from vader and palpatine) and this number looks not so bad

unfortunately only 13 blast marks - but with enough cheap cards you should be doing some unnopposed damage and you'll probably get to do a few double or even tripple attacks here or there.

Kordos said:

You are best off ignoring that deck entirely. If you really want to play rebel stuff right now, add 9 into your jedi deck instead of 2. Otherwise rebel vehicle decks are far more likely to lose than anything else. Accepts that right now things aren't well balanced strength-wise as it regards LS/DS or between Smugglers/Rebels/Jedi or Scum/Navy/Sith. What is the best deck will fluctuate with more cards being released. Just be patient.

Try using the deck linked earlier. It plays tons of units and can do some real damage.

I personally like a little more diversity in my decks.

MasterJediAdam said:

I haven't played the exact iteration of the deck linked previously, but I've played very similar versions. The edge is the biggest thing. So many of those units are completely edge dependant and you have a relatively low capacity to win the edge, especially when you're dumping your hand every turn.

Actually have to say in general it would seem that the edge is beginning to become an annoyance for me. The light side just seems so utterly reliant on it, more so than the imperials, considering the LS has to be the aggressor. The LS needs more card drawing or ways to increase their reserve value. The fact that only the dark side can increase their reserve value makes it even harder for the LS to win the edge.

Oh well, this game has an excellent base, I'm sure it will become much more fun once we get some card variety.

You're problem is that you're going into the expecting and needing to win. That situation should only be used by the LS in cases of last resort. Quite often when played appropriately, you can force the opponent to make subpar blocks and sacrifice pieces in order to setup your key characters strikes. Additionally, with well built decks when played correctly you can threaten any number of options from double Heat of Battle to Jedi Mind Trick to damage soaking and redirection. Many, many times when I find that people complain about the edge battle, they are making the incorrect attacks. Quite often as LS I am far more likely plink away at objectives with unopposed damage plus maybe an edge blast while threatening a more dangerous attack in order to setup endgame attacks. Remember you're goal is to blow up 3 objectives before the dial hits 12; any dial number before that is inconsequential. Be willing to be patient while still staying aggressive.

try to focus on the main goal - WIN THE GAME - what means destroying 3 objectives or complete Trench Run. DO NOT TRY TO CONTROL DARK SIDE, instead try to put into your deck as many objective damage as U can, mass the DS and win - I saw Rebels wininning on turn 2 - so rush is the way - if U want control, strong but expensive units, controlling balance of the force - play Jedi with Han Solo. Rebels => blast damage ;-)

Teokrata said:

This is patently wrong. You can't just ignore your opponent's game plan in most cases. You need to be able to deal and/or control the opponent's board in order to deal those. You can't continually be losing your units to your opponent's just to get 1-2 damage on. You need to be able to do repeatable damage.

agnos said:

I agree wholeheartedly with this summation of edge battling. Earlier this evening I was still striking out with My rebel deck, so I changed strategies. I started hitting every objective with one unit each, I started planning on losing every edge battle and only using fate cards for their abilities. It worked out well, the opponent thought he was controlling me, but then all of a sudden he saw two obejctives fall while the dial was still on 9. I had enough defenses to where he couldn't drop another objective and I won hands down the next turn. This happened the next game as well. I'm seeing that the rebels just play very differently.

Also, as to add to the discussion, here is the rebel deck I've found most viable after many different attempts (you'll notice it is similar to what was suggested above):

2x defense of yavin IV

2x mobilize the squadrons

2x rebel fleet

2x mission briefing

1x draw their fire

1x tribal support

The Ewoks work very well with this strategy, I recommend them over another draw their fire.

It is not true, You can attack every 3 objective with mass of your cheap units and every turn U draw new 6 cards so U can play 6 cheap cards every turn and deal as much damage as fast U can removing only key blockers with Heroic Sacrifice, Escort, Rebel Assault, Admiral Ackbar or Evok. Rebels aren't about control, that's the Jedi way. Rebels are about fast assults and blast damage. For example:

2x Mobilize the Squadrons
2x Draw Their Fire
2x The Defense of Yavin 4
2x The Rebel Fleet
2x Mission Brefing

Teokrata said:

Well, in that case, I'd say you're controlling the dark side, which you said to ignore. I know what you meant, though.

Teokrata said:

You do realize, don't you, that you are refuting the strategy of a deck that is only 1 objective set different than yours?

ziggy2000 said:

Actually they were responding to the post above mine. I was a little confused at first, too.

I like this setup for Rebel Alliance. Can win incredibly fast.

2x A Journey to Dagobah

2x The Defense of Yavin 4

2x Mission Briefing

2x The Rebel Fleet

2x Draw Their Fire

I, like many others, find that rebel alliance is the most powerful thing you can build right now. Lots of units, lots of resources, awesome stuff out the ears.

Try this on for size;

4 reb assaults

2 heavy emplacements

2 engineers

2 ackbars

one or two home one, choose if you want one leia and one h1, or two h1.

This deck is terrifying. Use the assaults to strategically kill the units that are making your life hard. Shoot constantly at your opponent and smack down an ackbar when he commits those damaged units to battle. Combine ackbar with assaults to kill even durable opponents instantly. The X wings are nothing short of awesome, h1 is a bona fide beast.

What makes this borderline (or actually) OP is mobilize the squadrons ability (way too good), rebel assault (way too cheap and awesome), leia (if you have her) clearing every single focus on the board.

Play with some patience, strike hard when you do, you can afford to wait a turn. Focus on getting every objective damaged, two or three points. Then assault and/or h1 them to oblivion.

With my reb deck I literally win 90%. I loose if I draw very badly and my opponents do not, or when I really eff something up by playing very, very badly. I've found that if I keep my cool, play solidly and dont draw awfully I win almost no matter what my opponent does.

AshesFall said:

Who are these many others ? I have not heard that till now. Rebels just are not there yet in comparison to Jedi.

Toqtamish said:

I've found pretty similar success with my Rebel/S&S deck and my Jedi deck. I think the biggest thing with the LS is learning how to play it properly and Jedi and Rebels both play very differently. I would suspect that most people are naturally better at one of the playstyles than the other.

dbmeboy said:

Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

Toqtamish said:

These many others are both my own local players (we're 15 people right now who play regularly) and a lot of players on OCTGN. I'll gladly catch you on OCTGN and demonstrate. I would be happy to be wrong about rebels being OP right now.

The rebels have a couple of downright broken cards. This together with their strength in resources, abundance of strong vehicles (less suceptibility to both chokes and other counters like detained) and their cheap and strong units make them extremely powerful. Depending on your preferred build you can do lots of different things. Another strength is that they simply do not rely on a couple of very specific powerful cards or units. Their tactics work extremely well with just lots of their base units (X-wings, I'm looking at you) even when they do not draw any of the cards that are crazy.

AshesFall said:

I've personally had a much easier time with Jedi than rebels, but as someone said above, it may just be the way I play. I've always enjoyed direct damage decks, so I'd imagine the rebels could work.

You quoted some cards, but didn't state any actual builds. Do you actually use leia? I stopped trying with her quite a while ago, just can't draw her reliably enough. I do agree though that the rebels have some truly powerful cards. What deck(s) are you using that you are saying is "borderline OP"? Maybe I haven't tried those particular builds yet.

shaggscoob said:

This is the deck I am using, the first four are mandatory dual pods;

2* The Defense of Yavin 4

2* Mobilize the Squadrons

2* Draw Their Fire

2* Mission Briefing

I've been experimenting and debating around the last two sets, basically it's a choice (and preference) between The Rebel Fleet and Fleeing the Empire . Right now I'm running one of each, but depending which way you want to go you could dual pod either. The rebel fleet gives more vehicles, minimizes exposure to detained/choke and all the other stuff that cannot target vehicles, and above all adds home one and the repair droid. Home one is an absolute insane beast, especially with the stuff you have that gives shields (fleeing the empire if you use it, the two command centres, covering fire). It hits like a truck, and damages every objective your enemy has. I cannot overstate how awesome that is, more later. Fleeing the empire on the other hand is a card draw pod, you get stolen plans and the awesome "you're my only hope". This card let's you sacrifice a character (leia, or some rookie or other card you dont really care about) and suddenly you are three cards up. great for winning crucial edge battles or making your opponent drop that card he's holding.

Leia is the first "OP" card. She removes -every single focus token- on your things when she gets captured. The things you can do with this horrifying. Do it inside a battle and one round kill that trench run or heart from zero damage (and clean the battle of enemy troops). Do it outside a battle and blow up a second objective. And she probably comes back when you blow up your second objective too (naturally you attack the objective where she was captured). The crazy thing about this is that it simply doesnt matter whether you're committed to the force, have been subjected to any amout of tactics and so on. A more reasonable version of this card would be "remove one focus token from every card you control". I digress. There are also tons of things you can do to sacrifice her even outside of card effects. Attack alone at the start of your phase, time it and make sure your opponent can only block with units that do unit damage. if he doesnt block you get to deal damage to an objective and tactic one of his defenders down for the main strike, if he blocks you get your resources and possible focused units back.

The other two OP cards are these;

Rebel Assault: This card is very cheap (2) and let's you deal either two damage to an objective or a character. So it's versatility is insane, it deals 2/5ths of the damage needed to an objective or auto kills most units in the game (who has two HP). And the best part? You have four of them. Four. With some judicious play and the rest of the tricks this deck brings you almost never need to worry about the enemy nasties. Remove that one unit that you identify as the cinch in your attack before you do, or kill that objective at the end of your turn, or bring another objective to 4 damage before you strike another one with h1. And so on, endless possibilities. No other card does two damage in one go, and no other card has this kind of versatility. A more reasonable version of this card would be: Cost 3, deal 2 damage to an objective or 1 damage to a character (making sure you cant auto kill most units in the game including boba fett, Motti and Tarkin. *sadface*.

Mobilize the squadrons: This objective. Sheesh. The strength of an objective that gives you two resources -every single turn- and has the versatility to remove focus from -other- objectives and command centres and enhancements (for the future, as there are no other enhancements save the command centre where it is useful right now) when you havent double focused the squadron. I'm not really sure how to rewrite this one.

So why are the rebels (and this deck in particular) so good? Several reasons:

Resources: You have so, many, resources. Between mobilize, Draw their fire, mon mothma, the two command centres and slew of hidden outposts you wont lack resources barring a bad draw.

Lots of cheap and good units , non reliance on single units: Yeah. X wings are awesome. Especially with astromechs. A wings are good too (card draws!). Red two is great, Y wings too, and so on. You dont really need any specific card, you can make the deck do horrible things to the enemy no matter what you draw (well, almost).

A lmost no bad cards: Unlike sith, navy and to some extent jedi you just dont have any "bad" cards. Trench run is borderline, but even that is very useful on occasion and at least has two force icons for edge battles. Mon mothma cannot be overrated, ackbar, h1, events and so on. Even though I really only think the three mentioned cards are OP, the rest of the cards are really, really good as well. Mothma is awesome (one extra edge is surprisingly good), ackbar is awesome, home one as well, the lowly engineer shines, red two is terrifying. The list goes on. This "general high level" of the cards is what makes the rebels top of the line.

So what does the deck do? How does it come together?

In short, damage and tactical strikes. You have an insane amount of ways to damage and disrupt your opponent. Two blaster emplacements, two engineers. Steady damage. Four rebel assaults. Two ackbar. Your opponent will likely try to spread the damage from the emplacements, making his units slightly damaged all around. Perfect for Ackbar to arrive to kill them off. If you get one emplacement and one engineer in play and keep them there, it's often game over. Does your opponent have palpatine? Play ackbar and assault him. Dead. remember all the nasty tricks you can do with ackbar. Play him in an unopposed engagement to get two surprise tactics. Play him from hand straight into an engagement your opponent didnt even think you could block as you were all focused out. Play him, sacrifice him with a card and play the second copy for extra fun and games. The list is long. Your opponent needs to stay on his toes constantly, a sudden red two attack where you time it right to kill the objective unopposed could give you a second attack and a second dead objective in a turn. leia can easily do the same, and kill a trench run (or heart of the empire) from undamaged in one turn. Add to this damage capacity the ability to play most of your hand every turn, shield your stuff, and so on.

In my opinion this deck outshines the jedi because it does not rely on a few characters to do the job. It has a lot of flexibility, many, many ways to deal with problems and a damage output only rivaled by a surprise yoda with saber and trust your feelings. It's also a lot less vilnerable to many of the tactics the dark side uses. Tactics icons arent as good when used to focus one of three x-wings as when they focus Luke or obi. Chokes, rancors and force stasis and detained doesnt work against vehicles, and so on. The one area where it is weaker is the force. I have found that if you kill your opponents units a lot he has to play his cards though, and often you can create situations where you dont have to win the edge to achieve your goals. Loose the edge in one battle, go in unopposed in another. Use cards with black blast icons or simply initiate a battle to kill one or two of the enemy units. Mon Mothma helps too.

A word of warning

The deck does require some thoughtful play. Dont just rush in. Due to the very high damage potential of the deck you can afford to wait for a turn or two even if the enemy has the force. I have pulled one round wins by killing two slightly damaged objectives many times. Attack when you can without getting wiped, maximize the "unopposed damage" bonuses. Your versatility is your greatest strength. One turn it might be worth sacrificing a unit to force the opponent to block (if he doesnt the damage to the obj is fine anyway) and take the force off him with a small chaff unit like the rookie. Another round it might be better to sit back and let your forces build for another turn. In yet another you attack all out. Watch your draws, consider what might be coming up. Remember to always set up opportunities for those devestating attacks and assaults in the future, laying the groundwork in the first three rounds will pay off later. Kill and damage your opponents units. Your goal is to damage several objectives to the point where they have three or better two HP left. This sets you up for single unopposed run kills, h1 mayhem with several objectives dead at once, and surprise game winning rebel assaults. Dont be afraid to use the assaults to remove obstacles to your attacks rather than on the objectives themselves. You have four of them after all, and surviving units that do damage to the objective is better than damage to an objective and dead units when you attack. A turn one vader doesnt have to be a problem, depending on what you draw you candraw him out and surprise him with an ackbar in another combat to focus him down. Play vehicles mainly, blaster emplacements and assaults work well.

The Rebel deck is certainly powerful. That said, it can have trouble with DS swarm decks for all of the same reasons that it causes problems for Sith decks. Rebel Assault is less efficient at board control when there aren't big targets to hit.

dbmeboy said:

Agreed, though unfortunately (in my experience) the navy comes up considerably short for a couple of reasons;

The dark side has tremendous trouble in a straight "race for the win by killing objectives". The ds will not be able to hold force with a maximum agression, so let's count it. Three objectives from the get go is 1 (first turn) + 1 +1(Second turn and one obj dead), +1+2 (third turn and second obj dead) +1 +3 (fourth turn and third obj dead) That's only ten. Even if they hold the force for a turn it's still just 11. So in a straight up obj trade the ls stll wins. A largely unopposed rebel deck can easily take out one objective per turn as an average across three turns. The navy needs a turn or two to build up, and in that time the rebels have usually taken the advantage. This is especially true against a deck like this one, where the rebels have such a damage potential both against units and against objectives.

Most of the navy "good stuff" is two hp (Tie assault squadron, Motti, Tarkin, backstabber, you name it) and prime bait for reb assaults. I think the assault is excellent against strong high value targets, but even better when you can take out a high value target right off the bat with just one. A lot of the rest of their stuff is very weak and easily attritioned by emplacements and/or ackbar. The navy -does- have a precious few things with durability, an early devastator can spell a win (unless the rebs draw decently) and AT-ST's are gooddefensive units but fairly expensive. The AT-ST commander is about the only thing that can counter blaster emplacements (Unless you give up offensive potential for take them prisoner, which I'd probably reccomend anyway, though that puts you farther behind in the objective race generally). The Navy low cost units have a lot of trouble comparing to all their rebel equivalents, and it shows. Unfortunately another of the rebels card comboes, heroic sacrifice and X-wing escort, also shines vs navy. The navy disadvantage is sort of compunded by the fact that they cant even compete well for the force. A tarkin or motti can do it (but is weak to assaults) but generally they stay on the same level.

You are assuming the DS can only kill 1 objective/turn with your math. I've had my Navy deck be able to take out 2 objectives in a turn by turn 2 or 3 on a number of occasions. Of course, my Rebel deck can also pull of 2 objectives on turn 2. Even my Jedi and Sith decks have managed that with the right opening.