First, this is NOT about deck building…this is about what objectives to choose when you pull your first 4 (and have to discard 1).

What is the strategy? I would say the most obvious is, if you have an objective that can "pay" two resources, it is an obvious choice to NOT be discarded. Is this always the case?

What else are you looking for in your opening objectives? Card Draw? Resource?

Is there really a use for the "blank" objectives?

If I am playing a mixed affiliation deck I often look to make sure I have resources for every affiliation to ensure resource match.

The objective sets that let you draw cards on your opponents turn are also very good ones to start with.

It really depends on what the deck I'm playing is, and what objectives come up.

For example, let's take Nate's DS deck from the news articles. If I draw Fall of the Jedi, Counsel of the Sith, The Emperor's Web, and Death and Despayre, I'm probably going to start Fall, Counsel, and Despayre. For one, it starts me with two sources of resources for each affiliation in my deck. Fall of the Jedi is excellent as it lets me cycle two cards out of my hand the first turn and every turn it remains on the board, and even if I only want to cycle a single card, Fall lets me "discard" it without giving my opponent any information at all. That leaves a choice between Counsel of the Sith and The Emperor's Web. While The Emperor's Web allows me to essentially have an extra resource for an event every turn, in this deck, the only card it actually affects is Force Lightning, and it's the most fragile Objective in the game. On the other hand, Counsel makes sure I always have an extra card during my opponent's turn.

Now, what if the draw had been Fall of the Jedi, Reconnaissance Mission, Counsel of the Sith, and Death and Despayre? I would probably keep the first three. Reconnaissance Mission increases my hand size by 1 as long as it remains on the board, it would take a very, very unique set of circumstances to make me not choose to keep it in any opening draw. Fall is another really, really good card to have access to, and between it and Reconnaissance mission, I can draw up to 3 cards on my first turn. So once again, Counsel has to fight against Death and Despayre. In this case, I'm more concerned about being able to play my cards…if I choose Death and Despayre, then yes, I'll have the 5 resources for a Turn 1 Vader, but I'll also have only one source of Sith resources, and those are hard to come by outside of my Objectives. Of all the cards in my command deck, only one, a single Advisor to the Emperor, produces Sith resources. On the other hand, I have two Tarkin and four Control Room that provide Imperial Navy resources in my command deck, an indestructable source in my affiliation card to let me play those, and a heck of a lot of draw power in Fall, Reconnaissance, and Counsel to dig for them.

Just some insight into my thought process.

If I see the following in my opener

Fall of the Jedi

Counsil of the Sith

Recon Mission

Death and Despayre

I keep D&D, Counsil of the Sith and then I choose between Fall and Recon Mission. Im choosing D&D for the 2 resources, I am assuming this deck has Emperor, Vader and Devastator so you will need the resources. The choice between Recon, Fall and Counsil should come down to health on the objective, I beleive all are 5 so its a pretty moot point. All three of those objectives are doing the same thing, letting you see more cards, so I dont think there is a wrong choice among those 3 objectives. I might favor Fall a little more than the other 2 just because it lets you keep cards in your deck. I think the the final choice is a coin flip and I honestly don't think there is a right/wrong answer, both draw you more cards, just in a different way.

What would you guys choose if you were the LS and had the following 4 objectives.

A Hero's Journey

In you Must Go

Mission Briefing

A Secret of Yavin 4

Assuming the deck isn't relying on a first-turn Redemption or Home One , I'd keep In You Must Go, Mission Briefing, and The Secret of Yavin 4.

Mission Briefing gives me foreknowledge for my first-turn discard, and is excellent every turn after. Plus it's the only objective of my secondary affiliation I saw, so it's a preferred keep anyways. In You Must Go makes any of the enhancements in my deck free once per turn (unless I'm using Draw Their Fire for some reason), and The Secret of Yavin 4 lets me protect my more valuable objectives…along with having a solid 6 damage capacity. All A Hero's Journey offers is a second resource that takes another turn to refresh. And in just about every LS deck I've played, I'd rather have 4 resources available every turn than 5 one turn and 3 the next.

In a mixed affiliation deck, I think about the total number of cards that need that affiliation to play. If I am playing a deck with any affiliation and 2x smugglers/scum I have already started the affiliation card to gaurantee I have the resource I need. Because there are only 6 cards (if I am running 2x OSet) that have a resource match to my affiliation, I am not likely to choose that objective is I draw it.

However, the closer I am to an even split (if playing multi-affiliation deck) the more likely I am to split the resources if possible.

In the event of a single (or single and neutral) affiliated deck, I choose whatever will generate the most for me.

EVENTS I ALMOST ALWAYS KEEP
Mobilization Points
Fall of the Jedi
Secret of Yavin 4
Council of the Sith

EVENTS I ALWAYS TOSS
Heart of the Empire

MasterJediAdam said:

Erm…what? Do you mean Mobilize the Squadrons?

It's hard to come up with general rules for keeping objectives as it really depends on my deck. For instance, Shadows of Dathomir is a fairly bland objective to keep compared to some of my other options, but I will pretty much always keep one copy with my Sith deck in hopes of a first turn Vader play. My Jedi deck, on the other hand, will usually toss the very similar A Hero's Journey because having 5 resources available is much less important in that deck.

D.Knight Sevus said:

Yep, I totally meant Mobilize the Squadrons. Mobilization Points is from a different Star Wars game

Well my dream draw (which happened to me last night) is to draw two Defense Protocol objectives as the DS. That or getting at least one 2 resource ojective works for me. I usually don't double focus the 2 resource ojective, but it's nice to have if you need it for a big character, in case you're not drawing your limited resource cards.

I would tend to lean towards getting out enough resources and ensuring that the objectives have a reasonable damage capacity e.g. a damage capacity of 4 would get tossed if the other three were 5 or more. I find this useful especially when playing Sith decks. Other than that I tend to think along the same lines as D.Knight Sevus.