Thoughts on the smugglers den, post SfSW. (rant and theory craft ahead)

So im prepping for our que of regional events here in the twin cities, and I started thinking about the Smugglers den deck that’s currently destroying the darkside all across the nation. I feel like its still one of the top decks even with SfSW out but I think we now have a few more options as the hoth cycle gains some momentum and for the first time we are starting to actually have some deck building options in SW.

The Smugglers Den rocks because it dominates the board with targeted strike side line damage supported by tactics to lock the game down. But it suffers from a low unit count, and can sometimes fail to get up and running.

Sith is very strong, and has ALWAYS been strong vrs jedi denial of their top units simply neuters the deck, the destruction of 1 card with force lightning throws the whole game out for a Jedi player. While rebel does not suffer as much from card draw and control cards it has a tough time breaking through the inevitable wall of units the dark side will build due to their lack of abilities like targeted strike. My problem with sith, while I do find it very powerful is that it gives the opponent time to regroup they can bounce back because sith does not punish them for starting off slow.

So that leaves us with navy which is were I think its at right now, maybe splash in ice trompers for some of that extra control but I think at least I will be leaning towards navy and rebels for my Regional decks, maybe ill fall flat on my face or maybe we will finally be able to move past some crutch cards like Luke and Han and Vader and make some new and exciting decks.

magni

OK? not really sure what there is to respond to.

Rebels do appear to be very dangerous on paper, we shall see how that shakes out. The new navy set is interesting, but honestly I have been a bit underwhelmed with it so far, played a bit with it already.

I still think Sith and Smugglers/Jedi is the way to go so far, but have obviously not playtested very much yet. We'll see =)

yeah, kinda just wanted to think out loud a little bit. See what other people are thinking.

Magni said:

Fair enough =)

I think Sith and Han/Jedi will remain good, but may be joined by a couple other decks as top options. As always in this game, play skill will be king.

Sry, double posted. Will do better next time …

This is the truth. Most things being equal - access to cards, decklists, etc - the player with more skill should generally come out on top. There is, of course, something to be said for understanding meta, insane perfect draws, and winning an occasional edge battle / Force struggle you shouldn't. I think this is one of the best aspects of the living game construct: it creates a fairly even playfield where skill is king.

MasterJediAdam said:

I agree to a certain extent. Pre-SfSW, Light Side was essentially a 50/50 shot at winning it's game. If you played Rebels, you either saw Rogue 3 + ToO's, or you didn't. If you were playing Smuggler's Den, you either saw your six (6!) characters, or you didn't. It was a complete coinflip whether or not those decks could go the distance, regardless of skill. The more sets that release, the further away from that problem you get, which is awesome.

I only did a few test games but the Renegard Squadron Pod in the Jedi/Smuggler deck is very good. Running Han/Yoda/Luke/C-3PO/Renegade. Echo Caverns is so good. I cant decide on where to go with rebels right now, I tried a bunch of hoth pods together but it didnt do much for me at all. Got demolished by both my Sith/Navy and Navy/Scum decks.

I have not had a chance to play any of the new cards yet and I'm still getting up to speed on the game but I think with SfSW a rebel deck should be very compatitive with all the Hoth cards. I wouldn't be suprised if a Rebel deck sneaks in the top 4 at regionals.

Gandorf said:

I think the Neutral Pod has a chance to put their Vehicle list over the top, but I'm not as excited about the Rebel Pod. I really like the defender guy, but everything else seems kinda odd for Rebels aside from the objective, not really sold on it yet.

I too feel like the Jedi/Smuggler builds will vary much more now then they had, the new Smuggler pod is quite good.

I have been considering trying out a Rebel/Smuggler mix again with the new sets. I am a little worried it may be too slow, but I guess there's only one way to find out =).

Messed with the rebel pod a little more, tried out Home One/Red Two/Rogue Three/Trench Run/Neutral Shield Pod. Wasnt too bad, even with all the shields the emperor still seems to stand in the way. Was close on one game but had a terrible draw towards the end. I was surprised it lasted as long as ti did facing Vader/Emperor/Devastator all out at the same time.

I like my navy/scum deck, those weequay are nice and I havent had any trouble getting them into play for 2 instead of 4. Probably just luck so far as all the games I tested I have gotten the navy objective to capture a card right away. Dont think I would play it over the sith deck though.

What im thinking with Rebels ill be testing this out tomorrow and report back

2x Renegade Squadron

2x Preparation for Battle

2x Hoth Operations

2x Sensors are Placed

2x Leah/Yavin4 i cant decide or 1x leah 1x Echo Base Defence

I like the amount of Control units this brings for rebel, plus it has a ton more defence then the old VHL zerg. Leah is in their because she combos well with the squadron, who knows ill prolly fall on my face.

Magni

I have been tinkering with a similar list.

X2 Fleeing the Empire

X2 Hoth Operations

X2 Defense of Yavin 4

x2 Prepare for Battle

X2 Renegade Squadron Mobilization

I have like it. Renegade Squadron is much better than Home One.

Magni said:

Was looking at something like that for my LS deck. Thinking of going Fleeing Empire in the somewhere.

Also Benesh(sorry, sure how to spell it) had a nice S&V deck with the new stuff in it. Deck could be a huge problem for Jedi based decks.

Magni said:

You have to watch how much blast damage you are losing in order to gain the control. The LS needs to be able to deal damage afterall.

I was thinking about this, another issue is a loss of 1 for 1 resource generators. After playtesting it a bit, i also dont like have 2 neutral 2 smugglers it gives you the chance of pulling 4 objectives with out rebel affiliation which scares the crap out of me.

I might Swap out the smugglers with the Rebel Fleet, I was also thinking of a similar deck\

2x Luke or Journey to Degoba (both give you blast dmg AND more tatics with the Loyalists)

1x Preperations for Battle

1x Ackbar

2x Hoth Operations

2x Sensors are Placed

2x Yavin 4

If you have a 6/4 split on your objectives, the chance of you not seeing a Rebel Alliance objective is 4/10 x 3/9 x 2/8 x 1/7, or 24/5040. That's 1 in 210 games, less than one-half of one percent of all games.

You can, in a dual-affiliation deck, safely use as few as 5 objectives of your main affiliation, which carries a 1 in 42 chance of not seeing a main affiliation objective, or about a 2.4% chance.

If you think your second build is the better build, that's perfectly fine, but 1 in 210 games should not be a significant enough probability to scare you off your Rebel/Smuggler build.

D.Knight Sevus said:

What about not seeing 2 of your primary objectives? In other words, using the SS card and then getting 3x Smuggler pods and 1x Rebel pod. Only having 1 primary pod can be hard too.

That'd be 1 in 35 games where you only draw 1 objective of your primary affiliation, assuming my math is correct, which is about a 3% chance. So it'll happen often enough that you'll remember the times you got resource-screwed, but in the vast majority of games, you should be fine.

4 of the secondary affiliation scares the pants off me as well. I'm running 2 of the renegade set in my smugglers den deck now. Took out a questionable contacts and a message from beyond. So far I like it a lot

Tommy2tone45 said:

Yessss, now I know your secrets.

Well, i did ALOT of playtesting with my Rebel and Navy decks.

Navy

2x Prepare the Fleet

2x Mottie (at the time this is now Tarkin i have enough resources as is)

2x Death and Despyre

2x Endor Gambit (objective is so rocken with capitol ships if they try to choke out your devastator)

2x Heart of the Empire

I know this looks weird but it did really well, if i lost games the dial was at 9-11 and Heart of the empire is a really low risk card with the two defencive ugrades you can bring its life up to 16 easy plus your defencive fleets, that said i still dont care for the objective itself.

Here is what happened it the most sucessfull game - put out goobers, LS starts building up , hold the force put out more goobers, rebel starts getting way to strong for my goobers. (at this pout i have about 3-4 additional resource cards like control room in play.

Board whipe on LS force phase with my huge stock of resources

then drop a bunch of capitol ships for cheap.

My Theory Crafted LS did not do aswell, i ran with the decks i listed and hit 1 big wall AKA the edge battle sith does not control you as hard as they do jedi but all of the new rebel cards are edge dependant, if you cant win the edge its kinda down hill, ill continue to test the builds out maybe splashing in Luke+Red5 into a Wedge build but as a whole the new pods loose some steam when it comes to the blast damage zerg, but cant win the edge enough to control the fight.

And Smugglers dens forces the DS to keep playing troops, i foudn with my rebels that once they hit about 8 troops they just sat their with there whole hand for the edge battle and blasted me to shreads.

magni

Magni said:

Sadly you cannot use The Ultimate Power and Heart of the Empire together since they are Imperial Navy and Sith affiliation only respectively. So if you were running Heart of the Empire with an Imperial Navy affiliation your deck is illegal.

I just realized that myself while i was on a walk today. Ill have to make a tough decision but Def Protocals will prolly go in there. I just like the board whipe TOO much right now all those resources it just works so well. GL with your testing you guys!