Hi all,

I wanted to ask for advice how to beat Sith Control with the Smuggler's Den. We play the Sith variant with 2 x Fall, 2x Web, 2x Killing Cold, 1x shadows on the ice, 1x Counsel, 1x Cruel Interrogations and 1x Imperial Command. My brother and I tried it multiple times and could beat the Sith only when they were totally card screwed and Jedi could drop the Big Three. Otherwise they always hit 12 before three objectives were destroyed.

Perhaps it is our play style, but I really have no idea how to go against the overpowering control elements the Sith offer. I would be very happy to hear your advices.

Thanks,

Christoph

That's rather odd, given that The Smuggler's Den was developed more or less specifically to beat Sith Control.

What's your Smuggler's Den build?

At the moment I play 2x Luke, 2x Yoda, 2x Han, 2x Guardians, 1x Spirits and 1x Caverns. I find it really hard to get any damage through with Emperor and Vader or Emperor and Royal Guard(s) on the board.

Okay. Personally, I'm iffy on Renegade Squadron Mobilization in Smuggler's Den, but you've still got the tools you need.

The first bit of advice is to not discount your non-unique units. Twi'lek Loyalist looks like prime discard fodder to power into your good units, right? That edge-enabled Tactics icon actually makes it very troublesome for the Sith. For example, if you have Twi'lek Loyalist and Luke Skywalker, and your opponent has Darth Vader on defense, then by attacking an objective you don't really care about with the Loyalist will force your opponent to block with Vader because if they don't, you simply put a focus token on Vader and have Luke attack your true target unopposed. If you have Han Solo instead of Luke, attacking alone with the Loyalist leaves them with no good answer.

In fact, Tactics icons are your best weapon against Sith Control, and just clever manipulation of focus tokens in general - and you have a lot of it. Twi'lek Loyalist, Yoda, Han Solo, Twi'lek Smuggler and Renegade Squadron all have Tactics icons that help you manipulate the board, and if you can get Echo Caverns out, you can just borrow one from Emperor Palpatine. Focus on strategically locking down your opponent's units, and try not to attack into an opposing Palpatine without a plan to win the edge battle.

So, what build for the Smuggler´s Den are you suggesting? The pure version with 2 Guardians and 2 Spirits OS or the new one with Luke, Han, Obi and Preparations for Battle? I personally haven´t tried the new variant yet, but will definitely test it before I go to the regional

I´m curious what new tricks A Dark Time will bring.

I do like the Luke/Han/Obi/Prep/Guardian version. It's not the easiest deck to play as manging that many tactics correctly takes thought, but it gets results.

I think I've found the topic for my next article though: How to Beat Sith Control. I've been playing Sith Control pretty much since the game hit the shelf so I have a pretty decent idea what scares it… and it's not much.

dbmeboy said:

Such an article would be very helpful, I am sure The regional I am planning to attend is on June 22nd….just for information

I can almost certainly have it done by then :-) I was going to start working on it this morning, but our power is out and typing it up on my phone seems suboptimal.

I have found Echo Caverns to be a very useful tool against the Emperor.

Shields are another good option as well. If you have Echo Caverns and shields you can really slow down the Emperor's ability to lockdown a board and often times can lock him out.

Princess Leia is another good one against the Sith, assuming she isnt force choked immediately. If you play a Leia a turn after the Emperor locks you down the Sith player will risk unfocusing your board which is a dangerous play because the Emperor might be focused. Choking the Leia would depend on whats on the board and whether the Emperor has 1 or 2 focus on him. If the Emperor is double focused and they have 2 or more tactic icons, Echo Caverns with another character then you probably shouldnt kill Leia because they are going to lock down the board.

TGO has some good suggestions there. I'm still working on a more extensive writeup on the topic (draft sitting just over 1500 words now, could take me a while to go through and add pictures/links once I finish it).

Thanks for the suggestions. Echo Caverns is good indeed. I am very curious about the planned article

The_Crow86 said:

I was hoping to have it done by now… but it's ballooning on me terribly. I will pretty much definitely be splitting it to 2 parts at this point.

Sorry for the wait, but I have finally finished the article, you can find it here. I ended up keeping it together as a single article.

dbmeboy said:

GREAT article! I strongly recommend it to every one

Teokrata said:

Thanks! :-)

A really good article.

One thing I found missing in the "The Rest of the Deck" section is Bespin Exchange.

My girlfriend has been using 2x Boba Fett in her sith control for weeks now with a great effect.

The greatest strength of that version comes from the Mandalorian Armor. This great card can be used in several different ways.

Mandalorian + Boba fett = targeted character capture

Mandalorian + Emperor's Royal Guard = almost immortal Vader and Palpatine

Vader + Blaster Pistol + lightsaber is able to hunt down and kill anything LS can muster.

Did anyone of you guys have to deal with that version? How did it go?

I didn't include that (or the Shadows of Dathomir and Recon Mission that my version runs) mostly because I haven't seen it as a popular choice. It certainly can pull off some nice combos when things come together, true, but there are so many good options that the deck usually runs out of space before that can get in.

thank you for the great article. It helped me a lot! Hopefully, it will work out at our local regional in 2 weeks!

The_Crow86 said:

Best of luck!