PODS:
Kuat Reinforcements x2
Death and Despayre x2
The Ultimate Power x2
Deploy the Fleet x2
Unstoppable Advance x2
Mindset:
First off this is not a deck where you sit back and react. You should go all out at the enemy. During these games i almost never leave anyone to defend, save some AT-ATs during attacks. I almost never have cards for edge battles either if Kuat Reinforcements is out. The point of this deck is to force the enemy to play your game. You make them enter a race to see who can get the most blast damage and this deck wins, I almost promise you. Every objective has either big units or ways to get out big units. If you don't have big units in your hand you should be discarding at the beginning of the draw phase. I often use edge battles as a way to simply cycle my hand if there is nothing good in it yet.
Strategy:
When picking starting objectives getting Deploy the Fleet and especially Kuat Reinforcements is important, though not necessary. The objectives are designed so that if you cant get out one of those 2 you WILL be able to have 6 resources, meaning all those capital ships are game turn 1. There are 8 cards in the deck of cost 6 and only 1 of them is unique (Devastator* x2, Death Squadron Star Destroyer x4, AT-AT Assault Formation x2). Don't be afraid to use Kuat and Deploy the Fleet early and often. Defense upgrade should be mainly used as a way to get more resources out of deploy the fleet. With Deploy the Fleet it is almost exactly the same as an admirals orders (a net gain of 2 resources for capital ships). Almost all the big units in this deck do not depend on edge battles so dont worry about them. Death Squadron Star Destroyers not only have 3 blast icons and 5 health but shielding so don't worry about throwing them at the enemy constantly.
The enemy will generally react in 2 ways. They can either try to out pace you in terms of destroying objectives or they can leave guys back for defense.
This is a hard deck to outpace. If you get Death Squadron Command then there is little to no hope unless you don't draw good cards. Its reaction is amazing. The ability to remove a focus token when ANY objective leaves play is one of the best abilities in the game. You can (and frequently will) spend all 3 resources, kill an enemy objective, lose an objective on the enemies turn, refresh, and have all 3 resources back on the next turn. This deck has so much blast damage that I have killed 4 objectives in 3 turns and ended the game there and then.
If they are leaving back defenders this gets a little trickier. My general reaction is to build up forces and attack with overwhelming force. Make it so objectives MUST take damage. Sending an ATAT Assault formation with 2 Death squadron star destroyers often guarantee that you will be able to damage objectives. This deck generally requires you to kill 2 objectives with units. You can generally get a third and possibly a fourth with Super laser blast. Use AT-ATs as defensive units in this case too. This deck is full of shielding. Defensive LS decks generally don't have a ton of blast damage to throw at you. AT-ATs provide both shielding for your objectives along with enough blaster damage to kill some key enemy personnel.
This deck generally doesn't deal with the force too too much unless necessary (if you have 1 resource remaining and a tie fighter you might as well throw him out to the force if it means flipping the force marker). The notable exception is Grand Moff Tarkin. I always always always put him to the force. His 1 resource generally isn't necessary and his ability is always on and doesn't require him to take part in fights to be useful. He often times means that you both win the force stuggle AND makes it so an unopposed star destroyer can insta kill an enemy objective.
Weaknesses:
It is important to know your weaknesses. This deck has a couple. It almost never wins edge battles. While a fault this deck also doesn't rely on winning them. The vast majority of you blast damage is non edge enabled and most of your units are so big it doesn't matter if they take a little bit of damage. The amount of shielding can be stifling too. my last game I played I would attack with a star destroyer with 1 health left and a lot of AT-ATs and I could generally make it so that the Star destroyer was so shielded the enemy couldn't kill him.
This deck is also weak to decks with lots of tactics icons. The way you counter this is by continuing to play giant units. Tactics heavy decks generally attack with the majority of its units per turn. If They lock down a star destroyer then you can just build another next turn and attack with it. This however is your biggest worry. Getting your super laser blasts is often the difference between winning and losing.
Comments/ Suggestions?