As promised during my podcast recap of our epic 45-card Solidarity tournament at Kingwood Hobbies last month, here’s a report on my own performance through five rounds of Swiss competition.
First, a quick reminder on the event’s format. Each participant had to use the Solidarity plot, limiting their team to one color and only one copy of each card in their deck. Then, to make this event all the more janky, we ran 45-card decks. Once you sat down against your opponent each round and saw their character teams, you removed five of your cards and set them aside face down, leaving you with 40 unique cards to play with.
Introducing My Squad
I have always liked playing vehicles, and for a while Rose was the best red character to do so with. I didn’t have any of the red characters from Across the Galaxy that have supplanted Rose in the meta, and I still liked her ability to make money. Plus, running Poe at elite made special chaining into her die plausible. My best available red character to round out the final eight points was a Clone Trooper. Sure, he comes with two blanks, but he also brings three black damage sides, and ability to reroll a character die, and eight health.
My final decklist is below. I had hastily built the initial version of this deck on a Facebook Live stream (which you can watch here), but some of those real-time decisions weren’t the best. Pulling together 45 unique cards to run with is a bit of a challenge, but here’s what I sleeved up for the event:
Round 1 vs. eBo-Katan/eMaz
Although there were eight matchups going on downstairs, a few of us were sent to a secondary space upstairs. I sat down against Chris, a local player whom I’ve met before — he actually traded me two Mauls so I could play with the alt-art I made that was originally printed for the Golden Dice Podcast. Chris said he wanted to embrace the jankiness of the tourney, so he brought an unlikely pair — Bo-Katan and Maz Kanata.
While I appreciated Chris bringing a janky deck to the tournament, I didn’t fully appreciate the speed at which it could deal damage. Poe was first off the board, killed early in the second round. Although I was getting supports and vehicles out, I was worried couldn’t keep up. Chris also got down a Second Chance and Hyperspace Jumped out of a round, keeping my best efforts at bay.
His rolling started cooling off, and my increased board presence finally started to turn the tide. I was able to kill Maz and mitigate a little bit of damage along the way until my remaining Clone Trooper and an array of vehicles (thank you, Y-Wing!) were able to take down a very resilient Bo-Katan. Win. 1-0.
Even though I made some mistakes (such as playing but forgetting to use Suppressive Fire after roll-outs), I was thrilled to start the day with a win. No 0-fer for me! I went downstairs to see how my buddy Greg fared in his first competitive Destiny match. Alas, he ran into one of the six Vader decks brought to the event (out of twenty-four players) and was rolled off the table. Tough break for him, and it left me hoping I could avoid Vader for as long as possible on the day.
Round 2 vs. eVader3/Luce
That hope was dashed pretty quickly. Not only was I paired up agains Vader in Round 2, it was against Todd, the same player who just took down Greg.
Although I have never played against Vader, I have listened to enough Content Creators and watched enough videos to know removing his dice isn’t efficient mitigation. Playing Red Hero, I didn’t have a lot of tricks to stop him anyway. To my relief, Todd didn’t have an early upgrade to drop down on the Terror to Behold. He quickly stockpiled resources, though, and when he grabbed five at once, I knew what was coming: a Turn 1 Vader’s Fist. He rolled the die into the pool, and it landed on 3 Disrupt. Knowing that things could only get worse, I played my copy of Strategic Planning to immediately exhaust it, keeping him from three activations in the round.
Vader is still a beast, of course, and Todd was ready and willing to discard to reroll to maximize his damage. Poe died first once again as I struggled to find more than a couple of vehicles to get down. Todd was quick to shield up Vader and send all my indirect damage into Luce.
At one point, with Luce at one remaining health and me spotting a Clone Trooper die with 2 Ranged Damage showing, I foolishly opted to play a card (I can’t recall which one). Todd used his next action to Price of Failure Luce to ready Vader. I was such an idiot. My anger with myself was somewhat soothed, however, when Todd played Rise Again a few actions later to bring Luce back. Even if I had killed her, he would have brought her back only to defeat her again.
Despite all of that, the game was actually tighter than I thought it would be. I was able to chip away on Vader, knocking him down to four health, before he rerolled for lethal damage. Loss. 1-1.
I had to confess to Greg that I could not avenge his earlier defeat to Todd. He told me he had to play a second Vader/Luce deck, and although it was a much closer game, he wasn’t able to pull it out. So what are the odds that I would once again play his previous opponent in the next round?
Round 3 vs. eVader3/Luce
Pretty good, it turns out. Round 3 had me paired up against another Vader/Luce deck, piloted by one of the two women in the field, Eryn. She rolled hot and was able to get Vader’s Lightsaber down early. I was able to frustrate her with a first round First Aid and a second round Mend, but my vehicle army never materialized.
Even without a Vader’s Fist or Rise Again, this one didn’t feel as close as my previous match. Although it ultimately lasted several more turns than it should have thanks to a missed Vader’s Lightsaber trigger, I went down rather quietly to Eryn and the Terror to Behold. Loss. 1-2.
Round 4 vs. ePoe/Biggs/Rookie Pilot
Round 4 had me paired against Press from Aegis Creative Company — one of our partners for the tournament. He’s an amazingly generous person, providing some custom prize support for me as well as the streaming of the event. (Perhaps thankfully, we weren’t on stream for this one.) I was very happy to see that Press wasn’t running Vader, but instead Red Hero Vehicles, like me!
It wasn’t a true mirror match, of course, and the synergy of his characters’ abilities with his Battlefield (Imperial Academy) was enviable. There was still plenty of overlap in our decks: he’d play a vehicle, I’d play a vehicle; he’s play BB-8, I’d play BB-8; I’d play a mod, he’s play a mod, etc.
Playing against a similar deck was great in that it highlighted some mistakes I was making, such as pitching Dex’s Diner to reroll in an earlier round. Press played the card and was able to heal three damage from his Poe during the game, demonstrating the value that I had discarded. I also made a couple of misplays that Press would gently point out at the time of the play. The second one involved me resolving one of Poe’s specials to flip an ARC-170 Starfighter’s die to the 3 Indirect side instead of first chaining it to Poe’s other die. He let me correct an earlier play, so I left this one as it was. I was just so happy to be able to resolve a Sudden Impact in my next action to hit each of his character’s for two damage (and killing the rookie), that I overlooked the additional value of Poe’s second die. #casualplayermistakes
In the end, Press played more efficiently and much less sloppy than I did, taking my team down and sending me to my third straight defeat. Loss. 1-3.
Round 5 vs. eTarkin/eIden
I sat down for my last match of the day against another red deck. There were only four red decks in the whole field; I ran one and ended up playing against two of the other three. My opponent, Jason, was playing the only red villain deck, however. It was a little intimidating to sit down against a spot gloss Tarkin card.
I lost the roll-off for the fourth straight time, and we were off to the races. Having never played against Tarkin, I was wary of his power action, but there was only so much I could do in terms of keeping two dice with matching symbols out of Jason’s pool. I ended up taking the resulting four indirect damage twice before I was able to kill off the Grand Moff.
A quick aside: As I mentioned in my podcast, I had designed and printed an alt-art version of Fight Back from the Rivals set that I gave out to each participant (which you can see be scrolling down on this page). I included it in my 40-card deck for every game, but this was the first time I actually saw the card in my hand. Sadly, Jason made me discard it in the second round (#sadtrombone). He actually apologized for making me toss the card I designed for the event, which I thought was nice of him.
With Tarkin out, he was left with a fully-loaded, three upgrade Iden against my Clone Trooper and Rose. Trooper went down next, and we then exchanged a fun spat of discarding three cards apiece hoping to reroll into lethal damage, but it didn’t materialize. We went into the final round with Iden at 4 health and Rose at 3.
He rolled in five dice but only hit for two indirect. I rolled in a couple of vehicles, missing on damage. He rerolled his remaining dice but missed, and I eventually rerolled and hit the special on the Y-Wing with him being out of resources. With Rose at a single health point, I won the game. It was glorious, as I truly felt I snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. Win. 2-3.
I obviously didn’t finish any where near Top Cut, but I’ll take a 2-3 finish against generally more competitive players any day. I had a blast playing a very unique Star Wars: Destiny format and meeting a bunch of new people. Following Swiss, I had a great time watching the door prizes being handed out then watching the Top Four players duke it out for the Darth Vader spot gloss. Ultimately, I was thrilled to have so many local players come out and test their mettle in a truly janky event.
Postscript: vs. eRey/eKit
My friend Greg had to leave the tournament early after three rounds due to having a prior dinner commitment. I asked him to keep his deck sleeved up so we could play one another since we didn’t meet in the actual tournament. So, the weekend after the Solidarity tournament, he came over and we rolled some dice in a Best-of-Three matchup.
Game 1: So many sticks and shields! Greg played a bunch of mitigation and shield cards, which kept his health totals up. I struggled to find more than a couple of vehicles, and he sliced me up pretty good with character dice and upgrades. I did, however, properly show him how special chaining with Poe’s dice work, which he hadn’t seen before. (I had to assure him it was a legal play.) Nevertheless: Loss. 0-1.
Game 2: Finally playing on Weapons Factory Alpha, I was able to get a Y-Wing and a Resistance Crait Speeder down early and kept the heat on all game with more mods and supports. I even finally used Suppressive Fire correctly en route to an equalizing win. 1-1.
Game 3: Honestly, I can’t recall the details other than it was the least competitive of the three. Greg rolled great, had some amazing upgrades come down on the table, and seemed to have answers for my plays at most every opportunity. Loss. 1-2.
And there ends my run with this super-janky 45-card Red Hero deck. I found playing Solidarity games to be really fun given their unpredictability, but I also can see why they don’t make waves in the competitive meta. Good thing I spend most of my time in the casual arena. Thanks for reading, and until next time –
Play some jank. Roll some dice. Have some fun.
