Welcome to a new semi-regular series on Jank It Up, Fuzzball, where I show you the decks I currently have sleeved up and am having some fun with. Although I don’t get to play that often, I try to have three to four decks on standby just in case the opportunity presents itself. I keep my decks and dice in these nifty (and inexpensive) tackle boxes. I have two of them, and they each hold two decks.
Most recently, playing opportunities have come as impromptu games against my eight-year old son. I’m a casual player, as you probably know, so don’t expect any of these to take down a competitive tournament anytime soon.
4-Wide Hero Vehicles
Although I love me some hero vehicles, this is actually my son’s creation. I’m not stating that up front so I can get a pass if you think it’s bad, but actually because it’s a pretty fun little casual deck. I guess I’m also a little proud of him, as it was fun seeing him go through my cards and pick what he wanted to include. It’s evolved, of course, as I tried my best to get some more defensive cards in there. The thing is, my son has never met a piece of mitigation he wouldn’t rather discard to reroll for damage.
The four wide lineup certainly presents a lot of health to chew through. Anakin makes the money to play the more expensive vehicles, and Cody and the Troopers are there for additional firepower. Nothing brings my son quite as much Destiny joy as getting a Hailfire Droid Tank down early and starting to slap mods on it. I’m just waiting for the cost of Across the Galaxy boxes to drop so I can load up on more vehicles and mods.
This is the oldest of my four decks, and I think it’s about to get disbanded in favor of a Cody/Kes build I’m plotting. Still, it’s been a fun one, particularly for my son.
Maul/Savage
In addition to vehicles, I also love me some Maul. The card image above is the first Destiny alt-art I ever made, originally printed by the generous guys at the Golden Dice Podcast. I know Maul’s not the best Destiny character, but I love being able to put my own art down on the table. The release of Savage Opress in AtG was a gift to Maul, but I never pulled any on my own. The Fates intervened, however, as an anonymous listener shipped me elite Savage and my Buddy Greg surprised me with a Maul’s Lightsaber. Suddenly, it was GO TIME.
The goal here is to try to load up the brothers with big sticks and simply bash faces, but there’s also a healthy amount of mitigation to help keep the guys healthy. Stick-wise, I’m fortunate to have so many villain and neutral legendary weapons, and they’re all in this deck: Palp’s Saber, Maul’s Saber, 5th Brother’s Saber, and Dagger of Mortis. Throw in Force Storm and we’re having a party.
One of my favorite cards here is actually Conflicted. It either deals two damage to my opponent or gives one of my guys two shields all the while rerolling one of my character’s dice. My son actually used Conflicted to deal lethal damage against me on Easter day. Oof.
Dengar/Ventress
My next two decks are heavy on the Convergence set. As I discussed in the last episode of my podcast, I participated in a sealed box tournament for its release. It was a lot of fun to crack 36 packs and go to battle, even if I didn’t win any of my matches. Two of the characters I pulled from my box were Dengar and the new Asajj Ventress, both of which are Bounty Hunters. Given their complimentary point value and common theme, I knew I wanted to play them. I ordered second copies of both characters and the Punishing One on eBay and quickly put a deck together.
I only pulled four bounties in my box — two copies each of Death Mark and Wanted – and didn’t think to order copies of Enticing Reward (but I should!) Yet I had a Bounty Board and a Smuggling Ring, which certainly helps out with the theme of the deck. I’ve only played two games with this Legendary-free build, but they went pretty well. The deck could use more consistency for sure. I also think I may drop Slave 1 and Starviper for additional upgrades to try to given it more overall speed.
AR, Grievous, and the Droidz
Here’s the latest and greatest! (Well, that’s to be determined.) After purchasing a Grievous starter, I put together a four-wide droid deck for my son to pilot, and it hit pretty hard. I like that the Hailfire Droid Tank is, well, a droid in addition to being a vehicle, which is significant in new Grievous and Aphra decks. Throw in the fact that I’ve never built a deck using the Armored Reinforcement plot, and I started to scheme around Grievous, AR, and some droids.
By dropping a character from my 4-wide build and adding a second Grievous die (hello, second starter pack!), I’m able to add in the AR plot. Although lower on health, this all but guarantees I can drop either a Hailfire or the Defoliator Tank early in the game.
Adding in the blue Sentinel Messenger is all the rage with Grievous decks, and his inherit ability to effectively give you a 6th card in your hand is strong. I’m actually only including a single copy of a blue card here, though (Hidden Motive), as I don’t have any of the uncommon Forsaken. (insert Sad Trombone).
I haven’t actually played this deck yet, and it’s already looking a bit light on dice. We’ll see how it does soon enough, as Greg and I are getting together for some Standard play this weekend after a three week hiatus.
So there you have it! The four janky decks I have sleeved up and ready to go. I’ll report back when these four have all rotated out in favor of something newer (but certainly not necessarily better).
