Echo Strike Team
Title: Echo Strike Team
Author: Douglas "Douglas" Harvilla
Date: Dec 8, 2000
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘Locations(10) Hoth Main Power Generators (SL) Hoth North Ridge (SL) Hoth Echo Command Center Hoth Echo Docking Bay Hoth Echo Corridor Home One War Room Home One Docking Bay Hoth Sullust Endor
Characters(23) Luke With Lightsaber x2 Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Leia With Blaster Rifle x2 General Solo Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol Chewbacca of Kashyyyk General Calrissian Nien Numb Wedge Antilles, Red Squadron Leader x2 Admiral Ackbar First Officer Thaneespi Major Haash’n General Madine Sergeant Bruckman Lieutenant Blount Biggs Darklighter Elyhek Rue Kal’Falnl C’ndros Talz x2
Starships/Vehicles(11) Home One Gold Squadron 1 Red Squadron 1 Liberty Independence Artoo In Red 5 Red 7 Tantive IV Spiral Rogue 1 Rogue 2
Admiral’s Orders(1) Combined Fleet Action
Effects (14) A New Secret Base Your Insight Serves You Well x4 Echo Base Operations Strike Planning Squadron Assignments Insurrection Launching The Assault Honor Of The Jedi Menace Fades Legendary Starfighter Haven
Interrupts(1) The Signal
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Strategy: ‘
Watch him collapse, that is. Seems to be a cutoff up there.
Most recent comments pointed out Wise Advice against SAC, but this is not SAC protection, it simply puts the card back in your deck, if you just spent all 3 of your first-turn force on a Signal, you still essentially fall a turn behind your opponent if it is canceled. When the combo card comes out, it opens up more possibilities, but for now, saving 3 force and ignoring Sense should appeal to experienced players.
There were some comments about the early game, ironically contained in the same reviews which suggested using 3 force a pop for The Signal early on, slowing the deck down. BTW, Scum decks don’t set up blindingly fast with massive drains, I pound these decks because Menace Fades is set up quickly and because I throw in Strikeforce on my way to a tourney where I’m expecting any good players to use My Kind Of Scum.
Someone mentioned the vulnerability of characters to lightsabers and You Are Beaten, that’s what the speeders are for, the vulnerable guys like Han get inside. Or pack ’em all in with Combined Fleet Action and a battle destiny canceler combo.
Against Decree, you do what any deck needs to be able to do to win, battle. To keep Menace Fades set up, you battle. I get a lot of ”what if you lose control of the table?” questions when I talk about Menace Fades. What happens? The same thing that happens if you lose control of the table with any deck against any competent opponent. You lose the game. In a game of tug-of-war, don’t count on the other guy to hand you back any slack you give him.
With 23 characters, 2 destiny-canceling combos, a couple speeders for weapon protection, and Combined Fleet Action to cut the opponent down to one flip, which you then cancel, this deck is far from helpless on the ground. In space, it isn’t a swarm, but it puts immense power together and runs anything short of an all-out dedicated DS space deck into the ground. In such a space-on-space game, the better player will win.
”You need interrupts” - Why? The deck works without them, without wasting card slots on SAC protection. Is this an arbitrary rule? Every deck needs interrupts, just like every airplane needed a propeller, or every telephone needed a cord?
”Your average destiny sucks” - For a power deck, it is not bad. Pull the lowest destiny cards from the deck, then extra flips, a bit of tracking (of previously drawn battle/weapon destiny), and destiny canceling will give you the edge.
”Your Insights sucks, use The Signal” - Is this another arbitrary rule? Using YISYW over The Signal saves you 3 force, that alone should get any good player’s attention. It is immune to Alter, The Signal is easily canceled if it isn’t backed up with SAC protection, which messes up card efficiency. YISYW is the better of the two for this deck, NO contest.
”You’ll lose to TIEs or Scum” - I’ve gone up against each. Extra flips, destiny cancelers, and power allowed me to beat the TIE decks. Menace Fades and mains slow the Scum deck down while he runs out of reps to cancel drains, then he’s being hit for 8-12 force a turn in space. I’ll throw in Strikeforce if I run into more of these, however.
”Hunt Down or Bring Him would ___ you” - Been up against these, too. No match against a soild deck is an easy one, but this deck handles them well by getting established in space, shutting down drain modifiers, and waiting for an opening to strike. Combined Fleet Action helps a lot, since the Hunt and BHBM decks I’ve seen typically go to Endor if they are using any non-DB sites. Cuts him down to one flip, General Solo & Chewie or Wedge and a Red/Rogue cancel it from inside a speeder.
None of the cards in this deck can be canceled by Sense or Alter. Only the Spiral’s ’react’ text is affected. Speeders are for protection from weapons, but aren’t crucial enough to warrant inclusion of Echo Base Garrison, which I couldn’t protect from Alter anyway.
SAC protection is inefficient and paying 3 force only to have your interrupt canceled is a good way to lose. So The Signal would be worse than useless in this deck except in its starting capacity. How do the effects come out? Your Insight Serves You Well is like The Signal, but free instead of costing 3 force, and it can’t be canceled.
Saving 3 force is huge, it means three more cards you’ll draw, and means you won’t be throwing away all your turn 1 force generation to grab an effect. With four copies of Your Insight Serves You Well, I haven’t had any trouble getting my effects out. Haven, Strike Planning, and deployment text on some of my ships influenced choice of systems.
Get Strike Planning early and use it to get Madine, use him to get Bruckman, and set up the third Echo site with a Talz or Kal’Fal. Not too expensive, and Madine will come in handy later, getting Blount to cancel Visage or let you beat up Miyoom in her hiding spot. Also can get Chewbacca of Kashyyyk, who forms a destiny-canceling combo on the ground or in space with General Solo.
Once EBO is set up, taking over space is dirt simple. Gold Squadron 1 with General Cal and Nien Numb? Use 2 force, please. That’s cheap. Home One can be deployed without occupying its War Room, but that site helps a lot, making it cheaper than a deformed fortune cookie. The -1 to your deploy in space gets your pilots down for 1 force, or even for free, and if you get Haven, they cost you nothing.
Honor stops drains at Home One War Room and at sites under the shield, and may catch some opponents who have swapped out No Escape, shutting off the damage from Visage. Menace Fades kills force drain modifiers, and can be set up easily. Combined Fleet Action, which Ackbar can grab, will download combat vehicles for you, and limit the opponent’s battle destiny draws to one per battle at related sites. That’s particularly gross since Wedge along with any pilot on a Rogue speeder (who becomes a Rogue pilot at that point - confirmed on listserv) basically locks out the opponent.
Your two battle destiny canceling combos, Han and Chewie and Wedge and a Red/Rogue pilot, should go wherever you’re meeting with the most resistance, where they will be monstrous combined with destiny adders. Red 7 and Elyhek add a destiny to total power and have immunity, plus the ship is a destiny of 4, not bad at all.
EBO gives you a force drain +2 at systems, and Launching The Assault, along with fetching Home One from the deck, can add +1 on top of this. You can potentially force drain for 4 at Endor while the opponent doesn’t even generate force there because of Strike Planning
Talz is just a cheap character with good forfeit and decent destiny. Also kind of handy as a passenger in a speeder while an EPP main blasts away at the opponent’s characters outside. He can forfeit in their place.
Legendary Starfighter might come up, it might not. Isn’t worth wasting a spare Signal on. If it works, the opponent loses 2 force a turn. Ouch. And last but not least, the absence of Obi-Wan can be summed up easily. Dueling, and not a pilot. Maybe if I had more room, but even then I can think of better ways to use the space.
Comments are welcome, just remember that this deck is built to be invulnerable to Sense and Alter. Even if Rebel Leadership or Punch It could be tossed in, they’d be canceled more than half the time they were played. ‘