Andy’s Rodent Beats
Title: Andy’s Rodent Beats
Author: Andy "Solo337" McClure
Date: Dec 26, 2000
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
’ Objective Agents In The Court/ No Pants For The Empire (Pants game rocks)
Locations (8) Tatooine Hutt Trade Route Tatooine Cantina Tatooine Mos Eisley Tatooine Jundlund wastes Jabba’s Palace Entrance Chavern Jabba’s Palace Antechamber Jabba’s Palace Audience Chamber Rendevous Point
Characters (26) EPP Luke x2 EPP Obi x2 JPOTSD Lando x2 Kabe x2 Tessek Tawass Khaa Bothan Spy Chadra-Fan x15
Interrupts (18) Heading For The Medical Frigate (s) It’s A Trap x2 Nar Shadda Wind Chimes x2 The Signal Effective Repairs Rebel Barrier Transmission Terminated x2 Clash Of Sabers Glancing Blow You Will Take Me To Jabba Now x3 Choke x2 Tunnel Vision
Effects (7) Yarna (s) Draw Their Fire (s) Do, Or Do Not (s) Uh-Oh (s) Bargaining Table Bacta Tank Bo Shuda ‘
Strategy: ‘
–Strategy update Whoops, obviously an Order To Engage is supposed to be in th deck list. I guess drop a Chadra for it….
I forgot to mention it, but a really cool addition to the Bo Shuda/Order To Engage combo is Worrt. I’m not actually gonna add him any time soon, but think about it if you have room for him (he keeps opponents from using their landspeed at Jabba’s Palace sites).
End Strategy Update–
Response to reviews 5th Beatle A Gift does next to nothing to Court or MKOS thanks to Hutt Influence. If I could set it up, it would subtract 2 from each battle destiny, but Ephant Mon, Snipers and Hutt Smooches normally can prevent me from keeping the little droid alive. Thanks for the thought though.
Hoostino Yeah, OTE is supposed to be in the decklist, thanks for pointing that out. I don’t mind if they SAC my stuff, as they will be losing 3 cards, so it is okay with me. I hope they do put the Emperor at the AC so I can Bo Shuda and Order To Engage combo to screw him.
Neo1128 I know you could kick the crap out of this deck. As a veteren of the game (and rated 2000+) my absolute worst fear is a retired 1686 player who, in 282 games couldn’t take his rating more than 186 above where it started. Thanks anyway.
Well, before I begin, I will give a little background on why I built this deck and give credit where it is due.
When Agents first came out, I immediately thought of Abyssins (for DS) and Chadra-Fans. I knew Abyssins would be powerful, but I thought Chadra-Fans would be way too weak because of DS characters like EJP Dengar, DVDLOTS, ECC Iggy, etc. I built Abyssins and won several tournaments with it, but I didn’t ever make Chadras. Finally, at the Birmingham Grand Slam, I played against Steven Lewis, who was playing Agents with Chadra-Fans, and that made an impression on me. They must be good, or a player of his caliber wouldn’t be playing with them. However, I had a few LS decks I wanted to try out, so I didn’t build Chadras. Then Steven Lewis came down to Huntsville, and mopped the floor with me and the rest of the locals at a Closed tournament. Anyway, afterwards Steven and I played a fun game, and Steven still had Chadra-Fans. So I figured that Chadras must be a very powerful deck, or else Steven wouldn’t have kept the deck for so long. So I went to work building my Rodent Beats deck. So I would like to give props to Steven Lewis for giving me the idea, but I do want to clarify that I did not exactly copy it, but rather built my own version of it.
Anyway, the Chadra deck has far exceeded my expectations for it. It has only lost once that I remember, to a TIE deck (by only 3 cards, I think)in a game where I played a little stupid (see my TR for details). Other than that, it has handled pretty much everything.
Also, it is very cheap to build. It only has something like 14 rares, and only 6 relatively easy to get mains, so it is PERFECT for beginners.
The basic setup is the same for every game. Stat the Hutt Trade Route and the Audience Chamber. First turn pull Bo Shuda and deploy Tessek and or Kabe at the AC from hand or with You Will Take Me To Jabba Now. Your first priority is to set both them at the AC, but after that, you are on your own. Try to guess your opponent’s deck, and keep right around 12 cards (but not over 12) and when they leave a fairly weak force, Rodent Beat the CRAP out of them. Each Chadra will be 1 deploy, 4 forfeit and 3 power, as well as 2 ability and 4 destiny. The average destiny in this deck is insane, and I can hit the Emperor with a lightsaber nearly every attempt. Hopefully your opponent will put some guys on Tatooine to block your drains (boosted with Tessek, of course), then you can really bring the beats. On average, after you flip, in every battle on Tatooine your power is +8. You get a destiny to power only and your regular battle destiny, and the average destiny in this deck is close to 4.
In addition to being high power, great destiny and good forfeit, the Rats will give you a free peek into your opponent’s hand every turn (read the text on the Chadras if you don’t know what I mean). It very rarely actually steals a character weapon (although I’ve stolen Mara’s and Vader’s sabers), but it does give you some insight every turn as to what they might throw at you. It can be very powerful, especially when you have lik 6 or more Chadra-Fans on table.
In case there is any confusion, I will explain why I play the cards I do
15 Mice I find that this is a good number. I rarely complain of getting to many in my hand, and their destiny is awesome.
It’s A Trap The biggest reason is to protect Tessek and Kabe from getting Snipered, but also has an awesome secondary use (cancelling a battle). Recently, in a game against TIEs, I was able to put 1 Chadra-Fan at a lot of different sites to rack up the force drain, while holding an It’s A Trap. If my opponent had come down to try to smack one of my poor little mice, I would have cancelled the battle, and then deployed Lando, Luke and 4 more Chadra Fans to kick the CRAP out of whoever tried to hurt my little mouse.
Rendevous Point It helps with generation. This deck doesn’t need a lot of force, and doesn’t give itself a lot of force, but this can help. However, the biggest reason it is in the deck is, believe it or not, as a counter to MKOS. In case you don’t know what I mean, once you flip MKOS, unless there is a non-tatooine location on table, ALL your aliens are forfeit +2. So against MKOS, try and draw it, or play Tunnel Vision and get it.
Choke Powerful to cancel EJP Dengar or Mighty Jabba’s gametext, but mainly in there to stop Ephant Mon from keeping Kabe out of the AC.
2 Kabes Helps me get her early, and I can cancel a Force Drain or destiny with her once I flip.
My choice of mains The Lightsaber weilding mains are pretty much auto-hits in this deck. Pretty much everyone save Lord Vader with Saber will get hit 75% of the time (more on lower ability), so they rock with the Chadra beatdown. Lando is just the absoute MAN on Tatooine, and he rocks for throwing out some character who will soak up damage with his forfeit (Evax, for example).
Locations I have no way of getting my locations from reserve, and don’t want to play Docking Bays, so I play a good number of sites I can drain at. The Antechamber is cool because all Imperials are deploy +2 there, and my power is +2. No big deal, but it helps.
Glancing Blow I play this rather than Courage because all my mains that can get dueled have Sabers, so I can maybe cancel that Visage they drew for duel destiny. In addition, when I am beating the mess out of a Vader, it doesn’t hurt if he is power 0.
Order To Engage This card is huge, and can single handedly win you the game against MKOS.
Effective Repairs To get back Order To Engage in case the opponent cancels it (Point Man, maybe?), but also works on your other Effects.
Bacta Tank Your generation isn’t massive, but your rats only cost 1 force to get out of the tank, so it halpes recycle your rodents faster than the objective’s retrieval.
No space In decks like these, it really is the best way to go, IMHO. I can drain for HUGE amounts on the ground, and if they try to come with a weak ground force to one of my sites, they very well could get beaten for 8 or more cards. Just this past Saturday I played 2 space decks, and beat an Ominous Rumors deck by quite a bit, and lost a game I should have won against TIEs. Anyway, no space hasn’t been a problem for me.
NOTE THIS DECK AS IS HAS ONE VERY BIG WEAKNESS As it is right now, Bubo puts a HUGE hole in this deck. He can go to the AC and eat Kabe and Tessek. There is one very easy way to fix this problem. Just add a Rennek. You can pull him with YWTMTJN, and he will totally block Bubo. The reason I don’t play Rennek is a meta choice. I haven’t seen Bubo deployed in Huntsville in many months, so I don’t expect to see him at my local tournaments. If I was going to an area I don’t know so well or a bigger tournament, I would drop a Chadra for Rennek in a heartbeat.
Cards I want to add (I will most likely make these changes in the near future) Boussh (To make HD even easier to beat) Rennek Nabrun Leids EPP Han (to go with Luke)
Against major decktypes Hunt Down Play smart, that is my best advice. Vader can kill a lot of Chadra-Fans, so you might want to stay away from him. You should be able to spread and drain for more than he can, and you have 2 Trans Terms as well as a Bothan Spy to cancel Visage.
MKOS Start the Antechamber rather than the Audience Chamber, and try to get Bo Shuda as quickly as you can. A great addition against MKOS would be a LS Jabba’s Palace to convert their Jabba’s Palace. This is a pretty rough game, but Order To Engage can win it for you and Rendevous Point helps a lot. Use Tessek to your advantage to get big force drains. The best thing to do would be to playtest against it, because I am not 100% sure what to do.
BHBM Basically the same thing as Hunt Down. Spread and drain. This is the one deck that I haven’t played against, but it should be easy enough.
Ominous Rumors No problem. Take over Endor so they can’t boost their drains and cancel the drains you can with Bargaining Table. If they stick Ephant Mon at the Bunker, Choke him and beat the crap out of him.
TIEs Spread drain and don’t forget to retrieve your Chadra Fan once per turn. If they battle you with a GAY TIE that takes no damamge at the Docking Bay, for heavan’s sake REFUSE TO DRAW BATTLE DESTINY (for more on this subject, read my TR for 12-23-00).
I think that about covers it. I haven’t found a way to get this deck to beat Court Flip at all because they can put Kabe and Tessek out of play, so if you have any suggestions, LMK, but don’t count off too badly for it, as I almost NEVER see a Court flip deck anymore.
Hope you like it-
Andy
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