Court Still Kicking @ss

Title: Court Still Kicking @ss
Author: John "Parn12" Digiovanni
Date: Jan 10, 2001 Rating: 4.0

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Cards:

‘Starting 8 COTVG Tatooine Great Pit Of Carkoon Jabba’s Palace Audience Chamber Jabba’s Palace Dungeon Prepared Defenses First Strike No Bargain Power Of The Hutt

Locations 2 Tatooine Docking Bay 94 Tatooine Jabba’s Palace

Characters 17 Boelo Chall Bekan Dr. Evazan Dengar With Blaster Carbine Ephant Mon Gailid Jabba The Hutt Judo Kast J’Quille Kithaba Cloud City Engineer Mara Jade, The Emperor’s Hand Brangus Glee Boba Fett With Blaster Rifle IG-88 With Riot Gun 4-LOM With Concussion Rifle Ree-Yees

Starships 4 Bossk In Hound’s Tooth Dengar In Punishing One Jabba’s Space Cruiser Zuckuss In Mist Hunter

Interrupts 16 Imperial Barrier x2 None Shall Pass x3 Twi’lek Advisor x2 Projective Telepathy x2 Point Man Hidden Weapons x2 Sniper Ghhhk Jabba’s Through With You x2

Effects 11 Security Precautions Scum And Villainy Presence Of The Force x2 Disarmed Search And Destroy Oppressive Enforcement Hutt Influence Resistance Reactor Terminal Secret Plans

Devices/Weapons 2 Mandalorian Armor Mara Jade’s Lightsaber ‘

Strategy: ‘

I’ve always played a lot of cotvg, only can say that because it is one of the few decks that work constantly for me. This deck is more a bag of tricks coupled with a ton of good, hard-hitting aliens. A few things I’d like to be known now, this deck will be changed a good bit when I get my r2 tomorrow, and if the changes are huge, I may post another version of it too. I only have 1 Scum, 2 is good, but 1 still works… gotta go with what I got. Same holds true with 4-LOM and IG, though I want to change that soon.

Deck is blatently easy to run, establish on Tatooine just enough to get around your own end of the cotvg text. Pull out the db 94 on the first turn, only one 0 left in the deck, to be honest, don’t know why it is in there… 2 force, jabba’s palace site, but 1 in 52 chance of getting. But its helpful either way. If your opponent gives you a lot of force, good, makes it easier, otherwise it becomes a game of thinking. The earlier you can get Scum the better, the power to deploy -1 and retrieve 2 for doing what the deck does best… well, everyone knows the value of Scum. First turn (typically) you can deploy Jabba (make sure he’s in the deck when you go for db 94 with cotvg). Jabba will deploy with or without force from the light player, so get him to the audience chamber… +1 forfeit for all other aliens and activate 1 when you drain with an alien, that in its self is pretty powerful.. even if you force drain for 0 at the dungeon, still activate that 1. Don’t overdeploy with Jabba unless you fear SAC (against NSP/Barriers), a harsh beatdown without proper protection (Projective/Ghhhk), or you just cannnot get to your opponent, no how, no way. Typically Jabba and Boelo and perhaps 1 other person will do very well to hold the Chamber, Ephant Mon can hold that Dungeon, or works all the better in the chamber with Jabba. Everything else should be clockwork from there… stock some force perhaps, drains to annoy your opponent, massive battle waiting to errupt from your hand.

The interrupts in the deck are all known for what they do and are seen in many decks… most COTVG or MKOS play with NSP, and with No Bargain its all the worse for rebels. First they deploy at +2 (Jedi Luke is up to a massive 10 force) and then you ship Luke right back to his hand for the cost of 1 card to the used pile. Of course, Mara Jade cannot be at a Jabba’s Palace site to play NSP, so don’t do it. Barriers are self explanitory, like NSP, only prevents battle and moving. Put the two concepts together… especially the wiser players who try to milk barriers with ’smaller’ people first.. of course anyone will barrier a Luke or Obi, but what if you try to milk one with a Chewwie or Han? Okay, so he plays Chewwie first, barrier him… big deal, then he follows up with heavy Ben and Luke? None Shall Pass all his back up for poor Chewwie, and next turn Chewwie gets taken to the cleaners (and you retrieve 3 and he loses 1 for his trifles). A few other things in the deck… Jabba’s Through With You, even though the destiny may come up low from time to time, multiple destinies for people adding together or the use of a used interrupt is still powerful. May draw just that little bit more needed to kill someone immune to attrition, or add a bit more battle damage through power, so don’t knock multiple low destiny draws, its better than 1 low one, especially when it can simply recycle destiny 5 cards or just happens as a result of two things being together. Anyways, enough destiny rant, just had to make my views known.

Hidden Weapons… blah blah… Judo, Boba, Armor… yadda yadda… Jedi Luke… Obi… anyone. Easiest way to hit or capture someone, period. Used Interrupt, once again.

Projective Telepathy, same as above. Deploy… so on and so on… battle (retreive 3 lose 1), Telepathy yourself… battle canceled. Move Away, repeat as neccessary. Okay, may not work, I don’t know because they are all ’just’ actions to the battle being initiated, so I guess the logical order would be as follows (since I guess multiple things cannot realistically happen at the SAME time) Scum Retrieval, First Strike, then play Telepathy. Well, if that doesn’t work, it can still be used as a defensive tool to stop beat downs at random points in the game. (Someone send me a d-mail on that one, huh?)

Point Man just cancels lots of stuff, most notably Orders To Engage and Scramble, that and it is destiny of 5, just recycle it with Reactor Terminal if you need to.

Sniper, blowing away spies and characters is always fun to do.

This deck is a little effect driven, perhaps, but I like to think of it having a bit of something for almost everything. Hutt Influence is a must have against HB decks, Surprise Assaults, or occasional things that make you drain -1 due to something or another. The Influence can be pulled via Power of the Hutt. Presence of the Force allows the deck to turn non-battle grounds into battle grounds (most of them), or gives another icon to drain off of in case of Menace Fades or Training. Menace Fades isn’t much of a threat though, normally you want them down at a battleground to… battle them, who would’ve thought? Secret Plans is a bit of a thorn in the side for Profit, constant retrieval, Training, or anything that just uses a lot of retrieval at once, or even over the course of the game it could make the difference if you keep his force tied up due to retrieving. S&D is always just in case of HB/EBO/Training, that and Court text really starts to sting after a couple of turns, name of the game is to lure him down to you. Resistance is for crappy inserts or EBO drains, never leave home without it. OE is a bit of protection from SAC, Bossk in the Bus is destiny +1, and when I sit down and modify the deck, grabbers’ll be free. Security Precautions are always good, generate +1, destiny 5, HB killer. Its even better with Hutt Influence, probe just in order not to take battle damage, he can’t cancel the drains on the ground with HB anyways. Zuckuss goes up, retrieves 3 and he loses 1, destiny to kill a thing or two, lose Zuckuss, deply Dengar next turn, do the same thing… probably end up retrieving Zuckuss and hurting him a lot if that keeps up too long, all because you probed that one system (maybe he’ll get smart and move away?).

Character selection is simple too… lots of weapons, lots of bounty hunters (they’re +2 forfeit due to cotvg, +1 from Jabba… +3 total), just try to keep cotvg on the front side, if at all possible. Kithaba is a machine power wise, J’Quille is proficient at removing Chewwie from harm’s way. Dr. E just makes those weapons better to use, or even if you draw a 4-5 with hidden weapons he can kill the target, making anything on a 2-6 draw pretty much screwed, or if he’s deployed to a site where 4-LOM just disarmed Jedi Luke with his saber… Dr. E can clean the house out a bit. Maybe I should put another Dr. E in this deck, he just sounds buff the more I babble on about his uses. Everyone else is pretty much just straight forward, Dr. E was perhaps the only character that had many underlying uses that may otherwise go without being credited.

I could babble on further about deck vs. deck matchups, but each player will play a deck differently no matter how you say it would be best played. Even before anyone reads through this article they’d ’know’ its strengths and weaknesses and how they’d best play it, so to explain it would be senseless. I’ve always been a stalwart believer that the deck is only 50% of the process, the rest is how you personally play it. I gave all the tools below, can’t spoil it all and reveal everything I know about its workings, gotta save a little for everyone else. Anyways, enjoy the aliens, beat some rebels. And as always, have some fun ‘