Raveling’s Watch Your Step
Title: Raveling’s Watch Your Step
Author: Michael "Gilliatt" Raveling
Date: Jan 21, 2001
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘Starting(8) Watch Your Step Tatooine Docking Bay 94 Cantina Heading For the Medical Frigate Aim High Insurrection Staging Areas
Characters(22) Luke Skywalker Jedi Knight Luke with Lightsaber Han with Heavy Blaster Pistol X 2 Melas X 2 Chewbacca Protector X 2 Lando with Blaster Pistol Wedge Antilles X 2 Talon Karrde X 2 Theron Nutt Mirax Terrik X 2 Dash Rendar Palace Raider X 2 Ralltiir Freighter Captain X 3
Locations(3) Home 1 Docking Bay Spaceport Docking Bay Endor Back Door
Ships/Vehicles(4) Pulsar Skate Patrol Craft X 3
Interrupts/Effects(23) Nar Shadda Wind Chimes X 4 Fallen Portal X 4 Rebel Barrier X 2 Out of Commission/ Transmission Terminated X 2 Bith Shuffle/ Desperate Reach X 2 Old Ben Don’t Get @#$%y Insertion Planning Tunnel Vision Slight Weapons Malfunction Draw Their Fire Goo Nee Tay Bacta Tank Ounee Ta ‘
Strategy: ‘
NOTE Undefeated after 5 tourneys. Change Pulsar Skate for Outrider as per several reviewers comments.
Strategy
Go for the first turn flip always. I have not had a problem drawing in my opening hand at least 2 smugglers. Pull out the Home 1 Docking Bay first to and set up your guys. You get a minimum of 6 force on your first turn so you will have enough activated to move quickly. Put one at the Docking Bay and the strongest at the Cantina. Always save one force in case First Strike gets played against you. If you have the Rebel Barrier in hand then you are safe. Don’t let the dark side player activate for their non-battlegrounds. If you do then you are going to lose with this deck. On the second turn pull the Space port docking bay so now your reserve has only the single zero destiny in it. That is good. Back up the cantina with a second smuggler or even a third. Once you have three smugglers in the Cantina it should be relatively safe.
In battles the first interrupt you should place out of play is Heading For the Medical Frigate so that you get the +1 battle destiny. Playing interrupts from the lost pile is a hard thing to do for me because that game mechanic is so far removed from the normal style of play. With 2 Transmission Terminated, you can play it four times to cancel Visage. You can use Tunnel Vision twice to get 2 cards from your force pile. You can play Fallen Portal from the lost pile when he battles. You can use Nar Shadda Wind Chimes to look for an alien out of the lost pile. You can use Don’t Get Coc.ky twice for monster battle destiny. This is a powerful ability that this objective gives you. Use it.
And once you flip Sense and Alter cannot be played by anyone so no need to be afraid of them canceling any of your stuff. Put the onus on the dark side to beat you out of the Cantina. If they don’t you get a nice drain for 3 on your second turn and it will be hard for him to stop you once you set up in there.
Match Ups
Versus SCUM You have lots of aliens to go into Jabba’s Palace. You can sit them at Jabba’s Palace to play Fallen Portal or you can just sit outside and drain. Your biggest fear should be Ig-88 with gun because he can remove a scrub and then battle you. That is why the Patrol Crafts are in there. The Palace Raiders can’t be captured, hit, or choked when they are inside the Patrol Craft so the exterior sites should be yours. Tallon Karrde should probably sit in the Cantina to protect your smugglers from Ig-88. Tallon is big.
BHBM The Yannick variation is tough. The Emperor will come down to the Cantina and sit. Now you have two options here. You can set up WYS by deploying the Spaceport Docking Bay and then controlling the two docking bays. Then on the second turn try to chop the Emperor with Luke with Saber. Your second option is for you to go on turn one to try to chop the Emperor with Luke with Saber. Your destinies are high in this deck so either option should work unless you can’t get the Emperor with Luke. If Vader gets your Luke you have enough guys to kill Vader wherever he is. Getting two battle destiny is huge and should kill Vader wherever he goes.
Hunt Down Set up and wait for Vader to come down. He will probably come to the Cantina but if he comes to a docking bay you can always try to Fallen Portal him.
Ralltiir Operations Start Ounee Ta and then you get so much force that you won’t know what to do.
Agents of Black Sun Set up and wait for Xizor to come to a battleground. Then go over there and kill him. You get two destinies when you have more than 5 ability so don’t be caught without that. You can also just out drain this deck type. Does anyone play this?
CCT Hmm I haven’t played against the new R2 frozen Han variation but you should set up and wait to fight. You can pound them good.
Ties If they are using The Emperor’s Hand or Emperors Shield or any Tie/Ln then use Don’t Get Coc.ky twice to kill those buggers. Then set up the Outrider with two smugglers. This will be a tough match up but you get a nice early drain of 3 at the Cantina/Docking bay. Get the Spaceport Docking bay and the Back Door set up as soon as possible for maximum drain. Aim High should hurt their retrieval. Drain at whatever sites they give you.
SYCFA Set up and go to his sites. You can go and battle him at the Death Star so that you can get some more drains in and then the drain race should be yours. Try to draw for the Back Door and go for as much drain as you can. If it is the Brangus variation then you should try to kill Brangus off the Death Star so that he never even gets to start using the Brangus engine.
Questions
How did this deck do for you? It went undefeated in 5 tournaments and you can read about those tourneys in my tournament report that is already on Decktech called St. Cloud 2001 and another in Rochester, MN 2001. Go check them out.
Why so intent on the first turn flip? If you get the first turn flip you can limit the dark side activation and get a little bit of force denial going. You also get no Sense/Alter early which is why you don’t need any Sense/Alter protection in this deck. You also get +2 forfeit and an extra battle destiny. Getting a quick start is the key to putting the dark side on its heels and making them have to come to you. It also helps make them focus on ground quickly so that they don’t go to your Tatooine system and get a free drain on you for the whole game.
Why Old Ben? It can’t be Sensed so you can use it Twice to save two guys in one battle. I like the surprise factor of it and nothing can cancel it once WYS is flipped. Who else is going to play this card?
Why the Outrider? This ship can be immune to attrition with Dash and is much better than the Pulsar Skate. If you need to you can use Tunnel Vision to get the ship and pilot together. I went with almost no space in this deck so that I can win the ground battles. This deck wins them easily.
Why no Kessel Runs? Kessel Runs take forever to complete and distract WYS from flipping quickly. You don’t need to retrieve that much if you can win the ground.
Why so many Fallen Portals? This card is nice because it happens before the weapons phase. You can use it at the Back Door which is the reason that site is even in this deck. With the high destiny in this deck you can even get Vader from time to time.
Why no Correlian? Well to be honest I did have one in here for several incarnations of this deck but I finally decided that another Ralltiir Freighter Captain was a lot better than one single Correlian.
Why do you use this objective? Right now people still aren’t prepared for this objective played in this way. That gives you a nice edge. They don’t expect a non-Kessel run variation that can destroy them on the ground. The extra battle destiny is the key.
Why so many wimp interrupts? High battle destiny is a key to winning battles on the ground and also a key to chopping the Emperor. Attrition kills all the dark side characters.
Why one Insertion Planning? You can use this with the Ralltiir Freighter Captains at exterior sites. It is a six destiny so that makes it a nice thing to track through your reserve with Mirax. Actually this card should be the first to swap out as it is not very versatile.
How do I get Wedge to 12 forfeit? Base 6 with +2 from Insurrection, +2 from WYS, and +2 from Tallon Karrde. That makes him perfect Bacta Tank fodder.
Do you have any other questions?
-Space. If dark side space was big in my area I wouldn’t play this deck. Dark side space has been eliminated by the hundreds of variations of the Super Falcon that have cropped up. If I was to get matched up against a dark side space deck I would do the exact same set up as I described to get an early drain going at the docking bay and Cantina. Then on the second turn I would set up the drain at the Spaceport docking bay. Any ground sites they put out I would deploy to and drain there. It would be close. I tend to go with one-sided light side decks because the dark side is much more powerful when it comes to ground and space.
Tip Try using the Nar Shadda Wind Chimes once per game even when you have two or three of those non-uniques out. You just might retrieve some. ‘