Raveling’s Agents of Black Sun
Title: Raveling’s Agents of Black Sun
Author: Michael "Gilliatt" Raveling
Date: Jan 22, 2001
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘Starting(8) Agents of Black Sun Coruscant Coruscant Imperial City Prince Xizor Prepared Defences IAO Mobilization Points There is No Try/Oppressive Enforcement
Characters (10) Guri X 2 Ig-88 with Riot Gun U-3Po x 2 Labria X 2 4-LOM with Conscussion Rifle 5d6-ra-7 Murtoc Yine
Ships (11) Stinger X 2 Zuckuss in Mist Hunter X 2 Boba Fett in Slave 1 X 2 Dengar In Punishing 1 X 2 IG-88 in IG-2000 Bossk In Hounds Tooth Virago
Locations (6) Coruscant Docking Bay Sullust Rendili Kiffex Endor Kashyyk
Interrupts (12) Projective Telepathy X 2 Imperial Barrier X 2 Twilek Advisor X 2 Overload X 2 Ghkkk and Those Rebels Won’t Escape Us Always Thinking Your Stomach Operational As Planned Omni Box/ Its Worse
Effects (11) Dark Waters X 2 Undercover X 2 No Escape Secret Plans First Strike You Cannot Hide Forever There’ll Be Hell To Pay Imperial Decree Come Here You Big Coward
Extras (2) Black Sun Fleet X 2 ‘
Strategy: ‘
Strategy Before you activate get out Rendili. Then, first turn deploy the Coruscant Docking Bay and Rendili. Move Xizor to the Docking Bay. Now second turn you get nine force to work with. That is pretty good for only giving the light side 1 icon. There really isn’t any more to set up now so just use what cards you get into your hand. Deploy Black Sun Fleet when you control a system so you can use its Control phase movement whenever the light side deploys. Drop one of the big bounty hunter ships at each system and drain in space. Control the ground by using Dark Waters to cancel any drains of one and the Undercover Spies to go elsewhere. This deck includes plenty of options to stop ground drains so whatever is in your hand you should use. IAO is just in there to get out the Coruscant Docking Bay. Let Xizor sit at that docking bay all game. If you’re lucky the Light side player will keep Luke in his hand and wait for you to try to move Xizor and flip your objective. Don’t do that unless you know Luke is not coming out to chop him. Set up Dark Sun Fleet to do the Cantina shuffle in space. That means keep one system open and then on the control phase move a ship to that system to drain at two systems. Then on move phase move all your other ships to that system to back up the first ship. You get a drain at two systems and you only have to defend one. The effects package gives you a fighting chance against virtually every light side deck.
Match Ups Versus WYS You know they have almost no way of getting rid of your spies and they aren’t going to alter your Dark Waters. You should win. Their ships are weaker too.
Versus Hidden Base Your ships are stronger than anything they have, so you can smash them good. Use Dark Sun Fleet to battle all over the place and get rid of any ship swarms. Save those Overloads and you will probably use them.
Versus TIGIH You have no way to capture Luke. This will be a tough match up but you can win if you can beat them out of space. Your ships are stronger then his but you need about three or four of them together to beat them.
Versus Dagobah Your drains will kill them before they can even begin to battle you in space. You should start with Secret Plans instead of There Is No Try because Sense and Alter are really hard to play with their objective. They may try to come battle you once but your bounty hunter ships should eliminate them easily.
Versus AITC Does anyone play this? I guess somebody must. Your space drains should kill whatever they get on the ground. You have plenty of stuff to cancel their drains including Imperial Decree and Dark Waters together.
Versus the Super Falcon Guri is the answer. She stops all of their destinies but one and she adds one battle destiny. She is the Super Falcon killer and if you are to beat the super falcon you need to get her out and keep her out.
Versus Home One You have a million different ships that add destinies and you should kill this big mother easy.
Versus Swarms Your ships are stronger then any ships the light side could have in a swarm. The only danger is if they are using weapons to hit your ships you need to Overload them.
Questions Why not try to flip the objective? I tried out the Presence of the Force start and my Xizor got killed too easily. Trying to hold a battleground with Xizor is pretty tough. If you leave him at the Coruscant Docking Bay you get the ground site to play Imperial Decree with when you control two systems. If you need to you can always move him out but that should be a last option. The flip side of the objective is too easily flipped back to be useful.
Why that spy/Dark Waters ground defense? The dark side does have some good ground pounders but I wanted to focus on space. It is easy to set up the Undercover Spies and Dark Waters without too much risk while trying to battle the light side on ground leads to many, many unexpected hazards.
Why 5D6? This is a droid and so if Corran Horn breaks its cover you don’t need to worry about the light side battling it.
Why 2 Projective Telepathy’s? Dagobah decks like to use the direct damage of AFA and this card easily cancels it. Plus it is a way to try to defend your ships and characters from battles that you aren’t ready for.
Why 2 Dark Sun Fleets? This is actually a good Admirals Order for this deck. You aren’t running Scum so the retrieval part is no problem. You can set up a nice Cantina shuffle effect in space with this card and you can chase around any light side ships on the Control phase to smash them. This card works well and it is a nice destiny 6.
Why IG-88 with Riot Gun? In case Corran Horn comes down you need to kill him and quick. Use his capture ability to send Horn to the used pile or keep him captured all game. It’s up to you. You can also put him on your ship with 4-Lom for an extra battle destiny.
Why 4-Lom with Concussion Rifle? I use 2 Zuckuss’s so drawing an extra battle destiny with that ship is very nice. 4-Lom can also go to the ground to defend. Plus you can read my article Character of the Year 2000 to see why I think he belongs in nearly every deck. Even this space deck.
How did this deck do in tourney play? You can read about it in my tournament report St. Cloud 2001.
Why so much Guri and Stinger? This is how I remove the Super Falcon from the game. She cancels all destinies except the first one and she draws an extra battle destiny. She is a floating Imperial Command. She is even free on the 2 deploy Stinger. What a bargain.
Where is Vader? He can’t be played with this objective. Otherwise he would be in here. ‘