HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS

Title: HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS
Author: Steve "BlackViper" Marshall
Date: Apr 19, 2001 Rating: 4.5


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Cards:

‘START (7)

Quiet Mining Colony

Bespin

Cloud City Casino

Heading For The Medical Frigate

Weather Vane

Do Or Do Not & Wise Advice

Aim High

CHARACTERS (15)

Chewbacca, Protector

Chewie With Blaster Rifle (Shiny)

Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol (Shiny) x 2

Lando Calrissian x 4

Leia With Blaster Rifle (Shiny) x 2

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight (Shiny) x 3

Obi-Wan With Lightsaber (Shiny) x 2

WEAPONS (2)

Anakin’s Lightsaber (Shiny)

Luke’s Lightsaber (Shiny)

INTERRUPTS (23)

The Bith Shuffle & Desparate Reach x 3

Cloud City Sabacc x 3

Control

Gift Of The Mentor (Shiny)

I Know

Into The Ventilation Shaft, Lefty x 3

Lift Tube Escape x 2

Out Of Commission (Foreign) x 3

Shocking Information & Grimtaash

The Signal

Throw Me Another Charge

Transmission Terminated

Trooper Sabacc x 2

EFFECTS (6)

Bacta Tank (Shiny)

Goo Nee Tay (Shiny)

Honor Of The Jedi

Ounee Ta

What’re You Tryin’ To Push On Us?

Your Insight Serves You Well

BLUE (3)

Lift Tube x 3

LOCATIONS (4)

Cloud City Chasm Walkway

Cloud City Guest Quarters

Cloud City North Corridor

Cloud City West Gallery ‘

Strategy: ‘

I’m noticing that everything has gone the way of war. Hunt Down is popular, Watch Your Step is a beating, variants of There Is Good In Him & Bring Him Before Me are out there, Training with auto-hit Mains, TIEs, Deadbolt, and the list just goes on. Everybody’s battling, so I’ve decided to throw down the battles and play a different game - sabacc. The title is stolen from War Games.

CHANGES TO THE DECK

  • I had a Surprise Assault in here with all the high destinies, but it never really did the damage I wanted it to do, so I changed it to a Control.

  • I’d like to fit the Home One into the deck to block the drain of 2 at my system, but I can’t find a spot for this destiny-1 starship.

  • I had the Docking Bay in the deck, but since mine are suicide mains, I don’t care where they go and I don’t want to give him a way onto my city if he doesn’t deploy there.

I’m sure you get the basic idea of the deck. Circulate your destiny 5 and 6 cards through your deck, play Sabacc at the Casino with Lando, if he gets in big trouble, drop him down to the Weather Vane and bring him back on your Move phase. With all the high destinies, it’s hard for your suicide EPPs to miss. There are so many 5s and 6s that losing sabacc consistantly takes a talent. This is a really straight-forward deck, but here’s most of my tech in case you’re missing it

CARD CHOICES

  • I play 3 Cloud City Sabacc and 2 Trooper Sabacc because I want to avoid catch cards.

  • The Chasm Walkway is an obvious choice with all of the permanent weapons I’m using.

  • The Guest Quarters is 2-1 with a drain -1, and Leia deploys for 2.

  • The North Corridor is another 2-1 site with the ability to cancel any drain at another Cloud City site.

  • The West Gallery is another 2-1 site with a drain -1. My blasters can fire next door (into the Chasm Walkway) and cause all sorts of characters to drop to the Vane.

  • Throw Me Another Charge I really hate trooper decks. And it’s an easily circulating 6.

  • Lando Calrissian Adds or subtracts 1 from my total. I know General Lando is a wild card for both versions of sabacc, but I’ve tried using him, and I don’t think he’s a better card choice for what I want to do.

  • I was thinking about a Visored Vision, but I don’t know where I’d fit this poor destiny card in the deck.

  • The Bith Shuffle & Desparate Reach I was using just Desparate Reach, but the combo does EVERYTHING that the original does, and also provides the ability to circulate it without any annoying “if this happens” crap. Remember to shuffle your opponent’s deck if he’s stacking Perfect Sabacc against you.

COMBOS

  • Into The Ventilation Shaft & Desparate Reach These are destiny 5 & 6 cards, mind you Block a drain of 3, then dive into the Weather Vane just to return for another game of sabacc and another blocked drain. Nice Lando protection. It also works on the Chasm Walkway - hit all his characters except one, leaving your army against his lone Tarkin. Sure. Then, use Into The Ventilation Shaft to kill whoever is still hanging on the Weather Vane before he can be rescued, then use Desparate Reach to redeloy on the other side of Cloud City before anyone else jumps down to the Vane.

  • Lift Tube & Lift Tube Escape Deploy a Lift Tube, then remove it with Lift Tube Escape. Now you’ve got destiny 5 & 6 cards next to each other. Read up on your tracking articles and play another game of Perfect Sabacc.

  • Sabacc & Out Of Commission I destroyed a Hunt Down deck because his sabacc hand had 2 Vaders in it, and I had Perfect Sabacc. Both Vaders go away, and I played Out Of Commission to grab one of them. You will usually pick characters or This Is Some Rescue to go lost, then use Out Of Commission to destroy them and circulate another 5.

  • Aim High & 5 blasters Yeah, that’s nice. Leia and Han are power 12, 2 shots, and 2 destinies (4 with I Know). Chewie and Han are power 15, 2 shots, and 2 destiny. Power +5 is my friend. And for alien swarms or TIE swarms, make ’em pay for that retrieval.

  • Chasm Walkway & Into The Ventilation Shaft Initiate a losing battle, hit a key character or 2, and drop down to the Weather Vane. It’s too much fun.

MATCH UPS

Hunt Down

What an easy game to win. Start Insight instead of Aim High and ditch it for Honor and drop Lando to the Casino as soon as you get him and Into The Shaft into hand. Play sabacc, discard his characters (especially Vader), and steal his bounty hunter ships. When you send a Vader packing, play a quick Out Of Commission or 3 to get him. Keep Jedi Luke alive and armed, and you shouldn’t have any problems duelling.

Raltiir Ops

This shouldn’t be that hard, either. Start Ounee Ta instead of Aim High and drop your EPPs as soon as you can to prevent (or at least delay) the flip. Perfect Sabacc him to death, because you know you’re gonna win just about every hand. While he’s searching his deck every turn for a card or a site, he’s also preventing himself from stacking high destinies together. He’ll have to make a choice on whether to stack a good sabacc hand or get cards to battle you effectively. Read into his strategy and make him pay for making the wrong choice. If you get into really bad trouble on Cloud City for whatever reason, remember that Into The Shaft is NOT unique

Agents Of The Dark Sun

Okay, this is where Into The Shaft really shines because capturing Lando would really suck. You NEED to drop him to the Weather Vane (without the Cloud City sector, he can’t be captured there) and hit every bounty hunter that comes down at you. If they’re all dead, they can’t capture you. You should win your battles on power, and multiple destines should kill off the others. Make sure you hit the high forfeit characters Don’t worry about Xizor unless you KNOW he’s low on bounty hunters or he comes after you - Xizor will be protected. Don’t be foolish and let your EPPs get captured, or you will lose this game. Start Aim High, but Signal for Honor early to avoid some Direct Damage. You just have to take the damage and let the sabacc return the damage right back at him. He should NOT win sabacc. DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT let Lando get captured

TIE Swarm

Yeah, this is a fun game. Not only are you going to win sabacc 99% of the time, but if you steal his entire space force (which I’ve done before and achieved a full win by 62) he can’t damage you. Sabacc will royally rape him. Keep the Out Of Commissions flowing to ensure he doesn’t have any cards to retrieve. If you’re lucky, he’ll catch Out Of Commission instead of Cloud City Sabacc. Whichever card he picks, though, make him pay by abusing him with the other. If he catches both, play as many as you’ve got, but be careful with Cloud City Sabacc. You only get 3 games, so make sure you’ve got Perfect Sabacc stacked first. Play Trooper Sabacc to at least give him the damage. If he catches Cloud City Sabacc early, this could be a hard one to win. Play conservatively, and do NOT go to the Death Star. Go to his docking bay to kill the TIE if Battle Order is on the table to rob him of the ability to drain without paying, then move away so he can’t retrieve with First Strike. If he does manage to retrieve with First Strike at his docking bay against you, do NOT draw a destiny on his battles. Draw destiny on your battles to kill him, but if you don’t draw on him your turn, he can’t lose the TIE and gives you the easy retrieval of 1.

BHBM

Luke is a beating in this game. Your lost pile is his personal Bacta Tank, and he deploys for 6 from your Reserve. Kill off his characters using this easy forfeit of 9 until Vader hits the table, then give him up to flip Bring Him. Vader will slit his own wrists in self-inflicted direct damage. Don’t lose foolish battles - if you’re on the losing side, drop to the Weather Vane. If you’re at the Chasm Walkway, hit someone before dropping down. Let Sabacc and Bith Shuffle screw up his stacked destinies, and watch out for Tramples if he’s playing with Walkers. This isn’t that hard.

Well, that’s it from me. I don’t plan on playing this in a tournament scene for awhile, as I want Watch Your Step to shine before my aliens cost +4 to deploy with the release of Tatooine. When it comes out, I’ll probably switch to this deck and add a couple cards to let me flip and be even more of a beating. This is a fun deck, and I hope you really enjoy playing it and annoying your opponent with sabacc Have fun with this one.

-Steve ‘