Vader’s Retirement Party
Title: Vader’s Retirement Party
Author: Steve "BlackViper" Marshall
Date: May 29, 2001
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘Vader’s Retirement Party
STARTING (8)
Hunt Down
Holotheater
Med Chamber
Visage Of The Emperor
Prepared Defenses
Imperial Arrest Order
Mobilization Points
Crush The Rebellion
[TOTAL CARDS = 8]
CHARACTERS (17)
Admiral Cheerios
Darth Vader
Darth Vader, DLOTS x 2
Emperor Palpatine x 3
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Grand Moff Tarkin x 2
Guri
Janus Greejatus
Lord Vader x 2
Mara Jade x 2
Prince Xizor
[TOTAL CARDS = 25]
EFFECTS (9)
Blast Door Controls
Come Here You Big Coward
Lateral Damage
No Escape
Search & Destroy
Secret Plans
Security Precautions
There’ll Be Hell To Pay
Visage Of The Emperor
[TOTAL CARDS = 34]
INTERRUPTS (15)
Control & Set For Stun
Evader & Monnok
Force Lightning
I Have You Now x 2
Imperial Command x 2
Main Course
Masterful Move x 2
This Is Some Rescue x 2
Twi’lek Advisor x 2
You Are Beaten
[TOTAL CARDS = 49]
LOCATIONS (4)
Cloud City DB
Carida
Death Star DB
Executor DB
[TOTAL CARDS = 53]
SHIPS (4)
Boba Fett In Roadster
Bossk In Bus
Chimaera
Zuckuss In Z-Train
[TOTAL CARDS = 57]
WEAPONS (3)
Mara’s Beatstick
Vader Beatstick x 2
[TOTAL CARDS = 60] ‘
Strategy: ‘
STRATEGY
Okay, here goes. This has been my dark side deck for about 6 months now, but Tatooine is out to change all that. I can’t use my baby anymore, so after several months, I’m finally de-sleeving the deck. This deck (in its post-Reflections 2 form) won 83% of its sanctioned games, losing only to players rated > 1800. Not too bad, considering I’m only 1750 myself. The post-R2 form blasted me through the entire 1600 ratings in 3 tournaments - not too shabby. It has the power. Well, it HAD the power, anyway. Beats the crap out of most decks out there, and absolutely destroyed Scott Anderson’s Profit (read my Vegas DPC report, game 7 - I still feel bad about that game). But enough about my bragging already - here’s the tech.
ALWAYS start with these 3 effects - I don’t care what your opponent is playing or how good another effect looks instead of Crush. CRUSH IS TECH. Pull Monnok, pull I Have You Now, cripples the 1-hit kill, and a way to shuffle your deck every turn. That’s insanely awesome.
NO DUELLING? No, I don’t duel. I did at one point, but with Reflections 2, there were better options for the card slots. I kept the high destinies rolling, but I chose a high character count above duelling because of the heavy ground decks in my local meta. Duelling is good - duelling is our friend. It just didn’t make the cut this time.
ADMIRAL CHEERIOS? WHAT KIND OF A GHETTO CARD IS THAT? I can’t ever remember the guy’s name, and even when I’m looking at the card, I can’t pronounce it. Gimme a break. (Great, now I’ve got the song stuck in my head.) Against little or no space, this guy rules. Sure, I’ll pull my admiral for an uncontested drain of 2 instead of 1. Doubling Force loss is our friend. Also adds 3 and makes the Imperial Commands worth the deck space - if I only had 1 admiral, the Imp Commands wouldn’t be worth the card slots. If you’re up against a heavy space deck, pull this guy and lose him to Visage.
COME HERE YOU BIG COWARD was put into the deck after Brett Kitani beat me in the Phoenix I-10 cup final confrontation because he put Boushh aboard the Executor and drained for around 30 Force for the duration of the game. 30 FORCE That’s MY DAMN EXECUTOR You don’t belong there How dare you board MY starships and steal half of MY Life ;-) I did the same to him next game, and we both put CHYBC in our decks after the tournament. This is a SERIOUSLY underplayed card.
SECURITY PRECAUTIONS I played against Hidden Base once without this card and lost by 35. ’Nough said.
CONTROL & SFS This card is so tech I’m really glad Shaner told me to trade out Sniper & Dark Strike for it. I added it for the Vegas DPC, and it won me 2 games - the first, BoShek and Dash were aboard the Outrider against Fett. Dash got scared and ran away, leaving BoShek alone with Fett. The attrition killed the pilot and the outrider, and Fett lived to see another day without fear of having his power reduced. The other game it won was just insane. I used Janus to track down a Visage and used SFS against BEN KENOBI. That’s right, my muppet friends - I used SFS to clear out a Jedi. Also useful for cancelling those annoying drains of EBO (use it with No Escape if you can).
MAIN COURSE Frozen Assets / Draw Their Fire sucks, and that’s just the bottom line. NOBODY sees this card coming. It’s also nice against the 1-battle kill decks, subtracting up to 13 from opponent’s attrition and total power. When you’re on Cloud City or the Death Star (where they only get 2 destinies anyway), this will save you. I’ve also used it against Cappy Han and Dash in space together, that pesky Tawss Khaa, and all sorts of other strange combinations. This is a useful card and replaced Operational As Planned.
2 COPIES OF THIS IS SOME RESCUE is just cool. I don’t care if they cancel Visage - that’s fine. I won’t dedicate the card space to a destiny 2 Holonet Transmission. Who really cares? What I care about is placing Vader out of play. That bites. If they’re playing the combo, I can cancel either one. It’s a Used 6, which is always good in my decks. ;-) VADER CANNOT BE PLACED OUT OF PLAY - it really puts the hurt on the game, although you can still win.
That’s pretty much it - the rest is typical Hunt Down And Destroy Anything That Moves. I won’t go into deck matchups, because the card strategies really covered just about everything. Against space, deploy wisely. You don’t need a strong space force to beat up on EBO - you just need 1 good battle. Search And Destroy and drains will do the rest. S&D will win you games against all-space decks, and you can beat up whatever’s left. Chances are, their ground crew will be on the Executor cancelling Visage, so CHYBC will buy you a few turns until Xizor can beat the snot out of them, as most spy infiltration crews won’t get a destiny against him. Against ground, put the Chimaera in space with the admirals aboard for the drain of 2 and beat the ground crew to a bloody pulp. Get him quick so he can’t build his forces or activate tons with Staging Areas. Make him use his Force just to keep up with your damage. This deck is all about speed and putting pressure on your opponent early and constantly. Against a mix of space and ground, destroy his forces on the ground, since he probably won’t be able to keep up with your ground forces. Choose your battles in space, and you should be able to control both if you play wisely. Track like a Viper. Janus is your friend - high destiny draws are your friend - high destiny Used Interrupts are your friend - tracking in pairs is your friend. My tracking articles run pretty much hand-in-hand with this deck.
As I said before, this deck is being destroyed. I’m just posting it because I’ve had quite a few requests for it. It will probably lose consistantly after the release of Tatooine, so I wouldn’t test your luck with it (but if you really want to, feel free of course). Thanks for reading
-Steve ‘