Math Class

Title: Math Class
Author: Eric "YOYOY" Bailey
Date: Jun 2, 2001 Rating: 3.5

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Cards:

‘Starting (3)

Tatooine Cantina

Twi’lek Advisor

Presence Of The Force (on Cantina)

Locations (2)

Endor Back Door

Dagobah

Characters (20)

Imperial Trooper Guard x20

Interrupts

Trooper Assault x10

You Overestimate Their Chances x8

Counter Assault x7

Trooper Charge x4

Tauntaun Skull x3

Stunning Leader x2

Control & Set For Stun

Abyssin Ornament ‘

Strategy: ‘

Strategy

Is everybody here? Okay, now sit down, shut up, and pay attention

We will be taking this time to review some Mathematical Principles and Problems concerning SWCCG as they pertain to this particular deck. Now, as you can see, this deck has 20 Imperial Trooper Guards. Can anyone tell me what Imperial Trooper Guards are famous for? Yes, you in the back?

“They’re famous for being used as BB gun target practice.”

Actually, no, they’re-

“They’re used as a firewood substitute?”

No, no, no, they’re-

“Used to induce vomiting?”

No They’re known for being power 0 in a battle you initiate, and being power 4 in a battle the opponent initiates. Logically you would prefer to use these for defense, correct? Now, also notice that they’re troopers. Which means they can be used with trooper guards. Can anyone give me 2 examples of trooper-related Interrupts?

“Blasted Droid and Trooper Assault?”

“Imperial Reinforcements and Freeze?”

“Don’t Move and Full Scale Alerts?”

“Trooper Charge and Local Trouble?”

“You Rebel Scum and Blast Points?”

“Trooper Sabacc and Tactical Support?”

Very good class Those are all good examples, but the 2 I was specifically looking for were Trooper Assault and Trooper Charge. Trooper Assault makes all troopers in a battle power +2 and immune to attrition. Trooper Charge makes one trooper power +2, however, that trooper must be forfeited at the end of the battle. And if the trooper is a Death Star Trooper, he is power +3 instead. Now, if you’ll read the lore of the Imperial Trooper Guard, you’ll notice that it indeed is a Death Star trooper, thus gaining the +1 bonus for the Interrupt.

“What’s the big deal about being power +3 instead of +2?”

I’m glad you asked It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, does it? But, when tripled, it does. More on this later. Also on these two Interrupts, you’ll notice they have very high destinies, 5 for Trooper Assault and 6 for Trooper Charge. The Imperial Trooper Guards themselves are destiny 3, so the deck has a high average destiny, and we haven’t gotten to all the cards yet, and why high destinies make an especially big different in this deck. We’ll get to that real quick, though, but for now, let’s talk about the card, You Overestimate Their Chances. A Lost Interrupt, destiny 4. What does it do?

“Use if the opponent just initiated a battle, use to triple the resulting battle damage for the eventual loser?”

Correct, very good This Interrupt must be used when the opponent initiates a battle, and Imperial Trooper Guards are at their best when the opponent initiates a battle. Starting to notice a pattern? What you want to do with this deck is put Imperial Trooper Guards in front of their characters. When the opponent battles, use YOTC, then use the Interrupts to increase your power. Your power should be higher than theirs, sometimes a lot higher, and then the battle damage for the opponent is tripled. How powerful can this be? Let’s have an example. EPP Obi, EPP Luke, EPP Leia, and EPP Han are at a site. You have 4 Imperial Trooper Guards at that site. The opponent battles. You use YOTC. You then use Trooper Assault. Then you use Trooper Charge on a trooper we’ll designate the ’lead’ trooper. Then you use Tauntaun Skull to add 3 to your power (notice how the destiny on the trooper comes in handy even in the Lost Pile). The opponent draws 3 battle destinies, let’s say their all 4s, adds up to 12. You draw one battle destiny, a 5. Which side loses the battles, and how much Force does that side have to lose?

“Hmmm… ummm… let’s see… Obi’s power 5, Luke 5, Leia 3, Han 4…”

“Trooper Guard’s power 4 + 2 +3 (for one of them), there’s 4 of them…”

I’ll tell you right now, LS has a power + destiny of 29. There are 3 power 6 troopers, and a power 9 trooper. Add 3 power from the Skull, and the destiny 5. DS has a power + destiny of 35. 35 - 29 = 6. Not much, but since it’s tripled, LS has to lose 18. Your troopers are immune to attrition. Not bad. And that’s if they attack with 4 mains Imagine you just have 2 Imperial Trooper Guards your Cantina, draining for 3. The opponent decides to clear the site and stop the drain, since you don’t get a destiny draw and the troopers have extremely low forfeit, all the LS player has to do is draw a 2 and the site is cleared. LS player deploys Orrimarko there and battles. You use YOTC (triple losing side’s loss) Trooper Assault (add 4), Trooper Charge (add 3), and Tauntaun Skull (add 3). Your troopers were power 8. Your total is 18, LS player draws a 4 for destiny, LS player’s total is 8. LS player loses 30 Force If you would’ve had just one other Imperial Trooper Guard there, LS player would’ve lost 18 more Force (power 4 + 2 = 6 x 3 = 18) and you still wouldn’t’ve gotten a destiny draw. You get the idea now? Take your troopers to the opponent and get them to battle. If they do, make them lose a lot of Force. If they don’t, at least you’re blocking a drain. Go to every site on the table, draining for all you can, spread out. You can drain for 3 at the Cantina right from the beginning. Some things to remember

The destinies in this deck are huge. Half your deck is destiny 4 or higher. A fourth of your deck is destiny 5 or higher. Besides your starting locations, only 3 cards have a destiny below 3. Use this to your advantage. Tracking destinies is too easy with this deck.
There are a handful of cards in the deck that can single-handedly win the game for you. Stunning Leader is one of them. If they battle you at the Cantina with Obi, Luke, Leia, Han, Orrimarko, Melas, Corran Horn, Tawss Khaa, Qui-Gon, Jar-Jar, Padmé, General Crix Madine, Mon Mothma, Boshek, Bron Burs, Leesub Sirln, Momaw Nadon, Talon Karrde, and Chewie, and you use Stunning Leader, only Chewie is left. No destiny draw. And if you had 4 troopers there, use YOTC and Trooper Assault, draw a 5 for destiny, opponent has lose over 60 Force (you do the math). Game over, you win. Control & Set For Stun is another awesome card. Use Control to cancel Sense when they try to cancel YOTC. Play Set For Stun on a guy, using one of your many high destinies. The other game-breaking card is Abyssin Ornament. Once you have, say, 15 Troopers out, use the Ornament to retrieve 15 Force. You can also use the Ornament, and the Skulls, as destiny 5s that you can recycle at any time.
The Counter Assaults are in there because of your high destinies. You don’t even need to track, but if you can, all the better. If they drain with a power 1 scrub, a power 2 scrub, a power 3 main, and a power 6 main, and you use Counter Assault, let’s say you draw a 5, a 3, a 6, and a 4. The opponent has to lose 4 Force. Track a couple sixes and a couple fives, even more Force loss. The more characters they pack at a site, the more Force loss, the better.
This deck isn’t designed to win Worlds. It’s just a really fun deck that can win some games and give you lots of laughs. It does have plenty of weaknesses. Monnok, space decks (drain at your sites, retrieve in the lategame, and Counter Assault all you can, you can still win), SAC, Houjix, character removal, a LS deck that does the same thing (wins in one big battle), Undercover spies, podracing, etc.

Any questions?

“Yeah, um, what is Dagobah in there for?”

It’s in there to give you more Force, and the opponent can’t drain there. Kind of like a twix site, but the opponent can’t drain there. Ever. 2 more Force may not sound like a lot, but it lets you deploy one more Imperial Trooper Guard. Just one Imperial Trooper Guard… power 4, + 2 = 6, tripled = 18. Or, if you use Trooper Charge, 4 + 2 + 3 = 8 tripled = 24. Just one Imperial Trooper Guard can make the opponent lose 24 more Force

“Why do you start with the Cantina with Presence Of The Force on it?”

3 Force from one site that you can drain for 3 at, and it’s interior for Stunning Leader. Even if the opponent doesn’t give you any icons, you can deploy 2 Guards there first turn, giving you an early jump on the opponent.

“What’s the Back Door for?”

You gotta drain somewhere, why not the Back Door? Drain for 2 (wihtout modifiers that can be canceled by Jedi Test 1 or Menace Fades, mind you), get 2 icons, sounds good to me. Why not?

“Where am I supposed to get 20 Imperial Trooper Guards?”

Hey, I have plenty of extras if you need any, just ask. But seriously, just buy them as singles somewhere. Trade for some. Use Japanese ones. You can use less than 20, there’s no set numbers. Use 30 if you want.

“You don’t expect me to actually use this at a tournament, do you?”

Well, that depends on a couple of things. One, how much do you care about your ratings? If you care a lot, then you’d probably rather play something tried and true, something “popular.” Second, do you play Star Wars to have fun, or to make your rating higher? This deck is fun, but like I’ve said, there are better decks out there, decks that are tried and true, decks that are popular and powerful. If you don’t mind the possibility of losing ratings points, try it. The only reason I say this is because a smart player can beat the deck. All they have to do is avoid battling you while blocking your drains. So, to play this deck effectively, you have to be smarter than your opponent, getting them to battle you. Try not to let the opponent know what you’re doing. If you can, try to give the opponent the impression that you’re a newbie. You know, play without sleeves, read every card he deploys like you’ve never seen it before, etc… oh, and here’s a tip. If they figure out what you’re doing, or at least they think they know, battle them. What I mean is this… they may just think you’re just playing with Imperial Trooper guards because they’re non-uniques that are powerul when defending. So they think you use them to sit there and drain, and if they battle you, you’re really powerful, or something like that. So maybe they’ll think they’ll be smart and just put a scrub in front of your 3 Guards. They figure, hey, I’m power 2, he’s power 0, so if he battles me, no loss, right? Wrong. Deploy another Guard to get a battle destiny, battle, use Trooper Assault, Trooper Charge, and Tauntaun Skull. Draw a destiny 5. Your power is something like 14 (2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 3) with a destiny of 5, that’s 19. That scrub just got the crap beaten out of it by power 0 troopers that can’t even move.

“I don’t like your style… how else could I play this deck, any ideas?”

Another card you can use is Release Your Anger. If opponent initiated the battle, add a destiny to your power. Not too powerful though, just an idea… if you don’t like the tripling card, but still like Guards and the other Interrupts, and you’re a wizard at tracking, than substitute the YOTCs with Emergency Deployments. Keep the Guards alone, because for the Interrupt to work the opponent has to have more than double your power. Then, when they battle, instead of using YOTC, use Emergency Deployment, deploying 3 tracked Imperial Trooper Guards off the top of your Reserve deck to that same site for free This is probably the version for more expert players (ones who can track pretty well anyway), since the opponent is more likely to battle a single Guard than 2 or 3 or 4 or more of them. Another idea is-

“Sorry to interrupt, but why can’t you use both YOTC and Emergency Deployment?”

Ah, excellent question. It seems that would be awesome wouldn’t it? You know… you have a single Guard, they battle, you deploy 3 more, then use YOTC, then all the power boosting Interrupts… but alas, you can’t. You see, they’re both ’just’ action Interrupts. Technically, you can’t use both of them in the same battle. However, you could easily pull this off on a newbie or scrub player. But against a smart player who can point out that it’s illegal, you can’t use both, sorry. It is possible against more experienced players, just use them quickly and hope he doesn’t know all about ’just’ actions.

Back to other ideas. If you could somehow work it in, using Dark Jedi Presence can be absolutely horrifying. You would have a single Guard, they battle, use Emergency Deployment, to deploy Vader (DVDLOTS would work best, choke a guy) and 2 more Guards. The guards are power 4. Use Trooper Assault. They’re power 6. Use Trooper Charge on the lead trooper. He’s power 9. Use Dark Jedi Presence, and the power of the troopers is doubled, now becoming power 12, the lead trooper power 18. Your power at the site is 48. But this is why I don’t use Emergency Deployment, I’d rather triple their loss than double the trooper’s power, especially since the troopers are already powerful, tripling the loss is more debilitating. But again, if you could pull it off, doing both would be rather huge. Oh yeah, one thing with this deck, if you’re really worried about SAC (not too popular in my area), just start the SAC killer combo card, along with 2 other Effects. Another idea is using Numbers. You could even use Raithal to make the troopers destiny 4, or 5 if you control the system. I’m working on incorporating this idea, and making a wicked TIE/Guard/Numbers deck. If I can get it to work, it should be fun. Speaking of which, your assignment this week is to design your own Imperial Trooper Guard Deck. Originality will be rewarded, the decks are due Friday.

Don’t you wish school was something like this? “Today in History, Ralltiir Ops, post-Endor and pre-Death Star II.” Separate math courses would be Tracking, Brainiac Equations (what if A was switched with X in the formula?), etc. Imagine the story problems… “LS player has out the following locations…” Law school would be working with the rulings, you eventually becoming a rules lawyer or judge. P.E. would be actually playing the game, or tossing the cards, or lifting them, or something… English would be all about prepositions (at, present, presence, occupy, etc.), how to correctly word gameplay functions, and card lore. Biology could have questions like, “Name one species with 4 eyes.” Talz… oh wait, sorry, I’m ranting, back to the deck…

Matchups

TIGIH Scouts Block their drains on the ground. Drain on the ground for as much as you can. Get them to battle you and make them lose lots of Force, or drain for a lot. Counter Assault when possible, and retrieve late in the game.

QMC Block their drains on the ground. Drain on the ground for as much as you can. Get them to battle you and make them lose lots of Force, or drain for a lot. Counter Assault when possible, and retrieve late in the game.

RST Block their drains on the ground. Drain on the ground for as much as you can. Get them to battle you and make them lose lots of Force, or drain for a lot. Counter Assault when possible, and retrieve late in the game.

Any deck made or played by Brian Hunter Block their drains on the ground. Drain on the ground for as much as you can. Get them to battle you and make them lose lots of Force, or drain for a lot. Counter Assault when possible, and retrieve late in the game.

You get the idea? Any suggestions, ideas, or whatever is welcome, thanks,

Eric

P.S. In case you’re wondering, I hate math. -) ‘