Hayes’ Brilliant Pile

Title: Hayes’ Brilliant Pile
Author: Hayes "Hayes" Hunter
Date: Jun 14, 2001 Rating: 5.0

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Cards:

‘Locations (9)

Dagobah Yoda’s Hut

Endor Chief Chirpa’s Hut

Home One War Room

Hoth Echo Command Center (War Room)

Rendezvous Point

Tatooine Obi-Wan’s Hut

Tatooine Slave Quarters

Yavin 4 Massassi Headquarters

Yavin 4 Massassi War Room

Characters (18)

B’omarr Monk

Chewbacca, Protector

Corran Horn

Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol x2

Jar Jar Binks

Lando With Vibro-Ax

Leia With Blaster Rifle

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight x2

Obi-Wan With Lightsaber x2

Padme Naberrie

Qui-Gon Jinn x2

Shmi Skywalker

Tawss Khaa

Threepio With His Parts Showing

Starships (2)

Millennium Falcon

Spiral

Interrupts (15)

Alter x2

Alter & Friendly Fire

Gift Of The Mentor

Heading For The Medical Frigate

It Could Be Worse

Nabrun Leids

Sense x2

Sense & Recoil In Fear x3

Shocking Information & Grimtaash

Sorry About The Mess

Weapon Levitation

Effects (14)

Bacta Tank

Battle Plan

Beggar x2

Don’t Do That Again

Draw Their Fire

Goo Nee Tay x2

Honor Of The Jedi

Ounee Ta

Revolution

Scrambled Transmission

What’re You Tryin’ To Push On Us?

Your Insight Serves You Well

Weapons (2)

Luke’s Lightsaber

Qui-Gon Jinn’s Lightsaber

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Strategy: ‘

Please read the strategy section (and the tournament report detailing all 11 competitive games the deck has played) before reviewing

Deck Edit Mad Props to Joe ”ishi tib” Pestro for coming up with this one take out something (I reccomend Battle Plan) for We’re Doomed. The card is a used destiny 5, and reads as follows

If you have less than 15 Life Force, play during opponent’s control phase. For remainder of turn, each time you must lose Force, the loss is cut in half (round up). If R2-D2 or C-3PO on table, round down.

Oh look, Threepio is on the table and better yet, he will even let you get this back into hand every turn It’s total tech. Basically, unless they grab it, you will win any game once you get down to 15 force.

Brief Update Several of you don’t see how this beats the HDADTJ racing/dueling/insert deck. First, let me point you in the direction of my TR ”RamapotatoCon (Triple TR)” Now let me explain how the game goes Dark goes first and starts the race. You should draw destiny and stack if you don’t think you’re going to need the card, depsite the fact you don’t have a racer. You don’t want them to get to a total of 22, then sit there until they really NEED to retrieve- you want them to pop Watto’s Box ASAP (that sounded bad). If you have ICBW, great, if not, oh well. In the meanwhile there is the matter of Visage, as someone pointed out. If you are sure they are not playing Odds, then feel free to ditch YISYW for Honor. If not, no biggie. You have spies and that Revo to cancel it. Speaking of Revo, none of the new HDADTJ decks start Crush- they all start the Box. Even though I did encounter Crush/Evader/Monnok I had little trouble utilizing the Revo in almost all of my games. Okay, now let’s look at the force they are generating it’s a total of 5 on their own. That right there doesn’t even pay for Vader. I can Revo and get Goo out quickly so they are in a tough spot. The real key to beating the deck is to get Qui Gon out. You’ll want to use Luke and Obi sparingly, but even still with tracked destinies and mutiple senses in hand you should have no problems avoiding the duel. Actually, against Chu he managed to duel Obi- I lost of course, but I just ICBWed the damage. Simple. Beyond that, they are force to put out characters one at a time, so often Vader or Palp will be sitting at a site just waiting for you to Nabrun over and beat the crap out of him. Of course, if they ever draw up alot you can use that Grimtaash to hopefully get doubles of duel interrupts or whatever, and when they get down to jsut a few cards in hand a Recoil in Fear can really screw things up for them. I guess it’s more difficult to explain how the exact match up works, but if you play it you will see. Hope that helps. End Update.

And just to reiterate Scrambled Transmission owns. Thank you.

After getting kinda frustrated in trying to come up with some Tatooine decks to play I went back to basics. The original version of the deck had all 10 twixes and about 18 effects designed to counter every conceivable dark deck I could imagine… I hope She’s Alright, Uh-Oh, Legendary Starfighter, etc. The deck went 3-0 winning over Chris Twigg and Chu, but it was the first tournament after Tatooine’s release so we didn’t know what was going on. The version of the deck I played at the DPC was very similar, but with EPP Luke, and only one Beggar. After taking the decks only sanctioned loss to John Hawkins I quickly threw in the extra beggar and Battle Plan to counter that crazy TDIGWATT stuff, so this is the exact version I played in the open.

Basic Concept

Like a lot of the decks I’ve posted, this one is once again very similar to ye ol’ TRM deck. Looking briefly at the dark environment, they are @#$%ed. The biggest problem for dark now is activation. Twixes don’t do well against WYS and Mob Points is basically hosed. This deck just takes advantage of that. Revo and Goo Nee Tay is like the twist of the knife once it’s already in the wound. DDTA totally takes out Mob Points, but if they want to try the Piett/Merrejek trick to get a system I have Shock/Grim for their location (go read Merrejek). Force denial at its finest, plain and simple. I dunno, just use naked 3PO to get the cards you need and out activate your opponent then beat them down.

The Start

Start Shmi’s Hut and HFTMF for Srcambled every time (Scrambled lets you get a card for your droid every turn, and can wipe out the entire hand of someone playing more SAC than me- remember it makes Shock/Grim IMMUNE TO SENSE). The other possible starting effects are Battle Plan (for TIEs or that crazy DD stuff), Don’t Do That Again (for Mob Points and for pulling that grabber against more SAC intensive decks than my own), Draw Their Fire (again for TIEs, but I generally wouldn’t start this), Ou nee Ta (for Rops), and of course Your Insight Serves You Well (for Honor or whatever is needed). Just check your deck w/ scrambled and get out Shmi and her droid to get your locations out faster. Remember, the more twixes you play the easier it is to draw them, so you activate more so you can draw more and deploy more so you can activate more, and eventually beat the crap out of your opponent (they can’t just do nothing can they?) and win.

As far as other starts go, I would like to point out that the HFTMF start is far more versatile than the CP outskirts start by far, as it allows you to directly counter what they are doing right off the bat, as opposed to having to draw stuff to hurt them, and the Podracing thing just wouldn’t work with the lowish destiny in here.

Mid game

Once you get out a couple twixes you just start building your hand. Get a nice SAC package to defend your Goo Nee Tay or Nabrun or whatever and then set a couple guys up at one of their sites to drain for 2-3 (or just attack them). I dunno, it’s almost TRM- just play reactively and trust the deck.

Endgame

Up to this point you should have a lost pile about equal to your opponents, if not larger, unless they did something stupid (like underestimating your position). But here is where the deck excels. In the pre-Tatooine environment most decks would get all of their locations out within the first couple of turns, then would remain at that relatively low level of activation for the rest of the game- well this deck just keeps growing. You can activate more and more to the point were you can track your entire deck and Naked Threepio becomes a god, letting you play that ICBW every single turn, or that Nabrun for repeated beat downs. Since all of the 0s are out of the deck you’ll be hitting everything with all the 4s left in your deck, and best of all, you’ll still be out activating your opponent even more.

Card Selection By Type

Locations- Nine twixes, plain and simple. Pure force denial.

Characters- 18 is the perfect number of characters in most light decks. Really not much can be said about the selection here, it’s pretty tight. Just a good mix of mains and utility characters. The monk is huge against those DLS starts with canceling their JP text and for giving me force, plus it lets me create battle ground I can drain for a bunch at.

Ships- 2 is a bit on the slim side, but Naked Threepio lets you find them quickly. I was only playing 2 because in testing a lot of the dark decks were omitting space entirely, or at least skimping on it.

Interrupts- Again, kinda on the slim side for my tastes, but with all the effects in the deck there really isn’t that much room. Shock/Grim is huge. Absolutely Huge. It stops Merrejek, and gives some much needed hand size control to the light side, plus it’s a card Threepio can put back so you can check what’s in your force pile every turn. The SA package is tight. The 3x S/RIF lets you ditch your hand for more twixes etc. SATM for spies and such, Nabrun is key, ICBW is great against pod racing and duels, then GOTM and Weap Lev for the sabers. Simple.

Effects- Going down the list Bacta Tank is huge with all the activation you get, and works really well considering there are only 2 copies of each main in the deck. It also is great fun w/ Jar Jar. Battle Plan is another card that plays into the whole force denial thing. If they are only activating 10 force a turn, and all their stuff costs +2 they won’t want to pay to drain, and if I’m activating 20 a turn I should have no problem paying the 3 force. Beggar is such a huge card. It takes out the barrier and prevents them from saving force to deploy more than 2 characters on a single turn. I added a second copy into the deck for all the Kisses I saw at the DPC. Don’t Do That Again is cool cause it lets you get the grabber, which lets you win any SAC war on your turn, even if you only have one sense or alter in your hand. Draw Their Fire is a must. Goo Nee Tay is the card the deck hinges on. It adds insult to injury in this activation weak environment for dark. Honor Of The Jedi works well against TINT and stops all those nasty drains at my twixes. Ounee Ta for ROPS and for getting back whatever I need (Like a Beggar or something). Revolution is classic. Scrambled Transmission is what makes the deck work. It gives a means of assessing what’s in your force pile every turn to let you build your hand, and it lets you win the SAC wars. What’re You Tryin’ To Push On Us? and Your Insight Serves You Well are just essential for so many reasons.

Weapons- They’re Lightsabers, what more can you ask for?

Destiny Layout

While the decks destiny is on the low side, it keeps improving through out the game and Threepio makes tracking a cinch so it’s really a non issue with this deck.

Track Record

10-1 in sanctioned play, and then won in the final duel of the open by 29. My TRs detailing these games will be up very shortly.

Match-ups (briefly)

AOBS- DDTA shuts down their early activation. Just try to get Luke out to one of their DBs or get him down with a Monk. The Shock/Grim and grabber will assure SAC superiority.

BHBM- Play reactively. Give them Luke if it seems like that is the best course of action. Otherwise just try to beat them down. If they are doing Big Blue they will have tough time paying for all that stuff w/ Mob Points not working, and the Anus version has to few characters to really be any threat.

CCT- I dunno what this deck does, but the pile should win every time.

COTVG (mains)- Similar to the AOBS, except now you can Nabrun. You’ll find them losing to their own objective most of the time. Just play it straight up, win the SAC wars and win more battles than them and the game will go your way.

EOPS- Haven’t seen this one yet but it’s a pretty bad matchup for the deck, perhaps the only one since you can’t rely on the Beggar DTF beatdown as much. The only thing that bodes well for this match up is that you won’t see it a lot in the new environment.

HDADTJ- Any version that isn’t racing/dueling/high destiny will just roll over and die to the power of my mains and toys… remember all you need is a 2 with Qui Gon to sense and stuff. Very easy to do with the aid of the Naked droid. The High destiny version is equally easy to beat due to their lack of locations. The choke becomes extremely effective and you will have no problems out draining and out battling them, despite the fact that they will win the race.

Operatives- Ha. Battle Plan and Ou Nee Ta wreck.

ISB- If it’s scum you should be able to handle it. If it’s space… well that’s why I played ISB space. It’s not a deck that you can do much against except attempt to maximize your drains and attempt to set up faster than them.

MKOS- Scum is dead, mains and toys die quickly to this deck as well.

ROPS- Ou Nee Ta.

SYC- SYC mains is just pathetic. Really. TIEs is pretty easy to take out with the DTF/Beggar combo and you can slow them down with Battle Plan. Remember Grimtaash as well. Huge card.

TDIGWATT- Any version that isn’t that OR speed DD stuff will just die. I’ll be out activating them like 3 to 1, so I’ll have no problem owning them on the ground. Now, with the changes I made to the deck I should have little problem even going against the Kiss version. The beggars and grabber will make short work of their precious Kiss so my mains can come down and fight. We all saw what happened when the insert popped against John and he had no force for Kiss.

DLS/ Combat Readiness for JP- I saw this matchup so many times. SAC always, sometimes scanning crew, disarmeds, you name it. This deck is designed to take it out. Win the SAC wars and use the force imbalance to your advantage, it’s as simple as that.

YMSYL- This game is a joke. If they are doing IAO you can run from their Ice Storms after beating up on their walkers. If they aren’t doing IAO you can Nabrun around easily. Mob Point and Merrejek seem to be a stable to any sort of walker deck and mine just takes them out.

Well that’s all I can think of now. If you have any questions or comments please put them in the review and I’ll update the strategy section accordingly. Make sure to read my TR(s) (not sure if it’s going to be one big one yet or 3 separate ones) which will be up SOON to get a better feel of how the deck performs. Thanks.

-Hayes ”Hayes” Hunter

Massachusetts State Champion

RamapoCon 3 Champion

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