Pods and Odds - Norm’s Tatooine Hunt Down

Title: Pods and Odds - Norm’s Tatooine Hunt Down
Author: Norman "Norman" Horn
Date: Jun 20, 2001 Rating: 4.5

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Cards:

‘Locations/Objective (6)

Hunt Down

Meditation Chamber

Holotheatre

Dagobah Cave

Imperial Holotable

Podrace Arena

Characters (11)

2x Lord Vader

2x Darth Vader with Lightsaber

Darth Vader, DLOTS

3x Emperor Palpatine

3x Tech M’Or

Weapons (2)

2x Vader’s Lightsaber

Epics/Pods (3)

Epic Duel

Boonta Eve Podrace

Sebulba’s Podracer

Effects (11)

Watto’s Box

No Escape

Reactor Terminal

3x Numbers

Secret Plans

Something Special

3x Visage

Interrupts (27)

Start Your Engines

3x Vader’s Obsession

2x The Circle is Now Complete

2x Focused Attack

2x Counter Assault

2x Ommni Box & It’s Worse

2x This Is Some Rescue

2x Twi’lek

2x Podracer Collision

2x Operational As Planned

Weapon Levitation

Imperial Barrier

Force Lightning

Vader’s Anger

Elis Helrot

Masterful Move

Endor Occupation ‘

Strategy: ‘

UPDATE

Thanks for your review Captain Solo, but I believe I did mention and admit that QMC would give me trouble. Any solutions? ;-) Anyway, thanks for your review. And to everyone else, make sure you read the strategy

END UPDATE

This is not Kohman’s Pod/Odd deck. Check them and you’ll see the difference…

Read my tournament report to see how this deck works in practice. The game with this deck against my brother is a good read, believe me ;-)

You always start Start Your Engines for the Pod Stuff and Watto’s Box.

Overall, you have a huge direct damage potential, and that doesn’t even count damage done by battles or drains. With enough damage done quickly, you can effectively shut down your opponent in under 20 minutes. Here’s the way you cause that damage…

Podracing Believe me when I say the destiny for this deck is insane. There are over 20 sixes, and the average destiny is 4.2. That is very high. Therefore, unless your opponent is using something along the lines of 4 A Step Backwards and is playing Watch Your Step, you should about 90 percent of the time win the podrace. Podracer Collision is a great help overall so use it to your advantage. If you like you could use a Pit Crews or Hit Racer instead, but I think I’d rather use the Collisions. Anyway, podracing is your first damage dealer, giving you a 22 force swing.

Dueling Again, since the destiny is EXTREMELY high. You can virtually blind duel anybody and win. I have blind dueled Lord Vader (without saber) against Ben Kenobi with a Saber and won. The interrupts Vader’s Anger and Focused Attack are just added bonuses. In fact, when it really comes down to it you barely need the V’s Anger but it is good for extra insurance. If you can win two duels you deal out 14 damage at least, perhaps more, perhaps less, but either way you’re dealing good damage.

Counter Assault Great way to cause some damage against weaker characters (like scouts, hint hint). It works pretty well versus WYS too, unless Jedi Luke w/saber is there. I caught people for up to 13 force before, it’s fun watching them squirm…

Visage Great damage provider, that’s why I play 3 and a Masterful Move and 2 Twi’leks. Since you’ll generally have Palpatine at the holotheatre, you can Lightning the first spy they try on you, so generally their method for cancelling Visage will be to use Transmission Terminated. Hopefully they’re playing the combo version, so you should be able to play This is Some Rescue on it to cancel. I don’t play Holonent transmission cuz it’s destiny 2, not 6.

3,720 to 1 Your most insonsistent form of damgage because of Insights. Your hope is that either they aren’t playing it or will drop it for Honor to help them against Visage. When that happens drop an Odds and watch them tremble. With Emperor, Techman, and Vader you’ll have 13 against their 3, maybe 4. So you just caused another 10 damage (hopefully). If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, you can still win.

*Keep in mind that you need to try to keep 1 Combo It’s Worse in your hand in case they play It Could Be Worse. It is absolutely murder for you to be able to play that card after they are losing force to a podrace, play ICBW, then you up the ante by another 10-15 cards used by It’s worse.

General Strategy You start off by initiating the podrace so that you can maximize your retrieval. Against decks that don’t play Insights, your first objective is to set up Odds. That involves getting Palpatine and Techman to the Holotheatre. Then you set up your duel cards and WAIT until they deploy something. Remember, you can eat the Visage damage for quite a while because of your retrieval. So, never deploy Vader until they’ve already deployed stuff, then deploy and duel/beat with your extremely high destiny. It’s not uncommon to choke off Leia/Luke/Han, duel a character, then either clear the whole site or to see Vader stand alone. Don’t worry if they aren’t deploying battleground sites, it hurts them as much as it hurts you, just wait until the podrace is done to go there. When you can, look for an opportunity to Counter Assault a group of scrubs, you’re virtually guaranteed to make them lose lots of cards. Don’t forget that if you can’t duel because of location discrepancies than you can use the Hunt Down text to pull vader back to your hand.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to complete Odds to win. Dueling and Pods can do most of the work, and battling/draining can finish him, plus we’re not even counting Counter Assault. I have indeed won a hard-fought game where I never was able to play an odds, check out my latest tourney report

Remember It’s all about the destiny ;-)

There isn’t a huge need for a matchups section, but let me at least give you a few specifics. Against a space only deck such as EBO or HB non-mains you basically need to complete the podrace pretty fast and get Vader out to start draining and preventing your Visage from hurting you. QMC run-away decks are generally your hardest matchup because it gets difficult to duel, Insights may never be dropped, and Counter Assault may not be able to be used, so you just have to play your best. Great Shot Kid might be hard but it isn’t played much, and if it were Insights probably wouldn’t be a huge threat. WYS Podracing with Denial could also be difficult because ASB can be played from lost. Against that deck it is imperative that you kill off Luke and use your podracer Collisions.

Card Choices Why Imperial Holotable and the Cave? Because I’d like some more activation. Keep in mind that MASTERFUL MOVE can pull the Holotable. Besides, nobody plays dejariks/holos anyway, so it’s very unlikely that you’ll end up with a drain of two on you the entire time. Because if they want to play Grimtaash, they play the combo, and if they want to play Houjix, they play the combo. Additionally, if Visage is canceled and if you deployed it again it would only hurt you, then it is beneficial to just use it on the holotable instead and settle for the drain of 1.

Why 3 Obsessions? Because Run Luke Run is big and I want to be able to duel Luke no matter what.

Why Reactor Terminal? You’re going to draw a lot and you need a way to put stuff back. Great card in this deck, believe me. Trouble getting Vader? Draw tons and put everything you didn’t want back

Why Elis Helrot? Because the use of Insurrection is lower now, and if it works it is awesome. Perfect way to get around to places to duel/battle.

Why Endor Occupation? Because I want to cancel Celebrations, that’s why Duh… If all else fails use Operational as planned to put it back.

As you can see, this deck can pack a serious punch. It definitely isn’t something I’d bring to worlds, but it can certainly shock up your local scene, as it did mine Just try it and see. ;-)

Best of luck, until then,

~Norman ‘