Raveling’s Episode 1 Racer
Title: Raveling’s Episode 1 Racer
Author: Michael "Gilliatt" Raveling
Date: Oct 7, 2001
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘Starting(5)
Coruscant Jedi Council Chamber
Boonta Eve Podrace
Anakin’s Podracer
Tatooine Podrace Arena
Security Control
Locations(2)
Naboo Theed Palace DB
Coruscant Docking Bay
Epic Events(1)
I Did It
Characters(17)
Senator Palpatine X 2
Queen Amidala X 2
Chancellor Valorum X 2
Yoda
Obi-Wan Padawan Learner
Yane
Horox Ryyder
Padme Naberrie
Sei Taria
Sache
Tendau Bendon
Mas Amedda
Yarua
Liana Meria
Interrupts(31)
A Step Backwards X 4
We Wish to Board At Once X 4
Too Close For Comfort X 4
Ive Decided to Go Back X 4
Might of the Republic X 3
Changing The Odds X 2
My Loyal Bodyguard X 2
Alter X 3
Sense X 3
Neck and Neck
Podrace Prep
Effects(2)
Another Pathetic Lifeform
A Tragedy Has Occured
Vehicles(2)
Eopie ‘
Strategy: ‘
This is the top-secret deck I would have used at Deciphercon if day one was an Episode 1 event.
Basic Strategy
This deck is designed to podrace and fight in the senate. It is designed to give you plenty of weapons inside the Senate while starving the DS for force. It uses enough podrace interrupts to win the race. While not a game breaker like the DS podrace is, the LS still gets plenty of benefits from winning the race.
It also ignores Tattoine so that Maul is stuck there if he gets deployed to the Landing Site.
First Turn
If you have a Might of the Republic in your hand then use it to pull Senator Palpatine. Don’t bother that your other senators are lesser destiny. Just pull Palpatine cause he is the best first turn battler. Look for the Coruscant DB and pull I Did It.
Now what you do is dependent on what you have in your hand and what the opponent did.
If they deployed characters to the senate you can deploy your characters and fight them. I would recommend this if you have a good shot of wiping out Lott Dod so that he can’t use his game text on turn two. Without Lott Dod, the DS will be on the ropes to hold the senate.
If they didn’t deploy to the senate then get Yoda out and move him to the Coruscant DB for an early drain. Don’t worry about Maul battling you cause you are giving the DS almost no force to work with.
Next turns
Focus on winning the podrace. You should draw as much as possible while battling with the cheap 4 ability characters. Use them on suicide battles to take out Maul and whatever forces he has deployed. After you win the podrace then you have to be smart and choose your battles so that you don’t lose everyone.
Get the queen to the senate chamber and you can retrieve for occupying the Naboo DB. Get the Queen on an Eopie for huge destiny draws.
Match-ups
This is going to be a short match ups section.
Versus Watto Objective Battle his forces at Mos Espa. Only battle Watto when necessary. Just put Watto back into reserve when you need to. This shouldn’t be a tough match-up because he gives you so much force to work with and retrieval.
Versus DS Senators Take over the Senate as soon as he deploys his senators there. Deploy your 4- ability senators and wipe out his wimpy senators. Yours will return after the Podrace is finished. His won’t be retrieved. Your senators have some nice abilities when they rule the Senate so use them. Your high destinies will kill off two of his senators at once when you draw multiple destinies. Cause you are force choking him you also can draw more and fight more with cheaper guys.
Alter their political effects after they put a Senator to them and not before. That way you kill his senators before they even hit the table.
Being this is the deck type you will see in tournament play let me talk about a few of the turns.
First turn they get 5 force. Two of that force is spent on flashing Anakin with Sebulba. Now they only have three force left. So they can put down Lott Dod and Orn Free Ta or just wait till turn two. If they put down senators then deploy your 4-ability senator (which you should have) and fight him to try to kill off Lott Dod.
Usually they won’t have enough force to deploy any senators first turn. That means you get your turn one to set up. Deploy Yoda and move him to the docking bay. Draw up the one force you have after this. Next turn they will have enough force to deploy some senators into the senate. Usually only two senators again cause they only have 6 force. On your next turn you have 8 force to work with. That is about three senators you can deploy to battle. That is enough force to do anything with. They will probably only have 6 force for their second turn.
If they deploy Maul to the Landing Site, he can’t drain there unless he has his saber. You have three Amidala’s to try to deploy so that the Landing Site drain is totally negated. Now the DS needs to have his own Tattoine site to move Maul to drain.
Versus Space Ignore it. You can’t do anything about it anyway. Just focus on the race. Take over whatever locations of his that you can to drain at.
Versus Pile Focus on the podrace. If you win it you have a good chance against a disorganized pile.
Questions
Why use those two docking bays? I figured that Keder would block one drain and that meant I needed one other place to drain at. I also wanted to take advantage of Amidala’s retrieval when she was in the senate with a Naboo site. Plus they get pulled from your reserve early and give Yoda a nice place to drain at.
Why so many podrace interrupts? You need to win the race. If any DS deck starts Watto’s Box that means they are counting on winning the race and you need to stop that. All those interrupts give you the advantage and Too Close For Comfort is a good card in this environment anyway to stop Maul from chopping your characters.
Why no Qui-Gon? Qui gon is a liability in this format. He is one destiny and his saber is one destiny. Phantom Menace makes Maul immune to attrition should Qui-Gon meet up with him and then Maul Strikes means you will lose big force in the battle. I chose to focus on the characters that can still kill Maul without having to worry about Maul Strikes and Phantom Menace. You might notice that I have to worry about that with Yoda but Yoda gets pulled from the reserve to minimize the low destiny in this deck and Maul Strikes only adds 1 destiny against him.
Where is your objective? This deck focuses on force starving the opponent. LS senators gives away force to the opponent. Also Hyperdrive Generators is a terrible objective to play in the Episode 1 environment because it gives away so much force, gives Maul immunity, and gives the DS places to drain you at.
With so many 5-destinies how do you get around Rune Haako? Rune is a problem. You will probably need multiple destinies to kill him or good tracking to get around your opponent just calling 5 every time there is a battle and canceling your destiny draw every time.
Can you really beat space decks with this? Yep. You give them no force and then podrace them for a loss of six. You drain at the Podrace Arena and the DBs to win this matchup. There isn’t enough support for space decks in Episode 1 environments.
EDIT question based on reviews Why Padme? I like her high forfeit, her power, her ability to ride the Eopies, and that sometimes you can pull Obi Wan from your reserve. Maybe a third queen would be more useful versus the senate and that is up to you. No political effects because this deck does not start the senate Objective.
EDIT question
Why not use the Senate Objective? Really the reason is that it is card intensive. 1 for senate, 1 for objective, 2 or 3 for political effects. That is 4 cards that are wasted. Then you have to worry about your political effects getting altered and losing more senators. The senators are good in the senate without having to have the objective anyways.
Tip Don’t forget about I Did It to make your opponent lose for saving force. Also don’t forget about Amidala retrieval if you get a chance to use it. Don’t forget Might of the Republic retrieval whenever you can.
Destiny Breakdown(right before turn 1)
Sevens = 0
Sixes = 0
Fives = 23
Fours = 8
Threes = 15
Twos = 4
Ones = 2
Zeros = 3
Boxes of Coruscant used for this deck = 5
Thanks to Chris Perman for loaning me the needed cards. Thanks to Graham and Grace for playtesting suggestions. Look for the Dark Side counterpart already posted.
Any Questions?
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