The Finger of Death or All About R3
Title: The Finger of Death or All About R3
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Oct 28, 2001
Rating: 4.0
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Cards:
‘Starting (10)
Let Them Make the First Move/
At Last We Will Have Revenge
Deep Hatred
Theed Palace Generator
Theed Palace Generator Core
Start Your Engines
Sebulba’s Racer
Podrace Arena
Boonta Eve Podrace
Watto’s Box
Fear Is My Ally
Defensive Shields (10)
Fanfare
Leave Them to Me
Oppressive Enforcement
There Is No Try
Come Here You Big Coward
Weapon of a Sith
Allegations of Corruption
Battle Order
Do They Have a Code Clearance?
We’ll Let Fate-a Decide, Huh?
Sites (1)
Imperial Holotheatre
Epic Events (1)
Epic Duel
Characters (10)
Lord Maul x2
Choke Lord x2
Emperor Palpatine x2
Mara Jade
Janus Greejatus
Boba Fett, Bounty Hunter
Guri
Weapons (3)
Vader’s Saber
Maul’s Double-bladed Saber
Mara’s Saber
Ships (4)
Zuckuss in MH
Bossk in HT
Stinger
Maul’s Sith Infiltrator
Red (31)
First Strike
Omni Box & It’s Worse
Focused Attack
Force Lightning
Search and Destroy
Maul Strikes
Twi’lek Advisor
Image of the Dark Lord
You Cannot Hide Forever
Weapon Levitation
Imperial Arrest Order & Secret Plans
Podracer Collision x5
I Have You Now x2
Operational as Planned x2
Masterful Move x3
The Circle Is Now Complete x2
Vader’s Obsession x2
The Phantom Menace x2
Visage of the Emperor x2 ‘
Strategy: ‘
Responses to early comments
Jackson Five–Why no Useless Gesture? Because it’s fairly Useless. It doesn’t do anything while WYS isn’t flipped, and good players are going to play all their lost interrupts before flipping, then play them from the Lost Pile later. Once they’ve flipped, they’ll play Used Interrupts or interrupts they don’t mind putting out of play. Do They Have a Code Clearance? is good against ALL retrieval, and Allegations of Corruption is good as an early grabber. You don’t need much more.
BurstGoat–Why would the Light Side objective have the advantage? It wouldn’t. Each side has 3 viable jedi (we won’t kid ourselves about using Yoda, Mace Windu, Plo Koon, etc.), and the Dark Side can epic duel two of them. Sure, the Light Side objective allows Light Side players to stack combat cards, but then you catch them off-guard… How? They initiate lightsaber combat during their turn. You decline to use your two stacked 7’s on Vader. Instead, you let them use up their combat cards, then shuffle their reserve with Omni Box and initiate an Epic Duel. THEN, you use your two stacked 7’s and play Focused Attack to draw another. Then you’ll have 4 Jedi to their two, and the game’s over.
This is a look at what you might see now that Reflections 3 is out.
The deck is all about putting pressure on your opponent, fast and furious. The new objectives 0-side features the incredible Finger of Death. Once during each of your control phases, you can make any character present with your Dark Jedi at an interior Theed Palace site immediately lost. Additionally, your force drains can not be cancelled. This means your opponent is going to want you to flip your objective, but to do so, they need to get a Jedi to an interior Naboo battleground site. Then bad stuff happens to them.
On the 7-side, you cant force drain or initiate battles where your Dark Jedi are present, but you can initiate lightsaber combat. Each player draws two destiny, and the lower total loses 2 force. Lord Maul adds 2 to the punishment your opponent suffers for losing. If your lightsaber combat total is 5 or more higher than your opponents, his jedi is lost, and he loses 5 that must come from the reserve. And all of the lightsaver combat damage may not be reduced, so Honor of the Jedi and It Could Be Worse dont help. Deep Hatred lets you stack your lightsaber combat destiny, but you can also use the stacked destiny for dueling. Lastly, each time you flip your objective back to the 0-side, you retrieve one force. Not much, but each force helps.
Dueling with The Circle is Now Complete and Vaders Obsession is designed to help you get back to the 0-side, the side you want to stay on as much as possible. Use the Epic Duel if you can win, but Vaders Obsession as a non-Epic Duel can retrieve force for you, too.
Defensive shields help trim down the deck and keep the destiny higher.
With the lightsaber combats, podrace, and epic dueling, this deck boasts more direct damage than you can shake a stick at. If your opponent doesnt set themselves up to face the epic duels or lightsaber combats, then your drains at Naboo will go through for up to 8 each turn.
Card choices
I Have You Now–Your Dark Jedi cant battle other Jedi at Theed Palace sites, but they sure can elsewhere.
Epic Duel–Not necessary if you just want to get rid of Obi and Luke, but if you can stack the destiny and want to make them suffer…
Visage of the Emperor x2–Destiny 7 to use as combat cards, or to play at the Holotheatre for an extra drain.
Image of the Dark Lord–The obvious disadvantage of this deck is that it gives away 4 force from the start. However, if you can set up quickly and are losing the generation battle, drop this down at one of your Theed Palace sites to cut your opponents generation by 4 or more (depending on where Vader is).
Fanfare–Cancelling Order to Engage when you cant battle is a good thing.
Podracing–Yeah, the defensive shields can cut down on its impact, but that means youve force your opponent to use one of only 3 defensive shields. Thats good. Besides, the deck is about early damage, and you might suffer some losses while pushing for early damage. Podracing should help you recover from those losses.
Match-ups
Vs WYS, if they race, you probably want to start IAO & Secret Plans instead of Wattos Box. Set up on Naboo first with Maul and Palpatine. Guri will go to space. Choke Lord and Fett with rock your opponent once they set up on Tatooine. How about pretending to fall into their Run Luke Run trap and then Epic Dueling Luke? Works for me.
Vs Hidden Base, you drain early and lots. You win the podrace. They cant cancel your drains.
Vs Boomrace, you win the podrace. Make certain to use Allegations of Corruption to grab a racing interrupt (preferably A Step Backward) against any racing deck. Then you drop Choke Lord, or Guri and Maul, to the Bunker while draining at Naboo. Game over.
Vs EBO, apply lots of early pressure. Get Search and Destroy out ASAP. Draw for those ships and hit them where theyre weakest. Super-high destiny should help you in space battles.
Vs Profit, with a non-racing version, win the race and clobber them. With a racing version, start either the IAO combo or You Cannot Hide Forever. Mara might as well go to the Audience Chamber for free, but back her up with one of the Dark Jedi. Try to get Guri there if you can. Force Lightning Han or whatever. Just do your thing on Naboo once your forces at the Audience Chamber are secured.
So, there you have it. The objective has the potential to be the next big Jedi platform. A better platform, in my opinion, than Hunt Down, now, due to all the different ways to counter Hunt Down.
Enjoy.
Sincerely,
Joshua Stormcrow Grace ‘