Listen Up You Scum
Title: Listen Up You Scum
Author: Luca "Luca/Tzizvvt" Costanzo
Date: Jan 9, 2002
Rating: 4.0
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Cards:
‘MKOS
(You really should reveal Myo as your rep)
FIMA
Desert Heart
JP
Power of The Hutt
No Bargain
Allegations of Corruption
Prepared Defences
Audience Chamber
Lower Passages
Entrance Cavern
@#$%ship Bridge
Passenger Deck
(3) Myo
(2) Abyssin
Chall Bekan
Mighty J
Jabba The Hutt
Boelo
Ephant Mon
Bib (old skool)
Xizor
Aurra Sing
Dengar with Gun
(2) IG-88 with Gun
(2) 4-LOM with Gun
(2) Fett, Beats
Gaillid
P-59
Dr Evazan/Ponda Baba
Jabba’s Sail Barge
(2) Zuckuss In Mist Hunter
(2) Bus
(2) Scum and Villainy
First Strike
After Her
Blast Door Controls
Drop
Grabber (Hell To Pay, for those of you who have forgotten what this card does with shields around P)
Ghhhk/TRWEU
(2) We Must Accelerate Our Plans
Wounded Wookiee/Abyssin Ornament
Control/Set For Stun
Jabba’s Twerps
They’re Still Coming Through
Endor Occupation/Masterful Move
Monnok
Kintan Strider
(2) Stunning Leader
Shields
We’ll Let Fate-a Decide
You’ve Never Won A Race?
Resistance
Secret Plans
Oppressive Enforcement
Fanfare
A Useless Card
Battle Order
Come Here You Big Coward
Do They Have A Code Clearance? ‘
Strategy: ‘
UPDATE #2 (27/01/02)- someone @#$%s me
Wow This deck has a lot of reviews … did it get into the top 10 for a while?
RESPONSE TO REVIEWS
Sped-Pac Ok, I want to clarify this for everyone. This guy copied someone’s watto deck card-for card, including the strat. I gave him 1/2 a star, so he’s come and given me 1/2 a star. If you’re reading this, you may like to take a minute to go to his page and review his (blatantly copied) Watto deck.
Giles No, I only have one of your accelerates; hence I don’t have accelerates, I have an accelerate ;P You’ve still got my obi You got 8 accelerates now? Gimme some Kev already had our foils, but kept on forgetting to get them to us. Neimodian advisors? I’ll see what I can do, but I’m prolly not the best person to ask. Anyone out there want to donate to the Giles Emery needs Neimoidian Advisors fund?
Mike Merletto The point of allegations as an effect vs allegations as a shield is that I free up a shield slot EVERY GAME (as every game I will probably want Allegations). SAC killer I will not need every game and, besides, do you remember paying 3 for grabber? It was tech Barrier is crap because EVERY player worth his salt will be able to play around it (how many TBS/DR were you playing at worlds P). None Shall Pass is OK, but it’s very specific whereas stunning leader works in most places that you need it to. Also, NSP doesn’t leave you with characters to beat on. It merely tracks you a 5 and makes your opponent waste 7 force … might be worth playing one, or a projective telepathy. RE Entrance Cavern. Yes, good point. I’ve been telling myself that I like the extra activation and the protection for bib, but I can put him on the passenger deck if needs be. It has, however, given me fast starts … but whatever. One thing that people kept on saying in the reviews is that my space is weak. Old-skool J compensates for battle plan a bit, which is why I play him. Scum is all about momentum and control; Old J helps to keep that in spite of battle plan (key element of the lock, not that I needed to tell YOU that ;P). More solid … well, the whole point was that it’s pretty solid, but yeah, out ec in nsp or pro tel would be good. Ta.
MoTU I don’t play cards ’just for kicks.’ Pro Tel was addressed in the above response, but the truth is that I don’t like the whole cancel … if concept. I prefer the whole cancel. concept. This deck gives a way a few force, so late game it will be playable around. Insurrection is popular around here and my style of play with this deck is not conducive to elis. Yes, elis can be great in scum (quick story; tournament last year. my sycfa scum vs rod’s profit. first turn convert jp, bulk up at chamber. rod draws. rod plays sense/recoil. grab, control. i set up at jp/lower passages with all the defensive cards. recoil, control. search and destroy … force loss up the yin-yan. recoil, i let rod do it. rod plays back door and recoils again. i bulk up at the ac. rod drops qui-gon with a stick and epp leia to the back door. my turn; elis mighty j, xizor, ephant mon, boelo, dr e, 4-lom disarm/operate on qui-gon, deploy bob, first strike … game), but it’s not going to be as reliable as anything else that’s in here.
Legolas_ No, lightsabers are not necessary. I already explained why mara is bad, but let me do it again
1) High deploy; affected by goo nee tay
2) Imperial; suspends No Bargain
3) Non-efficient; two destiny 1 cards, half the time the stick is not in your reserve deck (lotsa activation) and she’s low power to boot Utter crap
Obviously, when you build a scum deck, the first deck that you test it against is mains. DUH
s_skywalker anyone who presumes that scum cannot beatdown is an idiot. i would play you for money. ok, so i knock off dash/melas/outrider with bus/zuckuss. next turn my lone zuckuss gets killed by red 1 with cannon. i beat on some ground-based smugglers and retrieve my ships. wys boy doesn’t save a few turns down the track- zimh kicks red 1 off. ok … what they got now? mmm … pulsar skate, red 10 and random smug come down and beat z-man off, i ghhhk … ok, fight on the ground … if they’re concentrating on space, they will not have resources for the ground. bloody hell crappy aliens … my guys say things like ’adds two battle destiny with’ and ’may target a character for free; target’s gametext is cancelled’ whereas a lot of step’s characters say things like ’when making a kessel run from ralltiir’
swccg2002 i would like a justification for anything less than 4 and 1/2 stars, considering that I wrote about 5 pages of strategy to cover people as mentally-deficient as you.
INTRODUCTION
Scum has experienced a decline in popularity after Tatooine, due to The Camp and Maul. People seem to think that The Camp beats Scum on its own and that no deck is worth playing without Maul. This is not so, take a look
I wouldn’t usually give a play-by play account, but it seems to me that not many people actually know how to play scum, so I’ll give you a brief rundown. If you are one of the few people who actually know how to play scum, please feel free to skip down to card choices.
The first thing that people comment about with Scum is the limited character base. When you think about it, the only characters that you are really missing out on are Dark Jedi. The most important thing that they provide is an easy way to remove opposing characters (choke, duel, lightsabers) and perhaps a relatively solid character to hold a site with.
Scum misses out on the easy character removal aspect of Dark Jedi, so you have to be more inventive. Scum has limited character removal at its disposal (Dr Evazan, Sniper, Dark Strike, Set For Stun etc), high powered characters and multiple battle destinies. In this deck you will use all three of these elements.
GAME RUNDOWN
Early game- here is where you set up your force generation, flip your objective, start causing some damage and start tracking. You need to occupy three battleground sites, one with an abyssin, to flip. This is not hard with Power of The Hutt and the Audience Chamber to pull aliecns with. The abyssins can be fetched with the abyssin ornament combo card (don’t forget that it’s destiny +3 with the flipped objective), Chall Bekan or (worse comes to worst) the Audience Chamber. You will probably flip with Jabba, something pulled with POTH and an abyssin, then move the abyssin to somewhere safe. Don’t forget to use the game text on the Lower Passeges to assist this. If you have Scum and/or Chall Bekan, you may find yourself flipping for very little force indeed Be sure to get out Jabba and Bib for the +2 to battle destinies.
Mid game- at this point you need to make sure that you have Scum on the table, that the Jabba’s Palace sites are secure and that you have some beats in your hand. You may need to fish for some cards; starships against WYS or QMC, some bounty hunters against anything you need to beatdown, Blast Door Controls etc. Throw out some guys with a few tracked destinies to clear out some of your opponent’s sites and retrieve. Be sure to keep track of everything that you can- your destinies, your opponent’s destinies, both players’ lost piles, what your opponent has in hand … everything. If you can set up a beatdown with the knowledge that your opponent has no way to stop it, you may be able to win without proceeding to the late game. If not, see the next step.
Late game- MKOS is possibly the best objective to play Scum off when it comes to the late game. You will retrieve the extra Abyssin every turn, effectively cutting one off the damage that your opponent can deal you. You will be draining for a bit at the palace with the aid of Gaillid and you will be doing all sorts of silly things with Myo, your objective and Scum and Villainy. In a tight game, it is these things that will ensure that you win.
CARD CHOICES
Let’s go down them in the order that I listed them.
Starting
No surprises here. Power of the Hutt grabs a lot of funky cards from reserve deck and No Bargain will slow suicide EPPs during the first few turns. The only thing that may surprise you is the Allegations of Corruption effect as opposed to a shield. I have not played a game with shields where Allegations of Corruption hasn’t been useful. I sometimes find myself not needing shields and I sometimes find myself needing more than three. Having Allegations of Corruption as an effect gives me an extra shield slot and is never useless. Besides, what other effect is worth starting with?
Locations
The Entrance Cavern gives you a free Bib, the Passenger Deck and Bridge are 2-0 icon sites that can be fished fairly easily. No surprises there.
Characters
Again, not many surprises. 2 copies of Bob, 4-LOM and IG-88 because they are very good beatdown characters indeed. They will usually die to be retrieved with Scum and you can put Bob in your used pile should he somehow survive an attack. The only characters that are affected by Goo Nee Tay are the Power of the Hutt crew, Aurra Sing, Jabba, Chall Bekan, Xizor and Bob. While that may sound like a lot, the only ones that you really use to beatdown with are Xizor, Aurra and Bob. You will not need to deploy more than one of them at once, so the effects of Goo Nee Tay are minimised. The others will be deployed early game and defensively. This means that Goo may not be on the table and, at worst, that you will not be in the situation where you need to dump a pile of guys and can’t afford them. Jabba the Hutt allows you to activate from draining, which can lessen the effects of Battle Plan or speed you up in the early game. There is only one Gaillid because you only need one. If he dies, you can retrieve him with Scum or Kintan Strider. No Mara because she is too expensive with Goo Nee Tay, this deck should activate enough that the lightsaber will not be in the reserve deck half the time and she suspends No Bargain
Blue
Straightforward. Zuckuss in Mist Hunter and the Bus are two of the greatest all time ships. While Zuckuss is ridiculously strong, I also like the Bus in this deck because you can simply deploy him, pick a fight, retrieve to or three, draw a tracked 7 (+2 is good) and kill something without having to worry about him. 4-LOM will add a battle destiny on the Mist Hunter and Myo can ensure that these ships stay alive. You need to be wary of the X-Wing cannon, but it can be played around. The sail barge pulls the Passenger Deck and is rather large.
Effects
Scum, First Strike and Blast Door Controls are straightforward. You can pull the grabber or After Her with Fanfare (if you have no other need for shields), and 1 grabber just doesn’t seem like enough these days. Drop is some handy recycling, seeing as you can’t play Janus. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, so feel free to change it for something else.
Interrupts
More need for card-by-card here.
Ghhhk/TRWEU – Ghhhk, plus it cancels Dodge. A good tradeoff for not being able to grab it with Masterful Move.
(2) We Must Accelerate Our Plans – Grabs effects and the Bridge. Enough said. Well, it also grabs itself for a constant 5 tracked.
Wounded Wookiee/Abyssin Ornament – destiny 5 with the objective, grabs abyssins and go read Wounded Wookiee if you don’t know what it does.
Control/Set For Stun – Character removal, character removal, character removal. Also cancels sense.
Jabba’s Twerps – Destiny 6, retrieves yet more force, can pull an abyssin in an emergency.
They’re Still Coming Through – as well as cancelling a lot of cards, we all like to track whenever we can. Frequently during a game we find ourselves with a ’beatdown’ rig, a rig for our opponent’s turn and some other random cards tracked. Using TSCT, you can combine these random cards while you’re activating and, as an easily trackable 4, you can get some mileage out of it as a battle destiny with MKOS flipped.
Endor Occupation/Masterful Move – An awful lot of celebrations around. Pulls the next two cards as well.
Monnok – Check out your opponent’s hand so you know if you need to beatdown. Hell, you may even net some good cards every now and then, or use it used
Kintan Strider – It retrieves characters into hand If you haven’t played this before, try it. Remember that during your turn, you forfeit the first character. This means that if you use Fett and Dengar for a beatdown, you can forfeit Fett, opponent forfeits a guy, you retrieve Fett then lose Dengar. That’s huge Track your lost pile and retrieve a key character you lost to a drain if your opponent fights you
(2) Stunning Leader – The best players are playing Inconsequential Barriers and Bith Shuffle/Desperate Reach. This card cannot be cancelled by either. Look at your sites. With the exception of JP and the Desert Heart (where you will probably not be fighting anyway) they are all interior. Other important locations, such as those used by QMC, WYS and Lightsaber Combat are also interior. You’ll retrieve them with Scum, so don’t worry about them being lost.
CARDS THAT ARE (SUPPOSED TO BE) BAD FOR SCUM (AKA SILLY THINGS THAT PEOPLE WILL SAY)
The Camp/Goo Nee Tay Yes, these cards are irritating, but they will not win the game by themselves. Two of the most important beatdown characters are droids and this deck should generate a lot of force by itself. Why? That’s right, I was counting on people playing these cards.
You’ve Got A Lot Of Guts You know that stupid effect from Coruscant that stops retrieval from Scum? In the event that someone actually plays it, this deck has A LOT of beatdown power. What does that mean? KILL HAN.
Battle Plan/Menace Fades/Celebration lock Myo makes this deck competitive in space. I know that everyone who plays WYS and QMC will immediately scoff at this, so please read on. There is enough ground power to be able to keep beating on the ground, thus retrieving force and prolonging the game so that you won’t get out-drained by WYS/QMC holding their planet and occupying a few sites to retrieve with the relevant celebration. Speaking of which, you can cancel at least one celebration with Endor Occupation, and Jabba the Hutt can reduce the effects of Battle Plan. You will not find a Scum deck more considerate of these cards.
Qui-Gon Jinn Yes, an early Qui-Gon with stick to the chamber could conceivably be bad. The Tatooine one is probably the worst, but it gets cancelled by 4-LOM. The R3 one is probably only going to be seen in Lightsaber Combat. In the event that this one wonders into the palace, it doesn’t lower the power of your aliens, so you can beat it down.
Barrier/Dodge/etc Blast Door Controls should come out early, Ghhhk may be available to cancel Dodge with. In any event, with everything except for Barrier you will already have retrieved for initiating battle and you can grab the cards.
Scum is dead, Scum is crap, no deck can be good without vader etc Wanna play me for money?
MATCHUPS
I’m going to be brief because I think that I’ve pretty much covered most of the specifics already.
QMC- Keep on making runs at them. Grab Path. If you can’t take the system, try to start using After Her as much as possible to keep your retrieval up. Monnok and late game you may be able to beatdown for the win, seeing as they spread a lot. You may be able to use Stunning Leader to beat on Pucumir Thryss.
WYS- You can use Myo to cancel drains at Kessel. They will give you the Cantina, try to take it over. Realistically, space should be grabbable. Similar to QMC.
Lightsaber Combat Noticed how they give away a lot of force and usually don’t generate that much? It might be worth playing Battle Order to slow them down. Resistance will cap their drains at two and you will retrieve an abyssin each turn. Keep throwing Myo at the Generator Core. Retrieve. If he gets cut, he goes to used. If he doesn’t get cut, put another Myo on your objective and forfeit him to used pile to cover all battle damage. Find Gaillid and drain, drain, drain.
Profit I haven’t seen a Profit deck for quite some time now, hence no CC Engineer. If Profit is popular near you, take out something for a CC Engineer. If you did that, start with JP, have it converted, then convert back. If you didn’t, start with the Lower Passages. Start with Mighty Jabba and Chall Bekan (pull abyssin/cc engineer). Use all your tricks to keep retrieving, stop theirs with Secret Plans and Come Here You Big Coward. Set up a drain and when they finally come down, Stunning Leader then beat THEM down.
Hidden Base Again, not another popular deck in my area. You could add Search and Destroy and/or Hutt Influence to help against this. HB is usually not so fast, so grab Gaillid and drain fast and furious. Late game, probe with Myo as your space backup. Speed is the key, and in the scale of things Scum is pretty fast.
Pile/Throne Room Mains Could be tricky, could be easy. Play defensively. No Bargain should be really harsh on them. It cancels Revolution in JP, but I’m yet to receive a ruling on if it cancels Revo on the Passenger Deck. Patience is important. True, you may be choked, but how will they be causing you damage? Your late game tricks with the objective should win you the game.
New Objective- So they give you a drain 2 site that they can’t deploy to … and this deck is fast? Anyone else see where I’m going? Put a crew to the Throne Room. They move over. Re-enforce, apply beats … lather, rinse, repeat.
Have fun with this one. If you play it right, you will deliver many jaw-dropping beatdowns and win with high margins.
Luca
tzizvvt@hotmail.com ‘