The Gov’na’s Balanced Court
Title: The Gov’na’s Balanced Court
Author: Stephen "The Gov'na" Cellucci
Date: Jan 29, 2002
Rating: 4.5
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Cards:
‘STARTING (9)
Fear is My Ally [+10 defensive shields, listed later]
Court Of The Vile Gangster/Whatever, Jabba.
Tatooine Great Pit Of Carkoon
Jabba’s Palace Audience Chamber
Jabba’s Palace Dungeon
Prepared Defenses
Mobilization Points
Crush The Rebellion
No Escape
LOCATIONS (4)
Executor DB
Tatooine DB
Tatooine
Fondor
CHARACTERS (18)
Mara Jade
Emperor Palpatine
Janus Greejatus
Darth Maul x2
EPP Maul
DVDLOTS x2
EPP Vader
IG-88 with gun
4-LOM with gun
Guri
Prince Xizor
Dr. Evazan & Ponda Baba
Admiral Piett
Admiral Chiraneau
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Commander Merrejk
VEHICLES (1)
Blizzard 4
STARSHIPS (7)
Executor
Zuckuss in Mist Hunter
Bossk in Hound’s Tooth
Dengar in Punishing One
Boba Fett in Slave I
Virago
Stinger
INTERRUPTS (13)
Twi’lek Advisor x2
Imperial Command x3
Sniper & Dark Strike
Weapon Levitation
You Are Beaten
I Have You Now x2
Evader & Monnok
Imperial Barrier x2
EFFECTS (4)
His Name Is Anakin
Tatooine Occupation
Blast Door Controls
Lateral Damage
ADMIRAL’S ORDERS (1)
Battle Deployment
DEFENSIVE SHIELDS (10)
Battle Order
Come Here, You Big Coward
Secret Plans
Do They Have A Code Clearance?
A Useless Gesture
We’ll Let Fate-a Decide, Huh?
Resistance
Allegations Of Corruption
There Is No Try
You’ve Never Won A Race? ‘
Strategy: ‘
Wow, I’m stupid. I forgot the weapons
WEAPONS (3)
Vader’s saber
Maul’s double-bladed saber
Mara’s saber
Thanks Meto for pointing that out.
Vader69, you must be an idiot, there’s just no way around it. I left a complete, totally thorough explanation of how to set up space (SEE BELOW, DUH) and yet somehow you didn’t pick up on the fact that I don’t need Neimodian Advisor. Wow, some people truly amaze me. Why do you think I said to read the strategy???
Apparently there’s some confusion as to how you set up space. I thought it was obvious, but I guess I was wrong. What you need to do is get Commander Merrejk on table, usually to the Executor DB, because his game text says you can deploy a system from reserve each turn. How do you get merrejk? With admiral piett, who lets you take a commander into hand. How do you get piet? one of your 3 imperial commands, which let you get an admiral from reserve. So, any of 5 cards could allow you to set up space easily. Is that clear enough???
As always, it is imperative that you READ THE STRATEGY before reviewing. I’m sure you’re all very familiar with this concept by now, you intelligent Decktech reviewers you.
This deck is powerful for many reasons, but first and foremost because it is versatile. Hence the name ”Balanced Court.” Yes, it’s a mains deck, but its also much more. It can play aggressively or defensively, going to the opponent’s turf with pullable ships, lots of mains, and battling interrupts, or setting up potent drains and direct damage on Tatooine while maintaining Battle Order with amazing regularity. And before I go into specifics, remember YOU MUST REMEMBER THE COURT PING EACH TURN. Thank you.
OK, let’s get down to business. I choose the Court objective as my platform for several reasons
1) Probably most significantly, I can pull docking bays AND ships from my reserve deck. How amazing is that.
2) The constant pressure of the ever-present Court Ping. 1 damage a turn can go a long way.
3) Watch your step, one of the decks I kept in mind most when building this, hurts my locations ZERO when it flips, plus Court is on Tatooine, where you have to go anyway to fight WYS directly.
4) Oh yeah, the forfeit bonus for bounty hunters is nifty too.
Plus you will find that there are smaller reasons that are simply perks of using Court, like being able to pull Mara first turn every game. Speaking of first turn… you start the game like this. FIRST THING you do is grab the Executor. Then activate, get a DB (preferably Executor), get Mara + saber to the AC for the early drain of 2, and try to eventually set up space (you know, command, piett, merrejk) ASAP. And from here the deck can go several different ways (I told you it was versatile). What it does depends on is what your opponent does and what deck type he’s playing.
I’m not gonna lie; the deck takes some skill to play. You have to know how to react to your opponent. It’s not impossibly hard to play, not by any means, but you just have to think a little. If you’re attentive you’ve noticed the Tatooine Occupation in the decklist. Setting up Occupation is not the number one priority of the deck. Only set it up if it’s useful to you, i.e. if you’re trying to win a drain race and there’s less battling going on, as in Lightsaber Combat for example. You can have varying degrees of setup on your home Tatooine base, ranging from only Mara with saber to virtually everyone, in the case that your opponent sends guys to your sites. If you’re ever in doubt about what to do, go for battling… its good, you can play cool interrupts and limit your opponent’s destinies.
Oh yeah, limiting opponent’s destinies-especially against WYS obviously-can be done with imperial command, with Guri, and with Battle Deployment. Also, Crush the rebellion helps if for some reason they’re flipping 3+ destinies at cloud city or other mobile sites. By the way, I love the Crush the Rebellion package in this deck, it keeps your opponent’s hand in check (always pulling and playing evader/monnok), it saves you from annoying revos, and it lets your dark jedi defend themselves better or kick other jedi @#$% better (I have you now). Crush is great.
Explanations of card choices
LOCATIONS don’t tell me to use we must accelerate our plans and the blockade flagship bridge because the site is really a wasted card in the deck. In my area, as in most, WYS is big and will cause me to only activate 1 at the bridge. Plus, its just another card getting in the way of grabbing the all important effects, mainly Blast Door Controls and Tat Occupation.
CHARACTERS Um, mains and admirals. This is a very solid crew of 18. Not much more I can say here. Oh yeah, the Vader and Maul with immunity x2 each and EPP x1 each thing is due to my liking for immunity. It helps. Plus this version of Maul is a god, for obvious reasons. AND saber cards add to drains. The EPPs are in there in case you can’t get the saber right away and you just wanna make a quick strike.
VEHICLES Blizzard 4 is undisputably good. That is all.
STARSHIPS Yeah, seven ships, because I can pull them, and I really need to own space against stuff like WYS, QMC, and just in general for holding Tatooine. Space is big in this deck, if you haven’t figured out.
INTERRUPTS Twi’leks cause in (nearly) every game, you’re going to NEED either Blast Door Controls or Tatooine Occupation pretty badly. Commands, well, duh. Sniper & Dark strike for both functions, great battling interrupt. Weapon lev to get sabers and to steal em. You are beaten and barriers to allow for serious smacks. And of course the wonderful Crush package. I love controlling my opponent’s hand.
EFFECTS These are all the effects you’ll need. His Name is Anakin to start vs. WYS, plus it just helps in general when they do try to come to you. Self explanatory.
BATTLE DEPLOYMENT Limits destinies on all the sites of the system you occupy with your strong fleet (hint hint Tatooine), lets you grab Blizz 4, and hurts starfighter (or capital ship, I guess) dependent decks with a power minus.
SHIELDS pretty obvious mostly, YCHF isn’t in there because nobody rated above about 1300 plays inserts these days and even if they do, CHYBC stops em. Battle order is huge and will likely get played the majority of games.
Oh yeah one thing I forgot, I start No escape as my default because the Court Ping is crucial. If they get around it for even a few turns its bad. Also, on generation use mobpoints wisely, not just to get the executor, but also to generate DDTA isn’t the be all and end all, because you can easily get your ships out for obvious reasons.
Matchups
Of course there is no way I can predict every game I’ll play with this thing. But it’s good to outline. (in order of expected frequency, sorta)
WYS Start His Name is anakin instead of No escape. Set up Mara at AC, send everyone else to his sites. Kick smuggler @#$% on ground, limiting their destinies with battle deployment which you probably in this matchup pulled with piett instead of merrejk, and guri. Hold your commands and barriers You need to limit their destinies in space. You may want to set up at fondor and move your fleet over but its usually not necessary. Um, you can pull ships from reserve, do it. This deck is CERTAINLY better than most against WYS because of strong space, destiny limiting, and lack of generation hurt taken from the flipside of WYS.
QMC This time get merrejk with piett, not battle deployment. You have a couple options here. You can set up the executor plus a couple ships at fondor, move over to bespin, and commit all your ships + commands to holding bespin. This is probably the best way. However, if it looks like you’ll be able to occupy but not necessarily control Bespin, leave a ship at tatooine for occupation. Set up drains with mara, palpy, janus, and REMEMBER THE COURT PING. That is key. Yes, they have retrieval, but you have good drains, and you can romp around on their sites with all kinds of mains. Definitely get blast door controls before tatooine occupation, in terms of using twilek. Win this game through battles and steady damage from tatooine.
LSC Set up occupation for this one. Get out Battle Order almost right away You can commit a decent amount of guys to tatooine drains here, obviously don’t use dark jedi to drain on your sites. Once you have occupation, Court Ping, and drains set up, you can probably outdrain because Battle Order should own them. But if its close, send vader and maul simultaneously to naboo and duke it out. This should be an easy matchup.
PROFIT Start Mara and Dr. E combo. Get mara’s saber out first thing. The court ping is really what destroys them here. Pile up most or all of your mains in the AC and, with the help of monnok so they can’t build a big hand, you should be able to hold it easily. When ready, you can go to the system and set up occupation or simply battle order and the chiraneau drain. Easy win.
SENATE These decks vary in strategy and I believe I have yet to face one. Just smack them on their own turf, leave the senate alone, court ping, occupation, blah blah blah. Easy matchup.
Um, EBO? EBO is just too slow to be effective against this. Mara + saber first turn = second turn drain of 2-pay 3 if you have to-in addition to Court damage. This matchup is all about the early pressure; I guarantee you’ll be able to make them lose around 10 cards before they’re fully set up. Right as they go to space, send a couple ships to their system and smack em. I’ve done this before, it works. Even if they do somehow set up relatively big drains, you have occupation, the Court Ping, and big drains also, and resistance saves the day. Easy matchup.
RST (bunker blow) It has been brought to my attention that I should include an RST matchup. Fair enough, I have never had any trouble with these decks, especially with mains, I just go to endor sites piling in the bunker and they usually don’t blow it all game. Monnok really helps limit them here, as does the Court Ping. Set up Occupation, you’ll have ships to spare to make suicide strikes if needed. Should be an easy matchup.
Um that’s pretty much it. This thing is amazingly solid and, if played right, can win any of its games. The most important thing about the deck is the Court Ping, so always remember that. Thanks for looking. Gov’na out.
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