Skywalker Family Reunion

Title: Skywalker Family Reunion
Author: Mike "the Mad Maia" French
Date: Mar 3, 2002 Rating: 4.5

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Cards:

‘Starting (7)

An Unusual Amount of Shields

Mind What You Have Learned / SYIC

Dagobah

Heading for the Med Frigate

The Way of Things

Draw Their Fire

Your Insight Serves you Well

Locations (5)

Bog Clearing

Jungle

Swamp

Training Area

Yoda’s Hut

Characters (13)

Yoda

Daughter of Skywalker

Luke Jedi Knight

Luke w/ Stick

Qui-gon w/ Stick x2

Obi w/ Stick

Chewie, PO’ed

Screamin Lando

Han w/ gun

Padme

Captain Panaka

Corran Horn

Starships (3)

Han, Chewie, Falcon

Artoo in Red 5 x2

Interrupts (16)

Yoda Stew x4

A Jedi’s Resilience x2

On the Edge x2

Anakin Skywalker

Strike Blocked

Glancing Blow

Houjix & Out of Nowhere

Rebel Artillery

We Wish to Board at Once x2

Alter & Friendly Fire

Effects (6)

Anger, Fear, Aggression

I Feel the Conflict

Frozen Assets

Scramble

Yoda’s Hope

Honor of the Jedi

Green (4)

Intruder Missile

Bionic Hand

Amidala’s Blaster

Panaka’s Blaster

Jedi Tests (6)

1-6

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Strategy: ‘

UPDATE

after serious thought and consideration of the basic concepts of gameplay and strategy, i’ve decided that i should take out panaka and his blaster for dash rendar and the outrider.

also, since hunt down is my worst matchup, you may consider putting in one or two OOC/TT…

END UPDATE

There’s a lot of strategy here, please be patient and read it all before reviewing. thanks

basic concept complete jedi tests as fast as possible, win some battles, irritate your opponent with cheesy cards until they pull 3 useless d-shields, retrieve lots, cross vader with anakin skywalker, and have fun. because this deck can be unbelievably fun, especially when Luke and Leia can convince their dad to play nice.

Jedi Testing Yoda stew is a great card. 8 times out of 10 you will get one in your starting hand. so during the opponents first turn, play it to put 4 cards in your force pile. your first turn activate 3, pull the training area, jedi test one, yoda, daughter, yoda’s hope. (hopefully they’ll all be in there.) opponents turn pull test 2. next turn complete test one (this might be hard if you only have one site and no yoda’s hope, but the destiny in this deck is usually sufficient; also, with all 5 sites you generally get a site in your starting hand). pull jungle, test 3, and whatever you couldnt get last turn (yoda’s hope, etc). deploy test 2 to jungle, ask the opponent if he wants to move it (hopefully he won’t and it stays on the jungle, and you should point out that if he does move it, ”it saves me a turn” because you won’t have to move Luke to it), get luke at the same site as the test. next turn, complete test 2, deploy test 3 (if you’re at the jungle, its completed automatically, you can deploy test 4 as well). after that its self-explanitory. with all five sites out, yoda w/ yoda’s hope, and daughter, you need to draw a 4 to complete test 4. somehow get a 7 on test 5 (tracking helps, but i’ve had blind draws in the past as well). then the game gets really fun.

a lot of people see MWYHL and immediately deploy secret plans and come here you big coward d-shields. others wait to see if you actually train to test 5. either way, this deck will punish them. early game i like to try to get anger, fear, aggression inserted to pull the insert shield, since the mob points combo doesn’t cancel it. or play scramble to get the scramble shield. or the frozen assests one. if they run out of shields and dont play chybc or secret plans, you get 10 free retrieval. if they play those shields first, they’ll lose force to your cheese. for more strategy on pulling defensive shields, see card choices.

i almost always start the game off by deploying battle plan shield. it really helps to slow the opponent down in the early game, which is instrumental to testing. and if your opponent started mob points, if they forget to pull a system as their first action, get DDTA on the table so they have that much more trouble getting around Battle Plan…but obviously that won’t do much against Dark Deal or space decks.

How to Cross Vader to the Light Side 101

MWYHL is the best deck to cross over vader, and here’s how it works. as soon as humanly possible (before you battle), get i feel the conflict out. use luke, obi, quiggy, and support characters to win beatdown-style battles. draw their fire helps immensely, allowing you to retrieve and dealing the deck direct damage. also a great combo is draw their fire and frozen assets (which could also pull a shield, saving you from CHYBC). suddenly force field, maul strikes, i have you now, and even ghhk are unplayable during a battle. win one or two battles, get one or two cards stacked on i feel the conflict. complete test 5, get a 7 on it. pick up leia with test 6 and Save You It Can, duel vader to complete the test. against dedicated Hunt Down or Combat, you’ll need Glancing Blow or Blow Parried to help you win the duel, and when you do you get another card on i feel the conflict. you actually only need two cards on it if you get a 7 on test 5. get luke to vader’s site, play on the edge to kill luke (pick 6, draw 1-6 to lose luke, or even use R2 on Red 5’s zero if you were lucky enough to get that on Test 5), play anakin skywalker. with a 7 on test 5 and two cards on i feel the conflict, you have a total of 13, which is greater than 12, and you cross over vader. even if this doesnt work (if he doesnt have vader on the table, if you lose luke and cant get him back), every time you win a battle, you get to place one of the opponent’s cards out of play, and this setup only takes up 2 card slots. plus its fun. and its great to have the whole skywalker family back together. (i was thinking about putting in a shmi, but i couldnt find the card slot…wouldn’t it be fun to complete Test 6 with Shmi? i can just hear her nagging him…)

card choices

daughter of skywalker training daughter was a hard choice for me. After all, the objective has Luke all over it, even in the pictures. it feels ”wrong” to rewrite the Empire Strikes Back with Leia on Dagobah. but it does win more games than training Luke…

the big thing to remember when planning to train Leia is that she MUST be deployed from the reserve deck with MWYHL or the objective does not target her. that means, if you get her in your starting hand, you’re in trouble. some people pack 2 of her, just for this reason. i only put one in the deck, and here’s why. with 4xYoda Stew, you’re almost guaranteed to get one in your hand. so play yoda stew to put her on top of your force pile, and play your grabber shield. if you’re lucky, your opponent will play an interrupt on his first turn. grab it. doesnt matter what it is as long as you use that one force to get leia into your Used Pile and recirculate her to the bottom of your reserve deck. its almost a waste of a shield, but its an acceptable trade-off. however, if i see the opponent playing something like speed deal, and i get dos in my hand w/out yoda stew, i still have the option to train luke with lightsaber. i would only train luke in the most desperate circumstances, when it is imperative to get a head start on the training (to cancel force drain bonuses, for example). really, putting in two daughters would be wasting a card slot, and every card slot is desperately needed in this deck.

anger, fear, aggression the perfect insert. if your opponent starts with mob points/you cannot hide forever, thinking that it cancels inserts, then you have a free pass, cause it only cancels numbers. if they dont play that, then this card will pull out the you cant hide forever d-shield (or possibly Resistance). but anger fear aggression is great for a somewhat non-interactive deck like mwyhl. also amazingly good against lightsaber combat deploy a jedi, they cant initiate battle anyway.

scramble good for a maul beatdown. drop quigon with saber, play scramble, and watch your opponent scramble for a d-shield. if they already played 3 shields, watch maul die.

glancing blow reduce vader’s power to zero, use chewie enraged to cancel his gametext. or if the opponent springs a maul strikes duel on you b4 you flip, cancel one of his duel destinies. or use it against a Combat deck to make sure you complete Test 6.

strike blocked every deck should have one. it saves your behind against ls combat. if the opponent has lord maul with doublesaber with two combat cards, there is no way to beat him in combat with this deck, even with test 5. so cancel one of his combat cards, and make him draw (-1, plus test 3 makes it an additional -1). compared to your two 7’s on Test 5, he loses. if he can’t combat your jedi, he’s in serious trouble.

Yoda Stew awesome card. best played in the opponents first turn. i like it cause it lets me draw a bunch, then put four cards back that i dont want, in my force pile where they’re actually useful. destiny is only 3, but that doesnt bother me so much. also, it pulls a d-shield the grabber.

On the Edge a truly beautiful card. awesome force retrieval once you’re flipped, easily guaranteed by test 5. plus it pulls a d-shield, although possibly the wrong one…it also allows you to lose Luke purposefully from Vader’s site so you can play Anakin Skywalker.

Amidala’s Blaster a truly worthless blaster in any other deck, a monster in this one. another great combo with chewie enraged. target anyone, draw a 7 with test 5, make them power and forfeit zero for the remainder of the game, or at least until they leave the table. combos well with glancing blow to make a whole buncha people power zero, helping to win battles, which in turn helps to cross over vader.

matchups

hunt down the only way i could cancel visage is with corran, but if the opponent doesn’t start No Escape i can usually dodge Visage for a while. plus i’ll have luke or a jedi out on the table a majority of the time (jedi’s resilience helps get them back when i lose them, and with test 3 and yoda’s hut all my characters are basically immune to attrition < 4). but i think that this deck has enough retrieval to fight hunt down effectively. the key is not to let them get the perfect set up in the early game…but at the same time, i have to make jedi testing my top priority until test 5 is done. after that, crossing vader over will essentially kill his deck. glancing blow helps win an epic duel. if they try using deep hatred and combat cards, strike blocked can beat that. plus these cards are easy to get in your hand with test 4. the cheesey cards are going to be key in this matchup.

lightsaber combat flip fast. get a seven on test 5. after that combat is dead. before that is the problem. test 1 is important to cancel lightsaber bonuses. strike blocked is big to cancel combat cards and make them draw. drop epps for quick beatdowns. try to get quigon to mauls site for the extra destiny beatdown, but i never like to keep quigon out for them to ls combat, cause i’m scared of qui-gon’s end. its extremely important to control the generator sites against ls combat; once you do, its extremely hard for the dark side to get them back, because they cant battle. cheese helps big against combat anger fear aggression hurts when they cant initiate battle, and i love playing scramble when they have a lone maul at the core, then beating down with quiggy. jedi test bonuses will help a lot against combat.

bring him luckily this decktype hasn’t been very popular since WYS and DDTA came out. anakin skywalker wont work in this matchup, unless your opponent is silly enough to try to force lightning and young fool luke with the emperor. then i’d laugh and play anakin skywalker (before young fool comes out), cross vader over, kill emperor, and win game. but in reality, you just hafta beat him. dont deploy characters unless you’re gonna beat someone down. dont let him initiate battle, and dont let vader stay on the table. jedi test like you’ve never tested before, get flipped and win some battles…it shouldn’t be too hard with Luke coming out of your reserve deck wherever Vader’s not.

Scum this matchup could be tough. basically, don’t let them retrieve by initiating battle; always battle them, don’t let them battle you. sounds easy, but its not. without force drain bonuses, and with Court facing Honor, they’re not going to make you lose much unless they spread out, and when they do, hit them. win that one major battle. also, Test 6 direct damage will kill them if you get it out early enough, and from then on you should have the upper hand.

dark deal jedi test one. jedi test two. scramble. it might be harder to win battles on cloud city with dark deal out, but jedi testing is one of the worst matchups for tdigwatt. ability ability ability is nasty, but honor can help against that; the problem would be preventing them from occupying three battlegrounds. han/chewie/falcon might help in space (not against ZiMH) after the flip, drawing a bd of 14. you might need corran horn in space in red 5 along with the falcon. again, you can turn vader in this without too much effort.

by the way, if you think maybe you’ve seen this deck before, maybe called ”Who’s Your Daddy??”, you’re probably right. My brother came up with that deck, but MWYHL doesn’t fit his playing style whereas i simply love it. we’ve worked on the decklist for a couple weeks, testing it a couple times against its toughest matchups, and tweaking it accordingly. And this strategy section is a joint effort from both of us. I have to give him some credit…he won’t let me take out Anakin Skywalker…

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