Dark Side of the Light Side

Title: Dark Side of the Light Side
Author: Alex "Greedo" Tennet
Date: Jul 11, 2000 Rating: 4.5

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Cards:

‘STARTING CARDS (5) Hidden Base/Systems Will Slip Through Your Fingers [Marker System] Rendezvous Point The Signal Echo Base Garrison

LOCATIONS (7) Big One Big One Asteroid Cave or Space Slug Belly Corulag Dagobah Dagobah Yoda’s Hut Roche Tibrin

CHARACTERS (10) 8D8 BG-J38 Leia With Blaster Rifle Luke With Lightsaber x2 Obi-Wan With Lightsaber x2 Toryn Farr Wedge Antilles WED-9-M1 ‘Bantha’ Droid

STARSHIPS (8) Gold Leader In Gold 1 Gold Squadron Y-wing x2 Lando In Millennium Falcon Red Leader In Red 1 Red Squadron X-wing x2 Spiral

WEAPONS (1) X-wing Laser Cannon

DEVICES (1) Landing Claw

EFFECTS (17) Anger, Fear, Aggression Bacta Tank Battle Plan Do, Or Do Not Draw Their Fire Frozen Assets x2 Never Tell Me The Odds x2 Projection Of A Skywalker x2 Scrambled Transmission The Planet That It’s Farthest From Wars Not Make One Great Wise Advice What’re You Tryin’ To Push On Us? x2

INTERRUPTS (11) Effective Repairs x2 Grimtaash It Could Be Worse Shocking Information The Signal x6’

Strategy: ‘

***Important If you don’t intend to read the strategy, or don’t like “cheesy” decks (ie - anything requiring half a brain to play) then please don’t review the deck. Also, please don’t tell me that it’s no good because I can’t flip Hidden Base. Flipping really weakens the deck. I know because I’ve tried. Look for alternate uses in your cards rather than the one printed on them (or not, in the case of Hidden Base).

Everyone else, welcome. We all hate strategy sections that don’t tell us anything, so I’ve aimed to give you a good guide to playing the deck. Here’s how it all works. Echo Base Garisson is obviously a great numbers booster card. Make the most of it while you can. I got working on this deck the moment I saw the card image and it’s something you need to playtest with a little to get the full benefits.

Start by pulling a droid at the beginning of each turn. 8D8, BG-J38 and the Bantha droid are all eligible. If you are given a docking bay by the DS (pretty likely in the current scene) then throw down the Bantha droid there to give you immunity to Lateral Damage.

First turn is usually marked by pulling Roche with HB and grabbing the Big One and the Asteroid Cave. Your droids now have somewhere to sit at if there’s nowhere else to go. Nice generation boost too. Corulag, Dagobah and the Hut likewise. Notice how you can grab everything from your deck so far? That’s efficiency and it’s the name of the game.

Six signals circulate in the deck to grab whatever effects you need. The first to be fetched is usually Never Tell Me The Odds. No, you don’t need five in the deck, that’s plain silly. Two is by far enough. I’ve never been short an Odds card when I’ve needed one thanks to The Signal. Anything with a Sense/Alter risk get Do, Or Do Not and Wise Advice out. ROps, get Projection of a Skywalker and Scrambled Transmission for Vesden. High destiny Hunt Down, grab a Push card for Torture (important against any deck but this one especially so). Scum and Villany, Occupation, ISB drain or Operatives Battle Plan and TPTIFF are the cards you want.

Just some examples of early effects to get there. Play style is more important than bullet cards though, this cannot be emphasised enough. If you don’t know how to beat something, learn. That way you can double the effectiveness of your counter cards with supplemental strategy.

How to play the deck Insert early when possible but only when you are ready. Amass ships at Tibrin if there is no fight in space, but spread to another system if you need to kill Come Here You Big Coward for some reason (remember that Tibrin is NOT retrieval but Effective Repairs is). This is normal as most DS decks are currently ground-based. Cannons will deal with the Enhanced bounty hunter ships; Zuckuss is an auto-hit because there are no zero destinies in your deck by this point.

You’ll be getting many, many looks through your deck as well. Learn how to tell what’s in your force pile. This is integral to playing any deck, but especially so here. Often the dark side will get frustrated and draw up many cards looking for their Torture or whatever they need. Use your Grimtaash Play another in the deck if you want to. There is a reason all the top players use this card and tell others to use it. Grimnok still sets the hand limit with a harsh penalty for disobeying.

Landing Claw is horribly effective. So many players cannot deal with it. Use this card well Any DS deck that wants to rule Tibrin will need a capital ship to do it. TIEs need their dreadnaughts. Everyone uses Bossk. Etc etc. So if they are sitting at Tibrin, detatch the Claw during your control phase and make free use of the text. Reattatch in their turn. This is a no-brainer but nonetheless very strong.

Once you have Bacta Tank - pulled with EBG - and usually Draw Their Fire on the table, you can ping with your EPPs. Don’t use Han. He doesn’t draw destiny on his own and is easy to kill. Yes he has his place but in this deck he’s a waste of a card. Luke, Leia and Obi rule the roost. Deploy, shoot, kill, lose to Tank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Wonderful. And so easy to pull off. This kills Resistance and brings your inserts closer to the top. Best of all, the EPPs aren’t on table when Anger, Fear, Aggression and NTMTO pop up. Scum and Villany can’t touch them and if you’re lucky you can retrieve 2/make opponent lose 2 if First Strike is also out.

If you’re worried about what to shoot at, just go for Vader. The destinies are huge, so don’t worry about duelling either. You’ll hit him and take out Mara with attrition easily. If “he’s got a gun” then you might consider two EPPs just in case. Then again, you might consider three and just smack his lone Vader, Mara or Djas and screw whatever happens to your insert total after dealing nine-ten damage over the top. Up to you. You’re the player, make the judgement call yourself.

Frozen Assets isn’t really a beatdown tool with Draw Their Fire. It’s better than that. Just look at the uses Negates Imperial Barrier (evil card). Stops AT-ST reacts cold. Screws Tempest Scout 6. Nulls There’ll Be Hell To Pay. Makes duelling outside of battle a necessity, so Tarkin is useless and there are no nasty surprises to be played. Put All Sections won’t be a surprise anymore either. Set for Stun and I’d Just As Soon Kiss A Wookie are dead, just when they were coming back into regular play. Even the old “leave two for Unexpected Interruption” is gone. See how great it is? Much nicer than any old beatdown tool. Main Course you say? Well, great that you’re using it. Do you have it when you need it? Do you play two? Can you fetch it like I can fetch most things in my deck? If your answer to these questions is yes, you’re either devoting too much deckspace to it or you’re playing ROps. Want to waste your once-per-turn card pull on a Main Course? The rest of the deck will take you out then.

Scrambled Transmission deals with the most elegant manipulation card in the Dark Side’s array A Dangerous Time. It’s lost. This effect also pulls Shocking Info and makes it immune to sense. M’iiyoom and Scanning Crew are blunt daggers and have always been so; they do nothing much to this deck anyway. Little different to Mains and Toys on their own. Shocking will hit them for 4 force plus the card and you can do this every turn. Most importantly though, Vesden is a useless card. Without the scomp link (the one that Shocking Info cancels), he’s left looking pretty stupid. Explanation Shocking Info is always played after the first activation of force when the insert is in the deck. By this point, the DS player has had to declare how much he is activating (see the rules on inserts). Vesden is typically a ROps and Endor Ops card, both of which generate huge amounts of force. So hit the DS with Shocking Info; they’re held to their declared amount and when the insert makes an appearance, it’s at full strength. No mercy.

And that’s pretty much the theme of the deck. No mercy. Take the burn from Visage when playing Hunt Down - you can afford to (here’s a little tip for anyone playing YOps right now as well - lose the visage protection. It does more harm to the DS than it does to you if the rest of your deck is half-decent). If Vader is sitting pretty at a Battleground then drop an EPP and change that. If he’s retired to his chamber then flip back the objective by dropping Luke or Obi in a suicide punch elsewhere. Visage will hit him too. If he loses off his reserve deck, it brings your insert closer. If it goes from his hand, he’s got less things to smack you with. The cycle ain’t pretty. 4 force to drain if Battle Plan and Wars Not Make One Great are in effect, remember. This hurts. Generate hit the insert. Don’t generate take damage while giving the light side free reign to strike at you. It’s a no-win situation for the Dark Side and this has always been my theme when using numbers decks.

Finally, don’t forget the ability to pull back your inserts from the lost pile. Tibrin, Draw Their Fire and Efective Repairs. Two NTMTO will cripple the opponent. Three will usually finish them off. The less force they have, the less force above the Odds card. ALWAYS cut their deck by one card. There are no disadvantages to this. It’s standard procedure.

That’s pretty much it. Just play and learn the deck. Everything else (and there isn’t much I haven’t covered) is really self explanatory. D-mail me if you want to talk about this deck, I’ll be happy to do so. That’s all I have to say for now though. Just take it to a tournament and go for the win. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.’