Dark Machinery of Fate

Title: Dark Machinery of Fate
Author: Blake "Zurai" Senn
Date: Jul 21, 2000 Rating: 4.5

--------------------------------

Cards:

‘Start 6 RalOps Ralltiir Prepared Defenses Combat Response Oppressive Enforcement Imperial Arrest Order

Locations 7 Swamp Spaceport Prefects office Spaceport Docking Bay Hoth Ice Plains Hoth Wampa Cave Coruscant Mon Calimari

Characters 21 Emperor Palpatine x3 Lord Vader x2 Mara Jade Janus Greejatus Sim Aloo General Veers General Tagge Colonel Davod Jon Lieutenant Commander Ardan Baron Soontir Fel DS-181-4 DS-181-3 Admiral Ozzel Myn Kyneugh Royal Guard x4

Starships 8 Dreadnaught x2 Bossk in Bus Chimaera Boba in Slave 1 Saber 1 Saber 3 Saber 4

Effects 4 Battle Order Decree Overseeing It Personally Reactor Terminal

Interrupts 7 Force Lightning x2 Alter x2 Imperial Command x2 Masterful Move

Weapons 5 Mara’s Saber Vader’s Saber (premiere) Force Pike x2 SFS L-s9.3 Laser Cannons (SE)

Admiral’s Orders 2 We’re In Attack Position Now x2’

Strategy: ‘

First Thing This will not be my Regional Deck, so if you’re going to the Dagobah Regional, don’t waste your time scouting it.

Second Thing Yes, all three Emperors are neccesary. Without them, you can’t deploy about 1/6th of the deck, and another portion becomes much less useful. I know this prevents 80% of you from building this deck without proxies, but I don’t really care.

Third Thing Don’t even bother telling me that I need to have Palpatine out to play the Guards. I know this. That’s one of the many reasons I have 3 of him in there.

Fourth Thing There is no fourth thing. On to the strategy.

Strategy

This deck does NOT play like a typical RalOps. I repeat, does NOT play like a typical RalOps. Instead of going out there and screwing with the opponent, you fortify Ralltiir and make it so the opponent has no safe place to deploy there, then deploy the supplementary effects and start the drains rolling.

You start off like a standard RalOps, however. Use Prepared Defenses to grab IAO, Combat Readiness, and Op Enforcement. First turn, grab the docking bay and either the swamp or prefect’s office. Save force if you have an Emperor in your hand, otherwise draw up. Second turn, deploy the other site and put the Emperor at the Office if you have enough force. If not, wait a turn, then deploy him. Deploy his advisors if posible, and use RalOps’ game text to grab Royal Guards to flip the objective. With palpy at the office, guards are 4 power and 4 forfeit for 2 force, and if you have a force pike, they draw a destiny.

Once you flip, grab your sites for activation and fortify Ralltiir. You might want to keep Vader and Mara in your hand to deploy as strike forces if your opponent leaves an opening. Otherwise, just put them on Ralltiir. Once you have at least 2 of the 3 sites firmly in your grasp, grab or play Overseeing It Personally to add an extra +1 drain on all Ralltiir sites, and grab or play We’re In Attack Position Now to cause the opponent to lose up to three force each of your turns.

As for space, you’ll want to be a little more cautious. You only have 8 ships, with 0 retrieval, so don’t use them to rashly. Played smart, these ships can hold the 2 systems you need to hold (Mon Calimari for a battleground to play the AOrder and satisfy BPlan, and Ralltiir for your objective and the text of WIAPNow). Baron Fel w/ Saber 1 and the laser cannons will tear up LS starfighters, including the Falcon if you track well enough.

This deck has a lot of high destinies (in the 3-5 range) once you’ve factored out the locations and destiny 1 characers grabbed in the first few turns of the objective being flipped. Use this to your advantage. You can almost just assume that you will draw at least a 3 past the 6th or 7th turn. Still track destinies if you can, but if you can’t they should be decent anyway.

Tech Sim Aloo Use his ability every time you get the chance. You can really screw with your opponent’s destiny tracking this way.

DS-181-4 and Saber 4 If I’m reading Saber 4 correctly, you can deploy it + its pilot for free as a react to Saber 1 or 3. Awesome play if they think they’re going to ambush Fel or DS-3.

Imperial Command Double helping of tech. One, it gets those low destiny, but useful, generals and admirals into your hand from the deck. Two, it either adds a destiny or stops the EPP multiple destinies where you have a General or Admiral. Another Falcon killer.

Force Lightning Used text is excellent combined with the other weapons, especially Force Pikes. Lost Text can help prevent early beatdowns and kills undercover spies easily.

Matchups This deck plays the same against most deck types, so I’ll post only the really important ones.

Hidden Base space If they’re playing with Cruisers, Mon Calimari will hurt them. If not, just concentrate your power at Ralltiir and use Battle Order / Decree to kill their drains.

Numbers IF you seem them, you can pretty safely laugh in their face. Why? Emperor + 2 Royal Guards = total on 12 destiny. Plus, they can all draw destiny (the guards need force pikes, but those can be grabbed with the objective once it’s flipped if needed). If they play EPP suicide on the Emperor, counter with Force Lightning and tracked destinies. Make sure to sneer and say “Only now do you understand the true power of the Dark Side.” Force pikes also do wonders against Elom beatdowns.

There Is Still Good In Him Don’t bother capturing Luke. Decree kills his saber drain. Make him come to you, and don’t let him win 3 battles. Don’t forget that Palpy subtracts 3 from attempts to cross Vader. Watch out for Anakin Skywalker if you decide to fry Luke with some Lightning (even though it is rather fitting storyline-wise). If you expect to see a lot of this deck, you might want to add in a Young Fool to remove Luke from play when you fry him. ‘