Matt s ROP Killa

Title: Matt s ROP Killa
Author: Matt "Old Skooler" Lush
Date: Jul 31, 2000 Rating: 4.5


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Cards:

‘Locations (6)

Yoda’s Hut Echo Docking Bay Home One Docking Bay Tatooine Docking Bay 94 Tatooine Cantina Endor Back Door

Characters (23)

Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight x3 Ben Kenobi x3 Captain Han x2 EPP Leia x2 Chewbacca ECC Chewie Harc Seff Elom x10

Starships (2)

Millennium Falcon x2

Weapons (2)

Anakin’s Lightsaber Luke’s Lightsaber

Interrupts (18)

Sense x6 Alter x3 Nar Shadda Wind Chimes x3 Rebel Barrier x2 The Signal x2 Effective Repairs Heading For The Medical Frigate

Effects (9)

Insurrection Staging Areas Your Insight Serves You Well Honor Of The Jedi Mantellian Savrip WYTTPOU? Order To Engage Bargaining Table Never Tell Me The Odds ‘

Strategy: ‘

This deck proved to be rock-solid at the Virginia Grand Slam, helping me get second just 3 differential behind Joe. It beat 2 RalOps by 27 and 30, and Joe Alread’s “F*** the Red, I’ll Kick Your Ass with Blue” deck.

It messes with your mind from the start, all I begin with is Yoda's Hut and HFTMF obviously to get Insurrection, Staging Areas, and YISYW. Why the Hut? They'll never mess with it. Why not start HB with Rend. Point? Too many cards. O.K., so start the Hut, get out a DB, and drop an Elom there. Repeat next turn. If you get a barrier, make sure to save a force so you can stop Mara from battling at least. Savrip helps with this too. Barrier or Savrip, then move away to the other DB and let Honor handle the drain. Since the drain is at your non-BG, and it's early in the game, they won't occupy 3 BG's and therefore Honor will cover it. They won't be moving that ambush squad anytime soon, either, at least not from the Home One DB. Playing against RalOps, they'll drop their non-unique DB to help with force activation. Get Luke, drop at Home One DB for 5, and move him for FREE to Raltiir. Got Ben? Get the DB 94, drop him, and move over with some Eloms. Why just one insert? It's a gimmick. I've always hated #'s, but with Luke being a 6 even I can't resist. First game with this, I got it quick, and inserted with Luke and 2 Eloms out, while he had a total of 7. Popped quick too for a nice seven force loss. If they keep the YCHF on the table, oh well. No big loss. The insert is best used at the end, when you can lose a Chewie here, a Ben there, and suddenly you've got twelve on the table to their three, with Luke romping around somewhere with many Eloms, and they have maybe 10 cards in their reserve. Effective repairs to get any effect you may have lost inadvertently, and want back, although it's mainly for the insert if it proves devastating enough. Dump YISYW whenever you have the need for Honor, of course the earlier, the better. Why SAC? Are you kidding me? With Honor, you can laugh at a Op. Enforcement/There Is No Try start. Sure, you still lose the Sense, but not the two force. Plus, retrieval. Ten Eloms means you'll have a decent number out when it's time. OTE is obvious. O.K., with all this power, why Savrip? For space. The Super-Falcon is nice, but even it needs help if it's the ONLY ship, which it is. Getting a beatdown in space? Lost by 18? Lose two Jedi Lukes in your hand for forfeit bait, (Did that against Joe...shoulda seen his face), and knock out their ships through the attrition. The grabber is obvious. Cantina is obvious. Throw 3-4 Eloms there and they won't touch it with an Imperial, and what is DSII and RalOps full of? Bargaining Table is nice, cover their big drain, while getting set up for your beatdown, although I found playing this I really didn't do any beatdowns, I just chased them around a lot, while OTE was out. Harc is obvious. Him and Bargaining. Table allow you to stay away from the huge power squad, while spreading out elsewhere. They sure as hell won't Elis on you, that threat is long gone. Hunt Down? Please. Honor wrecks it. They wil NOT cover 3 BG's when you're playing Eloms and Jedi Knights. I really don't know what else to say about this, I think it's huge, rock-solid, and a keeper. Slight modifications may include a non-unique DB for myself in case RalOps starts teching against this. Build, tweak, and enjoy.

Record played against 5 RalOps decks in tournaments, with wins by 26, 30, 21, 28, and 25. One non-RalOps deck against Joe Alread win by 6. It’s 6-0 so far, I just haven’t had the opportunity to play against a TIE deck either in a tourney or playtesting. The last tournament I went to, all I saw was Rops. If you want to beat RalOps people, learn how to play this deck. And get yerself some Jedi Lukes, although I suppose Massa or EPP could do in a pinch. Numbers wouldn’t be worth it then though. The last tourney, I did change 3 cards in anticipation of TIEs I added Aim High, 1 Grimtaash, and I Hope She’s Alright. All three were absolutely useless, as all I played was Rops. Oh well. I’ll keep ‘em in, as I still easily crushed all 3 Rops decks.

Responses to reviews O.K., first of all, dueling. I really don’t expect to see much of that, considering that about the only viable deck for dueling starts Hunt Down, which is hosed by Honor. It’s difficult to occupy 3 BG’s with two Jedis and a crapload of Eloms running around. Also, consider the destinies in this deck. Do you really want to duel?

 Next, manipulation. Well, I really believe with YISYW killing Scanning Crew, and 6 Jedi's in the deck, that I can get one of them out quick enough to start Senseing the A Dangerous Times and Monnoks. As for a first-turn Monnok, surprisingly enough about the worst hand I get with this is two Eloms, which wouldn't hurt that bad. Besides, with DS II out now, have you seen anybody playing w/ Monnoks? Too much variety available, which lessens it's value, meaning it doesn't get played as much. A meta-thing as usual.

 TIEs. O.K., space won't be easy, but Bargaining Table helps immensely. As for weapons, try to put the Super-Falcon where they ain't. If they drop on you, more than likely with Fel and his "1 to make x=3" trick for the cannons, they still gotta draw a 4, difficult in a TIE Interceptor swarm deck, which seems to be the TIE of choice nowadays. All Power To Weapons gets Sensed, along with any other goofy space battle interrupts. To be perfectly honest I haven't played against one yet (nobody around here), so I can't say for sure, but I don't think it'd be a blowout for the dark.

 Yoda. Yogurt ain't in there because I don't want him bringing down my total for the Insert. Besides, with Luke being immune to <7, and Ben reviving a forfeit 8 Chewie, who needs the muppet?

 Lightsabers. Luke needs it much more than Ben, Ben's gimmick is the revival. Luke gets a bonus with a stick, so one of each of the two he can use in there. It would suck to get Monnoked for two Luke's Lightsabers...

 What would I do against Court...hmmm, how about dropping Ben and Luke in their face, and Order To Engaging them to death while Sensing the Hidden Weapons?

 SAC=DEAD? Um, no. A Grabber followed by a Monnok would be annoying, but it's not like I'm gonna have ALL six Senses and 3 Alters in my hand, maybe 2-3 at a time. A loss I can deal with. Controls would be nice though, just like any other deck.

 TIE's would be a pain, but I don't think they'll be THAT big, not with Profit running around. Can't drain without an opponent's BG? Didn't notice the Cantina and Back Door in there? The DB's will nick away at them too.

 Starting site I've got Yogurt's Hut for a reason instead of Home One War Room- no first turn Sarkli.

 Orrimaarko, Orrimaarko, Orrimaarko. Yes, I know, the guy's a beast, BUT...just like Yoda would, he brings down the numbers total. It is so EASY to lose Ben or Leia or Han at the right time and just have Eloms and Luke out for a total of 12. This is how numbers is meant to be played, and this is numbers at it's deadliest. Too many people are tempted to dump the YCHF too soon, and by God they pay the price. The insert is more useful overall than Orrimaarko, and therefore I just don't have room for him.

Honor will kill an early non-BG drain of 2 at my non-BG docking bays.

Thanks all for the reviews. ‘