Hey! It’s CooMasterCoo from The Combat Guild. I have been playing Star Wars: The Card Game from the beginning. Since then, dark side decks have come and gone and come back again. With this article, I want to talk about the deck I have been running now for nearly a year. It may have gone through some minor changes but has generally stayed the same. It’s a Sith control/damage with a splash of Navy damage redirection. What does all that mean? I am not saying I have built the one deck to rule them all or anything but I do believe I have built something that fits my play style with fundamental elements of the game in mind. This includes; resource pulls, damage removal (the one thing the LS needs to win), control (with units or events of death), and mill your own deck to see the cards you need to do those. In the end, that’s all we can do, play something we are comfortable with.

Let’s start with one of the fundamental elements of the game, resources. Other than drawing units, you need resources to play…period. You do start out with at least 4 so you have a nice head start but in order to have options and keep up with your opponent’s play, you need more. This deck has 22 units which for me, cuts it close. My normal threshold of units is 25 to feel safe in my draw potential. Let’s put that problem aside for now.

We all know Sith Library. It’s an easy, quick one for one. One for one meaning “pay for one resource, get one resource”. There are 3 of them in this deck, which as the late Bob Ross would maybe put it, “a happy little number”. Not too much, not too less.

A little beefier than Sith Library, Control Room serves as a potential increase in your total resources by turn two. If you can resist using the two resources it provides, it becomes a resource increase of two next turn. Also providing you used two separate resources to pay for it. It can be a bit of a sacrifice at first but an even bigger potential pay out.

This where resources get interesting. With 14 candidates (collectively) for its ability, this isn’t your average one for one. This is your ideal resource play, a zero for one. Using a resource that was for free is so much better, kind of like how free food tastes better.

Now this is the money maker, pun intended. If you can manage keeping the force (easier said than done), this puppy puts in work. It has got the Control Room two for two but with potentially freeing it back up for next turn. Best of both worlds. You may only want to use its two providing resources if you can tell you will absolutely win the force struggle. Although, getting it on the board as soon as possible for future use is good as well.

My Navy “splash” is specifically two copies of Enforced Loyalty.  I don’t feel that the FAQ ruined my use of EL specifically. I do not build for the Navy blockade style castling where this objective shined. I would prefer what I call “Vader’s Three”, The Dark Lord of the Sith, The Reawakening, and Agent of the Emperor on the flop to be honest. My use for EL is more for the meat than the potatoes. I focus on Yalaren, who was untouched by the FAQ. You are robbing the only Light Side way of winning (besides the over draw drama) but not only that, you are throwing their damage right back at them! I’ll even opt to not defend or fake a lost edge battle to dump cards at the same time getting some damage on my objectives that I can use against my opponent. One last thing about the old silver gentlemen, he is a double edged sword. Play him for his ability then, attack with him. His cost is low for his ability and stats. Imperial Fist does that as well, but for free…kind of. There are 6 cards out of 50 needed to pull that off. Of those two are Imperial Fist and they rely on the other four unique navy officers to react. I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t mind only having two pairs of unique Navy officers to possibly pull off Imperial Fist. The ratio is fine in my option. This isn’t a staple of the deck. If it happens, great! If not, I have other means of winning.

The next element to this deck I’ve added is control. Sith has always been known for this but the play style fizzled away. It wasn’t until Galactic Ambitions was blessed upon us by Fantasy Flight Games that it struck back! In it, came a ton of Sith goodies including Dark Lord of the Sith and Power of the Dark Side objectives sets. In those are cards I have added to this deck. Some are shown below. There are different types of control that I believe include instant kill cards and targeted strike but, focus icons/abilities immediately come to mind when the word is passed around. Apart from the 6 black/3 white(edge enabled tactics) on my units, there are 11 cards (including objectives) that focus my opponent. I am counting Hunted because of a nifty trick when you enhance an enemy with that enhancement, Force Choke, Give in to Your Anger, and any other ranged damage (targeted or not) acquires focusing abilities. Any time you can make a card or icon do multiple things, you only increase its cost efficiency and your over all deck economy.

I officially have three instant kill cards, Force Lighting, Force Manipulation, and Deadly Sight. I say official because I have two other conditional ones. I do not consider Force manipulation conditional because it guarantees a destroyed unit. The same with Deadly Sight, I would only play it if it indeed does destroy a unit (if that’s my intent other than taking a units force icons for some reason). Give in to Your Anger is conditional to me because it may or may not kill something. You could discard a fate card or zero cost card and come up short. You can also discard a lower costing card that doesn’t meet the damage capacity of the unit giving you trouble, but the risk is worth the reward when you blow a troublesome unit off the face of the mat! So sweet. Especially if you have The Emperor’s Web showing, then its zero cost. If you happen to have a Force Choke in hand to back up GITYA’s short falls, thats even better.

I mentioned “Vader’s Three” earlier. This control combo with the DLOTS objective is devastating to the opponent’s board state. If they are having unit trouble it can completely lock down a board for numerous turns. You can keep this combo alive with the damage removal capabilities as well. The Reawakening acts as a kicker, feeding off of the locked board winning every force struggle can just be a huge presence. I consider The Reawaking to definitely be a form of control. You are controlling what your opponent can play by discarding their options.

Getting back to milling through my deck in order to see more options. My favorite one two punch combo involves the two cards shown here. When you have two Mouse Droids and Inquisitor out, you see an absurd amount of your cards per turn.  If you end up dumping your hand, you can see up to 8 cards from your 50 card deck. I don’t want to get into percentages here but you can use common since. If you do that at least twice, you are seeing almost double what you would normally see with the normal frameworks of the game. The Inquisitor/Arden Lyn combo doesn’t always work. You may get Arden Lyn first hand or sometime before Inquisitor is out and at four force icons, she makes for a great edge card. This is just one of the many fun tools I have added. If this deck didn’t have the ability to see so much of the cards in my deck, I may not have even added it. One of the minor changes was replacing Dark Genocide with The Plan of the Prophetess. It was hard getting rid of another way to pull of Arden’s ability with Expendable Scout and a pretty decent Sith three cost Unit, Boc. Not to mention a great board wipe and three force icon fate card, why did I replace that set again? Ha ha oh yes, TPOTP’s objective ability, Dark Temple, Instant kill card, and SEEDS OF DECAY! I may go back and forth on this but I’ll stay put for now…maybe.

I am very content with the elements and tools I have added in this deck. Some may think I’m crazy for adding what I have but when you get down to the basics, it can be just as frustrating as any other game when it comes to getting the outcome you want. In Destiny, you roll what you roll and try to make the best of it. In this game you draw what you draw and do the same. It can be so disheartening when you don’t pull ANY units or have units but not enough resources to play them. All you can do is try to plan for situations like that and believe in the cards! Thanks for reading guys and may the balance of the force be with you.

All card images are from CardGameDb!

–  CooMasterCoo