Battle Log #31 - The Era of Soft-Control
Removal + Strong Units, what's not to like?
Week 7
I decided to take a break from limited this week and played in two Premier locals instead. I love that Game Empire is hosting events now, although I feel a little bad about abandoning Brute Force Games the following nights, getting quality Bo3 games feels so much better. I’ll still go to BFG, it might be a good place to test out more experimental ideas. Since I passed on PAD this week, I decided to go up to OBG (I think the last time I was there was the $1K?) for their Saturday weekly Bo3 event. As an aside, I’ve missed playing Premier. Limited is fun but I think I’ve been grinding it too much lately. All things in moderation!
Soft-Control, Midrange, Midrange-Control, <Insert your favorite magic archetype?>. This seems to be my personal favorite deck archetype to play in this game. A lot of people figured Krennic as a control deck, and Han2 Blue as a midrange deck, but I personally feel both have more a little wider range, hence my classification as “Soft-Control”. Both play efficient removal and have strong units to turn the tide. Granted, the Han2 Blue deck is certainly more versatile and can be built differently than Krennic/Green does. Also, my personal play style is a bit more controlling than others, which makes my Han2 decks feel like hero control, to a certain extent. Perhaps Boba’s ban is what makes some of these soft-control decks come back this set, since you can’t just get blown out by an effective 8 resource turn when you’re on 4 or 5.
GE - Premier - Best of Three - 3 Wins / 0 Losses (6 - 1 overall)
Game 1 Win vs Bossk Green (2 - 0) - My opponent Jackson seemed a little newer to the game, and I was able to win without much pushback. Bossk is kind of a menace though, and it could have gone either way. I think there was a game where I killed multiple units with Karabast, a card that seems really good into the current meta with all of the ping running around (Quinlan, Jango, Cad Bane).
Game 2 Win vs Anakin ECL (2 - 1) - Frank was rocking the Anakin ECL list again. I think this deck can potentially give Sabine a run for her money, it’s very strong. I think I managed to win the first game and then the third. The second game he just went too wide for this deck to handle. I was really missing the third village protector in this matchup.
Game 3 Win vs Bossk Blue (2 - 0) - Huamin was playing Bossk Blue, a meta staple these days. I actually enjoy playing this matchup, because hard control’s game-plan is very linear: kill everything. I think I played well but ultimately won off the back of Krayt Dragon dodging removal. Part of me sometimes wonders if I played something correctly or did I just stumble into it. To be fair, I did play multiple force throw and pillages this game to try and attack the hand.
I see some people moving to Anakin Blue, which makes sense into the Tarkintown meta, but to be honest, I feel like playing your units one turn ahead is significant enough to keep Han2 competitive. With Boba Fett gone, I genuinely believe this deck’s stonks have gone up. Going back to Tarkintown: sure, if your opponent kills your turn 1 it kinda sucks but to be honest it seems like a waste of Tarkintown that early. It reminds me of people using ECL on Superlaser Tech. The best case is you play a Turn 1 Yoda and they TT it, meaning you’re net neutral on cards and you get initiative into round 2. I’ve already made a couple changes to the list above. Razor Crest is fun but with the only option being Perilous Position, it makes more sense to play in Anakin Blue, since those decks are apt to play Jedi Lightsaber and perhaps Top Target as well.
OBG - Premier - Best of Three - 2 Wins / 1 Loss (5 - 3 overall)
Keeping with the soft-control theme, I figured I’d revisit an old favorite: Krennic ECL. This was my favorite deck to play in the Set 1 meta, and I believe it was the best deck of that meta. Some will say that Iden was better but Krennic had so much more staying power than Iden. Sure, Iden maybe gets a few more heals but in the soft- control shell Krennic always made more sense to me.
Set 3 gave blue-green-villain some nice toys. Devastating Gunship is an insane card, you can very often line up three for one’s by using ECL + Gunship to finish off one unit and kill a typical 3 HP space unit. It’s probably a little better in Qi’ra lists, since you can end up with a 5/3 shielded space unit if you play it on 6+ resources. Krennic’s ability does effectively grant it Grit+1, which could be relevant with Barrage. General Grievous is funny. He has a cool ability but if you asked me what he does my response would be “Nothing. He’s just a 3 drop 4/4.” Calculating MagnaGuard is such a great card. The conditional sentinel isn’t ideal but it’s probably the best card you can pull off a Vader search.
I’m also playing a few old favorites that I think are pretty good in the current meta: Snoke clears a ton of units that the Jango decks play, and unless you’re playing against decks with blue removal it’s very hard for most decks to deal with him. Steadfast Battalion is still as good as ever, especially matching Krennic’s deploy. There’s an argument to Gideon Hask here instead, because unless we really need to 7 power to kill a leader, it might be better to roll XP on Krennic and make him a bigger threat. Now that I look at the list after playing it yesterday, there’s quite a large number of 2 drops. The list could definitely use some tightening up, but I think it’s a pretty good starting point.
Game 1 Win vs Quinlan Tarkintown (2 - 1) - Matt has been killing it lately with Quinlan TT, it’s definitely a strong deck. I won the first game and it was a relatively close one. I managed to stabilize and I got lucky he never drew a final copy of K2-SO (I was at 22 HP so K2 dying just kills me). Second game he was able to apply too much damage and I think got a Plo-Koon ambush kill on Krennic, denying me at least 2 restore. Game 3 did feel a bit more in my favor, I had some good ramp and well-timed removal to clear his threats.
Game 2 Win vs Cad Tarkintown (2 - 0) - Bryan was on Cad TT, and I went second both of these games. Devastating Gunship and Snoke did work on these games, but I think what really solidified my wins both games was holding back multiple removal pieces for the eventual Cad Bane unit. Cad Bane unit is strong but if he dies coming down you are probably winning that game.
Game 3 Loss vs Luke Green (1 - 2) - I’ve been saying it for a while but Luke Green is eating good this set. I might have to give it a go myself sometime. Jim managed to claw back after losing the first game. Second game I think I had a chance but he drew into multiple sabers to buff weaker units and it was a bit tilting to play against a singleton Luke Saber that he drew in both games haha. Devastating Gunship was pretty good to clear Village Protectors but Obi-Wan unit is just so hard to deal with. I think my mistake here was not running 1 main SLB, having two of them post-board would have been great.
Review
I had a lot of fun revisiting Premier and I’m looking forward to more of it. I’m still not sure if I will make it out to any PQs this time around, but maybe? I’m hoping the Regional and Sector information is revealed soon, I’d much rather go to one of these as they’ll be multi-day events, which should be really fun to go to as a group. Also, I think some local stores have the Showdown Kits in already… I’m patiently waiting for these to be announced. I expect this coming week to be slow in terms of local play, but it gives me some time to catch up on draft videos (check out the YouTube!) As always, I appreciate your read, and I wish you and your families a Merry Christmas!
Running Stats (overall win/loss/draw):
Command Krennic - 57 - 23 - 3
Command Han - 49 - 27 - 0
Vigilance Han2 - 29 - 11 - 1
Aggression Iden - 10 - 5 - 2
Cunning Rey - 6 - 5 - 0
Command Qi’ra - 5 - 3 - 0
Vigilance Boba2 - 5 - 2 - 0
Aggression Chirrut - 4 - 0 - 0
Cunning Sabine - 4 - 3 - 0
Cunning Cassian - 4 - 3 - 0
Command Obi-Wan - 4 - 4 - 0
Vigilance Tarkin - 4 - 4 - 0
Cunning Kylo - 3 - 1 - 0
Vigilance Gar - 3 - 1- 0
Aggression Jabba - 2 - 1- 0
Command Boba - 2 - 1 - 0
Cunning Boba - 2 - 2 - 0
Cunning IG-88 - 5 - 6 - 0
Vigilance Han1 - 1 - 2 - 0
Draft/Limited Stats:
Set 1 - 21 - 11 - 0
Set 2 - 49 - 33 - 2
Set 3 - 54 - 30 - 0
San Diego LGS Glossary
(Links will take you to their website)
AEG - At Ease Games
BFG - Brute Force Games
OBG - On-Board Gaming
PAD - Pair-a-Dice Games
GE - Game Empire
Interesting, I may take another look at Han2 Blue. I was turned off by the deck early in Set3 due to the iffy aggro matchup and the prevalence of Tarkintown.
Also, it should be 5/3 shielded from the Qi'Ra ability:
> It’s probably a little better in Qi’ra lists, since you can end up with a 5/5 shielded space unit if you play it on 6+ resources.