Hey y’all, it’s fellow SYC member Huamin, coming at you today with more of the same. First, I want to give a shoutout to all y’all SoCal natives that went to Portland, especially to Troy who Top 8’ed, but also to those that I met this week like Taylor, Andrew, Ruben, Mark, and Patrick. Way to represent!
I had a pretty SWU-filled week, so I thought I’d take the time and write something up. Between a Store Showdown, a Weekly event, and the conclusion of our Draft Cup (except not), it was a busy time.
The other day, Jeremy posted a link to a pretty cool deck tech for a deck that I’ve never heard about before: Mother Talzin Yellow Force. It was pretty close to a deck I’ve had percolating in my head for a while, so I did what he normally does when he sees something online that resonates with him: “swap 2-4 cards and re-do the sideboard”. And then of course, I would never credit where I found the deck and instead present it as my own creation. (Note that Jeremy just does the first part; I’m sure he would always credit where he found a deck, unlike me.)1
It also looked like a pretty unknown deck. After the Galactic Championships, it seemed that it only had 2 Top 8 appearances, one by some random person on CBG (article here!), and one by some random person on SYC, whatever those teams are. So I took the deck, swapped out 2-4 cards, redid the sideboard, and brought it to Game Empire’s Store Showdown.
2I took out a couple of cards in the sideboard from my Redlands list (-1 Bamboozle, -1 Outmaneuver, -1 Avenger) to try and make space for Drain Essence, a card I’ve had my eye on after Sean brutally destroyed me at Redlands on Cad TT. I tested it main board a little bit, and it felt really awkward against most decks, so I relegated it to the sideboard. (Spoiler alert: I never played it the entire week, but I also never played a deck I really wanted it in for. Jury’s out on whether it’s good or bad here.)
The 1x Bazine isn’t a card I would usually run over the others (except maybe the 3rd Avenger, which I’ve been thinking of cutting already), but I knew Joe would be there on my Thrawn4 Yellow list and wanted to tech a little more against him in particular, as Talzin Yellow Force kind of struggles into Hard Control.3 Anyway, that’s enough about the deck which I’ve talked about, Woooo’s talked about, Thorrk’s talked about, and now Gonk Gang TCG has talked about. On to the games.
Game Empire Store Showdown (Bo3, 4 Rounds, No Cut)
We had 12 people come out of the woodworks for the Store Showdown, with 9 of them on SYC. That number, however, is somehow still less than the number of people playing Yellow that day, at 10 (2 Thrawn4 Yellow, a Sabine Yellow, 2 Boba4 Yellow, a Poe Yellow, a Han1 Green, a Han4 TT, a Palp1 Yellow, and me). And somehow, neither an SYC member, nor a Yellow player wins it (Spoiler alert!). Congrats to Andrew on Han2 Blue Force taking it, fresh off his training arc at Portland.
Round 1: Loss Vs. Gar ECL (0-2)
I’m paired up immediately against fellow team member Matt J. (which, to be fair, if we’re 9/12 it’s pretty likely to team kill). In game 1, he misses his T1 play, but my early curve out past T1 is pretty rough, floating multiple resources on the 3r and 4r turn. After he Barrages off of an Outer Rim Outlaws, I Liberate it and push damage to base instead of clearing his Leader because I’m worried for the Ambush Vader and want to finish it quickly. I bring him up to 19, but he does have it the next turn, and after rebuild I don’t have the damage pump off Dooku to end it, leading to never being able to stick a unit again. This is also once again a game where I resource Surprise Strike very early on and it would have won me the game.
Game 2, I once again miss playing a 4 cost unit on curve and end up Bamboozling a Krennic who stole my Shin Hati’s shield with his Shuttle before he can mop up board with it. He has the Barrage into ECL Vader to wipe my board after, and then another Timely Vader for my second Anakin, all while his Space force is chipping away at me. I try to establish some sort of board, but Maul comes down right after to Ambush and close the door.
Round 2: Win Vs. Thrawn4 Yellow (2-0)
I jump from one Matt to another, Matt B., who I’ve chatted with a little on his Thrawn4 Yellow build in the SWU Diego server. It’s a deck that I know pretty well, especially the more Control builds, which he seemed to be running. Both games I’m able to prevent any value from Val or Legacy Run, and without those it’s often hard for Thrawn4 to stabilize till SLB, especially when he’s committing resources to play units that aren’t affecting board much, and from there take over the game. (If you are the active player, you get to decide who resolves abilities first. This is extremely important for Val!) Failing to curve out as well was kind of rough, as in both games I think he had very little on the 4r turn. In Game 1, I have a pretty cool play as well of using Liberated by Darkness on a Legacy Run, then using his Val’s Bounty to snipe it off when it’s still under my control. Definitely a poor man’s No Glory, but if it works, it works, I guess.
Round 3: Win Vs. Palp1 Yellow (2-0)
Fellow team member Jim was on the newest hotness, but there were definitely some awkward points for him stemming from unfamiliarity with the deck. The first game he’s able to keep up a steady stream of cards with his ability early. However, when it gets close to flipping, I make sure I have no wounded units, and I’m able to deny the Legacy Run with Waylay into Cad the next turn, who has a Change of Heart twice before pushing him to 29. He concedes from there. I later say that he could have rescued his Legacy Run and cleared everything but Cad, then flipped Palp1 and taken over Cad, but he would have had to sac it before it became mine again, and there probably was not enough removal for my flood of Shielded units the next turn. (If you’ve never seen it, Change of Heart trumps Palp1 flip, because the owner takes control of it at the start of the regroup phase permanently. Possible tech against the incoming flood of Palp1?)
Game 2 starts with him ramping three times, hitting 9r while I’m at 6r. However, I’m able to continually clear his units, so he has very little cards, while I’m at a massive hand thanks to several KAM procs. His Reinforcement Walkers aren’t enough to stabilize, and he forgets to save a resource for sac’ing a Contracted Hunter on the Palp flip to take over a unit, so I’m able to keep pushing damage and eventually close out the game with a flood of cards. Jim has to head home after this, but amazingly, despite going 0-3, he’s still part of the crowd that went undefeated except for SYC folks (the other people in this exclusive club are Matt J., Joe, and I).
Round 4: Win Vs. Thrawn4 Yellow (2-1)
And of course, I can’t escape without being pitted against fellow team member Joe, running my Hard Control Thrawn4 Yellow list. He said he just needed more reps on the deck, and there were definitely places that he could have tightened up his play a bit. Game 1 he has an awkward 6r turn of flipping Thrawn4 into Power of the Dark Side, then playing Legacy Run into another Power (as opposed to the other way around) and not getting the double to really clear board. I chip away at him and force SLB without overcommitting, then rebuild to push for the win.
In game 2, both my early LTP die without doing anything, the first to a Sneak Attack Legacy Run, the second to a No Glory. By the 6r turn, I have about 3 damage dealt to his base from Talzin herself, and Cad Bane forces an overcommitment into the SLB. Avenger afterwards seals the game. Game 3 I stick a KAM for a while, who baits a No Glory, get the Waylay on the Legacy Run to forestall board clear, and drop LTP after to present an awkward board to SLB into. He can’t find an Entrenched, and without HP to give on base, he can’t present a Space unit to deal with the LTP, turning the rest of the game into the saga of The Little TIE That Could. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), my 1x Bazine never actually did its job in the matchup because the only time I saw her I had already basically won the game.
Of course, after losing my first round, my tiebreakers were awful, which meant I ended up getting 4th overall, the lowest of the 3-1s. However, I will content myself with knowing that if we had a top cut, I would have played Andrew and definitely won, and would have gone on to win the entire thing. I am sure of it.
CBG Weekly Event (Bo1, 5 Rounds, No Cut)
I wanted to head up and visit my friend Simon who lives in Santa Ana, and he said he’s been lacking in social interaction lately. So, I thought, why not drag him to CBG? We had a crash course in SWU on Karabast over the weekend, and Landon was kind enough to put together the Kylo5 TT deck he wanted to play. (I don’t think I’ve talked about my collection much, but I’m really not a collector for SWU. The only complete Uncommon playset I have is for JTL, and let’s not talk about the other rarities. Or Sets 1 and 2. I am not the person you ask if you want cards.)
Simon got the old (New? I think Patrick 2 is relatively new to CBG) Patrick into Patrick combo Rounds 1 and 2 for a brutal start to his second time ever playing SWU, but ended up taking 2 of the remaining 3 rounds. Definitely not bad at all, especially with how good the people are at CBG.
Anyway, I was running it back with the same Talzin Yellow list, so let’s get to the games. Pre-boarding was allowed if both parties agreed to it, but no one brought it up. I’m not sure if that’s the local custom or not?
Round 1: Loss vs. Palp3 Colossus
In my first round, I get matched with none other than Landon himself. I miss my T1 play, but I’m able to clear board well enough that through midgame he’s stuck on his Heroic side and unable to flip. However, I have to overcommit to board to push appreciable damage through a stream of Anakins, and I get SLB’ed on the 10r turn off of a Kuiil draw. The whole match is streamed, so you can see the moment here (Thanks Mark!). Afterwards he sticks a Tech behind Village Protectors, and with an infinitely large available pool of cards, there’s no way I can compete.
Round 2: Win vs. Luke5 Data Vault
My P-38 ends up clearing Emin’s entire board on T2 because he forgets about the Talzin ability and ambushes a Blue Leader into it, and from there I build up a sizable board with KAM coordinate on. He doesn’t have any answers to 7 health, and respects the Power and Bamboozle a little too much by flipping to ground (my hand is basically multiple Surprise Strikes, which I’ve been trying to hold onto more in racing matchups). I mop up Luke5 with one and then my board is too robust for him to race against.
Since we finished so fast, we play another game (post board, though I don’t see like any sideboard cards). I get the same Karis into P-38 which clears his early units, though I have to actually run the P-38 into something to do so. He ends up with just an Adelphi on board on the Luke flip turn, and tries flipping on it into a Bamboozle. And from there, with his Leader dead for free, it’s Luke’s hand-me-down Adelphi to Chewie versus the world, and the world is just too strong.
Round 3: Win vs. Palp1 Yellow
I get to face Taylor again for a chance at revenge from the PADG Store Showdown (though that was his Sabine ECL vs. my Qi’ra DV; I get to be the aggro now). I get a flood of units early into Dooku to completely take over board, and on the 5r turn his Sneak Attack Legacy Run is Waylaid, allowing me to push tons of damage. He’s able to pop it the next turn to clear most of my board, but his Change of Heart just has my Cad capture my own KAM. On his flip turn, I clear his Loth-Cat with Talzin and Waylay another Legacy Run, stopping Palp from stealing anything on the flip and pushing for lethal the next turn.
Round 4: Win vs. Gar ECL
Evidently this was the first time Ruben and I played each other since Odyssey Games did their Limited event way back in TWI. (Daniel wrote about it way back when here!) We jockey for board for the first few turns, trading units and removal until it’s The Client (one of my favorite cards!) versus an Assassin. I shrink it to play around the OB, but forget that Craving Power gives +3 Attack to still kill it, forcing my Power and a very anemic board going into 6r. Fortunately, he doesn’t find the ECL Vader until a few rounds later, after I’ve dumped a Bamboozle for Anakin and a Cad after the Vader to capture all his other units. Owen ends up dual wielding Blasters to pave the way for a Sage to finish it with the third Blaster. (If I actually pushed the 4 damage with the Assassin though, it would have been a stylish Owen kill. Missed opportunities, unfortunately.)
Round 5: Loss vs. Yoda DV
And after getting paired up once, I get paired up again to go against Kevin T., who ends up going undefeated with his picture on the wall. I blunder into a YMOH Kelleran on the 5r turn, and the Spark of Hope gets Yoda to flip a turn earlier than I was expecting, allowing him to start restoring and clear my Blastered units earlier than I was expecting. From there, I can’t push enough damage to close it out even with a Liberated on his Kelleran (that Restored 1 for me!).
I think it’s mildly interesting that my two losses were on people with polar opposite records (5-0 and 1-4). I’m not sure what that means for me, maybe that I’m right in the middle? What I do know, though, is that I’ve yet again failed CBG tryouts with a mediocre performance. Maybe I’ll impress them at Menifee.
But that’s enough about Premier, let’s talk about the real format of the game: Limited.
Draft Cup
So we were originally going to play out the conclusion of our Draft Cup, but some scheduling kerfuffles messed it up at the last minute. So instead, Aram and I played out our semifinal match and then we practiced some Premier to help Matt. J. and Joe get ready for the San Francisco PQ. You’ll just have to wait for the conclusion of Draft Cup next week, along with Dr. V’s article on what it actually is. I decided to pilot my Cal Red deck that I talk about here.
Semifinals: Loss vs. Obi Yellow Force (0-2)
Both games had very similar starts, with Aram dropping a Youngling vs. my Vulptex. If you did not know, this goes very badly for the Vulptex. I was unable to find any Space units until later (with BSAW completely MIA the entire set), and my Cal flip was neutralized with Loth-Cat. From there, Obi ability was able to generate so much value that I lost control of board, and couldn’t effectively push damage fast enough. Regardless, it was well played by Aram, and I wish him luck against Chris in the finals happening next week (probably).
That’s all the Limited content for this week. Sorry if I got your hopes up.
I also jammed some games that day against Matt J., running Dr. V’s Thrawn DV list into his Gar ECL, and made snide comments to Joe as he ran Thrawn4 Yellow into Daniel.
Recap
Anyway, that’s enough for me. Thanks for sticking through this article that got way out of hand. Next week is Menifee, which I’ll be going to, as I am signed up and paid for and don’t have to deal with the amazing waitlist debacle many SoCal SWUers are struggling through now. (I don’t think it’s revolutionary to, uh… ask for payment on sign up? Also don’t open sign ups almost 3 months before the event if you don’t require payment upfront?)
If you wanted to know what I am playing at Menifee, that’s still up in the air. If I’m lazy, I’ll probably run it back again with Talzin Yellow Force (now in a post-FT world for the first time). But I do think the games here showed it struggles pretty badly into the more control-ish decks, and it can just get blown out by ECL Vader. I’m usually not one to like a gameplan of “hope and pray they don’t draw a specific card on time”, so it might be back to the drawing board, as those types of decks (Blue Green Heroic or Villain) seem to be on the rise. But, that’s a problem for future me. As for the me of right now? I’m outta here. Peace.
Unlike normal, I’m gonna be putting my aside in the footnotes because I think it’s not really relevant to the article as a whole, and more about my personal feelings on this matter. To be honest, it’s been over a week and I’m still not quite sure what I’m supposed to feel. Flattered? Outraged? Somewhere in between? I’m not really bitter or anything, I just feel like the article reads funnier if I take on a sarcastic tone.
This also sparked a little bit of discussion on the SYC Discord server about the concept of “deck ownership” and if it exists or not. I do think the concept is very fuzzy, and relies heavily on public perception (or more specifically, an individual’s perception of public perception). Like, for example, I don’t even consider the Talzin Yellow list “mine”. In my head, it’s always been Beton’s list that I’ve appropriated for my own use, as I said previously. However, to probably the San Diego community (I hope I’m not conceited thinking like this), the Talzin Yellow Force list might be seen as “Huamin’s” because I’m the only person who has Top 8’ed with the deck and put up visible results.
(I’m also like the only person that plays the deck, which I think is kind of wild. I don’t think it’s the strongest deck out there, but I definitely think it should be played more than it is. There was 1 person playing it in Portland! And they did horribly, but they were also doing some very strange things with As I Have Foreseen and Torpedo Barrage, among other choices that I would not have made. I’m sorry to call you out like this, Numbs. I hope you’re living your best life, and if you ever read this and we meet each other in person at a PQ in Arizona or something, come say hi!)
There are a handful of decks or innovative tech that I think most people would agree “belong” to people. I don’t follow too much SWU stuff, especially the background stuff, so I might be wrong here, but things like Kylo5 TT being the Bothan Network’s deck, or Vader1 DV being George Hudson’s deck, are things that I feel are right. And if I think that there are certain decks that “belong” to people, I have to believe that some form of “deck ownership” exists, regardless of if it means anything or not in this day and age. (The age of information, for better or for worse, has drastically changed the TCG landscape.)
And if I think that some form of “deck ownership” exists, but I can’t quite pin down where it starts or ends, or what criteria it has to check off before I can definitively say, “Yes, this deck idea belongs to X, Y, or Z”, it just leaves me in this strange place where I’m not sure if I should be offended or not. Are they stealing from me? Are they stealing from Beton? Are they doing something that’s totally fine? I don’t know. What does “deck ownership” even mean in the first place? What is it worth?
And yes, I do want to say that I understand convergent evolution is a thing. People can independently come up with an idea, especially if it makes sense. I don’t think there will be anyone who is going to say they were the originator of the Han2 Blue Force archetype, or even the Anakin + Villainy Event innovation that most of those decks are running nowadays. It’s just very hard to believe that that is what has happened here.
Regardless, I do think there was a line here that was crossed, and I hope that my opinion (among people that know “the whole story”, whatever that even means here) isn’t a minority. I think Jeremy put it best:
What crossing that line means, though, I have no idea.
I always kind of feel like I have imposter syndrome when people ask me about Talzin Yellow Force. To be honest, I don’t actually play the deck that much, and I don’t really know most of the matchups in depth. I don’t think I’ve even picked up the physical deck between Redlands to the GE Store Showdown. (I did play probably half a dozen online games on it, though.)
Doing a deep dive analysis with multiple reps into tons of meta decks just isn’t really for me, but maybe that’s why I’ll stay just a decent player. I just wing things and hope it works out, but my ability to wing things is probably higher than that of the average person. (I think I also have a pretty decent understanding of all of the meta decks and how they operate, so I can reverse engineer how to play around them on the spot, but that oftentimes is no substitute for experience.)
If you’re wondering what I do with my time, if I’m not grinding Talzin Yellow Force games, the answer is sometimes play bad decks on Karabast. Here are some of my amazing builds.
For all of y’all not in the Yellow30 Thrawn4 Deckbuilding Forum Thread in the SYC Discord.
I’m starting a gofundme to get Joe off of jank mill decks with approximately 2 units and onto decent decks that respect their opponents’ time. Please help chip in when it goes live. It would mean a lot to me. (I understand the irony of this statement when there are literally 3 awful decks posted right about it.)