Welcome back to the blog, fellow limited enthusiasts! This past weekend, eight of us from San Diego (and Karl, honorary San Diegan) headed up to Seattle (and subsequently Bothell) to play in the only Limited PQ on the West Coast. As someone that enjoys the limited format, I was excited to be able to make one of the limited PQs, hopefully next time we got one a bit closer to home. I’ll go over the venue, my sealed pool, and my matches below. In the review, I’ll also go over some tips when attending your first limited PQ. Enjoy!
The Venue/Event
The event was hosted at the Zulu’s Board Game Cafe Event Center, located a few blocks away from the game store itself. There were a couple of restaurants nearby, and it seemed like many players (including us) went to a cafe next door for breakfast before the tournament.
The venue itself was fairly small and a little cramped at times (see picture below for reference). There was an adjoining room with two rows of tables for 16 players. The AC was decent, but it did get a bit warm at times in the main room (not nearly as bad as the Redlands PQ).
We started the pack opening and pool registration process at around 10:15AM. One side of the room opened their packs and their opponent observed so that the pack was correct (1 leader, 1 base, 14 other cards). After, you would take your cards and fold the registration sheet around the cards like a pouch. The other side of the room opened their packs and folded the sheet around the cards.
After observing the pack opening, both players exchanged card pouches and began sorting alphabetically and by color. So far, everything was going relatively smoothly. However, once we got to writing the cards in the sheet is where we started having people make mistakes. “I meant to write 2 in here” or “this should be in the cell above this” were things you’d hear. Not to pick on my pool verification partner during the pool/registration portion, but they did make several mistakes and had a judge come over to correct them multiple times.
Once both players had finished writing down the contents of the pools, we passed them back to their owners and began the deckbuilding process. Deckbuilding time is hard to judge, because some people’s pools will naturally lean towards a particular direction. You could argue that these self-directed pools need less time compared to more balanced or neutral pools. However, before we could even get to deckbuilding we had to take a few minutes to go over and check that our verification partners correctly registered the pool. On top of that, the alphabetical sorting meant you had to go through and re-sort by aspect. All told, you probably had only 25-27 minutes to actually build your deck. I wouldn’t say I’m a great deck builder, but I have a decent amount of experience with the set and even I felt the time pressure.
The Decks
I think my pool was fairly flexible, but there were no inherent bomb units that would drag me toward a certain direction. Here’s a link to the pool if you’re interested. My leader distribution was pretty poor as well: 2x Third Sister, Snoke, Ahsoka, GI, Avar Kriss. After looking at cards for a few minutes after sorting, I landed on what I thought was a decent deck in Ahsoka Red.
It had a lot of early plays, a little top end, and Ahsoka isn’t the worst leader in the set I guess. Mostly I wanted to have an actually good 2 drop to play, and this pool having both Adi Gallia and Yaddle seemed good to me. After playing a couple rounds, I looked back at my pool and thought to myself, why am I not playing red blue villain? Paying 6 for Talzin Assassin is infinitely worse than 4, but I get to play the Craving Power I pulled as well for 7 and not 9 (unplayable).
Third sister’s ability is pretty strong, and it makes some low HP units significantly better. 4/2 Hidden Purge Trooper, Talzin Assassin, or the big stuff like Ravenous Rathtar, Ravening Gundark, or Savage Oppress. I have a third deck I was contemplating but I was very worried about bricking an opening hand, so I didn’t try it. I’ll talk about it after I go over my matches.
The Matches
With this being limited and not having access to the opponent’s decklists on Melee, most of these are just going to be quick summaries of what I recall.
Round 1 Win vs Third Sister Yellow 2-0 - My opponent had a pretty decent deck but I managed to line up Ahsoka Flip + Protect the Pod in both games to clear whatever hidden unit he played that turn, while also clearing his leader with some other unit of mine.
Round 2 Loss vs Obi Blue 0-2 - My opponent’s deck was very good, especially some good cheap off-aspect cards played early (Drain Essence, Consumed by the Dark Side) to get the second -3/-3 trigger on his Anakin unit.
Round 3 Win vs Talzin Green 2-0 - It was nice meeting Will (I think that’s what his real name was), he told me he was in San Diego for a long time before moving up north to the Washington area. I got this one 2-0, I felt like I just had a better pool than my opponent and perhaps a little more limited experience.
Round 4 Win vs Talzin Red 2-1. I lost the first game and decided to side into the Third Sister Blue. I won it somewhat decisively in game 2 with some good removal. Game 3 was kind of close, but my opponent made a couple misplays, such as playing and taking back a Whirlwind of Power (thus revealing it), and not killing a lethal unit at the end.
Round 5 Loss vs Talzin Green 0-2 - We had a random sealed pool / deck check this round which took like 20 minutes. After they gave my opponent their cards back, the head judge asks me to go talk to him away from the table. He tells me that there’s a mistake on my “deck list” but really it was a mistake in the registered pool. Turns out my verification partner wrote a one next to Heavy Blaster Cannon instead of Heavy Missile Gunship (thank you, whoever decided alphabetical sorting was better, for some reason). I made sure to clarify to the judge that the mistake was on the “total” column and not play, implying that it wasn’t a decklist error, per se. It was a little annoying to hear the judge tell me “Well, when it’s in our hands it’s your pool.” The head judge issued me penalty points for what he classified as a decklist error even though the mistake was made by my verification partner during pool registration. As for the actual game, my opponent had a pretty strong list, with Chirrut, Craving Power, and Protect the Pod if I recall correctly. I lost the first one and I sided into the Third Sister Blue deck. I felt like I could have won that game but my opponent top decked removal twice in a row near the end of the game. That, plus the deck check annoyance, was a tough game to lose out for Top Cut. C’est la vie…
Round 6 Loss vs Obi Red 0-2 - I didn’t really stand a chance with either deck in this one. Game 1 I just couldn’t do anything about an uncontested buffed Cartel Interceptor. Game 2 was kind of grindy, I almost stabilized but my opponent played big space units after I’d already used my removal.
Overall I felt like I played what I could play given the pool and time constraints. There were certainly some misplays on my part, but for the most part I felt like my pool was a little too fair. No Chirrut, no strong legendaries, and only singleton copies of some of the stronger C/UCs. Also my leader pool was a bit sketchy. I would have loved to play Talzin Red with what I had. Alas, it is what it is.
The potential third deck I was contemplating was Snoke Red.
Perhaps my rule of “having enough two-drops” is a little overstated. There’s only so many “good” turn 1 plays in this format, and most of them are either faction or rarity locked at that. Plus, with a leader like Snoke or a some decent 4 drops, there’s a shot you can just miss your turn 1 and be ok. This deck had 3 ok turn 1 plays (Witch of the Mist, Exegol Patroller, and Mynock), but the 3 drops were half decent. Most importantly, once Snoke flips, having a Protect the Pod and Craving Power made the possibility of stabilizing fairly high. There may have also been a GI Blue in there somewhere but I didn’t think it’d be worth considering.
The Team
Here’s what the rest of our crew ended up playing.
Huamin - Kanan Green (I’m sure he’ll write something on his experience of the event)
Jim - Snoke Red
Chris - Cal Red
Terry - Cal Red
Carter - Third Sister Yellow
Aram - GI Blue
Ryan - Obi Red
Karl - GI Green
Interestingly, I think only Huamin pulled a Chirrut, the best card in the format. Of our decks that I got pictures, they all seem pretty fair, for the most part. Jim and Terry’s deck both look quite strong. Jim’s because those Thralls of the Coven, Battle Fury, and Terentatek. Terry’s because of the sheer number of aggressive cards, and also a Grogu to potentially help move damage around to keep units alive. I’m wondering how often Aram got to pull off a decent card with As I Have Foreseen, I actually love playing that card.
Conclusion
Overall I enjoyed my time at the event and had a nice weekend with good company. I’m a little sad that I didn’t do as well as I could have (ending at 3-3 drop), but more so because there’s only so many limited events this set. I won’t be making it out to Philly and I also won’t be playing any more PQs until Set 6. However, if I was planning on going to another competitive limited event, or if you are going to one for the first time, here are some tips.
Practice - This one is obvious, of course, but you’re not likely to be the one to open a cracked sealed pool. If you do, congratulations. If you don’t, then you’ll want to have built a ton of sealed decks so you can see what cards are good, what works well together, etc.
Sleeve your entire sealed pool (and leaders/bases) - This will make your side boarding and/or side-decking much much easier. Also, for cases like mine where you built the wrong deck for game 1, it will be significantly faster to swap your entire deck after you win/lose the first of three. Table space is usually limited at these events, so I’d further suggest that you bring a deck box big enough to hold your main deck and the rest of your pool. You should put your leader and deck on one side, and use your unplayed leaders/bases to separate the main deck and pool.
Build first, verify second - The deckbuilding time is already constrained as is, I’d rather use the initial time to sort your cards by aspect/faction rather than first verifying. This will give you more time to look at your pool at a glance while sorting. Once you build your deck, you can verify as you write down your decklist.
Bring multiple colored pens - I personally think the whole thing about sealed pool errors is bullshit. In the end, it didn’t matter, but I should not have been awarded penalty points for the verifier’s mistake. In fact, the verifier’s pen was red and mine was black, this should have at least helped notice that I wasn’t the one to write out the total column.
Keep an open mind - If you have a somewhat mediocre pool, don’t be afraid to look through your pool to identify potential side decks. The deckbuilding time isn’t enough to really dig deep into a pool of cards, but there might be a good counter-ish leader for a particular matchup. Also in the same vein, don’t let the RNG get to you. Some of your opponents (especially as you get to the better records) will have some busted cards in their decks. Try your best to play around them (scouting definitely helps in these kinds of events).
Open a Chirrut - Enough said
I’ve also been playing and thinking about SWU so much lately that I almost burnt out, so I’m going to be taking a break during the month of October. I may still post before the launch of Set 6 and go over my initial Set 6 limited predictions, so stay tuned for that. Also, I believe Huamin has a couple events left so you may still be hearing from the Stack.
Well, that’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed reading this. I’m curious what you would build with my pool, I’m almost certain that I’m missing something good. Take a stab at it if you’re interested, duplicate the pool and share your list in the comments below. I’d love to chat about it. Anyway, see you at pre-release weekend!
PS. Shout-out Alexa’s Cafe ❤️
Very insightful write up, Daniel. I was there with you and still learned a ton reading this!
The Dairy Queen > Alexa